“Online news isn’t journalism; it’s copy-and-paste from the newspaper.”
Guess what year that was written? …in the year 2000…🎶🎤🎹
There used to be a day when getting your news online carried this sort of stigma. To the public, it was seen as sub-par, less than adequate, mediocre, and untrustworthy. To journalists and news organizations, it was an after-thought.
All of this began to shift in 1998 when the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal first broke on The Drudge Report (an Internet news aggregation site) before any newspaper was able to publish it.
Now fast forward 19 years to March 26, 2017, and at 8:36 am, the same thing happened when two young girls weren’t allowed on a United Airlines flight because they were wearing leggings. Yes you heard me…leggings. It’s not like they had burned their bras or were wearing mini-skirts, short-shorts, or anything revealing by any means.
Well, as you’d expect, within minutes a Twitter storm erupted. By the time United “officially” responded and explained why those girls weren’t allowed to board, the damage had already been done. And when this story hit print the next day, it was considered old hat.
In a day and age when seconds matter in the world of information and breaking news, how do newspapers still exist?
How are they even still profitable? Aside from shrinking margins, high fixed costs, and declining advertising revenue, how are they even still relevant?
The front page of a newspaper was the viral Instagram and the trending Tweet of ol’—it was the breaking news and the historic story. That’s where we got the phrase, “Read all about it! Get your paper, and read all about it!”
It’s what many looked forward to in the morning. It was regular reading over breakfast, during the commute to work, and over the water cooler. However, today, it’s nothing but a reminder of what already happened. It’s something we already knew about within minutes, if not seconds of the actual event.
Are live sermons still relevant?
Is it possible that the traditional live sermon could go the way of the newspaper?
There used to be a day when the only way you could hear a sermon was by going to a local church. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday nights were the typical selection. If you were a part of a Korean church that held early morning prayer, then you could get your prepared biblical exposition every morning before work.
But what about today? Well, as churches continue to cut traditional programming (often starting with their Sunday evening service) and put their sermons online, do you think a day is coming when the Sunday morning live sermon could face the same fate as the newspaper?
I’m not talking about profitability, I’m talking about relevance.
Sure, most churches have sermon series’ that they work through. But let’s be honest. These are more for the preacher’s benefit than the congregation’s. After all, when’s the last time you polled your church before you determined the next sermon series?
A sermon series allows the church staff to plan, organize, and coordinate. But for the average church attendee who comes twice a month, it’s often just another message that may or many not be relevant to what they’re going through.
A key benefit to podcasting your sermons is the fact that your congregation can hear the message that they most need, when they most need it. They can even listen to messages from other preachers to get the answers that they need.
Am I sounding too pragmatic?
Maybe…but I’m just trying to speak on behalf of all the individuals sitting in your church service who are dosing off, on their phones, and are thinking about what they’d rather be doing.
Everyone’s guilty of this, myself including. As a preacher, I’ll be the first one to admit that I’ve felt this way many times in the 1000+ church services that I’ve been to in my lifetime. And I’m most prone to disengage when the message is irrelevant to my present life circumstances.
However, I’ll also be the first to admit that there have been countless times when I’ve been on the edge of my seat and fully engaged because the sermon was relevant to what I was going through. This is a shift that can happen on a weekly basis.
So what’s the fate of the live sermon and what can you do about it?
When 9/11 happened and many of the online news websites went down, VG, a Norwegian news company stayed afloat. They took everything off of their website except four lines of news. And then they updated those four lines in real-time, minute-by-minute, reporting what was happening. As a result, they were able to handle the immense load of traffic on their site.
The Content Trap by Bharat Anand chronicles what happened and articulates the “three-layer” approach to journalism that the leaders of the online division of VG, Torry Pedersen and Espen Egil Hansen, developed after this experience. Hansen explains,
The first layer is live or near-live: We are telling you things as they are happening. In journalism there is a process. Underneath this first layer we have a sketch of a story—this is what has happened, this is what we know now, with more editing of the story. And finally there is the traditional news story—written in full, edited, and then published.
This approach was truly disruptive as Anand explains,
Coming from a traditional newsroom, the three-layer approach was sacrilege. The layers represented very different philosophies about news production. It wasn’t just the difference between a daily news cycle—a culture that defines most newsrooms even today—versus a live news culture; it was the difference between traditional publishing and a wiki approach. The third layer was just like news production at a traditional paper—edit a story, then re-edit, until you’re ready to publish. The first layer was exactly the opposite: publish first, even if as a single sentence, and edit later—like Wikipedia entries. A key sentence Hansen brought back to the team: “We will be back with more.” “That was a crucial sentence,” he says. “I don’t know if anyone else did that, at least not from traditional media.”
A “three-layer” approach to sermons
What if, we approached our sermons in a similar “three-layer” approach?
What would the three layers look like? And by leveraging this approach, could we possibly get to a point where we’re engaging our congregants on a daily basis? Or even better, on a minute-by-minute basis, instead of a weekly or biweekly one?
Could this possibly be the way we re-imagine the live sermon and make it relevant regardless of the topic?
In this paradigm, the third layer would be the live sermon, since it closely parallels the traditional news story—written in full, edited, and then published.
Since the first layer is live or near-live, what do you think would happen if we introduced an interactive and live engagement session with your congregants and community? No, I’m not talking about a Q&A session after the sermon.
I’m talking about the preacher sharing his first thoughts and bare bones structure of the sermon via Facebook live or Periscope on Monday or Tuesday. The sermon obviously wouldn’t be complete, but with the general idea in hand, he would share the structure and ask for feedback.
Church members, friends, and individuals in the community could then catch the livestream, comment on his thoughts and offer suggestions to help make it relevant to their lives.
After this, the preacher could then hone his message and share a little bit more mid-week or near the end of the week—this would be the second layer. In doing this, church members could use that video clip as a tool to invite friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family members to the upcoming service—especially those that are going through a life circumstance relevant to that message.
Just think about the implications!
Perhaps this would indeed lead us to the end of the sermon…as we know it. And instead birth a new multi-faceted approach to preaching—one that is consistently relevant and constantly engaging.
What are your thoughts?
Scott Plavnick says
I often ask our congregation and individuals before I select a series. And I’m all for putting God’s truth in the context of where people are today, and in their lingo. But we must not reduce to merely giving people what they want to hear! We must be the trained disciple-maker who, by God’s inspired Word and specific direction, knows what people will need before they need it. I believe the Bible is God’s daily nourishment for each, whether people realize it or not.
Daniel Im says
I agree. We need to preach in a way that they understand, but we also must preach the whole counsel of God.
Don Shrumm says
Great thoughts here Daniel. I’ve a couple of clergy friends who do a Monday or Tuesday 90 second Facebook check in. And your article has me thinking about a first impressions/first run at the coming text to pique interest. thanks!
Daniel Im says
Love it! How do they do the Facebook check in? Just a public post? Or do they utilize Facebook live?
Don Shrumm says
just a short video posted publicly. Easier to catch congregation on their own schedule that way.
Daniel Im says
Gotcha. I’d encourage you to try Facebook live. Anyone who is live can comment right away, but those who weren’t live can still ask questions later.
Mitchell Perez says
is there anyone doing this right now? If so, can you reference? Would love to see someone who is already doing this and pick their brain to see effectiveness and weaknesses.
Daniel Im says
Not that I know of. This article is more of a call to say, “let’s try this and see what happens!”
Fran Trascritti says
Love much of this, Daniel! I think there’s a benefit to a preview at differing depths of detail prior to the message itself. Not sure on using it as a way to poll people so as to hone in details, but definitely like the chance to stimulating discussion the week prior to the weekend service.
I can also see this used for Sunday School/ small groups as we seek to make disciples. Thanks, very thought provoking!
Daniel Im says
Great thoughts on also using this for Sunday school and small groups!
Zachariah Mays says
If the sermon is merely information transfer, I see the benefit in this approach on some level. However, two thoughts came to mind as I read; 1) when people are captivated by a story, that story might not have anything to do with their life and they are still captivated by it. 2) Making disciples and the framework for that seems to be a great place for the application to be drawn out IF the framework is life-on-life discipleship. The people who are regularly involved in your life CAN BE the people helping you highlight God’s story intersecting with your life at present. If the art of the sermon was story-centered (on God’s story) and the invitation to be a part of that story, application (I would think) should be far-reaching.