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Tag Archives: sermon preparation

My Sermon Organization Method: Sermon Sequencing and the “Multi-Track Sermon”

01 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by John McClure in Connecting the Dots, improvisation

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Four Codes, Four Codes of Preaching, John McClure, Mashup Religion, Multi-track sermon, multitrack, sermon, sermon organization, sermon preparation

In my book The Four Codes of Preaching: Rhetorical Strategies I identify the sermon as a unique composition (oral, written, etc.) that includes four “codes” or expected elements of communication. These are:

(1) a “scriptural code” (people expect to hear some interaction with the world expressed in the Bible)

(2) a “semantic code” (people expect to hear a preacher organize and generate messages or “meaning”)

(3) a “theosymbolic code” (people expect to hear the preacher place them within a theological narrative or universe)

(4) a “cultural code” (people expect to hear the preacher connect with their experience and culture).

I adopt the language of “sequencing” a sermon from the world of music-making and music recording where digital audio workstations (DAWs) and midi “sequencers” rule the day.

In chapter three of my book Mashup Religion: Pop Music and Theological Invention, I boil down much of what is said in The Four Codes of Preaching. In that chapter I speak about “the multi-track sermon,” and encourage preachers to think of the four codes of preaching as if they were tracks of audio recorded into a digital sequencer (DAW). In other words, sermons might be said to have four “tracks” (the codes) that are sequenced together to create a sermon. This is actually a very simple analogy and can be very helpful for preachers who are wanting to get a handle on sermon organization better.

I created a couple of short YouTube videos to demonstrate how this works, and revised these videos recently. If you are interested, here are links to both of these short videos. Enjoy!

Long-Range Preaching

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by John McClure in Connecting the Dots, Views from the Street

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

communication, communication model, communication theory, Four Codes of Preaching, homiletic method, homiletic theory, homiletics, long-range planning, plan, preaching, sermon, sermon preparation, strategic communication, theology and preaching, transmission

Many of us view preaching as a short-term (tactical) practice of transmitting information. Communication theorists, however, have drawn attention to the inadequacies of the sender-message-receiver or “transmission” model of communication, inherited largely from classical rhetoric. There are a whole host of other elements at work in any communication situation: conventions of listening, worldviews, local history, felt needs, language repertoire, physical setting, and so on. J. Randall Nichols calls this the larger “communicative field” for preaching.

Communicative Field 1

The “long range preacher” develops a preaching plan that contains certain goals for changes within this “communicative field” in the future. As a long range preacher, I see preaching as part of a process that takes time to complete, a process designed intentionally to promote over time certain themes, messages, doctrines, approaches to scripture, attitudes, theological worldviews, core values, or understandings of the relationship between Christ and culture. Preaching is a shared journey, and I am in it for the long haul.

theo

This journey, of course, involves the entire communication life of the church and is most effective when the goals for my preaching are integrated with similar goals in religious education, congregational meetings, publicity (newsletters, website) and so on. In this way, preaching is seen as a part of what Seward Hiltner once called the larger “communicating perspective” on ministry.

In order to develop a long-range vision, I might want to engage in congregational study or careful critical reflection and try to discern theological gaps, inconsistencies, issues, or aspirations within the congregation. After such study or reflection, I might establish long-term goals for the communication life of the church, perhaps in consultation with my church board or leaders in the congregation.

For instance, my congregation might be ready for diversity of membership, increased knowledge of biblical history, a more socially-conscious approach to theology, a firmer knowledge its heritage, and more openness to the certain cultural and social changes. From this list, I can develop a list of concepts, messages, values, attitudes, and forms of communication that will, over time, contribute to bringing about these changes in the congregation.

It is probably too bold to say that sermons actually construct the way that a listener is situated within a communicative field. Listeners are participants in multiple subcultures and negotiate messages from the pulpit at the intersection of many overlapping discourses.

Ritual Communication

Over the long term, however, preaching can provide new categories of thought and encourage new forms of speaking and practice. Preached messages push, pull, nudge, encourage, and cajole listeners. If these messages are consistent and strategic, they can, over time, shift the position that listeners occupy within this complex communicative field, opening up new possibilities for thought and action.

Several approaches to preaching have attempted to take into account the ways preaching has the potential to re-shape the signs, symbols, theological worldviews, and conventions of listening within congregations over time. (see for instance, McClure, The Four Codes of Preaching: Rhetorical Strategies, Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, Nieman, Knowing the Context: Frames, Tools, and Signs for Preaching).

Preaching and Love

05 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by John McClure in Musings, Who is this?

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

domestic violence, Eph. 4:16, Levinas, love, love God, love neighbor, preaching, purpose of preaching, sermon preparation, the love command, thou shalt not kill

The wonderful new preacher at my church, Mary Louise McCullough, preached a strong and thoughtful sermon this week on the Great Commandment. As I drove home from church I couldn’t help but reflect on love and the task of preaching. Her sermon seemed to embody perfectly much of what I think on this topic. I have long been committed to the idea that love for the human other and love for God are utterly inseparable.

Years ago, I came across what seized me as one of the strongest statements regarding love of neighbor as the locus of God’s word for the preacher. It came from an odd place for a teacher of Christian preaching – through the words of Jewish post-holocaust French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas:

“This face of the other, without recourse, without security, exposed to my look and in its weakness and its mortality is also the one that orders me: “thou shalt not kill.” There is, in the face, the supreme authority that commands, and I always say it is the word of God. The face is the locus of the word of God. There is a word of God in the other, (my italics), a non-thematized word.” (Alterity and Transcendence, 104)

For the preacher, what seems to me to be crucial in this quotation is that the very locus of the word of God lies in the face (visage) of the other. God summons us by God’s word through the reality of the vulnerable other person.

For me, this means that preaching begins in the summons by God, through the face of the other, to 1) desire good for the other and 2) to desire not to harm the other. These, it seems me, are two sides of the same love-coin. And the ultimate purpose of preaching is to bear witness to this word of love.

Although preaching has many other penultimate purposes: salvation, prophecy, healing, reconciliation, hope, challenging the principalities and powers, and so on, its ultimate goal is human flourishing before God. This aspect of love gives expression to what theologian Wendy Farley once called “eros for the other” by which she means love as an aching desire (eros) for fullness of life for all others as God’s creatures. This becomes the positive pole of love in Christian preaching, and it supports the church as it “builds itself up in love.” (Eph. 4:16)

The goal of love, however, also imposes a seemingly negative or at least cautious dynamic on preaching, indicated in the command “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” A homiletic of love is also a way of preaching that is deeply concerned with repairing and redeeming one’s theology and language in order to do less harm to the vulnerable in one’s congregation and in the larger culture. This does not mean that preachers are debilitated and unable to say anything for fear of doing harm. Rather, they are always aware that, when speaking for others, it is important that they have also done some prior speaking with others, in the deepest sense. In other words, preachers need as many real, loving, depth encounters with different kinds of people as humanly possible. This is not simply a pastoral practice, but it is a social and global practice.

For instance, some years ago, after preaching what I considered to be a prophetic  and challenging sermon about “forgiving seventy times seven,” I received a phone call from a woman in the congregation who had recently escaped a violent relationship. She informed me that my sermon could potentially have talked her into staying in her situation, in which case she might not still be alive. Although not intending harm, my sermon suffered by not having learned from those who are caught up in dangerous cycles of violence.

The same could be said for listening to the experiences of those who have experienced depression or mental illness, those with long-term illnesses or disabilities, persons experiencing unemployment or financial disaster, women and children in Afghanistan, victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and so on and on.

Of course it is not possible to consult everyone! And we will always need to repair our language, based on well-placed feedback.

But it is possible to add one helpful question in this regard to sermon preparation: How might this message be heard by ______________? – and to put the most vulnerable faces we have encountered into the space at the end of this question.

When in doubt about how to answer this question, it is a good idea to ask someone, to encounter a living face and learn, or at the very least to do some reading and research.

At the end of the day, I am convinced that it is the great joy, but also the significant burden of preaching, to bear witness to the word of God (love) that summons us through the face of all others – for all are vulnerable. This word is the double-sided word of love that makes those of us who dare to preach desire with all our hearts to promote fullness of life in Christ on the one hand, and to do no harm on the other.

Preaching and Penn-Gate

14 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by John McClure in Views from the Street

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

domestic violence, hermeneutics, interpretation, Penn State, preaching, preaching and Paterno, sermon, sermon illustration, sermon preparation, sexual abuse, sexual violence

The allegations of childhood sexual abuse at Penn State last week call for a response from the pulpit. The statistics are clear: one in three girls and one in seven boys are sexually molested before the age of eighteen. If one adds the striking numbers of those who are experiencing domestic violence, the situation looks even worse. This means that most congregations have many members and visitors who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse and/or domestic violence. At that same time, if statistics are correct, many congregations unknowingly harbor perpetrators of sexual or domestic violence. And to make matters worse, as the Penn State situation suggests, our congregations are certainly replete with bystanders – those who are potentially part of the larger “culture of complicity” that prefers silence on these matters, moves perpetrators from one place to another unchecked, and, in worse case scenarios blames victims and survivors.

Some years back, pastoral theologian Nancy Ramsay and I co-edited a book entitled Telling the Truth: Preaching About Sexual and Domestic Violence. The book, originally published with the United Church Press (Pilgrim) is now available free as a pdf file from Google Books. Here are just a few thoughts taken from that book.

First of all, it is important to remember that we have three audiences when it comes to sexual violence: (1) victims and survivors, (2) perpetrators, and (3) bystanders. The bottom line, then, is that we must preach, over time, three fundamental messages.

  • Message One to Victims and Survivors. To victims and survivors we preach words of welcome, which includes words that listen, lament, resist, seek justice, offer compassion, and convey hope. Victims and survivors need to know that our worship services and sermons are safe holding environments for their pain and suffering. They need to know that their innermost selves, often haunted by shame, fear, helplessness, and sometimes hopelessness are welcome, heard, and honored. They need to feel genuine solidarity, not only in suffering, but in resistance, the struggle for justice, and the difficult process of re-creating lives that have been de-created by violence.
  • Message Two to Perpetrators. For perpetrators, we preach clarity. The goal is to assess with stark clarity the damage that they do, and to state in no uncertain terms that the damage cannot be undone. Nothing they can ever do can restore fully what their victims have lost. No rationalization or self-deception is possible. This is not so much the voice of judgment or condemnation as it is the voice of clarity. Even if we hope in our heart of hearts for eventual transformation for perpetrators, there must be no cracks through which they can slip as they listen to our sermons. Only this kind of preaching brings the possibility of genuine self-confrontation that could, perhaps, lead to change.
  • Message Three to Bystanders. To bystanders, we preach breaking ranks with the status quo. Listeners can be encouraged to bind their allegiance to a higher authority than the culture of complicity around them, and to make clear decisions to speak up and speak out in situations of known or suspected sexual violence. They can also be invited to re-create their church as a genuinely safe place and become a force for resistance, justice, compassion, and healing.

Here are a few more homiletical encouragements:

  • I encourage us to avoid the isolated sermon on this subject, to build messages to these different audiences into the fabric of many sermons on a variety of subjects, including sermons on human sexuality, creation in the image of God, justice, compassion, family relationships, marriage, forgiveness, judgment, hope, power, healing, anger, relationships, and violence. It is not always possible or advisable to address all three of these audiences simultaneously. Over time, however, it is crucial to do so.
  • I encourage us to develop a consistently nonviolent theology. A nonviolent theology is a theology in which violence is clearly identified as evil and in which, in the last analysis, neither the ways of God toward people nor the ways of God’s people toward others are implicitly or explicitly violent. By saying “in the last analysis,” I mean to imply that we do not remain unaware of and uncritical of the biblical tradition’s collusion with the violence that we, as interpreters, ultimately refute. We cannot avoid the “texts of terror” in the Bible or the entire violence-laden sacrificial system that undergirds much of the Old and New Testaments.
  • I encourage us to examine our illustrations for subtle ideologies that are complicit with violence and abuse. Many illustrations encourage family roles, relationships, gender stereotypes and attitudes that subtly feed violent or abusive attitudes.
  • I encourage us to avoid illustrations that place the experience of sexual violence “out there.” Statistics, and references to “Penn State” or “the Catholic sex scandal” have the effect of turning our gaze outward and away from the reality of sexual violence in our own midst. Brief narratives that particularize rape or battering as an everyday occurrence in a world identical to that of our congregation will underscore that this problem is immediate and “in our midst.”
  • I encourage us to use language that names sexual violence appropriately as a sin of volition. Carol J. Adams invites us to avoid “eliding agency” when speaking about abuse. We subtly let people off the hook when we only speak about “violent relationships,” “incestuous families,” or “battering couples.” Better to say “when a man molests a child…,” or “when a man batters his wife…,” or “for abusive men….” This may sound terrible to our ears, but this is precisely the reason for such language – to make us aware of the terror we are naming.
  • Finally, I encourage us to develop a delivery that is non-violent. There is a cartoon in which a preacher is in a tall pulpit hovering over the first few pews, ranting and raving like a barely chained beast. About four pews back, a young child is whispering to his mother;” What are we going to do if he gets out of there?!” The cartoon identifies another way in which the church and its preaching can be unwittingly complicit with violence. Our nonverbal communication often conveys messages that can be abusive and prevent those who have been abused from seeking our help. Why would a victim or survivor of violence seek help from a violent communicator? I’m not asking us to take the energy from our delivery. Just to assess it for messages portraying hostility, manipulation, or coercion.

There are many other aspects of this topic: the need to create a community of education and accountability around sexual violence within our congregations, the need to develop our own clear sexual boundaries as a part of our own professional ethics as clergy, the need to develop and create pastoral and theological resources around these realities in our midst. Again, for much more on these topics the reader may want to read chapters from John S. McClure and Nancy Ramsay (ed.), Telling the Truth: Preaching About Sexual and Domestic Violence.

Don’t Re-hash the Bible. Exposit or Interpret it.

11 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by John McClure in Views from the Street

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Tags

Bible and Preaching, Biblical Hermeneutics, biblical preaching, expository preaching, Four Codes of Preaching, hermeneutics, homiletic method, homiletic theory, preaching, sermon, sermon illustration, sermon invention, sermon preparation, text-to-sermon, textual preaching, theology and preaching

In my previous post, I focused briefly on sermons that incorporate “wind-ups” that actually “wind-down” sermons. I asserted that one such wind-down occurs when the preacher begins the sermon by re-hashing the biblical text. I made it clear that by “re-hashing” I was referring to a non-interpretive, non-expository walk through the text – sort of a “tour-guide” approach, pointing out this over here, and that over there as we go, providing more background for this, identifying the original significance of that for the ancient community. The kind of thing one finds in a good non-thematic, verse-by-verse Bible commentary.

A shift toward exposition, however, will put the preacher into a slightly different posture – one that allows the text to interpret us. Theologian Karl Barth was a proponent of this approach. According to Barth:

“I have not to talk about scripture but from it. I have not to say something, but merely repeat something. If God alone wants to speak in a sermon, neither theme nor scopus should get in the way….Our task is simply to follow the distinctive movement of thought in the text, to stay with this, and not with a plan that arises out of it.”

Barth’s approach is not far from “re-hashing.” Those who know Barth’s theology will know that he’s worried about too much interpretive intervention by the preacher. He seems to want something fairly close to simply repeating the text. Notice, however, his reference to the ‘movement of thought’ in the text. This is crucial. The preacher doesn’t just “walk through” the text, but does so, over the course of the entire sermon, in a way that helps the listener discover how thought moves in the text, how the semantic motion within the text captures our thinking and re-shapes it in some way.

A shift toward interpretation (hermeneutic) will put the preacher in yet another posture – one that interprets the text by moving the listeners attention toward a particular aspect or dimension of the text in order to draw out a particular meaning for today. In this regard, I posted a few weeks back on five “places” to find a sermon in relation to biblical texts. Each approach assumes that sermon listeners are invited to take a particular perspective or angle of vision on the text. Is the preacher drawing my attention to some analogy to my life in the text (place 1), to a profound historical continuity between Matthew’s church and our church (place 2), to the way the language works and wants to shape us (place 3), to a timeless theological truth (place four), or to a hidden trajectory of meaning we could never have seen, if it weren’t for what’s happening right now in our church or world (place 5). No matter which of these interpretive models is at work, the biblical text will be heard in its fullness, but from a particular hermeneutical perspective.

Re-hashing gives the sermon listener little or nothing of either exposition or interpretation. Re-hashing is largely movement-of-thought-less, and perspective-less, and leaves the listener groping for an angle of vision on the text. When this occurs listeners will provide several of their own…or just check out altogether for lack of focus and direction from the preacher. From great biblical preachers you’ll always hear the text (its content, world, context), but from a particular perspective – one charged with theological meaning and energy.

Some of us are correctly concerned that our listeners don’t get to hear the biblical text often. In a biblically illiterate world, it is natural to feel that by repeating the text in slow motion, we create a better opportunity to hear Scripture and let it soak in.

I have two things to say to this. First, we need to counter the assumption that “front-loading” scripture is the best way to get the text heard. With most biblical texts there’s a lot going on – a lot to take in and process! For the sake of both memory and understanding, it is better to introduce the biblical text in dynamic ways throughout the sermon. Each movement of thought in a sermon can capture some aspect of the text and bring it to life – creating a picture of the whole. For the biblical preacher, there shouldn’t be a single thought communicated that can’t be pegged to something in, under, behind, or in front of the biblical text. We can allow our listeners to re-hear the text dynamically throughout the sermon, instead of at the beginning only. Here’s a picture of this:

Sequence 1 Sequence 2 Sequence 3 Sequence 4
Theology
Message
Experience
Scripture

In this model, each sequence of thought in a sermon contains four things (see The Four Codes of Preaching): 1) a biblical warrant (again, see the five places to get a sermon), 2) a message to our listeners, 3) theological shaping, and 4) some kind of experiential connection or illustration. In this way, scripture is heard strongly throughout the sermon.

Second, we need to work on interpretive reading. If a unit of scripture is read aloud in worship service each week, we can work hard to make it a dynamic, energized, and interpretive reading – one that accents and emphasizes those elements in the text that will be crucial for the sermon. If we are those who read the text aloud, we can provide clues regarding what to listen for and how to hear the text. If we use lay readers, we can work with them each week to insure that this is occurring. A good reading should stand alone, and will do far more than a tour of the text to bring the Bible alive in the hearing of listeners. Even an intervening children’s sermon or anthem between scripture reading and sermon will not dull the impact of Scripture well-read!

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John McClure

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