The Distracted Hearer
Improvement is not instantaneous. The preacher in our time will almost undoubtedly find it necessary to place a cap on the length of his sermons and to make deliberate use of repetition. He will have to tailor his vocabulary and sermon structure so that sustained listening isn’t so demanding that it encourages the faithful to tune him out. In some ways, this simplifies life for the preacher. If there are multiple points that merit expounding in a given reading for the day, the preacher can pick just one, and leave the others for when the reading next occurs.
What are your thoughts? What else can the contemporary Orthodox preacher do to cope with the short attention span phenomenon? I’d like to hear from the “hearers,” too.
I’ll tackle more of those other preaching challenges next time.
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M. Stankovich:
July 17th, 2013 at 12:07 am
I had to laugh here because it was traditional back in the day that the SVS choir traveled on Sundays to local (meaning within an approximate 2-hour drive) parishes to sing the liturgy, sing a small “concert” after the liturgy, bring a small bookstore display, and generally promote the seminary. It was also customary that a student delivered the sermon. Alternately, Fr. Meyendorff or Fr. Schmemann would accompany us. In passing, it was not unusual to later hear in class the critique of Fr. John, “Well, you know even Fr. Dean (i.e. Schmemann) has nothing more to say than in a sermon of 10-minutes…” And likewise, from Fr. Alexander, “I don’t know but, our esteemed Professor of Patristics (i.e. Meyendorff), doesn’t seems to need more than 10-minutes to deliver a sermon)…” which in both cases was absolutely true. They waited on the amvon for the Deacon to deliver the Gospel, and seemed to act pursuant to Fr. Florovsky’s observation:
CHRISTIAN MINISTERS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO PREACH their private opinions, at least from the pulpit. Ministers are commissioned and ordained in the church precisely to preach the Word of God. They are given some fixed terms of reference— namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ— and they are committed to this sole and perennial message. They are expected to propagate and to sustain “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Of course, the Word of God must be preached “efficiently.” That is, it should always be so presented as to carry conviction and command the allegiance of every new generation and every particular group. It may be restated in new categories, if the circumstances require. But, above all, the identity of the message must be preserved.
Efficiency, as they saw it, was apparently 10-minutes – though I personally never timed them it “feels” right – and to the best of my impression, cogent, efficient, and satisfying. Although there was the time on a feast of the Theotokos Fr. Alexander said, “As we gaze into those blue Theotokian skies…”