The Mikado saw sermons as punishments befitting the crime:
All prosy dull society sinners,
Who chatter and bleat and bore,
Are sent to hear sermons
From mystical Germans
Who preach from ten till four.
Happily such long sermons are out of fashion. Last Sunday's sermon was no doubt shorter. But how much do you remember of it?
According to Confucius:
I hear and I forget
I read and I remember
I do and I understand
That doesn't sound very promising. Furthermore we are often told that people remember:
-
- 10 percent of what they hear;
- 20 percent of what they read;
- 30 percent of what they see;
- 50 percent of what they see and hear;
- 70 percent of what they say; and
- 90 percent of what they do and say
Sounds like mere sermons are a waste of time, so should we abolish sermons?
Wait a minute. Before jumping to any conclusions, it is as well to know that these much-repeated figures are entirely bogus, and are based on no research at all:
https://www.worklearning.com/2015/01/05/mythical-retention-data-the-corrupted-cone/
In fact it is doubtful whether any meaningful statistics on the subject actually do exist, or could exist. Nor did Confucius ever write those seemingly wise words.
For instance, do we really remember more of what we see on television than hear on the radio? Does a sermon with Powerpoint slides make more of a mark, or is the technology just a distraction??
So do sermons have any value at all?
Yes and no.
I have come away little the wiser (or better) after some sermons. Some may be eminently forgettable, although unfortunately some of the most memorable are the egregiously bad ones.
What makes for a good sermon? I think it is hard to generalise. Often times a sermon which really strikes home for one person may be just run of the mill for another. I have known occasions when I have felt that the preacher had read my mind and was preaching to me personally, it may happen to others on different occasions. But more often I think that the steady flow of sermons has a sort of baseline effect. We perhaps don't recall in detail what the preachers said week by week but they have a gradual effect by a sort of osmosis.
Perhaps there is hope for preachers after all!
And by the way, if you can't remember what our Minister Revd Mark Rodgers said last week, he publishes it on his blog at:
https://sheshbazzarnow.wordpress.com/
David Tidy