Preaching as Communication

Christian Principles of Communication and the Mission of the Church

Introduction:
Gerhard Von Rad, a German Old Testament scholar, once said that, the best sermon he ever heard was given in the middle of World War11- some of the darkest days for the Germans. With bombs exploding all around and fear striking the hearts of all Germans, this tiny congregation had gathered to hear a young inexperienced preacher. When he stood up to preach, he gingerly and carefully opened up the Bible to his text as if he were, Von Rad said, unwrapping a package of dynamite.
Lives are changed through mere words – may be that is the only way we ever change. Every effort to trace man’s ability to use words in the theory of communication is as old as ancient rhetoric itself. From its earliest beginnings, the church has agonized over language in order to communicate its message. This paper will discuss the emergence of preaching as communication and its impact on the listeners.

The Nature of the Church:
Since Christian preaching has such importance, it is necessary to understand its nature. In the New Testament. Preaching is the proclamation of glad tidings. It is a person receiving a message from God and sharing that message with other people. T.H. Pattison wrote, “ Preaching is the communication of divine truth with a view to persuasion. Henry Sloan Coffin arrived at essentially the same concept. For him “ preaching is truth through personality to constrain conscience at once. Christian preaching could be defined in this way: Preaching is the proclamation of God’s message by a chosen personality to meet the needs of humanity. This definition gives three basic elements in preaching. God’s message, the chosen personality or preacher, and the needs of human beings.

Biblical Understanding of Preaching:
The word preaching appeared in the Old Testament Jonah 1:2; 3:2 & 4 and in Isaiah 61:1. In all these preaching is referred as a commission of proclamation of the righteousness of God, proclaiming the divine judgment. Preaching is also a call to repentance. Therefore to take preaching in a nutshell, preaching is to herald the good news or the gospel. Herald means, announcement. so preaching is always understood as announcement. The prophets understood preaching in Old Testament as proclaiming the judgement, repentance. Such a habit of preaching was practiced in synagogue. This type of preaching may be viewed one – way communication.
In New Testament, preaching is also considered as proclaiming or heralding. We fine some examples in Matt 3:1; Mark 1:14; Acts 10:42; 1Cori 1:23; the understanding of preaching is to evangelize .The word ‘to evangelize’ is to proclaim the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is to transfer the story of Jesus to the people. Therefore the preaching now is not one-way. Such a proclamation has transcended the understanding of merely announcing (heralding). To communicate the message of the Good News so that the audience (Receptor) may understand such proclamation and announcement.

1.Preaching as top-down; One- way Communication:
Communication as a top-down preaching has both positive and negative conation as many of us have had the experiences of listening to the preachers and may disagree. We may have disagreed with the interpretation of the text, the logic, or the method yet we listen with respect and found ourselves moved because there was something authentic about the preacher.
The positive side of top-down communication is the chance of preaching becoming an authoritative. For instance, this is how people reacted to Jesus. God came as a man in every respect like us. Friend and foes found him irresistible, He spoke with authority.
Preachers are an extension of his ministry. God comes today, to, through flesh and blood, through those called to preach the gospel. We are not called to be spiritual beings, stripped of our humanities. We are called to let Jesus fulfill aware that of that moment we are the enfleshment of the gospel. The gospel can be communicates only through real, flesh and blood persons, shaped by this world in which we live.
Often times, preaching is not one to one communication but one to many. Nevertheless, one to one communication itself is a complicated process. The authority, the authenticity of the preacher, is the key to preaching effectiveness, yet it remains an elusive quality. The preacher should have a quality of humanness so that his/her communication reaches the masses.

2.The Captive Audience; Audience or message centered preaching.
The audience – centered preaching would help to clarify the goal of the preaching and avoids generalities. Audience accepts the message only when it is realistic and that they can make practical decisions. The preacher should help the congregation to grow step by step. People should realize that they need to make commitment to God and that their needs are met when they hear the essence of preaching.
Many preachers in India take their audience as their captives. They vomit the whole sermon through out the week thinking they would digest it. But to the contrary, many of the audiences become defensive and inculcate wrong information. This nature of preaching makes people go away from the church and eventually lost their faith. It is obvious that the bible talks about four kinds of soils, i.e. the first one is, audiences that hear the message and immediately switch off. The second group as rocky ground, the third group is that full of thorns and the final group is god soil. Nevertheless, audiences that fall under the good soil at times are bored with the kind of captive preaching.

3.Religious Vs. Secular Language
Many preachers on the dais use religious languages that is hard to understand by his mere audiences. Vocabulary such as atonement, Ecclesia etc. are hard to understand by his/her audiences. A preacher is called to engage in a creative use of language. It is advisable that a preacher view reading program as research work. He/she should have a gift of imagination.
A good preacher simplifies the language as much as possible. Jesus used parables. Language represents ideas, feelings and objects. These should not be misinterpreted when we preach. We should understand the bible in their own context. When we use the language we should use the language, which is interesting to the people and knowledgeable, and also acceptable to the people. Eg. Targeting, particularly the audience and minimize the length of words in the sermon.


4. Audience feedback and interaction, during and after sermon:
Most often our preaching is a one –way traffic .The preacher preaches and the people listen. But communication becomes a complete one after a feedback. How do we enable feedback in preaching?
We need to recognize the “body- language” of the people when we preach. For example, if in the middle of our sermon, one of the members of the congregation looks at his/her watch, we should take it as a feedback, which tells us that perhaps we are taking more time than necessary. Another person may nod his/her head as a sign of approval or disapproval to what we say? Do we take it seriously?
There can be an organized feedback session after the worship when we give an opportunity to the people to respond to and to discuss about the sermon.
The minister can use the home visits as occasions for feedback. There can be a dialogue between the people and the preacher on the sermon preached, example on the previous Sunday on such occasions.

Reflection
Today we heard from the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Jeremiah the story where Jeremiah tells us how God spoke to him directly, not in a dream. Jeremiah was probably about 24 years old at the time. God appoints Jeremiah a prophet to preach righteousness to the people. Jeremiah replies to God, "Truly, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." The Lord answers Jeremiah, "Do not say, 'I am only a boy.' For you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you." "Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, 'Now I have put my words in your mouth..."' [Jeremiah, ch. 1, v. 4-9]

This story holds special interest to us, because first, it tells us that God sometimes communicates directly with people, as the Lord did with Jeremiah. And second, it tells us that God sometimes communicates with us indirectly through people like Jeremiah.
So I'm going to talk about how God communicates with us, how we communicate with each other, and how the Bible can teach us something about communicating, something that could affect the way we live.

Communication -to-persuade
Every individual considers herself or himself to be something of a good communicator. But we can very easily separate the amateurs from the professionals, the sheep from the goats. Just wait until someone tells us that to persuade people, we simply need to give them "the facts." More often, it's not "facts" but faith that's required to change people's minds
Professional communicators understand the need for a trustworthy source. That's why, for example, so many companies publish their ads in the television channels rather than in, say, the National Doordarshan. Or why so many public relations people try to persuade NDTV to cover their news stories. Faith and trust in the source means everything. The Television channels and NDTV are trusted -- justifiably.
And what is our faith that there is a God but our trust? No "facts" exist that prove to us that there is a God who created us and who loves us. Yet, we believe it. When we look at the world around us, we believe that only God could have created our world, our universe, and our cosmos. When we pray to God and wonder if the Lord hears what is in our heart, our life experience has given us faith that sooner or later, in God's way -- not mine – our prayers will be answered. Sometimes, we don't recognize God's response when it comes. The Lord doesn't speak to us as God spoke so clearly to Jeremiah. But some time later, often much later, we recognize that things in our life have changed, perhaps even that we have changed in ways we could hardly have foreseen. Our recognition comes from faith in God, not "facts."

When we spend our entire working life trying to communicate effectively and to persuade, we get to know what works and what doesn't. Jesus used his own special style to communicate. He usually made his point through a parable -- telling a story in a way that people could understand. Jesus used parables and analogies to bridge the gap between what his audience already accepted, and what he was trying to persuade them to accept

Seek a Receptive Audience
This is a lesson that public figures of our day recognize immediately: we should not waste our breath on those who don't want to listen rather direct your messages primarily to those who are most likely to be receptive.
When we communicate today, too often our highest priority is: don't offend anyone at all by anything we say. Jesus didn't believe that. Jesus taught us that telling the truth is more important than winning a popularity contest in public opinion. Telling the whole truth instead of half-truths. He stood at the foot of the mountain and told his newly-appointed disciples, "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for surely your reward is in heaven... Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." [Luke ch. 6 v. 22-23]

Conclusion
From the above discussions we have seen that preaching plays a vital role in a Christian communication. Nevertheless, preaching must be a source of encouragement and not boredom. The essence of Christian faith demands effective preaching. Preaching is essential to Christianity. It began with the proclamation of an event. God entered human history in Jesus Christ. Christ came to earth and pitched his tent among men. He died, was resurrected, and ascended to heaven. Therefore, we as his followers should adopt his methods and principles of communication so that our communication may become effective in bringing froth the mission of God here on earth.
Bibliography
Broadus, A. John. On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons 4th ed. Canada: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979.
David, C R W. Communication in Theological Education: A Curriculum. Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 1988.
Halvorson, L. Arndt. Authentic Preaching. USA: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982.
Tangaraj, M, Thomas. Preaching as Communication. Mudurai: Vanguard Press, 1986.
Unpublished Material
Class Lecture by Sir. Manoj Samuel on Worship and Preaching 2005.
Webliography
Chaplin (MAJ) David P. Hillis. Preaching in communication. http://www. Usaches.army.mil/TACarchive/ACCOM/hillis.htm 5: 40 Pm (07/02/06).