sermon.mpx: what are we listening for?

January 29, 2008

To reinforce, the theme of this post I’ve included a podcast version below. You can read it, listen to it, follow along, or ignore it. It’s not new media, but there are plenty of options!

 

 sermon.mpx: Play Now | Play in Popup

Rhett Smith, in his post I Can’t Listen To Another Sermon, is puzzling:

“I’m obviously a firm believer in preaching….I’m just wondering if we need to change some of our methods. I know I need to.”

In the comments, I tried to address the way in which I, too, am thinking about the subject — but truth be told, when I post a comment (and I seldom do) I never feel as though I even get close to my intent. So I thought, perchance, I’d take up a response here.

Sermons are an art form, or can be, or have been. I think the reverberations of postmodernism are a given. Postmodernism is the new “is.” What we’re finding is that on the wall of the 21st century, the lithographs have been taken down and flat screens are up in their place. Lithographs as art are static, unchanging, and yet can continue to inspire until you get used to them and stop noticing . In many ways, there are multitudes who experience sermons in this same manner: they’ve been staring so long, when they look they don’t see anything at all. In a world where flat screen wall art can change every second, stasis doesn’t hold our attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 15 minute homily with Q&A or a 75 minute serial religious rant, sermons are moving towards auction or a nice humidity controlled lockbox in the basement. I hear over and over that it isn’t what is being spoken that is remembered, but the speaker who is instead memorialized; much like Picasso’s painting of the…um…dude with all the eyes on one side of his face or Rembrandt’s…uh…really good painting.

Sermons are a crucial part of worship: let there be no doubt. Without proclamation, it’s hard to imagine the Word moving into the world. The question is, is sermon, in it’s current form, the final medium? Is the medium perfected? Clearly, the answer is no, but ambiguity looms because the next generation, the next phase, new wave, everybody dance craze…is undeterminable. So, what transformation does proclamation need to begin in order for sermon to be saved from a future of ambivolence, or worse, extinction?

I started listening to “podiobooks” over a year ago (and I was a latecomer). Podiobooks aren’t just audio books for the iPod. They are new media, audio driven literature produced for the iPod. The medium is not descendant of the published word. It is the word. It is the word meant to be heard. Granted several authors are self publishing after the fact, but you get the point. I began listening to the horror stylings of Scott Sigler’s Earthcore. From there I found action/adventure in adrenaline doses of Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff and most recently Mur Lafferty’s spry hero comedy Playing For Keeps. Nimcoff’s Number One With A Bullet plays like it should be a movie, but it isn’t…it’s a podiobook. The experience, the story, needs the author’s voice. It’s all part of it. In a blog post, Nemcoff writes:

“The ability to make those independently-generated creative endeavors available to anyone with the click of a mouse button is what has torn the fabric of entertainment-related commerce. Since it’s inception, all entertainment has quantified its success or failure based upon head count. Entertainment that is given away for free is subsidized by corporate sponsorships calculated upon those head counts. When head counts fall, so do revenues. So what happens when people, seeking out their behavioral imperative, choose to venture away from the kind of product traditional media has been offering for our entire lifetimes?”

It’s kind of a response to the sermon issue as well, Isn’t it? Behavioral Imperative. Isn’t that a cogent phrase for the proverbial wall we exegetes are backed up against? Look at the entertainment/headcount relationship to church attendance/charismatic spreacher. Nemcoff continues:

“And that’s exactly what has happened in the world of entertainment. It is no earthshaking news to report television, radio, record companies, and movie studios have seen their head counts drop as more and more people flock to consume new media’s creative endeavors every day. It should be no surprise that, in their constant pursuit for the elusive prey known as the “target demographic”, the sponsors who relied exclusively on traditional media, have followed with toothy grins and mostly open checkbooks. Innovation in creativity is happening everywhere today outside of the corporate incubator and it is fueled by the sheer number of independent creators raising their hands to be part of it.”

CD’s are cool to have. I still have a ton of them. I love the paper and the plastic. I love liner notes. But I don’t buy them anymore. I’m all digital now, it’s mp3 or AAC for me. Sermons are looking for their digital outlet, their podiobook, their mp-unknown leap forward. I’ve read Pagitt’s Preaching Re-Imagined and it’s a step in a good direction, but it’s not new media. It frustrates John MacArthur because Pagitt’s “not doing it right”, but Johnny Mac is 8 Track and Pagitt is CD.

What is the new media for the sermon format? What do you think? What will sermon.mpX look like?

* the podiobooks I’ve mentioned above contain strong language, adult situations, and violence. Basically, the movies you watch on DVD, but read straight into your HDTV imagination.

Technorati Tags: podiobooks, scott sigler, mark yoshimoto nemcoff, mur lafferty, sermon, doug pagitt

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