[00:00:00] Jeremy Pryor: part of the cost of sermonizing that is not being counted is the pacification of the hearer.
[00:00:05] Let's say you sit there and you listen to a hundred sermons over the next two years. One or two of those sermons actually stick with you and change your life in some positive way.
[00:00:14] Those other 98 sermons you listened to that didn't do anything for you, that didn't really change your life, those actually might have done damage.
[00:01:16] Hey everybody, welcome back to the 1000 houses podcast, where I get to talk about church things that for those of you guys who might live over in the family teams world, or even in the JPP, Jeremy Pryor podcast, I don't talk about as much, but this is where I try to keep it into a, into a nice walled space.
[00:01:39] Jeremy Pryor: I have a lot of friends who are very engaged in traditional church ministry who get really annoyed with me when I talk too much about. Churchy things. So I'm over here. We're in the 1000 houses land where we can talk about churchy things. All right. So if you're here, you're here for this, right?
[00:01:54] You're here for this. Everybody's okay. April, are we here for this? How are you? Are you here for this? Are you okay with me talking about church stuff? Okay.
[00:02:00] April Pryor: I'm here for this. I'm here for anything.
[00:02:04] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. See, this is, this is what marriage is. So awesome. Like she has to like go with me into all these weird places that I, I like to, there's a lot of places that are harder to go than, than critiquing traditional church there's like, yeah, but here we are.
[00:02:20] In a, in traditional church land, talk about what's going on here. So yeah, April, I want to get your take. I, I, um, I was really wrestling with this topic again. Um, so there's a number of topics that are, I think, really important to explore. I, I do not. I'm not like anti traditional church worship services. We go to worship services.
[00:02:43] I frequently will go and preach at traditional churches. We don't believe in sort of an all or nothing perspective on this topic. So we're not like jaded anti institutional church people at all. We do think there are things that, especially when there is a better alternative, then I get more intense about it.
[00:03:06] So if it's filling a gap and I'm like, I don't know that that may be the best way to do it, or we just don't have a better way. So we got to kind of deal with. reality. Um, I tend to be very gentle, not to, not to criticize things, um, because reality is very difficult. And if you've come up, like, it's really easy to criticize things and not have a, not have a constructive alternative.
[00:03:32] And what's, what's the use of that, right? Um, it's just tearing things down, right? However, I do think there are constructive alternatives. to the weekly sermon. And so I, I, uh, this is one area I tend not to pull punches on because I think, I think we need to have this conversation. So I'm going to, I'm going to read to April something I wrote this morning and.
[00:03:57] Um, and then kind of explore some different aspects of, of why this particular tradition is increasingly getting under my skin.
[00:04:05] So it goes like this. We have an epidemic of weak, passive, unfruitful disciples in the West. And one of the root causes that few are willing to consider is our obsession with the weekly sermon. Sermons require the least amount of work or active engagement from the hearer, and thus they are uniquely effective at pacifying the disciple.
[00:04:29] Sometimes when we shop for a better sermonizer, we're secretly seeking to do even less work. If he tells better stories, funnier jokes, or even has done more preparation, that requires even less from us, less effort to pay attention, and less personal study. Great teachers know that learning requires active engagement.
[00:04:55] Tension is created through interaction and discovery results. Don't think that sermons are synonymous with teaching. Teaching in the Bible was most often interactive and required a lot from the hearer. The lecture is the least effective means of teaching, but it allows two things, both the audience. And the sermonizer want most.
[00:05:18] The audience wants to do less work and the sermonizer wants to be able to teach at an economically viable scale. Remember, we are not called to deliver and consume sermons, but to make and multiply disciples. If you are doing the one and not the other, you have a serious problem. He who has ears.
[00:05:41] I wanted to like tease out a few of the aspects of that, because I think what I'm trying to zero in on here is a couple of the specific critiques that I think are important to have. And so one is the assumption that teaching and sermons are synonymous. I think we need to really work to disentangle this and talk about all the different ways of learning and teaching.
[00:06:04] that are not synonymous with the way that sermons are most often done in our culture. Then there's this whole topic of, of the fact that they pacify the hearer. And this is one that I think is probably very little understood or appreciated. So Marshall McEwen, famous sort of sociologist philosopher, he said the medium is the message.
[00:06:28] And his point is the way you deliver something, there's the content you're delivering, but the way you're delivering it is also. It's, it's, it's a powerful part of the message and sometimes it's the main part of the message. So he was a famous, uh, sort of critic of TV because he said, look, if you deliver the exact same content through that medium, the medium itself delivers a particular message and can in many cases, um, dilute the message or change the message.
[00:06:59] And I would say that the sermon itself, while you might hear, and I have heard amazing sermons that have changed my life. So I think one of the things that needs to be said is, is oftentimes people will react to this and say, well, no, no, no, I, I can, I, Jeremy, I can tell you a time where I heard a sermon and it really, spoke to me and it actually impacted me.
[00:07:21] So you can't tell me that sermons are totally ineffective or that they don't teach you or you don't learn anything. And I'm not saying that. Um, I'm saying that if you took everything that we're doing to prop up this tradition and you, and use different methods, I think we would go further. This is, this is the sort of the good is is enemy of the best.
[00:07:42] So, and, and part of the way that I think, part of the cost of sermonizing that is not being counted is the pacification of the hearer. So let's say you sit there and you listen to a hundred sermons over the next, you know, two years. And one or two of those sermons actually stick with you and change your life in some positive way.
[00:08:05] You heard, they recommended a book that you then read and it changed your life or they've just unlocked a concept that really helped you in your walk with God. Totally could have happened, has happened to me, happens all the time. Those other 98 sermons you listened to that didn't do anything for you, that didn't really change your life, those actually might have done damage.
[00:08:26] And so part of what you have to do is quantify the damage done with the positive. And that, that part of the equation is not often being done. So I want to tease that out and like, make sure that we take a minute to understand, okay, what is this pacification that's, that's occurring? And then I would say just the, the fact that we have a mandate to go and make disciples, to teach people, to obey everything that Jesus commanded.
[00:08:53] We need to be very thoughtful about how we're doing that and that we're using the best possible methods and that our discipleship. is, is creating multiplication. And there's something I think unique as well about the obsession around the weekly sermon, that if I have heard a weekly sermon, I can check this magical box in my head and my heart that says, I've gone to church and I've done the right thing.
[00:09:13] And I feel good about, The fact that I have, I fully engaged in this, this thing called Christianity, the religion of Christianity, like that, that incredibly tight association that's been created over the years, um, I think itself is making it very difficult to see that many of us participating in this sermonizing are actually not doing.
[00:09:33] The most basic thing that Jesus commanded us to do. And that is to make disciples. So, um, yeah, I'd love to like drill down into any of those, those elements, but April, what did that, what's that to you? Or can you moderate me as well? Is there something you're like, Jeremy, this, that's too, that's too harsh or this like, like, feel free to say anything, uh, anything that this is stirring up for you.
[00:09:51] I'm curious how, how you hear this.
[00:09:54] April Pryor: Well, I think, um, you're hitting a nail on the head for, for me. Um, When you're talking about like, kind of like the pacification of the audience, so to speak. Um, so if you're, you know, you're picturing a sermon, there's a lecture and there's an audience. And so the audience is filled with people from maybe all walks of life, but they chose to be there that morning and they, Or that evening and they're, um, actively listening in some regard and they're taking stuff in and depending on who they are, where they are, they're like, they're there to like take notes or get really into it or let it change their heart.
[00:10:38] Or they're just there because they're, this is what you do. But either way, it's very hard to walk away from a sermon. And live a different life, um, or allow, allow that time to have me, you know, given you an epiphany like you said, it is possible, and that could be the sermon that changed that one person's perspective on something. It's a very complicated topic and I think that what we have done with the way we handle sermons is we have made it how many of our people are in the audience?
[00:11:18] We've made them into audience members instead of just people makers. Jesus didn't say go sit in an audience and be taught. Um, he go listen to these things. And I'm, and I'm not saying we shouldn't get teaching. We need to grow in our understanding of things. We need to be, um, going deeper in, you know, what different, Passages of scripture mean, like, we definitely need to be students of the word.
[00:11:41] We need to be meditating on the Lord, the word day and night. So there's a lot that we need to be, um, you know, even just until intellectually. Right.
[00:11:51] Jeremy Pryor: We need more teaching, not less.
[00:11:52] April Pryor: Um,
[00:11:53] Jeremy Pryor: yes.
[00:11:56] April Pryor: Right. Yes. But I think that the, the audience member is being cheated because they're, they're being pacified in such a way that makes them think they're doing the right thing.
[00:12:07] And it's like actually just a religion that you're following. And it's not the obedience of a disciple that is sold out following Christ. Following Jesus who said, go and make disciples. And like that act alone is not doing that. So like you said, if, what if, what if there was that same person that led that sermon was having you over for coffee at their house and you're sitting on their couch and you're having this, they're, they're like, Um, basically like kind of saying the sermon to you, maybe in a more conversational way and you're able to kind of push back or ask a question or like kind of dig into it.
[00:12:49] Like you said, the method, like I think that that, uh, the topics or the bullet points that the sermonizer is trying to get across might actually stick more in the context of a conversation, um, in the context of a living room or a, just like a, a conversation. You know, daily life type of a thing. And so what, what does that mean?
[00:13:13] What do we do with that?
[00:13:14] It just makes it confusing. It makes it confusing for the receiver to know, am I in charge of this? Are you in charge of this? Am I supposed to own what I'm like, you know, in taking, um, am I on the look for the hunt for a sermon about a particular topic, which nowadays, oh my goodness, we have at our fingertips, we could have 10 sermons a day if we wanted to with podcasts.
[00:13:40] Um, with, you know, pastors teaching on YouTube or like all kinds of stuff. Like we are not, um, the lack of getting good teaching. Like that's not a problem these days. So why are we still doing this? Like sermon, go to a sermon once a week. That's a big question. And I, I am getting really kind of fed up with the amount of passivity that exists in, um, really good hearted people who are just like, it's just too much to figure out right now.
[00:14:15] We're just, it's just like, we just have to do this, you know,
[00:14:19] Jeremy Pryor: I feel I need to feel like a good Christian. And so what's, what is the, what is the. What is the lowest barrier that's going to make me feel the most, um, like I'm doing the right thing. And, and that's when people opt in for, I went to a church, I sang the songs, I listened to sermon.
[00:14:37] You know, okay. You know, in, in a, in a busy, difficult season of my life. And I actually feel like it's a fair question. I mean, you're, you know, you've got a young mom who's got like little kids and, um, somebody should answer her question. Like what, what is, you know, in a, in a season where I'm already feeling overwhelmed and almost burned out.
[00:14:54] Um, what's the least I can do and be. fulfilling exactly what Jesus expects me as a disciple to do. And so if somebody were to say, well, yeah, that's basically, you know, go to worship service, you know, um, three or four times a month, go to a small group two or three times a month and you're good, you know, great.
[00:15:10] Awesome. Let's do it. I can, I'll check those boxes. It won't be easy. We'll make it happen. Um, and so we do owe people and answer that question. And we're going to, in this podcast, go into detail on the alternatives to sermons. We've talked a lot about that. We're going to do many more on that. We have a whole courses on this.
[00:15:25] We have, like, how to, how to start at Midrash, you know, how to actually read a part of the scripture, you know, what April and I both have a practice of, um, of training people to follow and obey Jesus as we walk through the Gospels. It's very interactive. Everything that we do on a teaching level is highly interactive, designed to be highly interactive.
[00:15:42] That's really my critique here. Now, the thing that, Um, we started to touch, that was kind of new for me when I was writing this, I'd never thought about before. And I was like, I need to really think about this. And that is, okay, the, the family, um, that is going to, let's say, I had this picture of a family going to a worship service in a small church and sitting there being kind of bored.
[00:16:02] Like, Oh, this guy's not that good at it. Like, you know, I've, I'm sitting here week after week. We drove past like eight churches on the way here. Maybe some of those guys are better at, they're easier to listen to. Yeah. And so, you know, all right, after several years of being a part of this community and listening to these, you know, semi boring sermons, now we're going to go to the church that's led by the most dynamic speaker in the entire city.
[00:16:28] And his jokes are hilarious and his stories are inspiring. And like, Oh, I can sit there. And I like, I only get bored, like maybe once every 30 minutes sermon. Ooh, wow. That's so much easier to check this box. I realized, Oh my gosh, that person they're, they're, they're learning passivity even more than they were learning when they were in that small church, having to listen to that boring sermon, because that person now.
[00:16:54] Who's sitting through that amazing speaker is like, like they're, they're contributing even less to the conversation. Um, and now the answer to that is not find the most boring person you possibly can in your city and sit through their sermons. The answer is there's something wrong with this entire setup when, when you get to the pinnacle of it.
[00:17:13] It's pacifying you even more. Like, that's not good. Um, that's, that's kind of what I started realizing when I was writing this. I'm like, when you find a better sermonizer, and this, this is why one of the things I believe, one of the truest things you can say about a sermon, that it is performance art. It is, it should be in that category.
[00:17:33] It's performance art in that you go to a seminary, you learn how to perform. And as you get better and better at performing, your, your audience is going to grow and grow and grow. And there are people that are absolutely spectacular at the performance art, just in the same way that if you were to go to the best, you know, the best, uh, theater company in the city, you're going to have a better experience.
[00:17:57] If you go to the best, the best, the best. Orchestra in the, in the whole city. You're gonna have a better experience than you go to the high school orchestra. And if you go to the best sermonizer in your city, he has discovered the performance art of sermonizing. That's what he has done. And now he is delivering it in a mass way.
[00:18:17] And he's getting massive economic benefit from, from being able to get to the top of this heap. And this is why I just, I opted out of the entire, once I realized it was performance art, that was probably the biggest red pill moment for me when I was just like, I, I, it does. I think, I think there's something dangerous to the, to the sermonizer.
[00:18:36] And this is why I, I preach very few sermons a year. If I could never do it again, I probably would be even happier, but I think that's would not be obedient. I think the Lord calls me to, to speak to certain churches and, and so I'll fill their pulpits in a, you know, in a season because that's, that is what I feel like I can do to reach those people.
[00:18:56] But I never walk up that stage and not feel terribly conflicted about what I'm about to do. Um, and I think as I go deeper into the reasons why this is problematic, the one again that surprised me in this was, Not only does it pacify people, but getting to the pinnacle of the best sermonizer in your city.
[00:19:18] And I'm using the word sermonizer and not pastor because I have a huge respect for the position of pastor. Um, and that is somebody who has a calling to shepherd a flock of people. Somebody who has a heart of a shepherd, but we have decided in a traditional sense to fuse the sermonization and the pastoral.
[00:19:36] That's not, in my opinion, biblical. That's a, that's a traditional decision. We've decided to do that. Um, I like to disentangle those things. I love pastors. I love people who have a heart to shepherd people. I think the idea that, that they're, um, spending, you know, 10, 15, 20 hours a week, Preparing for a sermon.
[00:19:53] And, and part of what I even wrote in the, in this, in this thread was that even if they get to a much more economic sort of industrial level of delivery, where there's a much larger crowd, what this does is it allows them even more time to spend preparing for the sermon and that then allows the audience hearer, the audience member, To become even more passive.
[00:20:19] That's what I'm saying. There's, there's, there's a really weird equation here that I'd never, I'd never seen before between the, um, the skill of the sermonizer and the passivity of the audience, and they're actually linked. Do you think this is, this surprised me. This is what I was like, why wouldn't you want to go to the best sermonizer in your entire city?
[00:20:38] If you were looking for a church, but, um, and to your point, April part, part of what really is difficult on this end of things is if you engage people in a Bible study, you invite them over to your house and you got 20 people and you're like, we're going to go deeper and spend the next two hours. You know, I'm going to teach through the book of Hebrews and we're going to like have this interaction.
[00:20:56] One of the things you'll discover as we have discovered, since we host these things all the time, interactive Bible studies, interactive learning experiences, I'm a huge fan of teaching. Um, when you do that, people have a passive posture and it takes us a ton of time to disrupt that. And that passive posture was learned through decades of listening to sermons.
[00:21:19] Um, like that passive posture, I don't think is just natural. I think that it's been, it's a learned behavior that you have to help people come out of. Um, which again is what, like your point, that's, that's something that is sort of like, it's an uncounted cost of this tradition where, you know, it's easy to count the cost, the positive benefits.
[00:21:39] Again, you've listened to a hundred sermons. You heard one amazing one. You're like, wow, that really helped me. You didn't, you're not counting. We're not counting the negative costs.
[00:21:47] April Pryor: and I think if you're listening to this and you're someone who is living a life that is very busy and you're like, I, I don't know what you guys are saying, but I can't even think of a creative solution.
[00:22:01] Um, like if you're a mom of young children, or maybe you're a man who's working or, you know, 60 hours a week or starting a new business or doing, you know, like we just moved and we have a ailing parent and like, there's all these things. And I, and I just want to encourage you because I think that that is just true about life.
[00:22:20] And James really challenges us to be, um, doers of the word and not just hearers only. And so we need to believe these things in our heart, but then we also need to put them into action. And, and so, yes, how we treat people and how we handle situations in our daily life and how we. Make decisions about where we live and all those things are, are ways that we can, you know, practice what we preach, so to speak, but also how we are using our time, um, and how, what, what box we think we're checking is, is very, um, it's a question I really challenged people to think about is what do, what box do we think we're checking by going to a sermon?
[00:23:02] And, um, And is that one that Jesus is asking us to check, um, because the implications are really serious. If, if you are doing it too, because you think you're supposed to, or you think it's the right thing to do, um, then, you know, I would, I would just encourage you to reevaluate that through the eyes of scripture and see, um, what you come up with because it's, it's a real, I think we have to kind of pull the, pull the veil back and see behind it and say, what is actually going on here?
[00:23:36] Why is this, why has this become so elevated? A sermon becomes so elevated in the Christian mindset. Yeah.
[00:23:46] Jeremy Pryor: It's, it's really good to think about the sermon as one of maybe 20 tools in a teacher's, uh, tool belt. And, um, what's this appropriate situation in which a 30 to 40 minute lecture is the best way to teach.
[00:24:04] And I do think there are situations where that, that may be the best tool, just given the dynamics situation, you got very limited amount of time. You got a specific group of people. It's a large audience. You need to deliver this thing. And that's all the time you have. I could think of so many things I'd rather do with that time.
[00:24:19] Right. But if you, if you look at the way that most, um, most schools are designed that are really effective at teaching. Um, they're not designed this way where the audience has to stay silent the entire time. Um, and if they are, it's just, it's usually, it's an economic decision. And that's the thing that I've, I was trying to point out in this, um, maybe the most controversial thing that I wrote was in this, in this thread, um, was trying to explain why this is so popular.
[00:24:48] And it says, um, the, uh, the lecture is the least effective means of teaching, but it allows the two things, both the audience and the sermonizer want most. The audience wants to do less work and the sermonizer wants to be able to teach at an economically viable scale. Um, that there's a deal that's being exchanged in that, in that room.
[00:25:10] Every time I walk into a church service and I see, you know, all these people sitting there passively and this one guy, you know, sitting at the top at a, at a pulpit. I feel this exchange is being made. I'm like, they, the deal is, you know, we're going to do less down here. You're, you know, and we're going to make what you're doing economically viable.
[00:25:32] Um, now there, there are churches where that's more or less true. There are churches that are really good at like at serving really good at disciple making, but they are the exception. And so often, this is the exchange that's ultimately being made. And I think it's really important you walk into a, walk into a worship service and look at that exchange and say, is, is this happening?
[00:25:50] Like, is, is this really the reason this tradition is so elevated? Um, is the reason because these people are trying to figure out what's the box I could check that's going to require the least of me, including making sure that we have somebody that's, Less boring at the stage and is that person saying to him or herself?
[00:26:10] Oh, um, if I deliver this well, and I give the audience what they want, which is a less boring experience, something that's somewhat inspirational, you know, something that'll that'll tell them something. Maybe they didn't know. then, then I will be able to have a viable economic life. Um, and I, I, I think there are churches where that, and I would, I think it's a, it's a shockingly high percentage where that is the primary business they're in is that, is that, is that, that's, that's the the spiritual, um, uh, sort of marketplace or exchange of services that's actually occurring in the room.
[00:26:53] Again, I think there are exceptions to this. I think there are really, really vibrant churches that are, that are very, um, that, that do not put up with this problem. And there are, there are leaders who are pushing against this. Uh, they're looking for more ways of figuring out how to make sure that people are making disciples, that people are taught, um, but, but there, there's a, there's a shocking number of churches.
[00:27:14] If you just went from one church to another, just randomly and walked in and saw so many churches, you'll see that there's literally like a room of like, that could fit 200 people. There's like 40 people in this room and there's a person up there. And I'm like, what exactly is happening here? Like they don't know each other.
[00:27:30] They're not really living life together, but they're all coming every week and that person's, and they'll keep doing this exchange until there's like no money left. And that's usually the trigger where it all collapses. It doesn't collapse because the teaching's not, you know, effective. It usually collapses economically, which always is sort of a tip off to me that.
[00:27:50] That what's happening is primarily an economic exchange. And that's the reason why that's the, that's the trigger for the collapse. Um, so anyway, this is a pretty challenging critique. I'm sure this is why I'm like trying to keep this in my little, if you've, if you've stumbled into the one cage world and you're like, this is, this is not what I want from you guys, you don't have to come back.
[00:28:09] Um, but we do really like, I care about this stuff deeply. Like there's a part of me that I feel. You know, April and I both feel called to like, figure out, uh, as a household, like how to make disciples. And so when we, when we butt up against real, uh, obstacles, even if they are sacred cows like the sermon, we're probably going to say something maybe over here in this corner.
[00:28:31] You know, um, but we're going to challenge these things and ask pretty uncomfortable questions. And so, I don't know, do you have anything more you want to say to round that one out?
[00:28:42] April Pryor: Um, well, just to reiterate that there's so, we have so much content out there about, uh, like the alternative or alternative possibilities.
[00:28:53] So, um, keep going down the rabbit hole of the content of one K H if you, if this kind of Ruffles your feathers and you want to know what it could be on the other side.
[00:29:05] Jeremy Pryor: Yes. Yeah. Jump into like life on life discipleship. Um, you know, there's, there's, we, we like to very gently bring people into a place of fruitfulness, whether it's in your family, you're being unfruitful, you're not having children and raising your kids, or you're not making disciples.
[00:29:19] If you're off mission, Genesis one 28, or you're off mission, mission, Matthew 28, like we're here to help you guys try to figure out how to do that. So awesome. Well, thank you guys for listening in April. Thanks for jumping on here today.
