In my last pastorate I developed a weekly tradition with my colleague – we would take detailed notes of each other’s sermons on the weekend and as a matter of priority every Monday morning when we would deliver the detailed verdict to each other over a freshly ground cup of coffee. I found that when I told other pastors about this tradition, they were horrified. What I thought was natural for a professional looking to hone their skills and effectiveness as a communicator was seen as invasive and way too confronting.
We would time each section of the sermon, and provide detailed commentary on the structure, tone, content, and hermeneutical accuracy of the sermon and make observations about audience engagement.
The Mother of All Sermons Award
This policy of communication analysis was eventually escalated to include the creation of an award that was designed to reign in long sermons. It all started when a colleague (who shall remain nameless) delivered a 47-minute epic. That next Monday morning at our staff meeting the newly minted Mother of All Sermons Award was handed over, framed of course, and then displayed in the office passage.
The recipient took it hard, and he tried his best to off-load it, but to no avail. It did have an immediate effect though, and the resulting brevity lasted until our career pathways meant we were no longer serving together.
14 years have passed since then, and during that time I rather suspect that the same degree of accountability has been in scarce supply as I was notified that the original recipient had recently surpassed his previous efforts with a 58-minute epic. A spy who was present sent me a detailed report, and the only course of action was to supply a brand-new Mother of All Sermons Award, for a logorrheic effort like that deserves recognition.
Some pastors reading this already have an elevated heart rate as they are firmly of the ‘sermonettes produce Christianettes’ school of thought, and droning on for 40+ minutes is seen as a mark of homiletical excellence and authority.
So how long should a sermon be, and what are the key considerations?
The Pew Research Centre found from research into online sermons in the USA that the average length is 37 minutes:
Catholic sermons are the shortest, at a median of just 14 minutes, compared with 25 minutes for sermons in mainline Protestant congregations and 39 minutes in evangelical Protestant congregations. Historically black Protestant churches have the longest sermons by far: a median of 54 minutes, more than triple the length of the median Catholic homily posted online during the Easter study period.
John MacArthur in his book Rediscovering Expository Preaching (Mayhue, 1992)explains that a sermon should last “As long as it takes to cover the passage adequately! I do not think the length of the sermon is as important as its content.” This of course ignores the question of how much information the listener can retain or how effective a sermon of that length can be in terms of retention. Far be it from me to raise the redoubtable ire of MacArthur devotees but this is too short sighted and reflects the culture of the evangelical strong man pastor archetype that evangelicalism is so invested in.
Brandon Hilgemann researched the 50 fastest-growing churches in America for sermon length over four weekends and found that the average was 40 minutes. The shortest was 24 minutes and longest 59 minutes.
You ain’t no Roger Federer
One of my most memorable preaching moments from a listening point of view was Tony Campolo at Greenbelt Arts Festival in the early 90’s. Tony delivered a sermon every morning in the big top tent as part of morning devotions. The worship set beforehand was also memorable in that the internationally recognised session musicians played a range of songs featuring styles from South America, Africa and the Caribbean. The lyrics weren’t your modern Jesus-is-my-boyfriend lyrics either, the songs were ones that included themes of lament and justice, not the soaring victorious lyrics of contemporary times
Tony held forth under the bright stage lights, sweat pouring from his bald head, spittle flying. I don’t remember exactly how long but it would have been an especially long sermon. Time passed quickly.
To those pastors who think that they can preach for a long time and suspend the normative laws of communication and retention – you might be good but never as good as Tony. It’s a bit like a recreational tennis player with a decent backhand comparing himself to Roger Federer.
TED Talks
One of the only other contexts outside of the church where people gather to sit in rows and listen to monologues tends to be TED Talks. Despite the worlds brightest minds often delivering TED talks on a wide array of subjects, there is standard length that is never surpassed: 18 minutes. On many TED Talk stages there is digital clock the size of a foldback speaker that helps the speaker know at any given point what the clock says.
18 minutes is “long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention,” according to Chris Anderson, who bought TED Talks off the founder Richard Wurman. The first TED Talks lasted 90 minutes, but Wurman had it whittled down to 15 minutes before selling the entity to Anderson.
Shorter timespans for monologues are based on the science of communication, which examines how long people can concentrate for, but even more important, how much people can retain.
Curation Is the Cure
It’s harder to talk for 18 minutes than it is for 45 minutes. To preach for 18 minutes requires you to curate your material. Let’s just set aside the 18 minutes and move towards the middle a bit and settle for 25 minutes.
“A man with a great deal of well-prepared matter will probably not exceed forty minutes; when he has less to say he will go on for fifty minutes, and when he has absolutely nothing he will need an hour to say it in”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students – Lecture IX ‘Attention’
I’ll bet my entire Amy Grant and DC Talk back catalogue signed CD’s on the fact that a lot of pastors either cannot do that or will not do that. There are some key factors behind this disdain for brevity:
1. A disdain for the science of communication (attention and retention rates). The laws of communication simply don’t matter to enough pastors. There is either an ignorance of the research or a wilful ignorance. Having cognisance of the timing ramifications of effective communication means making adjustments many pastors are simply not willing to make.
2. An exaggerated view of their efficacy as a communicator (I’m so good that my communication defies science). I’ve got bad news for you: you probably aren’t half as good as you think you are. And if you think you are a really good preacher you probably suck at humility.
3. A willingness to make others suffer the consequences of their indulgences (I’ll take as long as I want, they’ll be back next weekend anyway). All too often, the pastors will, comes first before other considerations. All too easily we indulge ourselves at others expense.
4. An exalted sense of spiritual authority (I’ll talk as long as I’m led by the Holy Spirit to talk). I’m not sure that there is a biblical basis for believing that the potential inspiration of the Holy Spirit negates good preparation, material curation and sound communication strategy. This is a presumptive and lazy approach. Quite often I hear the get-out-clause: “but there was a good ‘response’”. I’ll forego the temptation to write at length about the practise of evangelical altar calls for ‘response’ here, but I promise I’ll get around to a separate post on it.
It is entirely possible that wisdom can come from a donkey, but there’s nothing to be gained by willingly being one.
5. The exalted position of the ‘senior pastor’ figure within evangelical ecclesiology. The senior pastor enjoys a perception of elevated spirituality and authority. Once the worship and notices are over, the congregation settles in for the main moment – when the God-man speaks.
Move towards and Anglican ecclesiology and you will find a shorter sermon and more liturgical elements that involve multiple voices. Move towards an evangelical Baptist/Reformed position and you will find that the sermon is the centrepiece of the service.
Now obviously many will claim that this is evidence an exalted view of Scripture, but it could also mean that the sermon is way too long and that the church would have no idea what to do with all the spare time if the preacher took only 25 minutes. Typically, in evangelical churches of the Baptist or Reformed tradition there is little or no liturgical elements. That baby got thrown out with the bathwater long before we were born. If we measure worship service elements by time it seems that we gather primarily to hear the main man speak. All else is secondary.
6. It’s what the punters want. Evangelical believers have become so conditioned by the cemented place of the long sermon that it’s demanded. In many ways preachers are only delivering to expectations. I accept that but I also believe that as good leaders we should be pushing back on expectations that shouldn’t be set in stone.
Preaching vs Teaching
I’m happy to accept that preaching and teaching are two different disciplines, and that teaching often does require a greater length. That raises the question of the respective place of teaching and preaching, and whether Sunday is the relevant context for preaching rather than systematic teaching. From the Gospels we can see a difference in communication style that Jesus had to the common person (parables) and to the Pharisees. (Matthew 23 verses 13–16, 23, 25, 27 and 29, John 7 versus 14-23)
However, this a topic of its own. Personally, I see the weekly worship gathering distinct form a pure teaching environment, with students sitting with laptops or writing pads at the ready. You can certainly teach within the context of preaching.
I’ve always found that the easiest and laziest way to communicate was to do little curation and effort in terms of maximising retention. Usually that meant talking for a long time. Ultimately it is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we rely on as the power behind any good sermon, rather than technique or length (or brevity). However, I would like to stand before God at the pulpit knowing that I’ve taken the hard road to that point.
References:
Mayhue, R. L. (1992). Rediscovering expository preaching. Rediscovering expository preaching, 3-21.
https://techinch.com/blog/ted-talk-18-minute-time-limit-history
Neobaptist 
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