Some of you will be following a little debate I’ve been involved in on whether or not we should be encouraging people to take notes during sermons. Alistair Chalmers wrote positively in favour of note taking here, I responded with the case against note taking here and finally, Steve Kneale offered this conclusive response, taking time to tell us that actually he doesn’t care!
Well, in some respects, my own position isn’t that dissimilar to Steve’s. Do I really care that strongly about whether you are scribbling in your note pad? Am I about to descend from the lectern, snatch your paper from your hand, snap your pen in half and have you evicted from the hall. You will be relieved to know that I won’t, no more than I suspect that Alistair is handing pens and pads out at the door. The fact that I happily shared Alistair’s article in my round up should help give a feel to the importance I attach to the disagreement. I am not legalistically seeking to impose a rule which says that no one ever should take notes. Like Steve, I would take the line that you need to find out what works for you.
Though, I’m not sure that this means that we don’t care at all. Actually, there are two senses in which we do care. First, because we want people to be helped, then if through observation, investigation, experience, we’ve found that something is helpful or unhelpful, then we will care about it enough to share with others. So, I differ slightly from Steve, when I talk about note taking, not using power-points etc I’m not just saying “those things don’t work for me”. I’m saying that from all of my observations and all of my conversations with others, I think the best evidence is that they don’t normally work in most cases. For example, whenever I talk to classroom teachers, I discover that lots of the things that were brought into classroom practice and then copied in churches a few years afterwards are now being reacted against, the trend has swung the other way. So, we copied schools and Universities in making use of over head projectors and then power point and those have become common but guess what? All the conversations among pedagogists at the moment are about how to reduce the amount of additional, supporting material in order to guard against dual processing.
So, I do care a bit because I’m not convinced that note taking is that helpful overall, particularly when we think about what we are attempting to do with sermons. If a sermon is not meant to be a lecture to communicate information then how helpful is note taking, even if it is helpful for lectures (which I’m not convinced it is either).
Now, the extent to which I care and am dogmatic about this is controlled by three things, first the recognition that there is discussion and dispute, second the word “normally” and thirdly the word “most”. I’m not dogmatic on this because there may be some people who find that in some contexts that note taking helps. My point is a generalised one. This means that I’m not going to be worried if someone is taking notes, it means that I may even opt to take notes myself sometimes.
I do suspect though that the reasons why note taking helps us sometimes are less to do with the notes themselves and more to do with things that keep us from becoming passive. If so, there is a risk that we encourage note taking because it is more convenient and less disruptive to us than other forms of engagement such as interruptions to question or challenge.
Secondly, we care because we care about other things more. What Steve, Alistair and I all have in common is that we care that you are engaging with God’s Word, that you are remembering, recalling, applying, that you are hearers and doers of God’s Word. On a side note, I’m not even sure that “remembering” is the biggest aim. I suspect most of us have heard sermons that we can no longer recall but that doesn’t mean they weren’t effective in working God’s change in our lives. The impact of a sermon I can’t remember may well have been greater than one where I can remember it word for word.
However, if there are other things that I care about more, then I will care about the note taking in so far as it either aids or hinders the things we care about. So, I’m not just saying “don’t take notes”, I’m saying “prioritise these things over note taking.” And, Steve is right, I cannot read your heart, I don’t know if you are truly engaged, I don’t know if you are putting into practice what you’ve heard. I know that my teachers at school often worried that I looked like I was half asleep and distracted but when they questioned me, I knew exactly what was going on in the lesson. This doesn’t mean that closing your eyes and yawning is helpful to active listening, it just means I was able to listen, despite those things. Meanwhile, I know of people who could look you in the eyes, smile, nod encouragingly and maybe even repeat back to you what you’ve said but they haven’t really listened. I’ve seen people moved to tears by sermons and leave church unchanged. So, I’m not saying that if you put you do the things I talked about in my second article that you will definitely engage with the preaching in a life changing way. I’m simply saying, that generally speaking, usually those thnings are helpful and in my opinion, more beneficial than note taking.
However, to re-emphasise, the crucial point is not whether you take notes or not. Do whatever is helpful for you. The crucial point is whether you are engaging and responding as God speaks to you through the preaching of the word and whether that is resulting in change in your life.
Faithroots 