On Shock-and-Awe Preaching...

I have been wrestling with the message delivery mechanism lately. It started as I read the article "Is Your Message Memorable?" from CreatingPassionateUsers. There are chemical in the brain that enable or disable people’s ability to remember a message. And emotional stimulant is a great way to sneak by the brain-cap. The same message was reinforced last Saturday as I attended the Children Ministry Magazine workshop. In active learning, we create emotion accompany the message so that the kids will remember.

So how is it that I am going to create a memorable message in my own preaching?

This Sunday I am going to preach on 1 Corinthians 3 about division in the church. If I want to create an emotional stimulant for the audience to remember the message, I would use a video clip from “Thirteen” about a girl cutting herself in the locked bathroom and tie it in with the message of “church division is like cutting up our own body, the body of Christ!” The clip is very graphics, and no doubt that it would brand that memory well.

But is it what I should do?

I discussed the matter with An, he suggested that I should not do it. “There is always more than one way to communicate.” He reminded me of what he learned from Regent. We agree that the clip would be a bit too “over-the-top”; it would even create an emotional “overdose” and cause back slash as well.

But that’s the problem with communicating in this culture which already has too many emotional stimulants for communication. Advertising and marketing firms are constantly pumping out these emotional stimulants to people. As a result, the noise to signal ratio is very high, and the message of the Truth easily get lost in this sea of noises.

So, how are we supposed to compete and “getting pass the brain-cap filter”?

CreatingPassionateUsers also documented the second method of doing so: repetition. And this is the healthy alternative for people to avoid high dosage of emotional stimulants. In Scripture we have this cyclical pattern of Sabbath, of annual feasts. The church has its weekly meetings for teaching and worship. Memory of the truth is branded by consistency practice over time, and not depends on high emotional dosage.

After all, Paul said that, "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power." [1Cor.2:4-5, NIV]

Don’t take me wrong. I will continue to work hard to make sure that the message creative and relevant to the hearers. But creativity and relevancy is only the communication channel to deliver the content. If the content is without substance, the channel will ends up delivering junks. I am thinking of IV in blood-transfusion. Focus on getting a channel into the patient vein will only helpful if we have the life-saving blood to deliver. Otherwise, it could be detrimental.

O God! How much I count on Your power to be at work so that our faith will rest on Your power, and not on men’s wisdom!