Why does it seem like a good sermon isn't enough to cause hearts to be changed?

If the Holy Spirit is really at work and the Gospel is preached with clarity and conviction, how come as soon as we hear the Good News we don't we embrace it and change course immediately?

Tension keeps us reading, watching, or listening. 

Think about any book or movie that kept your attention.

• There's a need... a desire, wish, want, hope
• that's blocked... thwarted, redirected, obstructed, obscured
• which creates a question. If? Who? How? When?
• Questions create tension...suspense, anticipation, dissonance, uncertainty
• that we need resolved....settled, resolved, determined, answered

which keeps us on the edge of our seats

A relevant sermon connects our listeners to our message in a way that helps them find God in the midst of their lives. Lent, this season of remembrance and anticipation, is a prime time to address our listeners' challenges and questions directly. 

To help listeners feel as though we're speaking right to them, we need to understand their context, their struggles, and their hopes that they'll be OK.

Googling the idea of a sermon that is "relevant to the listener" brings up all kinds of disagreement. Some think the idea of relevance is juvenile or manipulative, that it's a cheap ploy to seem current at the expense of truth. Others say it's essential.

Here's just a sampling of what people have to say about "relevant" sermons:

1. Be true to yourself and your sermon will automatically be relevant to the listeners.
2. We're not supposed to consider the relevance of the listener but the relevance of the Gospel.
3. Relevance will be discerned when we think "from the pew" instead of "from the pulpit."
4. "Relevance" is a homiletical and theological disgrace because God is eternally relevant.

Is that the case, though?

Perhaps to determine whether our sermons should be relevant, we should consider what it would mean to preach a sermon that is NOT relevant. 

What are we trying to accomplish when we preach? What is our goal and purpose? 

Is our goal to preach our listeners into agreement with our position–political, religious, social, or otherwise?

Or is our purpose to reveal the Good News to our listeners?

The sermon that manipulates tries to control the listener's response. It threatens that something is at stake in the relationship with you and/or the church and/or God.

How can we tell if we're stepping over that line to manipulation? 

Ask yourself these questions...

I've heard many a good talk that tries to be a good sermon. 

The preacher is well-intentioned, sincere, and passionate. But the most intriguing, entertaining, even insightful sermon is more like a clanging cymbal if it doesn't actually offer good news. Too often there's no theology in the "sermon" that elevates it from a lecture to a proclamation of faith and hope of God's actions with and among us.

We might feel instinctively that "we know Good News when we preach it," but it's worth double-checking. Are you sure you're proclaiming Good News? 

Did you have a career before you went to seminary? What was it?

Mine was nursing. Surgical Intensive Care. I worked in a clinical setting for four years before heading off for my M.Div.

My nursing training and career helped with many aspects of parish ministry.

Preaching wasn’t one of them.