Well hello everyone, welcome to the live cast. Good to be back with you. Um my name is Paul Feezy, and as always, I'm here with Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_00Hello everybody.
SPEAKER_02Good to be with us again, Glenn.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. Do you like my fake house that I'm I'm in? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh to be honest, having not been in the office for a while, I initially it took me a while to work out where you actually were.
SPEAKER_00So it was only a few of the I've got some fake credibility in the bookshelves there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it was only a few of the props that gave it away that you were definitely at the office.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah. Some yeah. Some of these books I've even read. Well, not all of them, obviously. Not the whole book, but uh, you know. The blurb. The blurb. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Good. Well, uh, today we are starting to think about preaching online. What with lockdown um over the last kind of however many months it's been now. Um, most of us have moved to doing most of our services and preaching kind of in an online format. And so today we're gonna be thinking through kind of what the pros and cons of that are a little bit, aren't we, Glenn?
SPEAKER_00And I think we're gonna we're gonna take a journey. Should we go? Should we go on a journey? Where we go we go down and then up. Where we we we think about what's difficult about uh preaching in these conditions, but also what we're learning in these conditions and how that can um yeah, how that can bless us so that perhaps we we might even learn to preach better, um, even if as we're preaching to an iPad in our bedrooms, um, that that might actually teach us some stuff about what preaching is um that can translate to glory, hallelujah, the day when we're you know back in person in the in the flesh together. But I think in order in order to have that sense of of um what the negatives are and the positives are, I think we need to have a a theology of preaching. Um what is it what is it that we're uh we're trying to do um on a Sunday morning? Why why are we taking up you know 20 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour? Uh why are we taking up all that time on a Sunday morning to give our own blessed thoughts about the Bible? What it what what is a a theology of preaching that we can have? Um and then we'll use that theology to analyze online preaching. Paul, go on, help us, help us. What's a theology of preaching?
SPEAKER_02No, we we we've said before, you and I come from similar circles. And so in a kind of conservative evangelical circle, people might talk about expositing scripture. And there's this almost this sense of it's explaining what scripture means. Um obviously there's an element of that, isn't there? Um, but there's we as I've said to you when we were talking about this, the what's the difference between a sermon and just giving like a lecture? You know, if you gotta if you go to your lecture at theological college and someone says, you know, today we're looking at Matthew chapter 8 or whatever, I'd expect what I hear from the front there to be very different to what I hear on Sunday morning on exactly the same passage. You know, I'd expect to be a very different format with different information. Um I mean when I preach I always think that I'm always my thing is I'm tr I'm trying to get into people I'm trying to get to people's hearts, you know, and I know that there's a lot of sometimes I'll I'll do, you know, I'll read stuff, you know, I'll read a passage and I'll you know go through some commentaries or something if I'm you know finding it tricky. And you find lots of incredible information. You go, oh wow, I see how that links to this thing here and that bit of passage there in the Old Testament, and or here's how yada yada yada. And you just realise though that like most of that information is completely superfluous to most people on a Sunday morning. Um most people don't care about the things that get me excited. Um I have to bring it into real life and not be a theological lecture. So um it has to be something I I guess I wish I had a more succinct answer. I you know, it it needs to be something that grabs people, speaks to their hearts, it whether it whether it's an encouragement or a challenge or a bit of both or And encounters them in the in the nitty-gritty of their lives.
SPEAKER_00Um this here is why you should be you know engaged with this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. This isn't just an exercise in me saying, here's verse one. Verse one means this, verse two means this. You know.
SPEAKER_00Let us pray. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a running Bible commentary.
SPEAKER_02No, no, or it shouldn't be. And that's not to say there won't be overlap, you know. There were there are occasionally, particularly there they're gonna be passages which are just really tricky, where you you do need to do a bit of kind of deeper level unpacking sometimes in order to not just skip a step, you know, to because it's one thing, isn't it, to have done the work yourself and then just to say to people, and it means this. But some people, you know, they're gonna say, Well, how did you get there? Um and sometimes you do need to do a bit of unpacking as well, but I don't think it's uh all the time.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes, yeah. But it's it's it's a little bit like you know, the waiter, if the waiter comes to your table and they say, Oh yes, the special of the day, it's really great. The the chef kind of flumbeys this in that, and and they they might tell you a little bit of the recipe and a few of the ingredients, um, but really what the waiter is meant to do is just serve me the food. Like I I don't need you to tell me how you made it. Serve me that food. Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think that's right, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Like and yeah, so too much preaching, I think, is giving the recipe rather than actually dishing stuff up. Um illustration. And and it's kind of like it's meant to be part of worship, isn't it? You know, like uh like preaching finds its home in a worship service, not in a lecture hall, um, where yeah, the the purpose is to drive you. And I I think maybe this is part of my my Anglican roots sort of coming through, but uh I I would like to have communion every week, and I would like to see the the preaching of the word um going together with the preaching that is communion, where you know it, you know, because preaching, uh sorry, communion, according to First Corinthians, it proclaims the Lord's death until he comes. And so it's got that sense of pointing to Christ and his cross, which means which means it should do what communion does, which is, you know, I guess um show me myself and all my need for Christ and his cross, but then deliver to me Christ, Christ crucified for me, um, which is not always what a lecture is is intending to do. But um so we we did a thing before, or just as lockdown was hitting, really, about how to how to preach to camera. And um it became this sort of video that was it was like the tag of shame because there were just lots of lots of church members who would tag their pastors.
SPEAKER_02Should probably have a look at this, you know. There's some interesting ideas in there, you know.
SPEAKER_00You might want to try, I don't know, owning the moment and actually, you know, proclaiming the word of the Lord. Just just saying. Um so that that was that was interesting to me that that that video did so well when we were just talking about such such basics. Um but uh I guess people have had a lot of experience now, I don't know how many Sundays, 11 Sundays? Something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're coming up that, aren't we?
SPEAKER_0011 or 12 or something. Um so we put out on social media recently um what are people finding difficult about um preaching to camera and preaching in a lockdown situation? Um let's let's let's go for for the difficult stuff first, and then let's go for what the positives are, because I I think that's where I I'd like to finish our conversation on the high of there's some things that preaching to camera is forcing us to do that we might not have been paying attention to before. And even as lockdown ends or or eases, it would be it would be nice to carry some of those things forward in our preaching. But let's let's start with the negatives. What what are some of the negatives of of preaching to camera, do you think?
SPEAKER_02Oh well, I guess the most obvious one is that that there's you're not actually speaking to anyone in the room. You know, you you've not got a there's no you know, there's no one else there, you're just talking to the the little the little lens on the camera.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you've got no one there, there's no sense, is there of um well I mean at that point when you're recording, you know literally no one is listening. Um but I mean there's audience of one for an audience of one but you know you've got no sense of who's listening, how they're how they're taking it, anything like that at all, and that is that is quite hard.
SPEAKER_00Um I think cause. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well I think I said to you the other day that like when I when I get up into the Yeah, up in the pulpit or in front of people, you just kind of go because there's an there's an ad there's an adrenaline or something that kicks you in. Whereas the number of times I sit down in front of the camera and kind of go blah blah blah and then just go off, start again, you know, like and and it takes once I get into the flow, it's okay, but there's something about not having people in front of you, it just feels weird to s even start the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And having restarted like five times, you know, and you've only got to the first three minute marks five times, you think at this rate I will never but actually once you yeah, once you get into it, yeah, you're off and away. But yeah, it's it's amazing how helpful adrenaline is actually in kind of yeah, getting you through.
SPEAKER_02Well, you can also, I mean, the thing maybe maybe we'll cover this otherwise, but um the you are on when you're in front of people, so I've often been critiqued in the past, people have said you talk very fast. Um, and so I've learned to kind of pause in the pulpit because actually when you pause in the pulpit, it can feel interminably long to you, but it feels quite natural to other people. But when you pause for that length of time on camera, my goodness me, like it feels like the if you're watching someone who pauses for that length of time, yeah, you're just thinking, has the video broken?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just debuffering.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. So so you have to again you have to unlearn those things and go faster.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, is there a way of personably you know staring down the barrel at the camera rather than just sort of blankly looking at the the machine that is facing you? Um I think Rebecca McLaughlin like makes a good point. She says you're you're not preaching to camera, you're preaching to people through the camera. Yeah. Um and it's just yeah, always remembering that that yeah, you're preaching to people, even if there's no one in the room. Um you've got it, you've got to.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the weird the thing I found a little bit strange is that on on all the two I've done, they've been in services I would normally be at, you know. And so I've not I've not sat in a room and been preached to by myself before. I sit there next to my next to Becca and I'm going, it's quite good, isn't it? She's got some good points.
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't have put it like that. You didn't put it like that. You fooled. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and use of comedy, use of humor. Um, do you do you risk it? Do you risk telling the joke? And then having told the joke, how long do you pause for to allow the laughter?
SPEAKER_02No, you just edit the laughter track in when that works better. Just really super canned laughter.
SPEAKER_00Super canned American laughter from cheers or something. Like, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um that's yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean that's tricky, isn't it? It is tricky doing that. But then, you know, we've always we we're quite used to that in the sense every time we've done a fawny question, I mean we always thought it was hilarious, but we had no idea what other people would make of it.
SPEAKER_00And uh on the other hand, um you're not getting feedback from the room in terms of um if people are being moved by it, or if people don't understand a word you're saying, you can get that very as long as you're using eye contact in person, you can get if people are not understanding you. Um so yeah, that that is that is a drawback.
SPEAKER_02Um there's something isn't there that's an encouraging as a preacher if you can see people even just giving a bit of a nod, you know.
SPEAKER_00Some people are good at listening. Most people are not, I find. Most people give a kind of a blank. Well, maybe maybe it's just my preaching. I find blank incomprehension mainly.
SPEAKER_02You do get a sense, don't you, from from the room. Or or sometimes it it's not even I mean so so definitely I've I've got up to preach things, having prepared it and I've practiced it, and I know what I'm saying, and I know kind of the tone of it. But what I haven't factored in is the service beforehand. And if you've just maybe you've just come out of something, you know, you've come out of a song or even notices about you know something that's happened, you can just get the sense, can't you? You know what? It's probably not best that I come in in this way, with this tone or this attitude, or you know, whatever it is, because everybody's clearly in a contemplate contemplative moment from the song, or people are reeling from some announcement or whatever. Um obviously, if you've just recorded stuff and then sent it off to someone else and they've chopped it into whatever order with everything, you've got no idea how people are feeling by the time they get to your talk, you know. Um if you've you you know I've got no idea what the songs are gonna be before my talk most of the time, you know, or anything like that. So I don't know what the mood is. Um and normally you would read that and you would you would adapt, even if you didn't necessarily change even what you were gonna say, you might just change the way you say it, you know.
SPEAKER_00Which I think is part of an argument for having as many live elements as you can in a service. I would say, even including the the sermon. Um I was reflecting with a a friend of mine last week. Uh like, what does it what does Hebrews 12 mean when it says, you know, let us come together on Mount Zion? You're like, what does it mean that actually when we gather, there is a heavenly assembled assembly that's happening together with Christ and the angels and all the saints in glory, and we are together not just in Crowborough on a Sunday morning, in Eastbourne on a Sunday morning, but on Mount Zion. Um if that if that is what church is and the there's this mystical spiritual sense of church, then it's a little odd if actually our Sunday morning prayers were recorded were recorded on Thursday evening and the sermon was recorded on Friday afternoon and the readings were recorded on Saturday afternoon. Yeah, yeah, and we're all watching together on Sunday. Um I think that's it's it's quite an interesting argument for having as many, if not all, live elements as as as you can on a on a Sunday morning. Obviously, the technology makes that difficult, and the safest thing to do is pre-record everything, and then the pastor's job is done by Saturday afternoon. Um when they hit upload. Um but there is I I I feel a little loss if if everything is pre-recorded. I I do feel it's like you're watching TV and it's it's kind of sit back rather than lean forward um on a Sunday morning if everything's pre-recorded.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I get that. I think there's a sense during the service, isn't there? Like you you or I would say during the service, it's hard to feel like you you're really watching with anyone else apart from the people you're in the room with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um if you are, you know, if you're in a household. Um you know, for me, i we always have a kind of zoom zoom tea and coffee afterwards, so you you chat to people then and then you get a sense of like, oh, all these people have been watching and doing the same. Um but you know, it's not obviously it's not the same as being in, you know, doing it together. Um But yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? Because you know, we know we we've got you know, even if we're at the office at Speak Life and we've got all our gear to do stuff live, we know that basically, even in this day and age, even with good technology, doing stuff live doesn't necessarily want to work very well sometimes. Um and if you've got no experience of doing live stuff, if you're not technical, if this is all entirely new to you, um it I can definitely understand why people want to just record something and have it done, they can edit it and go, great, I know it's I know it's fine, I know it works, it's not gonna break in the middle. Um I do understand it, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I guess that that's another uh difficulty of um yeah, recording sermons in in this lockdown situation is um all the complications around, okay, I've preached the sermon, now I've got to actually, you know, get it off the memory card or get it off my phone, and now I've got to edit it and make sure the volume is the right level and add in whatever you know accoutrements that uh my so you yeah, it it used to be that once you'd written your sermon, your your job is basically done. And now it's like even after you've preached your sermon, all your work is ahead of you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, probably I could probably easily lose another two to maybe three hours in in in sorting out a sermon. But that's precisely because I, as we might find out, I've made a bit of a rod for my own back in some of the things I've done. But you can, yeah, it's certainly not just oh, I finished writing it and I can relax, you know, preach it, and now I've got to sort it all out, I've got to edit it. Yeah, yeah, and all the stuff that goes with that.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah. And I think it it is it is changing the the the sort of the work week of your average preacher and pastor that's you know, okay, so they've they've now got a deadline of whenever it is, you know. If Rob, the guy on your PA desk, is now editing your sermons, then he he wants your sermon by Thursday lunchtime. And um and there's there's a different kind of working week and a different investment of time now. So there's there's um here's something that might encourage you, though. Like I've I've had a lot of people sort of kind of saying, Oh Glenn, I'm sure it's easy for you. Like you you're used to recording sermons, and so you don't spend three hours trying to set up the room so that it's suitable to you know filming. Like, yeah, no, I do, because that's what that's what videos are like. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure you you don't you're not in the position of having recorded it and then you realize that the audio was completely, you know, complete garbage and you've had to re-record it. It's like, no, that's pretty much every other video, you know. Um it's always an incredible faff, isn't it? Yeah, you know. So to encourage you all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just yeah, it's not gonna get any better, is basically what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00It never gets any better. So suck it up. Um take it from the pros here. Um it's always infuriating. Um yeah. So but what what are some of the things, Paul, that you do? Because you uh you you say that you know, having recorded your sermon, there are a few extra bits and pieces that you you know add to your video sermons. What what are some of the things that that you've been doing to your sermons to to give them a bit of extra spice?
SPEAKER_02Extra spice, some feasy spice. Um well, so what I've done is I've recorded all of mine so far with two cameras. Yes, and then I'm kind of Why have I done that? Because because I would well, it was a personal thing, really, that I found it really hard to watch a person on the screen what didn't cut in any way, shape, or form. Like I just found it really, really hard. Almost because I feel, you know, if you watch for better or for worse, if you watch TV or films, it very it's very rare that it will hold on a single shot for a certain length of time, you know, for more than a few seconds. And so I wanted to have that option to cut between. So I just had a front view and a kind of angle slightly over here, which was still relatively close but slightly different. Um that just allowed me to cut between the two shots at different times. Very useful as well because I've I I don't want to I'm using kind of bullet point notes so I haven't written my talk out. I've basically bullet pointed it and spoken it until I've kind of got it down. So I'm I'm quite free of notes anyway. But if I do need to look at my notes or really get stuck, if you've got another camera, you can you can stop for as long as you like, quite frankly, and then start again because you can just cut to the other camera and cut out any gaps you want. You know, and it doesn't look like a jump time, I found it doesn't look like a jump, doesn't look like there's been a kind of I was talking here and suddenly I was over here. Um to be honest, I didn't have to do that many times. There's only a couple of pauses here or there, and I thought, yeah, that's a little bit long, I'm just gonna, you know, or particularly I could see myself looking down at something, and I thought I don't want that in there. Um, so I'll cut it and whatnot. Most of the time though, I was speaking it quite off the cuff, you know, in some sense.
SPEAKER_00So um Yeah, I think that's a massive that's a massive benefit to be able to be able to cut yourself in a non-obvious way. Um it's it's it's very worth it's very worth doing having a having a second second camera on yourself.
SPEAKER_02The the the the problem comes is that it does create more work in the edit because you've got to line it up. And also you'll f I mean for the issues I found as well, just using iPads and phones at home, you know, great for just everyday use. Um, but they they have the kind of variable frame rate, so you'll find that stuff sinks up at the beginning and gradually shifts out of sync. And so you're kind of always trying to listen and keep an eye out for what's going on there. Um so that that does create a load of time. I also took the audio, you know. I I I've been taking my audio, stripping it off the video, putting it into garage band, eqing it, you know, and stuff to make it sound better so I could get rid of any obnoxious kind of mid-range honking sounds, whatever. Um just in the middle of the preach. Yeah. Um that creates more work. But then so so there's all that editing, but then I've also been using I've used stock footage, um, I've used clips from films, so whilst I've still been talking, you know, I in my last talk I referenced I was talking about the value of things, and you know, I said, you know, the Aston Martin from Goldfinger is valued at this much. Ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz, yada yada yada. And so I just had when I was saying that, I wasn't on the screen, I had some clips from Goldfinger of the Aston Martin, you know, in some couple of scenes, you know, and then uh Judy Garland with her slippers on or whatever, and the kind of thing that you if you were on TV, you'd kind of expect that kind of thing. But yeah, but that even though you're only maybe you you get kind of you know, those clips together probably equated ten seconds, um it takes a long time to to find the video, download the video, get the bit you want, cut it, put it in the right spot, yada yada yada. Um it's spice though.
SPEAKER_00It is spice, you know, and and spice doesn't overwhelm the dish, but it does, yeah, it it it it does help.
SPEAKER_02No. Yeah, so I mean those things are quite those things are not the kind of things that you so I generally when I've been talking about illustrations, um I've been able to cut something in um which has kind of helped with it, or hopefully. So the other thing I did on the first one, I didn't do it on my second one, is that I filmed kind of additional scenes, so to speak. Um so I was talking about you know receiving an invite, and so you know, I got one of the kids to go outside the front door and put an invite through the door, and there's me walking up to the front door, picking it up, going to the kitchen, reading this wedding invitation and stuff Paul's quizzical face. You know, you know, and I had stuff, you know, I was talking about water and being thirsty, so you know I was just pouring pouring a glass of water, and there's me drinking the water, and there was a bit about bread, so I was cutting some bread and you know, just I mean that was a lot more work. That was the first one I did, um because obviously you've then got to put all that together yourself. Um but I mean it certainly it does make a difference. I think it's a lot more work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's it's owning the medium that you're on, you know. It's it's it's not just about filming the thing that would ordinarily happen, because ordinarily you would just sit in your front room on your sofa, you know. Um it's uh yeah, it's not about filming what you ordinarily do, it's about owning the medium in which this is a film, and so let's let's make it film-like. Um and you know, maybe the argument coming back against that is actually we don't we don't want to give people video entertainments. We want people to remain hungry for face-to-face fellowship and just you know what you know, you want to keep it as similar as a Sunday morning to a Sunday morning as possible.
SPEAKER_02Um but then I think ultimately you whatever you do, whether you're on a whether you're doing an audio podcast or whether you're doing a a sermon in front of people or a video, whatever your medium for whatever reason, you want that to engage people, don't you? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So you'd hope so. Um So you're I think you need to do what whatever you need to do to make that engaging, you know, like actually connect with people. I mean, there's it's it's like I mean on a different kind of note, I suppose. Like if a church decided, hey, we want to have uh an Instagram thing for our church, you know, and we're gonna put stuff on Instagram, there's literally no point putting up like a white thing with some black text on saying services tomorrow, because that's just not engaging. Yes, you know, like that's just a really bad use of Instagram. Like if you're gonna do it, you've got to think a bit about how to use that medium as a church.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Um and I'm not saying I know how to do that, but probably just not black and white writing and stuff, but yeah. So I think you've probably got to do the same. I I I think probably the what what has maybe been trickiest for people is is in this whole thing is that when when we went into lockdown, people basically said, right, we'll just do church online. And at least in my personal opinion, and I ri people will have a different opinion, and that's fine. I don't think just doing what we do on Sunday morning translates very well onto the screen.
SPEAKER_00Um Songs of Praise knows that, you know, they they don't just attempt they don't just attempt to do a four sermon, you know, a four hymn sandwich for Songs of Praise.
SPEAKER_02They own the So I think you do have to you do have to adapt, but then I I know as well that although perhaps I didn't realise it so much until we went into lockdown, the th but the things I've been doing, whilst I know it's hard work, I consider them to be relatively simple things to do. Film a bit of this, download a video, chop it. I know some people though, what I'm coming to realise is I just take for granted that I know how to use technology. And there's some people who are just like, I'm not even sure where the camera app is on their phone, you know, they're kind of going, oh I don't know what to do. And for them, anything like that is just so it's just not even remotely on the radar.
SPEAKER_00And yet it's had to be, and so so many I mean, pretty much every church pastor in the UK has had to get up to some level of tech familiarity um, you know, this year, which is extraordinary. You know, I mean COVID-19, you know, here's here's one silver lining. It it has actually gotten um, you know, thousands of church leaders to some level of in engagement through technology with a wider audience. Um so in that in that vein, should we turn the corner to what might be positive about um yeah, our current situation and and learning to preach in a in a slightly different way? Um what are what are some of the what are what are some of the um benefits or what are some of the things that as we've learnt to change our style of preaching a little bit um in these lockdown situations, things that we would want to hold on to even once lockdown eases?
SPEAKER_02Well, I guess like one thing that's uh a positive is that um it's more it's more of a public thing now, in the sense that so our preaching before, I guess largely, although we might have put it online in in like an MB3 or something, um it seems to be the case that more people are kind of dipping their toes into the the church waters from from what people are saying and you know what people are seeing on their stats and stuff. Um and I would say, you know, I I I very rarely would see people share a sermon after a Sunday, you know, an MP3 of a sermon. But I see lots of people on Facebook saying, church is you know tonight or this you know tomorrow morning, and and they're they're basically putting out the link to the YouTube video or whatever it is for people to watch on their social media. So people a lot more people seem to be tuning in to hear these things than perhaps they would have done, you know, there are obviously more people than probably were getting walking through our doors on a on a Sunday morning or whatever day. So I think that you know that's definitely a uh a positive side of it.
SPEAKER_00So I think because the shop front window for churches is more prominent, I think I think preachers are more minded to be both evangelistic and prophetic out into the culture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I've certainly when I've been preaching thinking to myself kind of more people than just a Sunday watching well, my Sunday congregation might be watching this, you know, or Friday congregation, whoever. Um because you kind of know, or I certainly find when I'm writing talks, I think to myself, I can probably say this because I'm in church, you know, I can say this within the congregation, knowing, you know, that there may well be outsiders, but knowing that it's not really gonna go particularly further than the four walls. Um you know, not that I'm saying anything particularly controversial, but you can you can just, you know, be relatively free. And I suppose I've known that it's not that I'm trying to restrict myself, therefore, it were what I'm saying, but I'm just aware that there's gonna be perhaps many more outsiders looking in, and therefore what I say should be perhaps even more aimed at the outsider than it than it would be normally, um, with a more evangelistic hat on, um and just mindful of trying to think about the things I might say or the way in which I say things, you know, the language I might use or things like that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that might cut both ways. You you you might want to make an argument for you know, church is not for the entertainment of the goats, it's for the feeding of the sheep, and um you know, let's let's make sure we're we're building up the body. But I I think it is overall a very healthy thing to think that we're being overheard by a world that is desperately needy, and what is it that we can say that's not just for the benefit of God's people, but for a prophetic proclamation out to the nations, I think.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, and we shouldn't draw a kind of false dichotomy between like evangelistic preaching for the outsider, preaching for those inside the church, you know, like there is obviously some difference, perhaps, but you know, what the outsider needs to hear, the insider needs to hear pretty much as well.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah, totally, totally agree. Um, so it's it's a more public proclam, or or at less at least we're feeling how public our proclamation is, um, and I think that can be good. I think we're also feeling how personal proclamation can be, because we're literally preaching to people in their living rooms, you know. So if if if you want to preach and you want it to come home, you are you are preaching into homes. And I think there is that there is that sort of personal element, I I think, to preaching that's that's happening at the moment. Have you have you felt that as you've been preaching or as you've been hearing preaching as well?
SPEAKER_02I think, yeah, I mean you're just aware. Well, maybe it goes back to the idea uh the Rebecca McLaughlin thing of you're you're preaching to people, and so you're just being aware that you know you're you are talking to people sitting at home in their houses whose situations will be different as well, you know. Um there'll be people who are, you know, households and families, there'll be, you know, just couples, there'll be people who are single, and um you're you're trying to address all those people, and I mean it's like when you preach in the church, you you there's a obviously there's a much more personal element anyway, because you're there with people, but you still try and look at people, don't you? And and you want to try and keep that in your mind when you're preaching on the camera, I suppose, that you are still talking to the same people, um as well as maybe many others into their homes.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Yes. One thing I I think is um so we we've talked about the the drawback of um the fact that you're not getting much feedback from the room. Um one of one of the drawbacks is you you don't know how your words are being received, and maybe people are getting angry, maybe people don't understand what you're saying and you're not, you know. Um but also it it could embolden you because if you are if you are fearful of saying anything that might offend people, um you might actually hold back on saying some stuff that in the room you wouldn't. And uh I've got another um friend who said they actually um were able to be more personal in how they preached, um, because um you know you might catch somebody's eye as you're telling a very personal story to your to yourself, um, and that might set you off. You know, you you you might be too emotional to preach certain certain things if you see people in the room, but but somehow you're a bit more liberated from fear of man, um which which could liberate you to be both more bold at times but also more tender at times. Um so that's that's a positive. Uh there are there other positives at this time.
SPEAKER_02Well, I guess one of the things would be a positive could be to do with the form, the form of how we preach and speak. So um, you know, we talked earlier about maybe the difference between a lecture and a and a preach. And perhaps we hopefully we can kind of sense that if we try and give a lecture um on you know on camera um to people, that's not a great probably not going to be a great thing. Um so hopefully we've kind of it a positive is that we kind of adapt to the form a bit. And actually that maybe makes us I've seen a number of people saying I've gone for less notes. Um you know, so so maybe more of a natural, you know, one of the positives might be people speaking more naturally perhaps than they do sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um if they're very tied to things, you know. Um I think people feel like they don't want to be tied to notes on the screen because you're you're almost trying to mimic. People are trying to mimic how you see people present on telly, and people on the telly aren't looking down at notes. They're obviously they normally have a teleprompter, so they've got a bonus over us. Um but I think it means that people's four I I've certainly been I'm quite conversational in my preaching anyway, um, and quite casual. Um, but I've been even more casual since getting on camera, um, mostly because I was trying not to have any notes, um, or very few notes. Um so it had to be more just me speaking rather than a prepared speech, so to speak. Um I think that is positive. Um it's a positive thing. I I think there are it doesn't work on camera to just read the script, you know. Um or or it's a bit stilted at least. Saying that, I feel that's a bit stilted in person as well. So you know that it's a I'm not sure it's and there are different everyone's everyone has different levels of this, and and I've seen people there's people obviously who don't use any notes at all, and I've sat through talks and thought it might have been helpful if you had a few notes. Um there's people I know who've literally just read off a script and they've almost spent the whole time just head down looking at the lecton.
SPEAKER_00Um they could have done without it.
SPEAKER_02And so yeah, it doesn't I think yeah, but it the the more uh the more people can speak like they would speak.
SPEAKER_00Yes, the better. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and you and we all know this, because we if we've ever if you've ever written anything to say in front of people, you you probably know that if you write it out in full unless you kind of go back and basically turn it into slightly bad English, um, it doesn't really sound like how we often talk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I'll be right back. Totally different languages. Spoken English and written English are totally different languages.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and it it it's and this is you know, it's a bugbearing person, I suppose, as well. But when someone gets up to preach and I think, you know, what they've said is great. And I just think it just doesn't sound like you. No, you know, I know this person, yeah, but the way you've the things you've just said are just not the natural way you would ever talk.
SPEAKER_00No, exactly. Isn't it interesting that people are starting to feel more free to be themselves when they're talking to a machine? They're suddenly more personable when talking to a lens. Yeah, yeah. As opposed to talking. I think part of that is because when you get up in within a structure, which is an artificial structure, and that's okay because all social interactions are a little bit artificial. Um, because you know, why why am I going and well, we we used to shake hands. I'm not sure we we ever will again, but you know, there's that artificial thing of here's here's a structure, I know how to say hello, I know that you're gonna say hello, I know you're gonna ask me how I'm doing, I know you don't really care. It's artificial, it's all artificial. Um, but there's there's a real level of artifice when it comes to a Sunday service, and inescapably, and that's that's fine, but then people kind of get up and there's a there's a set mode to how you preach. Um and people slot into it, and so much of it is due to the person who taught you how to preach, and if they were a desperately posh public school boy who had to stutter, then all of a sudden you you you might have you might have grown up in a counselor state in Birmingham, and nevertheless you affect uh you know a posh boy stutter. Um this this happens, this is a thing. People kind of ape the style of uh you know the the way they think preaching should happen. Whereas maybe maybe if it's just you and your iPad in your room, you're a bit more able to be you and and you're liberated to actually be be a bit more personable. I I I'm seeing that happening actually, and I I think I think that that will be for the good, even as we uh come out of lockdown.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I think there's almost a sense in which it's not just for preaching, but generally in in in the Christian life, the the things that have been most encouraging for me is when there's been the people who are in those positions, maybe leadership roles, whether it was youth leaders or just or even just older Christians, but or whatever, but when you see that it's not that polished, you know, like it's easy to kind of look at people, isn't it, and be like, wow, you know, they've all got it completely together, and it's quite nice to see people actually just being human, you know, in the church. Like it's actually okay, like it's okay to be a human being, you know, in the way you you know, you know, I'm not even joking. I mean it is okay, like it's okay to be a human being, and I think sometimes people feel like they've got to you know, when I get up to speak, I've got to be like this or be like that. And you know, there there will may well be constraints on the way you do things given your circumstances, but it's quite nice when people get up and are just them normal, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, normal when they are them. Another thing I think people have have said about what's different preaching in these circumstances is most people have attempted to preach shorter. Um and uh you know, you can get into a debate about that whether we definitely need to. Obviously, you're you've only got two senses to engage um your audience with rather than five, and and I often find that you know being so very aromatic in my preaching obviously holds people's attention. I'm a tasty preacher, and um but there is something about you're you're only engaging two you know senses and not five, and and s there are less things to hold people's attention, and people are used to multi-screening as they you know, you know. Scrolling through Instagram as they as they watch their second screen and all that sort of stuff. So I I understand the the pressure that people feel towards a shorter sermon, but as people feel that pressure, they're finding that they can do it. Like I can say what I want to say. Yes. And people are jettisoning verse-by-verse exposition, which um I d like I think we should be utterly tied to the text and we should say what the text is saying. But I think if we're if if we're jettisoning jettisoning the idea that we must work from verse 1 to verse 2, verse 3 to verse 4 to verse 5 to verse 6 to verse 7, and you must mention every verse and give equal weight to every single one before you can fin finish your sermon. That has been artificially inflating the duration of our sermons for decades. And people are finding that oh, I want to be a bit more punchy, and so they're kind of throwing out that stripe jacket and getting down to the point. That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously everyone's going to be different to different lengths of pre uh used to different lengths of preaching in their churches anyway. Um I think you're right though. I mean, that what you don't compete with generally on a Sunday morning is um when you're preaching, is that if people aren't engaged by you, they're probably not going to get up and walk out. Whereas if they're not engaged by you, you know, they might just go and do the hoovering or go and put the kettle on or go on Facebook or something, you know. Like so you are competing with that in a sense. Um they do the right.
SPEAKER_00But when you're giving a live sermon, you really have lost them.
SPEAKER_02But you know, the there is something about the conciseness, and I I think, and this uh, and here you go, I'm gonna just say controversial things now. Um I do think people who've done who've spent a lot of time doing kind of youth work have a bit of an advantage over some people because what youth workers have been used to doing is doing talks that are kind of 10, 15 minutes, you know, particularly you go on camps, they're saying keep it to 10, 15 minutes, and you've got to cut all the you know chaff, you've got to be all wheat, and it's a real it it really does kind of hone your skills to actually work out, you know, I might love this illustration and I might really want to tell people about this, but actually I've gotta kill it, I've gotta, you know, gotta throw that out in order to do it. And I think as well here we go. Come on. So, I mean, I've always said anyone can preach for 45 minutes, right? Because every time I write a 20-minute sermon, well, let's say let's say I'm aiming for 20 minutes, or even even 15 minutes. First time I stand up and say that out loud after I finish writing it, I guarantee you it's probably 27 to 30 minutes long. Now, that's when I'm aiming for 15, you know, or or 20, you know. Yeah. Um basically you can talk for 45 minutes if you don't do any editing. Um now there are definitely people who can do a great 45-minute sermon, um which is all good meat. Um there's also going to be plenty of people who feel like they need to speak for 45 minutes because that's what everyone else does, and basically it's a bit waffly, and they don't just basically they never edit anything. Um and actually learning to edit, I think probably you end up with punchier, more concise talks that are more hard-hitting. Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm probably gonna get eviscerated for saying that, but you know.
SPEAKER_00No, it's true. And but I I think there are two advantages to the current state of affairs. One is um if I'm if I'm going long and I I have to now edit myself before Sunday, um, I'm actually having to wade through my stuff. And with a very critical eye, yeah, I I am now seeing where where the fat is that can be trimmed. Um so I'm I'm seeing that I'm seeing that at the post-production you know level. So having having preached, if I now if I now have to edit it at all, I've now got an eye to you know what is what is the the fat can be that can be trimmed. And I'm also on a Sunday morning in that weird position like like you you spoke of, being on the sofa watching myself preaching. Um but suddenly I can see myself and I and I'm I'm faced with um not only well you know point two didn't really follow from point one, did it? And oh that thing that I do where I you know pick my nose, I should, I should probably, I should probably cut that out, or or whatever it is. You know, I think so editing yourself and watching yourself is gonna do wonders for our preaching.
SPEAKER_02Do you think some of that is also the the benefit of finishing, having to finish earlier?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because I'm less likely to less likely to do good editing on anything if if I'm up to the wire trying to get something done. Um but you know, it when you finish earlier, it does give you more time to go through. And and there's certainly times every time I go through, if I'm over, if I'm over time on something, I can immediately look through and go, hopefully, I already know what are the kind of just interesting tidbits asides that I could just cut straight away. Those are the easy things to cut. It's trickier when you feel like, oh, I really want to say this. Um but is it really necessary? Like, it would be good, but does it really need it? And that can be really hard to do. But I find myself as well when I'm preaching my you know, preaching in the bedroom, I can sometimes feel myself going, I don't think this makes sense. You know, like I don't feel like I can how do you know this bit here, I'm not sure it really links straight into that bit there. Like, I've put this bit in the middle. This bit here, why didn't I put that there? It would make more sense if I said it there. And you're kind of even if you're just rearranging, you know, even rearranging the order, even if you're not cutting stuff out, it's a process, isn't it, of kind of going through. And I I I I wonder whether so many of us have got used to basically going right up to the wire on our writing.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02That we end up with talks that are just, you know, if we'd if we'd had an opportunity to just stand in a bedroom and preach it five or six times out loud, each time we would have gone, hmm, that bit doesn't quite let's rearrange that.
SPEAKER_00And then second time you would have gone, that was better, but this bit, you know, and it's the out loudness It's the out loudness that's that's doing that for you because I I think all sorts of non-sequitors like get a free pass on the page, but as soon as you speak them out, you realize uh it doesn't that doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02And you realize you said the same thing, you know, maybe you said the same thing like three times over.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And you think I didn't need to say that again and again and again, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. We're getting to grips with the fact that this is a spoken word. Not a not a written word, and the and the very great difference between spoken word and written word. And I think a lot of people are being able to go more and more notes-free at this time because they're generating their sermons in a more spoken format. Which means of course you'll be able to memorize it more in the spoken format. If if all you've ever, if the if the sermon has only ever existed in a written format, then going from that to to the spoken word format, it'll be much more difficult to translate it and to memorize it. But I think as people are generating their sermons as a spoken out loud um medium, then I yeah, I I think they'll be able to they'll be able to notes-free um speak. And you know, we we we've had people kind of contact us saying it saying that yeah, they're they're going more and more notes-free under these lockdown conditions, and they want to carry that through into Sunday, you know, when lockdown eases. So there are some positives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that is a positive.
SPEAKER_00I think so. I think so. Um, well, guys, let us know what you think about uh these conditions, and that there are lots of the massive drawbacks to being in lockdown. Um massive drawbacks in not being able to meet. Um, but there are also things that I think the Lord is teaching us at this time. I was preaching on Psalm 23 on Sunday, and uh he makes me lie down by green pastures. Um sometimes the Lord makes us lie down and uh he's making his church lockdown at the moment. And you know, maybe well it's true, and and he's and he's and he's teaching us he's he's teaching us things um through this, and and maybe well actually you know you've got to trust that actually God's purposes in bringing you low are that he will liberate you and renew you and send you out from this place um in a in a redeemed you know situation. So I think it's it's right to look for these positives and um yeah, let's continue to continue to to work on our preaching um and continue to have that that desire to actually connect with people, whatever the medium. Um yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, good. Good. Just demonstrating the uh the great benefits of a video is that you can edit it later. Well, that'll do us uh for now as we talk about preaching. We'll also be uh getting the advice of Marty Gray and Andrew Satch uh in an upcoming episode of the live cast. Uh so they are seasoned preachers and church pastors. They'll be telling us all the things that they've learned. So do stay tuned uh for that. Uh do give this video a like and a share and a subscribe to our channel. Please do that. That really helps us. Uh but uh thank you so much for joining us for this episode, and we'll see you again soon. Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye.