Post by Paddy by Grace on Jan 23, 2010 5:22:42 GMT -7
Survey: What do Christians expect from Sunday Sermons
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6993099.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
Sermons, history shows, can be among the most revolutionary forms of human speech. From John Calvin to Billy Graham, preaching has had the power to topple princes, to set nation against nation, to inspire campaigners to change the world and impel people to begin life anew.
In many churches this most vibrant of moments has withered to little more than 20 minutes of tired droning that serves only to pad out the gap between hymns and lunch.
Yet some ember still seems to burn in Britain’s 3.6 million regular churchgoers, for almost all of them feel a sense of expectation for the Sunday sermon, according to researchers at Durham University.
Fully 96.6 per cent of those surveyed “look forward” to the sermon, with 60 per cent saying it gave them a sense of God’s love.
At a time when churches are agonising about how to move to a “digital” from an “analog” age, the results suggest that there is life in the old forms yet.
The College of Preachers of Durham University admits that the results are “counter-intuitive” — particularly in an age where “sermonising” is seen as a deadly sin. The college plans to carry out a larger study to discover why people like sermons so much.
The most recent survey, carried out by Durham’s Codec research centre to mark the 50th anniversary of the College of Preachers, offers preliminary suggestions.
Evangelical Christians looked forward most to sermons — hardly surprising in a movement begun by the preaching of John Wesley and spread to a new world by the urgent sermons of the American Great Awakening.
Roman Catholics were most keen on sermons that educated rather than challenged them. Baptists wanted sermons to convert them, Anglicans wanted to be entertained and members of the new, independent evangelical churches wanted to be challenged and encouraged.
Baptists and Catholics were also more enthusiastic about the Bible being mentioned in sermons than were Anglicans and Methodists.
The ideal length of a sermon also seems to divide the denominations. While many Anglicans wanted less than ten minutes — although up to 20 minutes was fine if there was no “waffle” — some Baptists wanted to sit through at least an hour and a quarter. Catholics, by contrast, wanted their homilies to be completed within ten minutes.
The results of the survey of 300 worshippers came as a surprise to church leaders. In spite of frequent exhortations from commentators for the Churches to “get with it” and embrace modern communications technology, many clergy do not use Facebook or Twitter and some even spurn the mobile phone. They prefer old-fashioned methods of communicating with parishioners, face to face on pastoral visits or preaching to them from their pulpits.
Most sermons are still structured along the lines laid down centuries ago by preaching pioneers such as John Donne and Wesley.
The best are inspirational invocations on how to live a better life in the grace of God; the worst, soporific ramblings that remind the congregation merely of how uncomfortable the pews are.
Dr Rowan Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury is patron of the College of Preachers, is among the church leaders who have signed the college’s jubilee pledge. This commits them to “forward-looking preaching, engaging faithfully with the Bible, directly with the congregation and prophetically with the world, to proclaim Jesus as Lord”.
In their report the Durham researchers admit to puzzlement that so many people looked forward to the sermons, and confess that more work was needed to find out why.
The report questions whether people look forward to the sermon so much for the content, the engagement, the entertainment, the theology or simply that it gives them time to switch off.
The Rev Katie Bruce, Fellow of St John’s Durham and director of preaching at Codec, said: “The results were not what we expected. Part of me wonders whether it was just that hope springs eternal.” In 2001 the Rev Chris Sterry, vicar of Whalley in Lancashire, set a new record for for sermon length when he spoke for 28 hours and 45 minutes.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6993099.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
Sermons, history shows, can be among the most revolutionary forms of human speech. From John Calvin to Billy Graham, preaching has had the power to topple princes, to set nation against nation, to inspire campaigners to change the world and impel people to begin life anew.
In many churches this most vibrant of moments has withered to little more than 20 minutes of tired droning that serves only to pad out the gap between hymns and lunch.
Yet some ember still seems to burn in Britain’s 3.6 million regular churchgoers, for almost all of them feel a sense of expectation for the Sunday sermon, according to researchers at Durham University.
Fully 96.6 per cent of those surveyed “look forward” to the sermon, with 60 per cent saying it gave them a sense of God’s love.
At a time when churches are agonising about how to move to a “digital” from an “analog” age, the results suggest that there is life in the old forms yet.
The College of Preachers of Durham University admits that the results are “counter-intuitive” — particularly in an age where “sermonising” is seen as a deadly sin. The college plans to carry out a larger study to discover why people like sermons so much.
The most recent survey, carried out by Durham’s Codec research centre to mark the 50th anniversary of the College of Preachers, offers preliminary suggestions.
Evangelical Christians looked forward most to sermons — hardly surprising in a movement begun by the preaching of John Wesley and spread to a new world by the urgent sermons of the American Great Awakening.
Roman Catholics were most keen on sermons that educated rather than challenged them. Baptists wanted sermons to convert them, Anglicans wanted to be entertained and members of the new, independent evangelical churches wanted to be challenged and encouraged.
Baptists and Catholics were also more enthusiastic about the Bible being mentioned in sermons than were Anglicans and Methodists.
The ideal length of a sermon also seems to divide the denominations. While many Anglicans wanted less than ten minutes — although up to 20 minutes was fine if there was no “waffle” — some Baptists wanted to sit through at least an hour and a quarter. Catholics, by contrast, wanted their homilies to be completed within ten minutes.
The results of the survey of 300 worshippers came as a surprise to church leaders. In spite of frequent exhortations from commentators for the Churches to “get with it” and embrace modern communications technology, many clergy do not use Facebook or Twitter and some even spurn the mobile phone. They prefer old-fashioned methods of communicating with parishioners, face to face on pastoral visits or preaching to them from their pulpits.
Most sermons are still structured along the lines laid down centuries ago by preaching pioneers such as John Donne and Wesley.
The best are inspirational invocations on how to live a better life in the grace of God; the worst, soporific ramblings that remind the congregation merely of how uncomfortable the pews are.
Dr Rowan Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury is patron of the College of Preachers, is among the church leaders who have signed the college’s jubilee pledge. This commits them to “forward-looking preaching, engaging faithfully with the Bible, directly with the congregation and prophetically with the world, to proclaim Jesus as Lord”.
In their report the Durham researchers admit to puzzlement that so many people looked forward to the sermons, and confess that more work was needed to find out why.
The report questions whether people look forward to the sermon so much for the content, the engagement, the entertainment, the theology or simply that it gives them time to switch off.
The Rev Katie Bruce, Fellow of St John’s Durham and director of preaching at Codec, said: “The results were not what we expected. Part of me wonders whether it was just that hope springs eternal.” In 2001 the Rev Chris Sterry, vicar of Whalley in Lancashire, set a new record for for sermon length when he spoke for 28 hours and 45 minutes.