...there is this myth that people say, "Sermons need to be short because people today have short attention spans." That is totally irrelevant. People's attention spans are as long as their engagement. If I'm engaged, I will sit and stay engaged until I have to go to the bathroom. The issue is: are people engaged, not how long is the sermon? Granted, there are things that determine how long worship services should be. But communicators need to figure out how well do they engage people, and they should not talk one word longer than people are engaged.We all instinctively know this is true. If the communicator has no skill in communication then I'll check out in 5 minutes. If s/he is very gifted then like Andy says, I can sit and listen until I have to go to the bathroom.
Some of the other things he said about this philosophy of preaching made me pause and wonder if that is the best approach but I'll let you read it for yourself if you like and see what you think. I'm sure there are multiple ways to honor God in the exposition of his word.
You can read the whole post here.
1 comment:
Zach, I fully agree with the excerpt on your blog here (although not with some of what Andy writes in the full post). In this internet, soundbite age in which we live, most of us already have very short attention spans, compared to earlier generations of Christians. Why should preachers *coddle* us in that lamentable tendency by preaching shorter and shorter sermons?
Christians need to hear *more* of the powerful preaching of God's word, not less. For some people, it may be the only time all week that they actually give an extended time of attention to Scripture! I'm all for longer, Biblically rich sermons (that communicate well)!
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