The Sermon Sucking Black Hole
The Sermon Sucking Black Hole
The Sermon Sucking Black Hole is the title of a book by David R. Mains. I found this book in the pile in my study that I hope to get to some day. I was intrigued by the title, of course. For those of you who are not aware, a black hole in space forms when a star collapses. In this process, the mass of the star becomes compressed, and a gravitational pull is created that is so strong even light can’t escape. Thus the name: a black hole.
For example,) our sun has a diameter of about 865,000 miles. If it collapsed, it would become compressed to a diameter of less than four miles. All nearby heavenly bodies would be sucked into the hole.
Now, what does that have to do with preaching? Mains uses that metaphor to describe what happens to our sermons. We preach them with such passion on Sunday. But on Monday, it’s like they have been sucked into a black hole. People don’t remember them–that is Main’s conclusion after several surveys and personal conversations.
What Causes The Sucking Black Hole?
The Problem Is The Listeners
There are a couple of ways to determine the cause of the sucking black hole when it comes to your sermons. We can look at surveys of Christians who worshipped on Sunday. Those are especially challenging. For instance, one that I read years ago (and, unfortunately, I can’t give you the reference) indicated that by Monday the people who remember the best will remember 25% of your message. By Wednesday, they remember only 10%. And by Friday? Almost nothing if the message hasn’t been supported by discussion or other kinds of studies.
So, we could easily say that the problem is that people have to learn to be better listeners. That is probably true, and we will examine suggestions to attain that goal later in this series of posts.
The Problem is the Sermon
On the other hand, we could look at the critiques that listeners have of our sermons. These are things that listeners say keep them from focusing on the messages we preach, and contribute to the sermon sucking black hole in their experience. What are those problems? Mains summarizes the critiques with these words:
- Too Many ideas
- Too much spiritual jargon/too theological
- Too few illustrations
- Too much about the problem, not enough about the solution
- Too unrelated to peoples’ lives
- Too long and/or boring
Ouch! Is that you?
Reversing the Gravitational Pull of the Black Hole
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that most posts focus on how to improve our preaching so that the sermon sucking black hole is not a reality in your ministry. Specifically, this post in another context identifies some of the same criticisms listed above, and begins to address them. Having said that, I want to focus on this again, using some of the things that I am learning from Mains’ book as our guide.
So, stay tuned. Hopefully, by the end of this next series of posts we will destroy the sermon sucking black hole in our preaching and become more effective–to the glory of the one who called us to preach.
