Content is king?
Last week I was sent a link to this remarkable picture. It shows some graffiti on a wall in Nantes, Western France. The unusual thing is that the graffiti displays its message both in sign language and braille – allowing many to access it. You have to admire the skill and ingenuity of the artist who has gone to all this effort. That said, it is still graffiti – a (presumably) uninvited painting on a space which does not belong to the artist. Not only that – but I cannot understand it. Since I read neither sign nor braille, it means nothing to me. (I’m sure someone will let me know what it actually says)
[Paul Morris, of Wycliffe Bible Translators, has now translated it for me: “Entendre l’infini à perte de vue” – “hear infinity as far as the eye can see”. – brilliant!]
Photo: www.woostercollective.com
Skill of presentation is all very well, but if the content is poor no amount of fancy presentation will rescue it. Whenever I am training preachers, it is necessary to spend a good deal of time talking about presentation skills. This may include everything from facial gestures and body posture to digital presentation software and embedding videos. This stuff, many feel, is the ‘sharp’ end of preaching. They see it as the place where preachers usually fail their congregations through dull, unarresting and unimaginative presentation. They may have a point.
The thing is though, whilst good content can be spoilt by poor presentation bad content cannot be rescued by good presentation. Powerpoint is no substitute for prayer and embedding is no replacement for exegesis. This is doubtless the reason why Richard Lischer poses the question in his book The End of Words , as to how Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech might have looked in Powerpoint! We so easily get caught up in the finer points of presentation and illustration that we often short circuit the earlier stages of the preaching process. In this regard, the capabilities offered to us in a digital age are more curse than blessing. The fact that we can do all these visual things makes us feel that we must do them. A preacher who spends hours tweaking her or his Powerpoint slides compared to minutes deciding what to say has been hoist with their own digital petard, so to speak. When this happens, both preacher and people suffer.
Of course setting content and presentation against each other is a false dichotomy. Both are vital and neither should be neglected. However, preachers know thyselves, and if you would rather spend twenty minutes choosing your slide background than an hour analysing the biblical background through commentaries – beware!
On my first week in Christian ministry I was dropped on at the last minute to speak at a Women’s Meeting – a new experience for me then. The retired missionary who had booked me for it saw the slight panic in my eyes, and clamped a firm hand on each shoulder of this frightened young man. Looking at me sternly she said ” it doesn’t matter what you say dear – just say it loudly”!
Surely not?
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John,
I am sometimes a little hesitant to be too blunt on the blog when asking awkward questions. However, the experience of the past two weeks would tend to indicate that it is the right approach. I’m all for getting people talking, even if it is to disagree with me!
Richard
I completely agree, Richard! Interestingly, I think I am finding a similar temptation with lecture presentation. In preparing a lecture on a subject which (I think!) I know well, it’s tempting simply to start by doing a powerpoint presentation, using bullet points. My thought process is ‘I know this stuff, I know what I mean, I can easily “talk to” this presentation without further notes.’ But I have started to wonder if this can sometimes cause an element of rambling and therefore confusion for the students (especially on those occasions when I forget what I originally meant by the bullet point!!) This year I will be reverting to a more ‘traditional’ approach at least for some lectures, writing them out more or less in full, and only doing the powerpoint presentation afterwards. This may have the added advantage of reducing stress levels as I have a sharper idea of what I actually want to communicate. We’ll see how it goes…
The original site has a translation on it:
“Entendre l’infini à perte de vue” – “hear infinity as far as the eye can see”.
Slick and polished presentations are not, I suggest, the chief peril of British preaching! But the point is valid and the warning is well taken. There is a well-spring of Spirit-led inspiration that is necessary if the humanity of the preacher is to be connected with the content / message. How can you preach with passion if your message is an afterthought? Yet I think that as we advance in the new ‘orality’ of “words + image”, we will develop guidelines and instincts for what works and for whom. Some preachers will get it, and some won’t. The successful communicators will need to develop an ability to sit in the seat of the listener as they are devising the sermon, and get a feel for when an image off to the side will help listeners to open themselves to the Spirit working. Brueggeman’s ‘imaginative “or”‘ comes to mind here, as the preacher and congregation together conceive of a different future. For some listeners, that act of re-imagination will be kindled by pictures and stories, and some of these can be projected. But the projection should be neither leading the presentation, nor a last-minute bolt-on. Rather it should be part of the praying and planning and developing of the sermon. When people are taught from infancy – or from their first Facebook page – that images work alongside words, then they will develop the fluency and the ‘vocabulary’ to be able to create in the integrated way I am talking about.
Until that time, if Powerpoint (™) with its business presentation background reinforces the didacticism of dry, conceptual exposition, then it is a step backward!
Geoffrey
I am intrigued by what you say about us developing a new vocabulary which is both verbal and visual at once. I see this when teenagers in the church lead us in prayer – to them this combined language comes naturally.
Great blog, Richard. Although I share the dilemma about respecting the clever message but not defacing somebody else’s wall, it does make me think. The balance between using different channels is important and difficult, especially as it can distract from the content, as you so rightly say. It is interesting to note just how the advertising world strive to get our attention for their message by being different in increasingly challenging ways. Doing that with slides is hard now. I wonder what the next inspiring development will be. I wonder if the statements “I don’t use PowerPoint” and “I don’t use clever methods” are actually becoming contradictory?
Very true!
I am going to make more of an effort to ‘test’ the content of both well and poorly presented media. The well presented, because it can disguise thoughless content; and the poorly presented becuase it could hide the genius!
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Hi, Richard —
I agree with your good blog, and there’s even a simpler reason to eschew Power Point most of the time: when you put up a slide, you’re asking the audience to do two things at once (pay attention to you and to the slide). Most audiences are not very good at doing two things at once, especially when they’re hearing something for the first time.
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