I saw a quote the other day
“If you have a 4 minute sermon, speak for 4 minutes. Don’t waffle for 40 minutes.”
There’s good advise there. One mistake we can make as preachers is to go on for too long. We can go on beyond the attention span of the congregation but we can also go on beyond what we actually have to say, beyond what God has given us for the congregation. In fact, I would suggest that the problem is more likely to be this, than attention spans. There’s something in the attention span argument but not as much as is at times made out. Actually, our attention spans will adapt, especially if there is something worth listening to or watching. So, if people become distracted, it may not be that they aren’t accustomed to concentrating so much as they’ve detected that we’ve stopped saying anything of interest or use.
I wanted to make sure that I’d got that point in first because it is well worth hearing and nothing I’m about to say takes away from that. However, the original quote, allowing for a level of hyperbole begs two questions.
- If I’ve only got 4 minutes of material, do I actually have a sermon?
- Can the opposite also be true?
What I mean is this. Whilst some sermons have been ruined by the preaching going beyond what they actually have that is worth saying, plenty of sermons haven’t been sermons at all. The preacher has said far too little and they’ve managed to waffle even within the 4 – 5 minutes. You see, there may well be times when I want to quickly get across a crucial message. If speaking at a Christmas carol service, a funeral or a wedding or out in the open air, I might want to condense things down to be as sharp and to the point as possible.
However, if it’s Sunday morning and I’m opening up God’s Word, then I don’t want to rush what should be a precious moment as God speaks to the hearts of the people, together through his word. I want to give time to help people see what the Bible passage is saying, what it means, why its saying it and what it has to do with their life. I want to give space for the Holy Spirit to work. The quick 5 minute or even 10 minute homily doesn’t, in my opinion give space for this. It rushes things.
So, to answer the second question. Yes, it is possible that you have been given a 40 minute message to preach. If so, preach for 40 minutes. Don’t waffle on for 1 hour but don’t try and cram it all into 4 minutes.
What this may mean is that sometimes, if I think I’ve only got 4 minutes worth of material to preach, the answer may not be that I need to speed to the pulpit to deliver my 4 minutes of material. Maybe I need to spend a bit more time reading the passage, praying, wrestling and preparing to make sure I’ve heard everything I need to hear in order to pass the full message on.
Faithroots 