As the dominant medium of social expression, television is pervasive in a profound way that we seldom recognize fully. Because most of us get most of our information about the society most of the time from television, it becomes the primary social fact of our lives.2

-- James Monaco

Preaching Today While visiting many congregations I am constantly astonished to hear how much complaining there is about preaching. Faithful churchgoers find themselves wondering, "What's happened to good preaching?" "Where have all the good preachers gone?"

Preaching has fallen on hard times.

There are several reasons for this malaise. Some pastors don't work very hard on their sermons. Some are out of touch with their congregations. Others are ineffective public speakers. Much preaching is theological fluff. Another part of the problem is that people in the pews have such a wide range of expectations from the sermon that it is impossible to satisfy everybody.

Yet the truth is that many pastors work hard at their preaching, but sense it is not effective, and they cannot put their finger on the reasons why.

A fundamental reason for this situation is that we live in the midst of a massive communications revolution, which we have only begun to understand. This revolution inevitably affects the way people listen to sermons, and if we fail to take this into account in preaching we will not reach our audience.

The Communications Upheaval John Killinger, professor of preaching at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, set out to identify "some of the primary characteristics of our cultural epoch which ... might make important differences in the way we worship." His primary observation was:

"For one thing, the world has become Mediaville." We live with television, stereo, videotape, recording machines, computers, cameras, projectors, synthesizers, printing machines, duplicating machines -- every imaginable mechanical extension of the self. More than anything ... they have changed the time in which we live.3

We live in a radically new age of communication, which has a deep and permanent impact on how people listen. Richard A. Jensen, long-time preacher on the "Lutheran Vespers" national radio program, calls it the "post-literate age," in which electronic communication has replaced a reading culture and requires a radical shift in how we preach.4 Failure to realize this huge change dooms us to ineffective preaching.

The predominant feature of this revolution is television, which in the last 40 years has become the primary medium of public communication. It is a vastly different medium of communication from reading, and it is even quite different from person-to-person speaking.

We are preaching to a different audience than what existed a few decades ago. I call it the "TV audience," people whose primary medium of information and entertainment is television. This audience receives information and processes what they've seen and heard far differently than their grandparents.5 If we preach to them the same way we preached to previous generations, we shall fail to communicate. If we preachers do not understand the TV audience, we will be as effective as a movie theater which tries to draw crowds with jerky old black-and-white silent movies in this age of wide-screen, brilliant colors, Dolby sound and computer-produced graphics.

The concern of this book is: How has television affected the way people listen to and apprehend the spoken word, and how should we preachers respond?

From Orality To Print Ancient societies were oral. Without alphabets the only means of communicating words was to speak person to person. History and culture were transmitted by storytellers and poets speaking to their listeners.

In oral societies language was highly poetic, because rhythm and rhyme enabled people to remember. Stories were rich with figures of speech, color and repetition. Speaking often took on a ritual aura, with villagers gathered ceremoniously around the speaker. In the schools of the ancient world the art of speaking and persuasion -- rhetoric -- was at the heart of the academic curriculum.

The printing of the Gutenberg Bible on movable type over 500 years ago launched the age of mass-produced printing, and the shift from oral communication to printed communication was enormously accelerated. No longer were books limited to monasteries, churches and wealthy homes. Families could have the wisdom and learning of centuries at their fingertips on living room shelves. Communication through reading changed the oral world to a predominantly print world.

The printed page changed the style of communication drastically from that of the oral storyteller. The language of poetry and color gave way to prose and logic, because the printed page was suited to detailed, sequential, logical development of thought. Figures of speech designed to aid memory gave way to economical, precise prose, where one did not have to repeat words or ideas already stated.

The work and influence of great scholars spread across Europe. The work of Augustine, Aquinas, Newton, Kant and other such thinkers would have been inconceivable in an oral culture. Massive amounts of information could be packed into a small space. The sheer amount of information exploded, because one could keep track of it on paper and didn't have to remember it all. Modern science was born, because scholars could build upon the massive amount of information readily available on book shelves. They could write down their own discoveries on paper for thousands to read.

We became accustomed to learning through our eyes rather than through our ears. What student hasn't asked, "Why should I go hear the lecture, when I can sit here and read books a lot easier and faster?"

Naturally the world of print shaped preaching. Sermons were carefully prepared manuscripts, presenting a logical line of thinking. An idea could be expanded upon and considered from different view points. Preachers worked diligently on their manuscripts and read them from the pulpit. People became accustomed to lengthy expository sermons.

And Now Television, The Electronic Medium Oral and print cultures were both verbal. For centuries, whether spoken or written, words were the primary medium of communication in the western world. But today's new technology has vastly expanded the possibilities of communication. Roy P. Madsen, who teaches film production, notes that:

film and television, ... now offer forms of communication emancipated from the culture bound concepts of the printed word or immobile art. Visual meanings, expressed in movement, may now be sent from mind to mind through the eyes.6

This has vastly expanded the possibilities of communication. From the old oral stage of communication, followed by the print stage, we have now entered the electronic age of communication.

The shift from orality to print took centuries, but television has bullied its way past all other forms of communication in a very short time. It has become the predominant means not only of information but also of entertainment for almost everyone in the western world. It has caused a massive change in how we listen, learn and, yes, even think.

People today receive information about the world around them primarily not by speaking to each other, not even by reading a printed page, but by seeing images and listening to words transmitted electronically on a screen. Unlike a stage drama, where real people appear in front of us, the images of television and film are electronically conveyed. The television image darts about the world, or blitzes me with 50 images in one 30-second advertisement.

It is a more profound change than previous verbal stages of communication. Television combines seeing and hearing, but with a whole new set of dynamics which make it different from speaking or reading.

A Visual Medium Radio is a medium of hearing, with no visual component at all. Print is a medium of seeing letters on the page, with no hearing. At first glance television appears to be a return to the oral stage of communication, because we both see and hear people speak. It is, however, profoundly different, a new medium with its own distinctive dynamic.

Television is primarily a visual medium. The picture and the graphics are the heart of communication, not the words spoken. We speak of talk shows on television, but after watching them British writer Peter Conrad concluded:

On television, conversation has become a spectator sport ... Television talk is not conversation but a celebration of visibility ... Talk on television isn't meant to be listened to. The words merely gain for us the time to look at the talker.7

Television does not lend itself to speaking more than a minute or two. Viewers quickly tire of the sight of one speaker from one angle. Television preachers have learned that to maintain viewer interest as they preach, several cameras with different angles are used, zooming in and out, and occasionally showing the audience, the stained glass, fountains, flowers, or whatever -- in order to keep the image moving as they speak. Politicians use 30-second spots, knowing that few people would sit through a lengthy speech on television. Presidential debates are broken up into tiny segments of back-and-forth conversation, despite the foolishness of presenting a national economic policy in three minutes!

The visual nature of television has influenced other media as well. Magazines and newspapers carry many more pictures than they did in the past. Compare a newspaper or magazine from 50 years ago to those of today. They include many more pictures today than in the past. Teachers in schools, pastors in churches, leaders in business, campaigners in politics -- everybody pays more attention to such things as image, logos and interest-catching devices to keep their audiences.

Infotainment It is easy for preachers to become cynical about the realities of television. As a medium it is best suited for entertainment, and the television audience tends to expect sports, education and information to be presented in an entertaining way.8 No doubt that same conditioning shapes their expectations of worship services. There is also a premium on glamour, and plain people have little chance of becoming television stars. Would Abraham Lincoln or Charles Taft have a chance in today's presidential election?

Information, education and entertainment are all rolled into one medium on screen. Was Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK a presentation of history, a documentary, an argument for one view, an art form, or entertainment? For the most people in the audience it was all of the above, because films blur the distinctions. Books are suited to careful analysis and historical examination, but screen images are not. Columnist Ellen Goodman described the controversy about JFK as "a fuss made by a generation that reads and writes for the minds of a generation that watches and rewinds." Her concern was not the actual historical argument about the assassination, but the way electronic communication has changed all the rules of public rhetoric. She coins a new word to describe the new reality: "infotainment."

Those of us who are print people -- writers and readers -- are losing ground to the visual people -- producers and viewers. The younger generation gets its information and infotainment from television and movies. Less information. More infotainment. The franchise over reality is passing hands.9

It's no wonder we have become television junkies. The statistics of television watching are staggering. The average American today spends vastly more time in front of the television screen than in conversation with others, or reading newspapers, books or magazines. The average adult in America watches television four to five hours a day, more on weekends. We spend more total hours in front of television than on the job. In a lifetime the average American spends the equivalent of 13 years and four months watching television, far more time than in working, conversing with friends and family, physical activity, education, or reading. The only activity that outranks time spent in front of the tube is sleeping!

The statistics among young people are even higher. By the age of 18 the average youth has spent more time watching television than attending school. Among children, watching television far outranks playing or conversing with other people.

Some days our conversation shrinks to daily business items and idle small talk. If you are living with a family, figure out how much time you conversed with a spouse or a child yesterday and compare it with how much time you watched television. I know only one family and one individual who live without a television set!

A Wholistic Medium Electronic communication is more wholistic than speech or print alone, because it bombards our whole person. Not only are both eyes and ears captured, but the passage penetrates deep into our subconscious in ways we are not even aware of. It engages not only the left (verbal, linear, reasoning) side of our brain, but also the right side as well (spacial, impressionable, feeling).

Television and film overwhelm our senses with an emotional impact more immediate and powerful than speech or print alone. The public opposition to the war in Vietnam was undoubtedly accelerated when people saw the gruesome nature of war in their living rooms every night. We get a feel for political candidates by seeing them close-up on the screen. The destruction of the rainforests becomes more graphic when we watch the giant trees thunder to the ground. We can see and hear Luciano Pavarotti or the King's College choirboys from our living room chairs.

Because electronic communication engages the whole person, we have learned how integral non-verbal factors are in communication. This is a harsh reality, especially to a political candidate who may be homely and dull from the podium, but it is a reality. It also means that if a pastor speaks in a stern and angry fashion, no one in the audience will hear the message of God's love. Communication is more complex than we have previously thought, but understanding the wholistic nature of communication and the importance of non-verbal factors can help us a great deal in preaching.

An Impersonal Medium The nature of television carries with it a huge irony: It is an immensely powerful medium, saturating us with constant entertainment. Yet as an electronic medium it is wholly impersonal. Very seldom do I see anybody on television I know personally, and the people on the screen are a long way away from me. Even if my closest friend would appear on television in my living room, I am only a spectator and can't talk to him. I can peel potatoes, read a magazine or even talk to somebody else without offending the person on the screen. I can turn them off without irritating them. I don't have to listen at all. Many people keep the television on just to have company in the house, paying hardly any attention to it. Furthermore, frequent commercial breaks condition us to shift our attention frequently from what we're watching.

Television is the predominant means of communication in our age, using our whole sensory range as no other medium, and yet because we can turn it on and off at will, we are trained to become passive listeners! Instead of producing better listeners, television has produced an audience which doesn't listen very well at all -- a truth pastors face every Sunday!

New Wine -- Old Skins If television has so changed the style of communication for our people, how then do we preach to this audience? It doesn't work to serve the new wine of the gospel in the old skins of yesterday's communication style.

One of the problems is that the traditional education of pastors does not equip us to preach to a television audience. Quite the opposite. Education aims to make us good readers and writers, not oral communicators. Television is an oral, visual means of communication, but college, university and theological education is based on reading and writing. Lectures are basically written presentations read aloud, and we write down notes while listening. In our homework, we study our notes, read books, write papers and then take written tests. Except for occasional class discussions, communication in higher education is done through print. In today's schools the successful teachers are those with a long list of publications to their credit, not those who are skillful and imaginative as lecturers and teachers.

How different that is from ancient Greece, where rhetoric -- public speaking, debate and discussion -- was at the center of academic training! Rhetoric survived in the core curriculum of European universities well into the Renaissance years. Today however, classes in rhetoric can be held around a table in small seminar rooms, if indeed they are offered at all.

Particularly since the Gutenberg revolution of mass-produced books, orality has virtually died out of education. The advance of educational technology has pushed oral communication even further into the background -- with plentiful paper, modern typewriters, computers which even correct your spelling and the ubiquitous copy machine. The picture of a typical student today is not the debating forum of ancient Greek academies, or even a student speaking with a teacher, but students sitting by themselves in front of a glowing screen typing more words a minute than Aristophanes and Sophocles, or even Charles Dickens and Mark Twain a century ago, could ever have imagined possible.

For centuries sermons have been carefully written essays of sound theology and logic which were read before the congregation. Good preachers spent a lot of time writing their sermons. Even when preachers don't write them out in full, they are prepared mentally as essays.

In this new age of communication skill in reading and writing is as indispensable as ever. Good preachers still write their sermons out. But as a form of oral communication, simply reading a well-crafted essay doesn't work in the pulpit anymore. Maybe it never did work as well as we would like to think!

The problem is that the standards of good writing are quite different from the norms of oral communication or television communication. A sermon might look splendid on paper, and it may be a superb sermon when one reads it silently, but it may not work at all from the pulpit. Too many fine sermons from a theological or pastoral viewpoint fall flat from the pulpit.

It has been said that wars are lost by the army which is still using the weapons of the previous war and won by the army which has figured out the next stage of new weapons. In the 1990s we are preaching to this television audience, but our sermons are crafted more for the reading audience of the 1890s. Richard Jensen speaks of the failure of "literate" churches to adapt to the new "post-literate" media age:

I believe the root of the crisis in the church is its failure to recognize and adapt to the quickly dawning world of electronic communication ... As the media changes, and as people are changed by the media, preaching must undergo significant change in order to communicate effectively.10

We preachers may be working hard, but with the wrong medium.

The Rhetorical Challenge On Sunday morning we find ourselves standing in front of people whose main form of communication is to watch electronic images on a screen. They are hungry for the good news of the gospel, but often it is not getting through to them. The heart of our ministry is communication, but we have ignored this massive change in communication media and continue to preach much the same way preachers have for centuries. It isn't working anymore. No wonder we're frustrated!

We have assumed that the basic task of preaching is sound theology. This is of course true, but today the rhetorical challenge is as important as the theological.

Must we capitulate to television and make our worship services as zippy as Sesame Street and our sermons as entertaining as a Jay Leno monologue? Can preaching be saved only by gimmickry? Is the age of preaching gone for good?

Not at all! There is now, and never will be, no substitute for the spoken word of preaching. To sell out to this new medium age and deliver sermons as frothy after-breakfast entertainment would be a shabby response to the magnificent calling of gospel preaching.

In spite of all the electronic wizardry of television, words are still what makes us human. The Christian Gospel cannot be communicated without them. Jesus is the Word of God made incarnate, and the good news of salvation needs words to be told. The true treasure of the church is still "the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God," and it must still be spoken and heard to be conveyed.