In drawing an analogy comparing a worship service to a theatrical performance, we would generally assume that the actor would represent the preacher; the prompter who leads the preacher through his or her "performance," God; and the audience, the congregation.
Not so! In true worship the congregation is the actor, the preacher is the prompter, and God is the audience. The sermon is not something preachers do for their people, but something they do with their people for God. The sermon usually follows the monologic method, but it must always follow the dialogic principle that of a conversation involving at least two people, each communicating his or her thoughts and listening to those of the other. To become a more dialogical preacher:
1. Study people. Dialogical preachers need to have their heads in the heavens and their feet on the ground. They need a heavenly message, a divine answer to the human dilemma. But they also need to know people so well that they can show them how that divine answer works where they walk. Willard Sperry said: "The successful preachers of any day--successful in the best sense of the word--are by no means its ablest scholars; they are men who succeed because they can match their understanding of religion in the abstract by a knowledge of human nature in the concrete."*
2. Know your congregation. Dialogical preachers must know people in general. Even more important, they must know their own people in particular.
Most preachers talk too much and listen too little. And too many preachers prepare sermons only with their eyes. That is, the entire contents of their sermons come from books. They know much about Bible characters, but little about the character of their own congregations. They know more about Jerusalem than about the city where their people work and worship. They listen too little.
To preach dialogically, do your studying at the beginning of the week. Find what God's Word and the Holy Spirit want you to bring your people on the weekend. Then walk your sermon around your parish. If, after several days of visitation and pastoral duties, you haven't found illustrations for and practical applications of your sermon, either you aren't listening to your people or your sermon isn't worth preaching.
Stand at the door as your people come in to worship. Shake their hands, look into their faces, sense their concerns. Note needs that your sermon can answer. And watch as you preach. Your congregation is dialoguing with you through the nod of the head, the smile, the frown, the restlessness of inattention.
3. Invite input. Announce your scriptural passage and invite members to read it and then to come to a meeting at which they will share ideas, illustrations, and real-life applications of that passage.
Use rhetorical questions in your sermons. Try a dialogue sermon in which you share the pulpit with another speaker. One may take the part of the listener and ask questions the congregation might want asked. Take a survey of the congregation occasionally, looking for common needs or preferred topics.
4. Encourage feedback. This is the most frightening part of dialogic preaching--most preachers won't do it. When we've preached, we want to be congratulated, not critiqued.
Form a group to discuss what the sermon communicated. Ask them to record their discussion for you to listen to later. Or, at the close of the sermon, survey the congregation, asking such questions as "How will this sermon affect your life this week?" Designate a member to respond on behalf of the congregation as the sermon closes. Invite volunteers to respond the testimony meeting may be thought of as outdated, but, properly conducted, it can be as modern as the contemporary emphasis on dialogue. Listen at the door as people leave.
People so often get from our sermons something completely different from what we thought we gave. This in itself should convince us that preaching is more like prompting than like performing. So what if the preacher didn't intend that application he or she helped the "actor" get through to the "audience."
I challenge you to break the old mold. Experiment. Study early, visit much, listen attentively. Be a dialogical preacher.
*Willard L. Sperry, We Prophesy in Part (New York: Harper and Brothers, Pub., 1938), pp. v, vi.