One of the comments made to me when I took a student who had grown up in an atheist household to church for the first time was that the sermon was very interesting but he would have appreciated the opportunity to ask questions. This is what students are used to in tutorials, but many traditional churchgoers seem to find it very threatening when they get into an alt.worship kind of setting where they are encouraged to interact with the presentation of the theme for the day. It strikes me as odd from a pedagogical perspective, too.

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I don’t think interrupting sermons is a good thing. It seems to me that the sermon has a genre that is quite distinctive; just as the Gospels have a distinctive genre. Questions about sermons are appropriate, but they should be left until the completion of the sermon. Sermons should come together as they near completion. Asking questions all the way through can obfuscate the relationship of the whole to the parts. That is not to say that that other types of addresses could not be used, with questions permeating throughout. But leave the sermon alone. Imagine the way the prophet, Nathan’s, challenge to King David (2 Samuel 12:1-13) would have come across if David and others kept interrupting Nathan.

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I encourage interaction.

Being in a small congregation makes it much easier… it’s not as easy from the high pulpit in a city Church, although I have seen questions directed there.

ISTM we can design a sermon that will cope with interruptions, or we can design sermons that will suffer from interruptions. In my case the latter mostly means I have not prepared well enough!

I try and write a formal sermon text: we give this to folk for whom English is the second language, and also to whoever is doing Sunday School etc. But I don’t read that ‘on the day’; I talk around it and try and encourage questions and feedback by questioning the congregation. I know people well enough that I can directly ask someone a question, and I think people are beginning to relax and have seen that the dynamic is about dialogue, not right and wrong.

After two years of this in my current congregation I find that I am rarely left without an answer to an open question. People are also becoming more verbose and less formal in their answers, and sometimes suggest other options; “OK… but what about…?” type responses. I am beginning to get unprompted questions, and comments- maybe one sermon in four?

I am finding other parts of the service are correspondingly more relaxed. Adults chime into the kids time; we get repartee and gentle teasing in the notices.

ISTM we teach ourselves to be polite and not interrupt when a person is speaking. So if we formalize the speaking situation into a sermon, we can expect people to be quiet! So we need to find ways to still present, challenge, inform, comfort etc while encouraging dialogue.

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I tend to invite questions before I start into any public exploration of Biblical material. “What questions do you have as you explore this text?” It gives me an opportunity to connect with those shared concerns while I speak. However I still notice that many people do not feel comfortable asking any questions in public forums – they may feel concerned about being seen to be different or inadequate, or they may feel more comfortable in small settings. There’s also the power dynamic at play. “Ask a question of the person with the microphone and he may put you and your question/idea in its place.”

Over Lent, one church has been setting aside 10 minutes each Sunday morning for one question for groups of 4 or 5 to explore, focusing on experience rather than theory. We remind people that we’re there to listen and value, rather than pass judgment. The sermon, of necessity a lot shorter, becomes a lead in to narrative and flows out of it. Some people love it, others would just like to be told what to think.

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I have to admit that I have just about given up on getting the congregations I have worked with to interact and ask questions. It appears that the idea has become so foreign in a worship context that there is no longer any desire or even ability to think critically and interact. I would love someone to ask a question – at least I’d know someone was listening. I would certainly agree that placing ‘longer term’ church goers into an interactive alt.worship or intergenerational setting where interaction is encouraged seems often to result in a very high threat/discomfort level (and often a deafening silence).

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Too right, and when you can break the “listen in unquestioned silence” model all sorts of wonderful learnings take place, including many for the presenter.

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A further point, it seems to me, is the need to challenge the assumption underlying the question. A sermon is not primarily a pedagogical tool. A so called “teaching” sermon has very little effect. I would say that a sermon seeks to embody the Word made flesh and to lead people into an encounter with that living Word. There are other means and tools traditionally used by the Church to teach, such as the Bible study.

During this period of Lent many churches are following Lent Event Bible studies, where they can dialogue and thrash out the text. However, they come to the use of the same text on Sunday with a different approach.

When the Church Fathers speak of the sacraments as the “Word made visible”, we can likewise see the sacramental nature of the word.

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It’s difficult to expect people to confidently frame a question from the floor, but I’ve rarely had trouble getting people to interact with each other in 2s 3s or small groups – who with time can learn to then report back.

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So then, of course, the question is – should those who would just like to be told what to think be told, or should they be encouraged/expected to think for themselves? If a “teaching sermon” does little and the whole point of a sermon is an encounter with the Living Word (whatever that means to each individual!) then surely such an encounter is not genuine unless it’s interactive? And does that mean that a sermon would best facilitate/model such an interactive encounter if it, too, was interactive?

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I think Jesus used the dialogue/question/interaction mode almost exclusively. In John’s gospel do we get a lot of monologue presentations – probably more from John than Jesus. A successful market place speaker would certainly use questions (both ways), banter, pick up on comments and clues, etc., to get through to a (possibly disinterested) crowd, or at least a crowd with diverse interests and priorities.

So an encounter with God equals an encounter with Jesus and the biblical pattern is one of interaction and dialogue. Jesus did have access to formal worship services and teaching options but most of our records of his ‘preaching’ are in market place, personal and informal areas. There may be something to learn from that. It is certainly easier with smaller congregations – although that time with 5000 was probably rather exciting.

One occasion I recall I turned up with a liturgically correct fully prepared worship service to find a congregation traumatized (a suicide and horrific road accident in the community that morning). We started with the cuppa rather than after worship, discussing the incidents, reflected on God’s place in these, and the comfort God gave to our needs. We prayed, cried together, comforted one another, sang a hymn someone recalled had comforted them once, read a scripture for the same reason, and went home with God’s blessing. The prepared notes unused. On the drive home we reflected that we had not “conducted worship” – or had we?

I am convinced that God is more spontaneous and less governed by “doing it properly” than we can imagine.

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John Wesley’s interaction with crowds in market places and at pit tops and elsewhere would surely have involved “questions (both ways), banter etc.” I have no quarrel with the use of such techniques in evangelism (using the word in the sense of both proselytising and confronting people with the demands of the gospel). But I draw a distinction between such activities and the worship of the gathered People of God. The former is “aimed” at the crowd in the marketplace (or wherever); the latter is “aimed” at God — it is the people worshipping (giving worth to) God.

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