Something To Think About

“Is Less More?”
Over the last several years, ministry leaders and advisors have been counseling pastors that they need to shorten their messages.  It even reached papal level when Pope Benedict started off the year by advising priests that their homilies should be no longer than 10-12 minutes in length.  For a long time, preachers have been used to the length of their sermons being the center of lots of jokes.  However, this new counsel has not come because people are trying to be first in line at the cafeteria.  Studies of society and culture are showing that our natural attention spans are decreasing.  At one point, it was thought that this was restricted to just younger generations that were being formed by Snapchat and TikTok and Twitter.  However, increasingly even older generations are showing signs of reduced attention span.  I have noticed in several new books I have read that authors and editors are making their chapters shorter in order to adjust their writing styles to this reality. As preachers, we are being advised that we should focus our sermons on one main point and aim for conciseness and relevance.

To be honest, I have taken this counsel with much kicking and screaming.  I could say that the reason is that there are some Biblical passages or theological concepts whose meaning and relevance can’t be truly explored in 10 minutes.  I could say that we risk restraining the work of the Holy Spirit if we put Him on a clock.  I could say that the sermon is an opportunity to counteract the forces of culture that try to make everything bite-sized and instant at the cost of depth and insight.  And I think all of this is true.  But, if I am honest, I push back against the idea, in part, because this wasn’t how I learned to preach and it is not how I have preached for 28 years and I really want to just keep doing what I am doing.  At the start of the year, I realized that these personal preferences might put at risk what is my calling: to proclaim the Word of God, rightly interpreted, that the Word might be heard and understood. So, I have made it one of my personal and professional goals this year to make an intentional effort to work towards a more concise yet meaningful style of preaching.  Will it happen overnight?  Uh, no.  But I am working on it.

As I was thinking through all this, I came across a very ancient statement of the Christian faith from around 150 AD.  The statement simply says we believe “…in the Father, the Ruler of the Universe, and in Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in the Holy Church, and in the Forgiveness of Sins.” I decided that I would use this concise statement of the Christian faith as the basis of a sermon series designed to explore and explain Christian faith in an approachable and understandable manner.  I want to invite you to attend in person or online on March 5 as I begin the new series “Let it Rise: The Start of Faith”. I hope this will be a great opportunity for all of us to consider ways to talk about our faith with others or to invite someone to come to church with us who may be seeking to understand Christianity better.

And yes, my goal is that each sermon will be 10-15 minutes in length.  Is less more? We will see!