Most preachers spend hours on sermon preparation - studying scripture, crafting illustrations, and polishing delivery. But research shows there's a crucial step that's often missing: creating intentional spaces to hear what our congregations are actually receiving from our preaching. In this episode, Dr. Dee Stokes and Rev. Dr. Adam White share insights from their groundbreaking "And How Will They Hear?" initiative at Luther Seminary, revealing how systematic listening transforms both preaching and congregational engagement.

Through their work with diverse cohorts of preachers, they've discovered that the most compelling sermons aren't necessarily the most polished - they're the ones where preachers have learned to listen deeply to both God and their congregations. Learn practical tools for gathering meaningful feedback, understand why vulnerability matters more than ever in preaching, and discover how shifting from evaluation to understanding can deepen your sermon's impact. Plus, hear why reimagining God's agency in preaching might be the key to unlocking more powerful proclamation.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Sermon-Proof” blog post by Walter Brueggemann: https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/sermon-proof

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/K06Vk2ykOMM.

Adam White: I think the reality is that all preaching happens in a context, which is to say that that that preaching happens because people are in relationship with one another, and those relationships always support preaching. So when we start talking about more fulsome ways of getting feedback or engaging listeners, we're talking about deepening relationships, which is the stuff out of which discipleship comes. Um, and so I think the more that preachers press into this idea of opening their hearts and their minds and their spirits to what the congregation is hearing, that the deeper that potential becomes, I think alongside that, you know, I want to push back ever so slightly on what we should expect from preaching. I think our expectations are too low for preaching, because preaching ultimately is an activity of the Holy Spirit. It's something for which God has primary agency. And I think where we fall short sometimes is our imagination has gotten quite small for what we anticipate that preaching can do in the life of discipleship.

Dwight Zscheile: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Pivot podcast, where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Dwight Zscheile, and I'm joined by my colleague Katie Langston.

Katie Langston: Hello, everyone. And on the Pivot podcast, we discuss what we believe are four key pivots that God is calling many churches to make in the 21st century. And they are one a pivot in posture from primarily fixing institutional problems to listening and discerning where God is leading. Two A pivot in focus from membership to discipleship. Three A pivot in structure from one size fits all models of ministry to a mixed ecology of inherited and new forms together. And four a pivot in leadership from predominantly clergy led, lay supported ministry to lay led, clergy supported ministry.

Dwight Zscheile: Today, we are thrilled to welcome back to the Pivot podcast, the Reverend Doctor Dee Stokes. Dee welcome back.

Dee Stokes: Thank you, Doctor Zscheile and Reverend Langston. I appreciate it. It's good to be with you today.

Dwight Zscheile: And we're also excited to have with us the Reverend Doctor Adam White. And there, uh, Adam, welcome.

Adam White: Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation. It's always good to be wherever Dee is.

Katie Langston: Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that one.

Dwight Zscheile: Indeed. So they are here to talk about an exciting project that they're leading at Luther Seminary with our colleague Karoline Lewis. And it's called. And how will they hear a compelling preaching initiative, which is funded by the Lilly Endowment. And this project is helping preachers understand what their congregants are hearing, and it's helping preachers to become better listeners. So instead of trying to find quick fixes for a declining church attendance or using one size fits all approaches to preaching, they're helping preachers listen deeply to their communities and understand how what people are hearing affects their spiritual lives. They're doing this through cohorts, retreats and meaningful conversations. And along the way, preachers are discovering fresh ways to listen and share the gospel. So welcome to you both. And let's kick off by having you share a bit about this compelling preaching project and how you got involved, and what excited you about this particular approach.

Dee Stokes: I'll go.

Adam White: First. Take this one. Yeah.

Dee Stokes: Well, I got involved when I was still, um, the director of the seeds project, and I was simply asked at the time if I wanted to be a part of it, not really knowing, um, what that meant, to be honest with you. But as I got into it, um, I really fell in love with the concept. And I fell in love with the people, uh, that I work with. I cherish the, um, work that we've done and being with Doctor Lewis and Doctor White. Um, we seem to gel, uh, very, very well. And then the project started to evolve into something else. Really? Um, and of course, Adam's going to share. His involvement has changed and shifted. But, um, I really, really like the work that we're doing. So much so that I've committed. Can I say this on the air? I've committed to staying on the grant through its entirety through December 26th because, um, I can't express enough, um, the work I believe that we've done, uh, with preachers and how preachers have been impacted in ways that I'm not sure that we expected.

Adam White: Yeah. For my involvement, um, Doctor Lewis invited me to be part of the first cohort, and I accepted that invitation. And the And the first cohort was made up largely of former Luther D.Min students. And I completed my D.Min. at Luther in, uh, 2011. And, um, we went through the first pilot part of this process together, trying to figure out exactly how this would look, how these cohort gatherings would be, uh, experienced quite a bit in that gave quite a bit of feedback. And at the end of that process, um, I was invited to become part of the leadership team. So it was taken out of that first cohort. As someone who's in a congregational context, who had been in that cohort to to help help us steer the grant going forward, which was a very cool, gracious invitation from the leadership team. And that got me plugged in to, uh, to the leadership side of this. And I've now been doing that for, I guess, close to a year at least, uh, where I've been on the leadership team. And again, to echo what Dr. Dee has said, um, I think we've developed a real good sense of team and, uh, an approach to the research questions we want to ask how we want to walk with preachers through this. And it's really starting to come together and exciting ways. So it was it's been really fun to make that transition and and sort of be on both sides of this project.

Katie Langston: That's really cool. And just so that I'm clear, tell me a little bit about how the how the program is structured. Like how do people get, um, kind of looped in or chosen to be a part of it? And then what what does their, you know, journey entail? Once they once they are.

Dee Stokes: So, um, initially Adam was in the first group and they were invited and basically they were invited because of their relationship with Doctor Lewis and that they were basically they were all D.Min or former D.Min. They, they finished. Um, and so that was the pilot. So we kind of wanted to just take them through, um, this just for a few months. We had a couple of retreats. Um, we had some zooms. Not very many. Maybe one. One a month. Uh, and we did a survey. So we've developed a survey all along, and we've tweaked that survey, and it's now a survey, um, that I think is pretty good that we give to the listeners. So each pastor or preacher would actually give the survey to their listeners after they've heard them preach. And it's not just that preacher. It could be someone else in their church, their congregation. Um, not every preacher is a pastor, so not everybody actually has a congregation. So they have to, uh, kind of be, um, nifty, if you will, in, um, delivering this survey. And so we have these survey results that we can now compare. So that was Adam's cohort. The cohort we just came out of began in, uh, when do we start?

Adam White: That sounds right. Yeah.

Dee Stokes: August to November with 2024. Right. 2024 24 with two retreats one at the beginning, one at the end, and in between. We had two meetings a month via zoom, and we changed a lot of the things that we had done from the first cohort and on. And in those zoom meetings, the preachers preached. Imagine having a.

Katie Langston: Preaching.

Dee Stokes: Cohort and preachers don't preach, right?

Katie Langston: Right.

Dee Stokes: So they so we developed this ten minute. You only had ten. Now that's hard for us long winded preachers. But they had ten minutes to preach and then we'd split up and their colleagues would not so much critique them but tell us what they heard. See, this is what it's all about. What do you. And one of. And I'm talking too much. Adam, please jump in here in a second. But one of the things that we realized, and that you'll understand this as well is as preachers we don't hear so well. And when we hear other preachers, we judge them by the way we preach, or by our denomination or by our style or or what have you. And we try to get preachers to just listen and not critique. Adam, please help me.

Adam White: Yeah. And and some of these shifts came out of the first cohort because to to Doctor Dee's point, we didn't preach in the first cohort. And the first cohort went, yeah, we think that was a miss. We actively b b b preaching and listening to one another preach, because if we're really going to be in the position of learning what our listeners are hearing, we need to experience for ourselves what it means to be a listener to other preaching and to frame that differently. Um, so, so, so this time around, we made that shift significantly. And I really do think that that it's impacted the way that we're going to be moving forward. Um, to speak briefly about the survey, the survey is interesting too, because, you know, there's a little bit of anxiety when you invite preachers to give their congregation a survey about their. That's what's terrifying to me. It sounds terrifying, right? But what's fascinating is the way the survey is framed and the way that we we talked about it with our preachers is they're not evaluating their preaching. They're talking about what they hear. Mm. And that is different. It's a subtle shift. Right. So so it's the questions aren't is this good or bad? Was this this or was this that did I like or not like. It's was I compelled. And if I was compelled why what what facets or characteristics were were present that for me sort of draw out what it means for me to be compelled. And it really, I think, shifted the way that even our preachers were thinking about this survey. It wasn't an evaluation of them. It wasn't an evaluation of me. It's really asking the question, what are you experiencing in the pew? And to survey. That is a unique challenge, and we're still learning what it means to survey that. But, um, even inviting preachers to do that, to move it away from I'm being evaluated to what are my hearers hearing, it opens up a different kind of discursive space to imagine what a sermon is, what it does, how it interacts with those that are listening to it. So that's been a really interesting to learn from.

Dee Stokes: I want to share one experiment we did, if I may. Uh, at our, um, opening retreat, which was actually in, um, Minneapolis with this last cohort, we developed, uh, an exercise where we group folks together, and we gave them a text to preach as a group. Some of them didn't like it, which we which I was thrilled that they didn't like it, uh, because it stretches them. And so they had 30 minutes, I think we gave them to prepare and then only like ten minutes to present, and everyone in the group had to present, And we've found out that, you know, even the people that didn't like it at first, some of them liked it in the end because it really stretched them, um, to listen to people, to, um, many pastors in particular, if they're solo pastors, don't have people to listen to and don't have anybody to, um, run things, you know, through. Um, and so it really helped them in that regard. So I just really have been impressed with what we've done, uh, as a team, as a cohort, and really look forward to doing some, uh, really neat. We've got some neat stuff coming up for 2025.

Katie Langston: Yeah. So, so the project, uh, kind of emphasizes like understanding the nature of the faith challenges facing the listeners. And so through this, you know, through the surveys and some of those other things, what are what are some of the things that you're discovering that are kind of bubbling up?

Adam White: I, I think, you know, there's a lot of ways to talk about, um, the things that are getting in the way of hearing. There was actually a blog that Walter Brueggemann wrote not too long ago where he was talking about assemblies being sermon proof that they sort of have a layer of armor that they're bringing to when they're listening to sermons that whether it's, you know, they're coming in and they're just so overwhelmed or busy or so accustomed to this or that or the other thing, it's difficult for for the claim of a preacher to get through. And we can name a lot of those challenges, and they're very real. But I think the thing, the conversation that we've stumbled into that I think is really interesting is, is I think one of the things that we may not talk about as much that that creates a layer of armor against sermons cutting through is I think sometimes we lean away from what actually distinguishes sermons from other types of oral discourse, which is to say that the unique thing about Christian preaching is, when you think about it as oral discourse, the primary agency lies outside the speaker, because we actually believe that God is the one the one who's doing the compelling. You know that the God is the one that actually makes the word do what the word does. So what we're finding is a really important facet of compelling preaching. Faithful, compelling preaching is that authentically points to a compelling God through Scripture. And what I mean by that is twofold. One, too much emphasis on human rhetoric and on being clever and on doing all of that. It doesn't leave an imagination for divine action. It's important that, however we're preaching, there's a lot of space for a living God, right? That there's this almost a wager or a, you know, the way we preach might actually sound foolish by its own standard, because, again, we're imagining that God is going to act and show up through preaching. The way we're finding that in the surveying is consistently what we're seeing, um, is, is when people report that they have listened to a compelling sermon, there are two facets or characteristics that are always at the top of the chart, and they are first, the authenticity of the preacher, and second, that it's biblical. And we gave him a lot of options. Those two have consistently risen to the top, and we've done this survey. And what we're seeing in that, or what we're hypothesizing around it, is that it's really, really important right now for people, one to believe that their preachers believe what they're saying and that they're the same people in the pulpit that they are and the rest of their life, and that that is deeply and fundamentally rooted in the witness of Scripture, that it ultimately points to an act of living God. So, so even as we're seeing challenges, I think we're also seeing strategies that this is a time to really recognize that it's it continues to be important to lean into the weirdness, the difference of preaching as a form of discourse, and to lean into some of the rhetoric that that arises out of that.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, so I'm curious how these findings, and this real focus on listening to the community, is reshaping how preachers are preparing sermons and engaging the whole kind of sermon preparation process. What are you discovering around that?

Dee Stokes: We'll say in our first cohort. We actually had the preachers gather a group of folks from their congregations and actually discuss their messages with them. Um, and I thought that was really helpful. Um, Adam may be able to speak a little bit more because he was in that group. Um, to that. But I find that we have not shared the individual survey results with them for obvious reasons. Like don't want them.

Katie Langston: Don't want anyone to feel bad. Right?

Dee Stokes: Right. And and if someone you know didn't answer the questions, you know, the way we wanted them to or correctly, I would say, um, in that vein. But we did share the overall results. And I want to go to go back to what you what was just said about the ethos. Um, Doctor Lewis did a great job of talking about ethos and logos and pathos and the credibility or the character of the person. Um, giving the message is extremely important. And people trust us. They trust us to give the word. That's the Biblical word. And we have to take that seriously.

Katie Langston: Yeah.

Dee Stokes: And we cannot, um, betray the trust of the people. I don't know if I'm answering your question, do I? Do I? But, um. But that just popped up in me that, um, those things are extremely important. And we've got to understand that they trust us, and we can't betray that trust.

Adam White: I think I think another approach to your question that's come out in the survey, and I think we get some of this in both cohorts, is really how to elicit better feedback. How to invite the congregation into. How to give feedback that's useful and how to be better hearers. And there are a number of experiments in the first cohort and some in the second as well, that really were rooted in, you know, how can we move the congregation from saying good sermon in a handshake to actually giving substance and encouraging that? And, you know, and part of that, again, is the same mental shift that we did with the survey, when as a preacher, you can move from the evaluation here is am I good or not? And start to imagine that actually, uh, you can build relationship and be more deeply engaged when you're receiving feedback. That's that's constructive. You all of a sudden you start wanting it and all of a sudden it's something you crave. And, uh, you know, since we have leaders that are coming up with small things that matter. Uh, one of the people in the first cohort talked about that. When she preaches, she always has a notebook with her. And when someone says good sermon, she simply says, why? Why was it a good sermon? Pulls out the notebook and writes it down as a conversation about it. Somebody else has a box in the corner where if somebody says good sermon, she'll say, can you tell me more about that? Write it, drop it in there so I can have that feedback. Um, some of the other things that we've done with listening groups serve the same function. So trying to curate spaces where within a local church ecology, you're actually getting real, actionable, actionable feedback about what's being heard and what's connecting with people. And so, again, I think the first shift is to go to a place where you're going, all right, let's hear what the listeners are engaging, not from a sort of deeply evaluative basement basis. Am I good or bad, but rather, what are they hearing? And now what can I do with that? And opening up pathways for that to be received and shared? Um, I think there are lots of ways at that. And it's a really interesting thing to really start to listen for and discover.

Katie Langston: Doctor Dee, you mentioned, um, kind of, uh, early on that one of the reasons that It compels you. No pun intended to continue in the in the grant is that you have seen some real transformations happen. And so I'm curious if you could share and Adam, you to, uh, you know, just a story or two from kind of the experience that you've had so far.

Dee Stokes: Well, I am still engaged with some folks, um, from our last cohort. And, um, we'll be actually doing some additional teaching starting this week coming up. And I just have found that from some of the survey results even recently, that they've become better teachers because they've become better listeners. And and that's really important because when we preach, we don't just listen to ourselves, we listen to Holy Spirit, we listen to the congregation. Even if they're not saying anything, they're still, uh, we're still listening to them. Right. Body language, uh, tone, whatever they're doing. Uh, and I just think they've come become better, better listeners and preachers because of it. So we ended our retreat on a really high note. Um, retreats for me are big, uh, as, uh, you know, and, um, I just sense that there's been a togetherness in this particular cohort that maybe we didn't have in the first cohort. And I think that's because they got real feedback from each other, um, during the few months we were together. And that feedback has led them to want to do better, to want to be better. Um, I just sense there's a commitment there, um, that has been strengthened, um, from their being, from their time together, uh, in the cohort. Would you agree with that? Adam.

Adam White: Yeah, I think the practices of of listening and being listened to are transformational. And when you can curate that and have people have that experience, that they're going to continue to crave that and seek listening differently and seek being listened to in fuller ways. Um, and I think the outcome of that is stronger preaching. I'm going to talk about my colleague who's in the office next to me. Um, the associate pastor here was part of our last cohort, and it's been fun because I'm on a staff with her. And to watch Pastor Katie grow as a preacher. Over the time we were doing the cohort to, to to to see the way that she is now really diving in to God's agency, in the way that she's preaching and the confidence that that, again, has come out of being listened to well and getting full feedback has really been huge. And I can see it over a period of just a few months, how this has impacted her preaching being part of this.

Dee Stokes: I'll give you another example. um, in terms of style, um, our group was much more diverse this time than it was, uh, with the first group. And so we had different people from different denominations and different styles, and I felt like they really appreciated learning from different styles. And actually some are, um, making decisions on how to change their style even, and how to accept other styles. Um, and some are even doing experiments by bringing different people into their congregations who have different styles than they have. Um, so even that I felt like was a blessing because how you don't get that a lot. You know, people don't want to change their style, but they were very open, um, and very open to listening and to experimenting.

Dwight Zscheile: So I'd love to explore with you both a bit about the relationship between preaching and discipleship and as, as Katie led off in the intro to this podcast. One of the key pivots that we talk about a lot in this podcast is kind of focusing on making institutional members to making disciples of Jesus. And I'm curious, um, how you see this kind of deeper listening approach and the experiments that are under underway with these preachers, how that can actually tap into addressing the discipleship challenge. It seems like a lot of churches, you know, put a lot of emphasis on discipleship as a way to make of preaching, rather to make a way to make disciples, um, sometimes in ways that preacher preaching can't carry. Right? It's just too much. Um, but but what are some important things that our listeners can take away from how this kind of preaching journey can enrich the discipleship culture of a congregation?

Adam White: It's a great question. I mean, I, I think, I think the reality is that that all preaching happens in a context, Which is to say that that that preaching happens because people are in relationship with one another, and those relationships always support preaching. So when we start talking about more fulsome ways of getting feedback or engaging listeners, we're talking about deepening relationships, which is the stuff out of which discipleship comes. Um, and so I think the more that preachers press into this idea of opening their hearts and their minds and their spirits to what the congregation is hearing, that the deeper that potential becomes, I think alongside that, you know, I want to push back ever so slightly on what we should expect from preaching. I think our expectations are too low for preaching, because preaching ultimately is an activity of the Holy Spirit. It's something for which God has primary agency. And I think where we fall short sometimes is our imagination has gotten quite small for what we anticipate that preaching can do in the life of discipleship. As I think about preaching this Sunday, where we're one of the lectionary texts is in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. We have to imagine when we're preaching that this is God speaking, that this is God creating through speech and our imagination. And how we preach needs to reflect the expectation that God can do amazing things through preaching. God can create disciples through preaching. And what we need to back up from is the idea that as a preacher, I can create disciples through preaching. That it's on me. And I actually think cultivating that larger imagination, um, that that moves again to the pivot, right to, to where God is leading and how God is active really is an important facet of this, insofar as we're preaching about how far I can go or how far you can go. We're very much limiting the disciple formation that's going to come out of that, that homiletic exercise. When we imagine it's God active, that horizon is much, much larger.

Dee Stokes: I want to answer it. I want to flip the script and answer it not as a preacher, but preacher, but as a congregant. Never in my life as a follower of Jesus, as a congregant, have I ever been asked what I'm hearing or how that affects me as a believer. Never. So if someone does that, if my pastor does that, then I am like, in awe of that. I'm wild. Like you really want my opinion about something. Think about the transformation. Think about it. Think about the transformation in my mind as a congregant that takes place, and how my relationship with that person now changes because they actually want my feedback, my honest feedback, and and I give it to them and they don't yell at me or they're not disappointed when I give it to them. Right? They're not going to scold me when I give it to them. I'm telling you, I in in the culture that I've, that I'm in right in, in my culture, uh, black people. Let's just put it out there. We don't do that stuff like that. And so the more we could do it, the better we'll be in disciple making, the better we'll be. As even churchgoers and followers of Jesus and preachers, the better we'll be.

Adam White: Yeah. I'm also struck that when we do that, the other thing that we do is when we think about preaching, who do we put the primary responsibility on for that? The preacher. Right. The preacher. When you start to ask these questions, you're starting to share that responsibility differently because you're inviting the question of like, oh, like, what am I supposed to be doing as a hearer? How am I supposed to be paying attention? What am I listening for? Right? You start to offer those kinds of insights, and to some measure, you are actually teaching your assembly how to hear. Um, you know what? What are they expecting when they show up for a for a sermon. Where did that come from? Um, you know, so you can begin to unpack those things when you're in this creative dialogue, once you've turned to them and said, hey, you know, what are you hearing?

Katie Langston: Yeah, it kind of moves it from that sort of, um, like passive consumer model that I think a lot of the American church has fallen into to more of, like an active participant. And together as a congregation, we're making we're hearing the word of God together. We're making meaning together. We're seeing how and where this is, um, a part of our, like, lives together.

Adam White: Um, yeah. And, I mean, and anyone that's done this at any level knows the discovery. When you actually have those conversations, you actually start naming the ways that God is moving in the world. Because when you sit down, you go, you heard what sermon? I didn't preach that sermon.

Katie Langston: I've had that experience. Yeah.

Adam White: Right. And sometimes you're in awe of that because you're like, wow, I wish I had preached that sermon. Um, but it's clear that the Holy Spirit has shown up and done something in that moment. But you begin to discover that divine activity when you're in these kinds of conversations.

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah, I have had that experience. Someone will come out after the, you know, service and say, wow, when you said dah dah, dah dah dah, that hit me so hard. And I'm like, that's amazing because I didn't see it.

Adam White: Yeah. So it's clearly not all up to the preacher and it's not all up to the hearer. There's this interesting dance, there's this intersectionality always taking place when a sermon happens. And if, as a preacher, you're only preparing by reading books and, you know, sitting in your office, you're missing all these other layers that are sort of taking place.

S5: Huh?

Katie Langston: Yeah. And it kind of strikes me, too, just hearing what you've shared, just sort of the importance of like, collegiality, too, because I know one of the things that a lot of pastors struggle with, especially maybe people who are solo pastors or maybe their lay, you know, their lay preachers. And there isn't a pastor that's there every week or whatever is loneliness. And I'm what I'm hearing you share is just the transformative nature of being in a community, uh, of people together, discerning the word of God. And I think there's something special about having colleagues being with other preachers. But you can also help shape that community with the congregation, too, and have them be your colleagues. I always love to go to Bible study, right? The weeks that I'm lucky enough to have a couple of pastoral colleagues in my call here in southern Utah, but I always love to go to Bible study that week beforehand because we're usually reading the text and they're like my, um, text study group, right? Just like the wisdom of this group of folks in the congregation sharing what they're hearing in the text and the questions that it's raising for them and the things that they're, you know, worrying about are the connections that they're making. And I always feel like that really helps me prepare a sermon that can maybe be a response, even to some of the the dialogue that's happening there and, and hopefully be something that's connected to something real that people are experiencing in their day to day lives.

Dee Stokes: So I love what you just said. Obviously, we learned that with seeds that it's we need a community. Uh, people are lonely. People are out there, um, doing the work by themselves. They need to find other people who are doing the work as well and connect to them. So we we praise God that, uh, these cohorts will hopefully will stay connected.

Katie Langston: Hallelujah.

Dwight Zscheile: So what are some key takeaways, uh, that our listeners, um, can, can try or or ponder from this conversation from all that you're learning with, uh, through this project and with these preachers, what are some, some next steps, some people who aren't blessed to be part of these particular cohorts of this process? What that they might actually take.

Adam White: I have two that jump out for me. Uh, one is I mean, this is some sort of silly language that emerged in the first cohort, but but it's stuck. We talk a lot about betting the farm in preaching now, and that's risking divine action relative to preaching. Try it. You know, I think a lot of preaching today passes for vague religious speech. It can be a lot of things. It can be like religious stand up. It can be, um, you know, religious self-help, but actually try to preach in a way that that expects God to act and move and that there's a living God. Um, I actually think that that's a central, central part of of how sermons faithfully compel that. They point to a compelling God. And that's something you can do, risk looking a little bit foolish by by wagering on God. I think I think the other question that this opens up for me, especially when we think about authenticity, is the role of vulnerability in preaching. You know, you go back another generation and the advice was just really don't tell stories about yourself in preaching. And I don't think that's good advice right now. I think you do need to tell stories where you are vulnerable, and it's hard to do when you're doing that. And you allow the text to still be central and where you're and where you're sort of careful in the way in which you're making sure that you're talking about God and not just your experience. But sermon right now, I think the artfulness of preaching in this moment is figuring out how to be vulnerable in such a way that points to divine action, and really trying to figure out where that space is, because I think that vulnerability is required. It's necessary, but you can't do it in such a way that it overwhelms the text or the gospel claim that you're wanting to make. So I think I think that's an important takeaway, is to figure out what that's going to look like in this particular generation.

Katie Langston: Yeah, that's really well said. Yeah. So I maybe the last question then kind of picks up on what you just mentioned, Adam, uh, which is, you know, you talked about sort of in a previous generation, you know, you maybe don't talk about yourself. And in this generation, you know, we're we're kind of we've talked on on, you know, at face lead about moving from the age of association to the age of authenticity. So this feels like very much, you know, connected to that shift. But you know, what do you think are going to be characteristics or aspects of compelling preaching moving into the future? The the current and the rising generation?

Dee Stokes: I want to speak to that a little bit because I've been preaching against this age of authenticity.

Katie Langston: Doctor Dee, you got some.

Dee Stokes: I have.

Katie Langston: Critiques.

Dee Stokes: Uh, because the age of authenticity is more of an isolated age.

Katie Langston: Yes it is.

Dee Stokes: Yeah, in a lot of ways. Right. And so in preaching, we do not want to isolate people, but we want to continue to remind people that God has called us, made us to be in community. And so the more that we do this preaching experiment in community, the more that it shows people that that's where we're meant to be. And we don't want to isolate ourselves. We don't want to be by ourselves. The age of authenticity, um, tells us to be, um, lonely and isolated and do the stuff by ourselves. But we want to branch out and show people that's not the way to do it. Um, we want biblical preaching that's pointing to God, the compelling God who compels us to do something. And we. And when we do something, we're going to do that something with other sisters and brothers. Uh, yeah. In the church. Hello?

Adam White: Yeah. Authenticity is such messy language right now, and I'm never sure what anyone means when means when they say it, to be honest. And I've read the books, but I still don't have a clue what people say when they start talking about it. Um, I'm thinking somewhere in Taylor he talks about authenticity and dialogue that, um, sort of the enemy of authenticity doesn't need to be relationship or community. And I think, I think where that's true, there's fertile soil that being myself in relationship actually is being myself. And, um, and I think preaching invites us to be ourselves in relationship, to be ourselves in relationship with God and with the assembly to which we've been called, and to let that those relationships deeply, deeply form our imaginations, the words that we're proclaiming and the way that we expect things to happen in the world. Um, and so, um, I think it's deeply important in this age, especially in this age, that we preach in ways that are authentic. To the extent that when I preach, I believe what I'm saying and that that's real, that I'm telling the truth. Um, I think that's really important. I think authenticity in the sense of of showing up as myself as a preacher and not becoming someone else is deeply important. But I think both of those have the horizon of a neighbor. You know, both of those have the horizon of relationality. They're not kind of authenticity unmoored or unencumbered. They're authenticity in relationship with. And I think that is going to be central to preaching.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, I want to thank you both, Dee and Adam, for helping us understand how preaching can evolve to meet today's challenges while remaining rooted in God's Word. And I think the encouragement that you've given us around God being the one who compels and God's Word, um, being the at the heart of this through the very ordinary people that God uses to proclaim is something we can all take encouragement from. So thank you.

Katie Langston: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of The Pivot Podcast. To help spread the word about pivot, please like and subscribe. If you're catching us on YouTube, press those buttons. Or if you are listening in your favorite podcast app, head over and leave a review. It actually really does help other people find us when they, um, hear good things about it from from you. So appreciate that.

Dwight Zscheile: And finally, the best compliment you can give us is to share pivot with a friend. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next week.

Faith+Lead voiceover: The Pivot Podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith lead. Faith Lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at faithlead.org.