One of the most disconcerting feelings pastors experience is pouring their hearts into a sermon only to feel it made no difference in the lives of the congregation. It is equally frustrating to look out from the pulpit and see someone tuning out. To improve sermon attention and ensure our message resonates, we must understand how to capture the minds of our listeners, giving the Holy Spirit space to ultimately transform their hearts. Here are several neuroscience-based tips to enhance engagement.
Neuroscience offers profound insights into how people process and retain information. Two distinct mental processes related to attention simultaneously activate in the minds of those sitting in the pews each Sunday. Understanding these cognitive functions can help us make sermons more listenable and impactful.
• Focus: This is the cognitive ability to attend specifically to what is being said. Utilizing established adult learning principles for preaching can help us better understand how to sustain this focus throughout a message.
• Inhibiting distractions: the ability to tune out competing information. Those distractions can be external like a baby crying or internal like self-talk or mulling over memories of what happened on the way to church.
So what can we do when we preach to help increase attention? I’ve listed five neuroscience insights to keep in mind as you prepare your sermons.
1. Mood matters. Scientists have discovered that when people are in a good mood they pay better attention. We can’t change what happened to a family on the way to church (i.e., a fight), but we can take some steps to help put them in a good mood. Humor is a great tool that does that. Don’t begin your sermon with something heavy. Rather, try to interject some humor. Smile and put people at ease.
2. The head cannot take more than the seat can endure is true. Our brains need downtime. They can’t concentrate for long periods of time. In fact, the brain will make downtime for itself when it gets tired. So, build ebb and flow into your sermons. Alternate intensity (something that may require intensive concentration) with points or stories that don’t take much concentration.
3. See your sermons like firing a gun. Three distinct processes take place in the brain for attention to occur. It’s firing a gun: load, aim, fire. To load is when the brain is alerted to take notice. Aim is when it looks for more information. Fire is when it actually acts. So develop your sermon with this in mind. Build each point around the load—aim—fire process.
4. Include novelty in your sermons. Attention increases with something novel or new. Include a couple of surprises. Perhaps you pull out a “show and tell” item unexpectedly to illustrate a point. Maybe you move to a different location from where you usually preach (i.e., off the stage and into an aisle).
5. Make it relevant. Preaching is connecting the then and there to the here and now. We must try to help people apply the message to their lives. The brain pays much more attention when it senses relevance. Don’t just wait until the end for application. Provide application points throughout the sermon.
Ultimately, we want our sermons to stick in the listener’s long-term memory. The more they stick, the greater the chance for the Holy Spirit to bring about life transformation.
What presentation techniques you found that helps sermons stick?
If you’d like to go in-depth and learn how neuroscience can help you preach more effectively, sign up for my 6-week course that begins in two weeks on Thursday, June 25 from 11 to noon (Eastern time) for six consecutive Thursdays. It’s called Preaching and the Brain: How to Use Brain Insight to Make Your Sermons Stick. Click here to sign up.
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This article originally appeared on CharlesStone.com and is reposted here by permission.
