Hearing God's Word Online
Because the church is in lockdown, we’ve shifted everything online. And that includes the sermon. I don’t know how you’re finding that. But I suspect you’ve realised, like me, it’s not the same as it usually is.
Here are three things that we might want to consider when listening to our church sermon online
1. What’s different?
Well, obviously, we’re online! It’s virtual church not in real life (irl) church. And so we’ve lost something of the dynamic of being actually physically with others in the same place at the same time. The odds are, we’re now in our kitchen, or sitting room or bedroom. We’re probably looking at a screen on our laptop or our phone. We may have our headphones in. And we may not have anyone to share the experience with. That’s all a little unusual because real church is intended to be interactive in a way that online church really isn’t. And we’ve lost something of the encouragement that comes from being sat next to people and feeding off their presence and energy. We’re still being spoken to, sort of. But it’s hard to build the same rapport between speaker and hearer when you can’t actually see one another! Preachers can respond when they can spot the audience’s reaction to what they’re saying because they can stray off-script and tweak how they say things to help the audience in front of them. You can’t do that online. It’s more broadcast than conversation. That’s different.
2. What’s dangerous?
Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m easily distracted if I don’t keep my eyes on something. In real life church, if I lose track and start looking out of the window or I give in to my weariness and my eyelids start to droop then the odds are that the preacher will spot it. He probably won’t name me and shame me. But if he’s any good then he’ll raise his voice to grab my attention, fix me with a knowing look, raise an eyebrow in my direction and carry on. Or I may just be imagining that. But it’s so much easier to hold my limited attention span in a live speaking situation. We know that at the moment the preacher is doing his best to look down his webcam and make it hard for me to look away. But I also know he’s not looking at me! One of the reasons that we’ve gone with Zoom for church rather than with streaming options is that it’s live. The speaker does get some impression of how people are reacting. Sort of. And just like in a real-life church sermon, you can’t press pause in real church when it’s on Zoom. And so that helps us maintain our focus on what’s being said up front.
3. What’s desirable?
The bottom line is still the same. We listen to an online sermon in online church for the same reason that we listen to any sermon. We want to hear the word of God explained and applied to our lives in a way that engages our minds to reach our hearts so that our wills might be changed to respond in repentance and faith. That’s no different to usual. And the truth is, it can still happen. But that attention span thing is a thing, isn’t it?! At least for some of us. I’ve always found taking notes helpful. I’ve got notebooks from down the years with old sermon notes in them. The truth is that I rarely look back at them. And that’s OK. The point is that they’re helpful in the moment. I try to ensure that note-taking is not a substitute for thinking. Admittedly, multi-tasking as a man remains a challenge. But if I can walk and chew then surely I can write and think at the same time! I don’t try to write everything down. I don’t need a transcript of what the preacher says. I could always steal his notes if I needed that. But I want to be able to understand the main points he’s making and scribble them down, perhaps highlighting the key Bible passages that support them. I might put some questions that I have down to think about later. And I’ll scribble down. Because I’m a visual thinker I’ll also use diagrams and sketches to illustrate the point. The point is that having a pen in my hand and a piece of paper helps me interact with the sermon and concentrate. It may be that you’re the same. However we do it, the point is that listening to a sermon is meant to result in understanding what God is saying to us so that we can respond in exactly the way that he wants us to. If taking notes helps you maintain your concentration, then go down that route. Do whatever you need to do to avoid getting distracted.
We’ll be back online on Sunday morning. E-mail us at peckhamchurch@gmail.com if you want to hear the latest in our sermon series in Peter’s First Letter. We’ll be in chapter 3:13-22 thinking about how Christians should respond to hostility from the community.