Making a Scene in the Pulpit: Vivid Preaching for Visual Listeners

How can preachers ensure that their sermons continue to engage listeners in a world defined by visual media and the short segmented delivery of information? Alyce McKenzie harnesses the element of drama and the human fascination with scenes to offer ministers a modern means of sermon development and delivery.McKenzies core strategy is to invite listeners into scenes—whether from Scripture or contemporary life—and once they are there to point them toward the larger story of Gods relationship with humankind. Creating such scenes unifies the whole process of preaching she says from the preachers daily life observations to interpretation of scenes from Scripture to sermon shaping sequencing and delivery. The process culminates in a specific understanding of the purpose of the sermon: to send listeners out into the scenes theyll play in their lives for the next week equipped to act out their parts in ways that are kinder more just and more courageous than last week.