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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday. November 13, 1967
Editor criticizes quality of sermons
By Louis Cassels UPI Religion Writer
Every Sunday, about 300,000 sermons are delivered from America's pulps.
Some have the power to move hearts, change minds and transform lives.
But many are duds.
What causes a sermon to missfire?
A. R. Roalman, editor of Best Sermons magazine, has been brooding over this question. His conclusions carry some weight because he listens to or reads about 300 sermons a month—75 times as many as the average faithful churchgoer.
Sermons boring
simply rehashes of facts, viewpoints and arguments that are already familiar to most of the congregation. It is small wonder that listeners find such sermons boring.
One of the main reasons why sermons fail, he says, is that they don't offer the listener any new insights or information. They are
"The human mind is not excited to attention by bland restatements of the obvious," Roalman observes.
a 20-minute sermon nor even, heavens forbid, a 30-minute sermon to do justice to so many scattered ideas, he leaves the listener more bewildered than uplifted.
At the opposite extreme, and equally deadly from the listener's viewpoint, is the sermon that tries to cover too much ground. Instead of settling on one theme and developing it forcefully, the minister tries to cram four or five different ideas into a single discourse. Since there isn't time in
The third major cause of sermon failure, according to Roalman, is the predilection of some preachers for sweeping generalities. Their condemnations and exhortations are couched in such broad terms as to be meaningless to the individual.
A listener may be humbly awaiting guidance, and sincerely ready to apply the insights of the sermon to his own life. But the preacher gives him nothing specific that he can try on for size.
Stems from timidity
Roalman suspects that vagueness in a sermon sometimes stems from timidity on the part of the preacher. He's afraid to come right out and say what he thinks about life after death, or divorce, or race relations, or whatever his topic is alleged to be. So he "pussyfoots around the truth," and hopes that people will get his hidden message. They usually don't.
By turning Roalman's critique around, it is possible to construct a working definition of a good sermon:
A good sermon is one in which
the preacher takes a single question that people are genuinely concerned about, and sheds some new light on it, out of the Bible of his own experience, clear and specific language that each listener can relate to himself.
Such a sermon cannot be written hurriedly by a man who is harassed and distracted by other duties. It can be produced only by a minister who has learned to listen as well as talk, so that he will know what is really bugging his parishioners; and who has spent a lot of time reading, thinking and praying, in order to arrive at clear and forthright convictions.
Geology lecture planned
A Stanford University professor of geology, John Harbaugh, will present the second paper entitled "Methodical Tools in Regional Simulation" in a Colloquium on Urban and Regional Simulation Tuesday in 304 Summerfield.
The colloquium is sponsored by the Center for Regional Studies at KU.
Robert Aangenbrug, research associate at the Center and assistant professor of geography, said the speakers in this series are dealing with current problems of city and regional environments.
Aangeenbrug said the recent crises in uben and regional programs has revealed serious problems in analysis of regional phenomenon.
"In bringing their latest research efforts from all over the nation to the University, each speaker will reflect new trends in the national research efforts which increasingly focus on these spatial problems." Aangeeebrug said.
U.S. general talks war with Johnson
SAIGON—(UPI)—Gen. William C. Westmoreland flew from Saigon today enroute to Washington for Vietnam war talks with President Johnson. He will join U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker at the White House conference.
Westmoreland, commander of all American forces in the Vietnam theater, was flying to Washington via the Philippines where his wife planned to join him with Robert Komer, the American official in charge of pacification programs in Vietnam.
Bunker arrived in Washington last Friday.
Westmoreland left Saigon in a C135 cargo plane converted for passenger use.
It was his third trip to the United States this year.
Reports from Washington said Bunker planned to report to President Johnson for a progress report on the military and diplomatic aspects of the war.
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