My post on the royal wedding sermon prompted a fairly mixed response with many of my friends experiencing similar negative or not bothered responses. However what was really interesting for me from the comments process was how wedded the church is to particular methods, approaches and systems. It could be argued that preaching is one of the minor cultural texts that make up the wider church culture, and regardless of denomination the circuit of culture (representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation) has created a vague but impenitrible culture. If culture eats strategy for breakfast, strategy is just the muffin on the side when it comes to what church culture can consume.
For example we know loads about learning styles, effective communication methods, that are taught up and down the country in theological colleges, by mission training agencies, but never quite get through. When was the last time you heard a sermon in under 8 minutes, let alone the evidence that talks are one of the least effective learning contexts. You put that sort of argument up and church culture says but preaching is for this or that, church culture doesn’t just eat strategy its eats wisdom, knowledge and evidenced practice. This applies way beyond the preaching context, we know the church isn’t the building, we can rarely talk about it as people. The evidence of effective mission is all around relationships, but we keep propping up buildings. The research on effective use of films in communication (let alone on how jesus used parables) suggests we avoid purposed dominance, and instead create space for people to wrestle their own conclusions and applicability, but we don’t, because we are more products of the culture than we think. Don’t even let me get started on how we do discipleship or train leaders, people sitting in rows, how we open or close meetings, prayer, singing or…