The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Preaching

By Mark Batterson

Who invented the pulpit? 

You’ve probably never asked that question.  You probably don’t care.  But someone once thought that sermons should be delivered from behind a stationary object called a pulpit.

Ornate wooden lecterns.  Black music stands.  Plexiglas pulpits. 

Millions of preachers have been preaching from behind pulpits for hundreds of years.  And there is nothing inherently wrong with that.  But who said preachers have to preach from behind pulpits and parishioners have to listen while seated in wooden pews? 

Maybe it’s time to take our preaching off-road? 

A little history. 

In 1728, John Wesley was ordained into the Anglican priesthood.  It was assumed that preaching was to take place behind a pulpit inside the four walls of a church sanctuary.  The hierarchy within the Church of England considered outdoor preaching a violation of canon law.  John Wesley broke the law and broke the mold. 

Wesley wasn’t trying to be different for difference sake.  His unorthodox methodology of “field preaching” and “circuit riding” led to disenfranchisement and death threats.  Wesley even admitted in 1772, “To this day, field preaching is a cross to me.”  So why did Wesley take his preaching out of the church and onto the road?  Because he didn’t believe the gospel should be quarantined to a church building; in his own words, “I look upon the world as my parish.” 

Wesley preached his first “off-road” sermon on April 2, 1739.  His last outdoor sermon was delivered under an ash tree in the churchyard of Rye in Kent, England on October 7, 1790.  During that fifty-year stretch, Wesley preached more than 40,000 sermons; traveled 250,000 miles on horseback; and saw 150,000 people convert to Christ. 

Fast-forward two hundred years.   

Now, we don’t have to hop on a horse.  We can click a mouse! 

Podcasting is postmodern field preaching. 

Blogging is 21st century circuit riding. 

Without having to saddle up, digital technology enables us to get out from behind our pulpits and travel the globe at the speed of light.  More than 10,000 people from around the world tuned into our Theaterchurch.com podcast last month.  I just got an email yesterday from a pastor in Australia who was doing a Google search and ended up in my corner of the blogosphere (www.evotional.com).  Every week I send out an email version of my weekend message that goes to subscribers on every continent.  Well, I’m not 100% sure about Antarctica.  But you get the point.

Think of podcasting and blogging as digital discipleship.  It’s e-vangelism.  It’s all about redeeming technology and using it to foster spiritual growth via word of mouse.

Giddy-up!

The Digital Revolution 

The digital revolution has begun. 

Here’s the $64,000 question: will the church lead the way or will we sit on the sidelines and watch others use digital mediums to spread their message?  

Five hundred years ago, a new technology changed the course of history.  Who would have thought that virtually everyone in the world would know the name of a
German printer named Johann Gutenberg?  It was his printing press that fueled the Protestant Reformation by aiding and abetting a German monk named Martin Luther to spread his revolutionary ideas farther and faster and cheaper.   

Digital technology presents to the 21st century church the same opportunity that Gutenberg’s printing press presented to the 15th century church. 

My generation is the Internet generation.  On October 29, 1969, the first email message was sent on the precursor to the Internet, the ARPANET. A UCLA student named Charley Kline typed the word “LOGIN” and my generation has never logged off. 

The next generation will be the iPod generation.  MP3 players will do to CD players what DVD players are doing to VHS players.  I can hardly find a VHS copy of a movie at my Blockbuster anymore!  In the next decade, CDs will phase out and MP3s will phase in. 

A few years ago, our resource ministry stopped duplicating cassettes because cassette players are becoming obsolete.  We shifted to a CD format for all messages.  Podcasting is the next shift.  We convert all of our messages to MP3 format and upload them so anybody with a computer or MP3 player can subscribe to it.  If you want to take a podcasting test drive, visit www.theaterchurch.comto subscribe to the Theaterchurch podcast. 

When you subscribe to a podcast, great content is automatically delivered and downloaded onto your computer or MP3 player.  No fuss.  It’s called walkaway content.  You control what you listen to, when you listen to it, and where you listen to it. 

Podcasting is spiritual multitasking.  It’s feeding your spirit while you’re commuting, relaxing, or working out.  You can redeem the time and “have church” in the car, at the beach, or on the treadmill. 

Download

Here’s a sobering fact for anyone who is part of the preaching clan: 95% of what we say is forgotten within three days!  But retention rates are more than doubled if we hear or read something twice.  That’s why I email a written version of my weekend messages.  That weekly evotional™ (www.evotional.com) gives members of National Community Church a double dose of every message.  Podcasting has the same effect.  So does my daily blog.  They are spiritual supplements.  

I’m beginning to wonder if we need to redefine the way we think about influence.  On an average Sunday, I preach to approximately eight hundred people, but my weekly evotional is emailed to 2500 subscribers.  My blog had more than 17,000 hits last month.  And more than 25,000 people have tuned into the Theaterchurch.com podcast since we launched it three months ago. 

Maybe it’s time we get out from behind our pulpit.

You never know whose life you’ll impact if begin podcasting or enter the blogosphere.  Here’s an email from one of our podcast subscribers: 

Dear Pastor Mark,

I read about your church in the New York Times article on churches and podcasting a couple weeks ago. It was through that article that I started subscribing to your podcast. I'm writing this email all the way from Singapore and I just wanted to thank Theaterchurch.com for expanding their outreach outside of the U.S.

Your last series really spoke to me. After listening, I really heard and felt God telling me to return to my burning bush experience.  I needed to re-anchor in the things that God had done in my life when I was at college in the U.S. eleven years ago.

As I listened to the messages over my powerbook, God's presence was SO strong. He simply enveloped every corner of my room. That evening, God met me and I felt like an electric cord came by and gave me back my fervor.

It's extremely exciting to hear what God is doing with Theaterchurch.com 10,000 miles away from where I am physically. I live half way around the world and yet it doesn't sound like it's that far away!

I have a simple rule of thumb: if it’s worth preaching it’s worth podcasting. 

Let’s redeem technology and use it to serve God’s purposes.

Carpe digital.

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church (www.theaterchurch.com) in Washington, DC.  Comprised largely of Capitol Hill staffers, NCC is 80% single and 80% twenty-something.  Recognized as one of the most innovative churches in America, the vision of NCC is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the DC area.   Mark is also the co-founder and Chief Spiritual Officer of GodiPod.com, author of ID: The True You, and a blogger (www.evotional.com). This upcoming May (2006), Mark hosting the Buzz Conference in Washington DC (www.buzzconference.com).  Mark lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and their three children.   

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