What Has Changed the Most in Preaching the Last 20 Years?

0:00Welcome to the Rayner on Leadership Podcast. You're online home for leadership lessons and advice for the local church. We talk about practical solutions for pastors and church leaders. Episodes are hosted by Tom Rayner, Sam Rayner, and Josh King. Hey, what's up? And welcome to this episode of Rayner on Leadership, a podcast for leadership, but particularly leadership in the local church. My name is Josh. My name is Sam, and I got a new camera. I can see that. You're much more high-deaf. I'm something. I have no idea you look like this. Have you ever experienced, and I'm sure people have, you know, when you get a new TV, let's say it's been a decade, and you get this new TV, and then all of a sudden you're like, man, the news anchor has a lot of wrinkles. Like they are, they're not nearly as polished as I thought they were. That's happened to me a couple of times. You get a new high-deaf TV, and you're like, wow. I got an OLED OLED TV. I don't know technology. I don't know hardware that well.

1:05I know software, you know, and programs pretty well, but, man, it's pretty awesome. All of the video games that my boys play on it, they're like, it looks great. I don't play video games, though. I don't know. Because we're grown-ups. No. No. Gaming is fine. Gaming's fun. MLB the show. I play that. I haven't played it in months, but I do. I do. I said what I said. I said what I said. We'll get the hate mails later. So, Segway. Okay. The last time I really gamed, what I even call gaming back then, was Sega Genesis, dating myself there. Sega. And a lot has changed in the gaming world in the last 20 years, 30 years, and a lot has changed in the preaching world in the last 20 or 30 years. That is true. And they probably have a lot of the same reasons, but we're going to talk about it. Potentially. That's a, boy, that's a neat research project that probably would not get approved by the dissertation committee, but we're going to be...

2:11What has changed the most in preaching in the last 20 years? We will be discussing that on today's episode, but before we do, we want to thank our sponsor, Chemistry staffing. You know this. You know this. The wrong hire costs more than the search. Everybody knows that. So why do you keep doing it the wrong way? Do it the right way. Give chemistry staffing a call. Actually, don't need call them. We could call them. She just goes to chemistry staffing.com slash church answers. There's Lincoln the show notes for that. A poor fit could wear out volunteers, frustrate staff, slow momentum, and set the church back for years. Chemistry staffing helps you avoid all of that. So reach out to them if you're looking for a position, or reach out to them if you think you have, if you're going to have an open position. So link in the show notes, chemistry staffing.com. If you want to give us credit, add that slash church answers. Alright, Josh King, preaching. It is so different.

3:15You and I have been preaching about the same amount of time. When was your first sermon? What year was your first sermon? Man, I mean, my first first, I don't think that counts. My first is like actually regularly preaching. Let's see. I was 17. I was born in 1982. So 1999. So we're going on 27 years or so. 26, 27 years. Okay, so I was born in 1980. My first sermon would have been in 2004. And then I started preaching regularly later that year as a bivocational pastor. So yeah, you and I started very similar. Roughly the same time. You are a slightly younger than me and started sooner because you're more sanctified. And God's calling you a punk. You figured God's calling before I did. But it has changed for sure. It's different now than it was. Yeah, it is quite different. And I want to get into that a little bit because you know things.

4:20It's like sometimes things change. And it's just you hardly you hardly notice. And then when you think about it, it's like, oh my goodness. Things are very, very different. I think this first point is something that all of us pastors feel a ton. And it's that biblical literacy has declined. People just don't like if you're like Moses back in the day, 30 years ago, people are like, yeah, Old Testament, wrote the penitook. Now when you go Moses, everyone's like, was that Jesus's brother? And it's like, not really. You're getting, you don't know, you're no, he wasn't. You can't assume basic stories. You cannot assume basic doctrines. You know, somebody in a meeting the other day at West Braydenton said the word, so tearyology. And I forget the context and everyone just turned their head. And these are like church people. And they're like, what?

5:23Even your best people don't always know the stuff of scripture. So biblical literacy has declined. Josh, how do you deal with this in your church? Okay, so as a Christian, as a pastor, I mourn the death of biblical literacy and just a basic understanding of some of the basic stories and those sort of things. However, as a preacher, I celebrate it because I, some of my best material, if you want to say it that way, are these basic stories. For instance, I spoke on Samson this last week. And I kid you not in all of those years of ministry, I have never, ever received more compliments, more emails, more direct messages. People stopped me in the hall. There was literally Sam, this never happens.

6:23So I'm not acting like this happens all the time. There was a line of people to compliment this sermon on Samson. And so I went home and I was talking to Jackie about it and I was like, what is the deal? I swear that's the same way I preach every week, you know, and she said, because no one knows the stories anymore. And you just told one of the stories that most people have sort of heard of. They kind of know the word. They know Samson. And particularly in this one, even I mentioned Delilah. And I had the, I said now for some of you, she's a girl that lives in New York City and tonight she looks so pretty. And then for some of you, it's a, it's a, it's a. Delilah. Yeah, it's the right way. So that, I don't even know if it's still on, but it is. It is. I looked it up. So there was these connections that made it to people. And so I love that. I love preaching. My most complimented sermons beside Samson is the key is these are, these are sermons stories that everybody knows, but you tell them in a different way.

7:29The other side of this is just illustration purposes. The Bible illustrates the Bible. And it's awesome to say, well, so there's this other story in the older part of the Bible that features this guide named Micah. And it's this crazy story about an idol and they sell some stuff. And people are like, I've never in my life heard of this story. And I'm like, I know that's why I'm using it as an illustration. So, so there is some, there's a silver lining to this. And it also kind of releases. I know, I know myself, Sam, you may as well. When we get to these very familiar passages because we're so familiar with them, it's almost a struggle to preach because it's like, how am I going to preach Samson again? Now, I mean, like everybody knows the story of Samson, but you got to remind yourself, they don't. And this is actually a really, really cool story. Same thing I'm doing this week with Ruth. So there's some, there's some fun to it. I think you are correct in that this is an opportunity for thematic preaching, storytelling preaching. I am, I'm going verse by verse through the book of Hebrews right now.

8:41So I want everybody to know, I am not against strong expositional preaching, but there is a downside to strong expositional preaching. And it's that you can sometimes lose the forest for the trees. You get caught up on the nuance of doctrine in that one phrase in Romans and you camp there for a while. And that there's good in that. But it's also good to be saying, all right. Here is the story of a mica. Here is the story of Samson. And I think there is now more of an opening for that character driven thematic preaching than there has been in the past. Whereas if you had done it 30 years ago, everyone kind of rolled their eyes, but yeah, why are you telling us stuff we already know, like we know this story, go deeper. Well, sometimes going deep means painting. Painting with broad strokes so that people can understand. And I think that we are at a place where we need more character driven sermons, thematic sermons, just so people can get a grasp of what is actually in the Bible.

9:56I've started doing that a little more. I will admit it's harder. It's harder to paint those broad strokes and connect this. I mean, I'm a narrative preacher. So like if you are more narrative or story driven, this is going to be like your heyday, like just camp right here because the stories are amazing. However, I would say it's not a fresh broad stroke of Samson. It's telling the story accurately deeper. Most people, I mean, we're kind of camping out on this, but most people read Samson as like this man of God that was a hero. And my, the strong man that was a hero, man of God. And I opened up by saying, I know that's what you, if you think of Samson, that's what you think. But that's not who he was. I want to actually show you who the guy was. He's not some hero that we should emulate. And so I went through it. And the next day our student minister was like, it was one of the most impactful sermons to him is what he said because it was frame altering. He's like, I'd always thought of Samson in a certain way, but you showed it. And his comment was, and everything you said was right there. You pointed at the Bible. You pointed at the Bible verse. And it was right there. It was there at all the whole time. I just didn't know it.

11:06So you've got this benefit of people who do know the stories they've been in church their whole life seeing it deeper and actually and truly. So let's revisit those stories. But then you've got people who've never heard it before in their life. And you are building the framework for them in the first place. If I was going verse by verse through Hebrews or, you know, one of the epistles or something like that, I would illustrate heavily out of the Old Testament and keep bringing back and say this theme has actually been covered years before this story was written. And here we go and bring up that story. I think the second point is also true here with there being a need for your illustrations to be more biblical illustrations instead of cultural illustrations. If you are using no biblical illustrations in your sermons, it's likely to start doing that so that people can connect the stories of the Old Testament with the New Testament. So good stuff. Good stuff, my friend. Attention spans have also changed. That's the second point here. People have shorter attention spans and we're competing with that digital environment. It is it is nerve-wracking to know that if I say something bold in my sermon or unique that I'm going to be immediately chat GPT and fact checked.

12:26And it's a strong and it's I can see people I can see you take it out your phone because you're like, is that true? Yes, it's true. I did my homework. Yeah, so I think you're hitting on two really great things there. Of course, there's attention spans. I think that's true to some degree. I think people, so you can watch an hour long show. People will watch an hour long show. They'll watch a three hour long documentary. They'll watch a three hour long movie about one guy stuck in space. It's not necessarily what I think, you know, what I try to encourage preachers or communicators to realize is this. People have a hard time locking into 20 minutes of the exact same thing or 30 minutes of the exact same thing. You need to have voice inflection. You need to move the story along, put an illustration there, exegy, but then illustrate and then apply just the very old school way of preaching where you like connect, explore, transform.

13:35That whole thing is still relevant where I think that some preacher struggle with shorter attention spans is when they when they drone on for 30 minutes with no illustration, just explaining word after word after word. I love the Bible. I think the Bible is beautiful and deep and rich and I have lots of education in it and I'll tune out. I will go somewhere else. I'm like, no, this is boring. So I, it's like I always say, boring preaching is a sin. And so don't be boring. Walk around, move, inflect. You can still exegy. I know there's some people right now that are ready to get their nine marks at us and shoot us about something and that's fine. You can still do it. You just don't have to be boring with your, you know, your one simple way of preaching. As far as fact checking, you know, I'm with you. I try to, I fact check myself. I tried to say something. There's so many times when preachers will say things and I'm like, and that doesn't even ring of truth.

14:46And so you pull open some things and you want to, the thing that's true on this, make sure you're fact checking yourself. But if you do say something that's maybe not, you, you can say things like, look, some scholars believe this is this way. Others believe it's this way. I think it's more consistent to go with option A in this text because of XYZ. So you don't have to, some people look through, it seems like they look through commentaries for the most sexy detail and then make sure that's in their sermon. It may not even be helpful. And so just kind of stick to the simple things. But fact check the ones that seem a little crazy. The third point here is that authority is being questioned more quickly. People, people have always challenged authority. But it's, it's, people are more quick to do so now. There is a lower trust level. No, nobody in my church believes something because the pastor said so. I don't think people even say that anymore. Well, my pastor said so.

15:51Yeah, you have to prove yourself now far more than you did in the past. Yeah, which is, it may not be a bad thing. This may actually be more of a good thing. I understand that there's a lot of distrust of institutions, a lot of just, just like not trusting each other in society. But I'm actually okay if you question me because that means one, you were listening and two, you're engaging with the content. Oh, I actually don't think any of these are bad. It's just a change. It's just the way it is. But you are right. There is just this blatant disregard for any sort of position of authority. In fact, if you make an argument that is authoritative, it's almost immediately disqualified. Like you're not allowed to say this is anything. You know, truth. So I think there's a couple of problems with that. One or, or, or maybe root causes of that. I do think for a long time, decade or so. So this sort of like wishy washi preaching has become sort of popular where it's like I don't want to offend anybody. I'm just going to make sure that I'm just going to kind of share my perspective on the text.

17:02And what that is. We're going to get a movie. Yeah, yeah, summer in the movies. Just those kind of silly games that people play with the pulpit. I don't think any of that's been helpful. Instead, what I do think is we should as preachers stand up and say, does say it the Lord. We ought to say with confidence, study it, be able to defend it, and then say it and say, this is what is true. And this is what I know to be true. Now I do love your point there, Sam, of backing up some of what you say. So here recently, I've added a section to my sermons. I called the argument. And I'm trying to determine what would cultural Christians and what would progressive Christians. How would they argue against what I'm preaching right now. And so I try to anticipate that and then argue back. So I don't phrase it as an argument. I'm just saying like now some of you may consider this or some of you may have heard of this, but you always thought it was this way. It's not because of XYZ.

18:04So I do think that there's a place for us to be more authoritative and then also be able to defend, I guess, more apologetic as well in our approach. Yeah, and I think one way to do that, we've got a bullet point here on the show notes about application. So, you know, a way to connect the dots and a way to bring all this together. You know, how can the old so what question, right? We've all heard this like you say, all right, you just walked through some of the heavy doctrine in the book of Romans and you've explained it well. And everyone goes, OK, I may not agree with you pastor, but at least understand your point. And then it's like, OK, good information. So what? Right, you know, we've always needed application and sermons always that hasn't changed in the last 20, 30 years. But people now today in order for you to keep them engaged, you really have to make that like a key component. People aren't that people don't know how to make application on their own now.

19:13Like you have to walk them through that. Why? Because biblical literacy is down. So not only are you explaining the story and walking people through the narrative, you also have to answer that. That's so what? So Josh, part of what's happening to sermons is it used to be that you would spend upwards of 75% of your sermon just on that exegesis. But now you, you know, it may be 50% of the sermon or 25% of the sermon simply because people can't, people don't have a background to what you're saying, biblical literacy rates, rates, and they don't naturally apply it to their lives either. So you kind of have to bring the context in a little more today and the application more. Yeah, I agree. I think it's definitely it's needed. I don't think you're preaching unless you have the application. If you're not, if you're just exegiting, you're just teaching, which is fine for the seminary or for the classroom or for the discipleship class.

20:22But preaching requires some sort of application. It answers the so then now how shall we live, right? So there's there's this thing that I've said, there's this truth that is there and it's so true that it changes the way that we live. It changes the way that we think and do and apply. I think you got to be wise and careful. You don't want to inadvertently communicate this truth applies in only this way. But what you want to do is say, here's the truth. Now here's some ways that it could apply and that's where I get much more perspective driven. And I'm like, so in your life, what does it look like? And I'm asking those questions. I'm fleshing it out, getting them to lead themselves to be a little bit more introspective. And then I'll give them some help along the way. One way it could look is this. But you're going to have to apply that. So this next week, think of it this way and then see how it fleshes out as you turn your mind towards Christ or as you use your strength for the good of others and the glory of God. And so those kind of things.

21:27Well, last point here, what I think a good way to kind of bring this all together is you really today and today's world, you really need to build trust into the sermon. So if we're going to take all of what we said and kind of package it up into one, like a little snippet here. When I write sermons, I am automatically thinking of ways that I can build trust into my sermon because people are more skeptical now. People are less knowledgeable now. People are their attention spans are less. So that bridge building exercise within the sermon of here's why you should trust what I am saying. I think is something that is that is critical. And this speaks to things like long term tenure in a church, being perhaps more important today than it was in the past. Pastors who are shepherding their congregations and you're in the lives of their people and you're not just a teacher. I think that's more important now.

22:33These are things that like they've always been important because they will say, well, Sam, those are all that hadn't changed the 30s. Yes, but they're more important now than they were in the past because people kind of had that context of the church before they were there. They're, you know, they're regular attenders and now they're not so much anymore. Trust is even more valuable today, I think now. Once you have that trust, it is far more valuable today than it was 30 years ago. Yeah, I don't know that I would say that it hasn't changed. There was an era in which just because of your title and what you did, you had trust. You were the preacher. And then we created these little celebrities and big celebrities, you know, Adrian Rogers and W.A. and these people that were massive celebrity and there were people that were flocking to listen to them that had no trust relationship. That had, there was no reason to trust that person other than you enjoyed their preaching. I'm not saying that Dr. Rogers or Dr. Krizbo or somebody didn't pastor the people that they were around. I'm certainly sure that they did.

23:42But I'm talking about my family in Southern Mississippi, weekly listening to Charles Stanley. We had no reason to trust him over in Atlanta. But my mom would listen to him and she gave him trust because of that. I think today, especially with scandals and watchdog and these blogs that are out there that I mean I have a love, hey, relationship, they should expose things but at the same time, they're just looking for some reason to act like churches are bad. Especially large churches. I think we have to pastor in order to preach. You have to spend your week with people in order to actually stand up there and talk to them. So one little key is I like to talk to people and use their stories as illustrations. I'm just huge on illustrations. I think illustrations are where all of this can be fixed and helped. But when you talk to people, I love saying others say, you know, Sam, I had lunch this week with Sam and he was telling me about this thing he does and blah blah and I looked into it.

24:42So I'm just launching off and now I have a connection with Sam and people who are friends with Sam were sitting in the audience going, I'm giving him some trust. He has more voice now because he went with Sam. So I'm with you. I think it has changed that whole level of trust. You don't just get to stand up in the pulpit and now they're going to listen because you're up there. You're going to have to build that trust outside of the pulpit just as much as within it. Well, there you go. We are up against time. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. I would want to thank church equipped. You can get curriculum for the entire church adult curriculum. Hopefully maybe launching kids curriculum at some point in the future. But 15 bucks a month can't beat that. Learn more at church equipped.com. Go to church equipped.com. Thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate all of you. Yeah, thank you so much for listening. We'll get you next time. Thank you for joining us today here on the Rainer on Leadership Podcast. Be sure to watch on YouTube or subscribe and listen on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify or in your favorite podcasting app.

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