June 12, 2024
Episode #251
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David and Joel Mains continue to take an insightful look back at David’s life and ministry. What has David learned about preaching and how ministers can improve the effectiveness of their communications?
Episode Transcript
David: College, I was taught more by example. We had chapel every day. So, I would hear many different speakers. Some of them resonated again because you’re college age. If they used humor, that was a thing. I look back and I can remember some of those people who were speakers. Some of them were deeper life speakers, and they used a lot of imagery. They were talking about eating grapes and cana or whatever. I made that up. Nobody actually said that.
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Joel: I am Joel Mains and I’m sitting here with my father. Hi dad, how are you doing today?
David: Good to be here with you.
Joel: Okay, well good.
Today we’re going to be talking on a topic that I think you’re kind of an expert in. It’s something you focused on for a lot of your life and that is communication. You’ve been a communicator in radio and books and television and preaching. And we have something that I think is near and dear to your heart and that’s the idea of a sermon; how the church communicates to its people. This is something that’s close to your heart, would you say?
David: Well, I think every minister wrestles with how effective he or she is in terms of the encounter on Sunday when all the people come as a congregation. So yes, that’s very significant and I’ve had a lot of different experiences.
Joel: Right, you’ve progressed over time and how you think about that and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Taking a deep dive into the idea of communicating with people; trying to speak words of God. And how do you communicate and do that effectively.
David: And sometimes alone and sometimes with someone else. It’s a fascinating area to me and I think I’ve gotten better than I used to be.
Joel: Okay, well that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Stick around everybody, this is going to be a good one.
Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his son, Joel Mains. Here’s David and Joel Mains.
Joel: So, dad, everybody has their expertise in life depending on what their job is. You know, maybe they’re a stockbroker or a plumber or a housewife or something, you know. How do we run this? How do we do this well? You probably have more preacher thoughts than the average person when you go to church. You’re definitely analyzing and going, “Well, how was that?”
David: It’s impossible not to do that for me.
Joel: And this is something that is pretty integral to you. My degree was in film and sometimes, when people get me talking about film, they will say, “Wow, you really know a lot about film.” Well, yeah, because it’s something I was interested in. I’m interested in the history of film. The process of making them. Over the years, you spent a lot of time pondering something that you’re interested in.
David: That’s a good illustration. You say film, I think you have five Emmys. That’s not a film.
Joel: That’s television and Emmys for television, correct.
David: So yeah, this is a part of who you are when you talk about church and preaching. That’s who I am.
Joel: Right.
David: And is it being affected? It’s impossible for me not to analyze. At the same time, I have to be careful that I don’t overanalyze or become critical.
Joel: Right.
David: I have to hold in that. Is this being effective? Was the person heard? Was it confusing? Could have been better. So on.
Joel: I remember growing up and at one point we’d gone somewhere and saw a fairly prominent minister speak. I don’t even remember who it was. So, I’m not trying to be coy here or not say who it was. But big audience, I think it was at the, maybe it was later in life with Natural Religious Broadcasters. But this minister was very engaging. This person spoke a lot, had the crowd, let’s say, the audience.
And on the way back, I had said something like, “Wow, he was really good.” And you said, “Well, can you tell me what he talked about?”
And at that point, that was a struggle for me. I could remember like the funny joke he said at the beginning or maybe a few of the anecdotal things he talked about. But if I had to say in the broadest sense, what was my takeaway, there wasn’t really a strong takeaway there. And that’s when you had said something to me along the lines of. And that’s the difference between just preaching and going up there and being engaging and actually communicating. And people leave and they’re entertained sometimes are pacified, but that doesn’t change anybody’s life. And I think that’s a core to you. If you go to the sermon and you’re entertained, but you don’t have anything to change your life, then what’s the point? The core purpose of what that sermon is, is missed. Would you still feel that way?
David: Of course, I feel that way. Yeah. And I appreciate what you’re saying. And is the subject clear to me? Do I know what was being talked about? And is it going to affect my life? Or do I go away pretty much the same as I was when I came? And my personal feeling is preaching as we know it in the United States. There are all kinds of different personalities. Some ministers are wonderful. Some are male, some are female. But I would say, Joel, I’m probably more critical of my own ministry than I am of other people’s ministries.
Preaching is in desperate need because lives are not being changed. It is not important to me that people think I was an effective minister. This morning, having heard David Mains or David and Karen speak. Was my life affected in a profound way, in a deeply spiritual way? The second is the thing that has to happen.
Joel: Since we’re reflecting, let’s go back and talk about what you grew up in because the world, America, and where you grew up in the heartland of America. Preaching, I’m sure, had a style in the church you grew up in. What did you grow up with? What kind of preaching style did you encounter probably?
David: Probably, it was a combination of orator. This man, it was always man, when I grew up. Was he engaging? Did he have my attention? Humor? That was a big thing. As a kid, it was more interesting to listen to funny things than it was with serious things. I was always frustrated, Joel. It seemed like everything was geared to getting you at the end of the service to admit that you had needs and come forward publicly.
Joel: An altar call, as it’s called?
David: That’s a fair statement. In fact, I haven’t heard those words for a long time.
Joel: For people who don’t have that tradition, it’s very common for certain Christian traditions. At the end, they’re going to say, “If you need Jesus in your heart, or everybody bow their head or close their eyes and raise your hand, and then often come forward and give your life to Christ.”
David: I remember thinking, what are they going to tell me in there?
Joel: You’re saying that often you’re going to pray with people and then you’re going to go off into another room and they’re going to tell you more about Jesus.
David: Yeah, you go to the next level then, but it wasn’t really clear what you were coming in for. In fact, I remember inviting a friend, I probably was in junior high, because I sensed some conviction. But I was too embarrassed to go to the front. I invited this friend. There’s a time a minister said, “If you need a friend to come to the front with you, just tell your friend, would you go down to the front with me?” I was hoping that that person would be convicted there. I could go down and hear what it is they tell you in that backroom. That was disappointing to me because you didn’t know who you were going to talk to. You didn’t talk with a speaker usually. You were talking with someone who was maybe a key member of the church or whatever. But it was all this, why don’t we do this in a simpler way? Why don’t we make this more normal as opposed to all this emotion?
Joel: When that becomes systematized, it can become a very guilt trippy. People can often have a memory of, well, I’m going to go forward because no one’s going forward. Maybe someone else will go forward if I go forward. Did you go forward ever?
David: I don’t know that I ever did.
Joel: Some people will have memories, “I went forward 10 times.”
David: I don’t think I ever did. Now, if you ask me if I’ve had a profound encounter with the Lord at different ages in my life, I will say, “Yes.” There’s not a question about that in my mind, but that’s the bigger question. What is your response to preaching? I’ve changed over the years. I’m a different person than when you go back into my early 20s. I learned how to speak in Youth for Christ clubs. As a young man in ministry, that was my audience. Once when the rally would meet once a month, and then you’re speaking from the front and usually speaking to the group of high schoolers, not a lot of them. Maybe you’re talking 12, 15 people. That’s how I got my teeth on speaking.
Joel: How a lot of early pastors started out, right? As a youth pastor.
David: Yeah, that’s exactly.
Joel: Maybe they got to preach once a month. Or once a quarter when ministers are gone or sick.
David: Yeah, I think there are a lot of people who had the same experience I did. That’s how you learn. It’s tough because you realize after a little while that preaching is hard work.
I have changed immensely. I went from the church as a youth pastor once every half a year. You get Sunday night service, you get to preach, and you realize that there are a lot of people who aren’t there. You’ve really worked hard on something. Then I moved into a place where I was preaching every Sunday.
Joel: Right. You have a seminary degree.
David: Yes.
Joel: So, you’ve been ordained to speak.
David: Yes.
Joel: So, you went through college, which most people don’t think about. I’m going to go to college to learn how to be a preacher. Not all denominations require that. What were you taught in college on preaching? What was the methodology at that point?
David: College, I was taught more by example. We had chapel every day. So, I would hear many different speakers. Some of them resonated again because you’re college age. If they used humor, that was a thing. I look back and I can remember some of those people who were speakers. Some of them were deeper life speakers, and they used a lot of imagery. They were talking about eating grapes and cana or whatever. I made that up. Nobody actually said that.
Joel: What was the ideal in seminary as far as the point of preaching?
David: I had those courses, and it shows you how to take the scriptures and overview. I would say that the preaching didn’t really relate to me that much.
Joel: The methodology?
David: The methodology, yeah. A lot of it would be what I would call Bible study. I have looked at my own trajectory in terms of life. If I look back, I’d say that I tried to be the person who stands in the front and commands audiences. I’m not that.
Joel: You’re talking the bold voice, that kind of persona?
David: I am not Billy Graham. I think Billy Graham is a wonderful minister, the man of the era. But I am not Billy Graham. I’m David Mains. I had to develop my own style. The funny thing was I was a pastor for 10 years, and then I had the opportunity to go on radio. Radio is not the same as preaching in person to someone.
Joel: Right.
David: I remember Mr. Jess, who was my mom’s brother, who had founded this program, The Chapel of the Air. He said, “David, it’s very different than when you’re in the pulpit, because…” he says “You’re not talking to a lot of people. When you’re on the radio, you’re talking one to one. You don’t imagine yourself in front of a congregation. Imagine yourself sitting across from someone and just talking with that person.”
Joel: Kind of a fireside chat.
David: He was very, very good at that. I found that that was difficult for me, but after a while, I got so that I was relatively good at that.
Joel: There’s an author, Neil Postman. He wrote a book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” about the difference in communication over the years and how you communicated through the medium. The medium of a newspaper is different than the medium of a book. And then how we communicate through the telephone wires through telegrams and on and on and on. Quite an interesting book.
That’s different here too, when you talk radio versus preaching. In the stereotypical mind of somebody who’s thinking of what a sermon is. If you just ask the average person, they’re often going to be thinking of shouting, re-impassioned, Bible thumper, as they would say, in a colloquialism. But why do you think that developed this bombastic sort of?
David: It developed, and obviously, because if you go back to the early American history with ministers like George Whitfield, they had no amplification. Nobody was putting a mic in front of you. You had to be able to project so that a guy in the back of a crowd of maybe three, four thousand people could hear you.
Joel: Right, that makes sense. And so, you need to be a big guy with a big voice and boom.
David: That was amazing. These guys that they could preach day after day, and people could be heard far, far distance.
Joel: Right. But then people see that they start to emulate that type of style. That becomes the idea of this is good preaching is this kind of red faced.
David: Yeah. That’s how all that started. Yeah. Now, once you put a mic in the situation, all of a sudden, you don’t need that huge voice.
Joel: But you have now you’ve entrenched a style.
David: That’s exactly right. I think that’s exactly right. Yes. In fact, you can see it at other countries. K.P. Yohannan who died very recently; I remember conversations with him, and he said, “In India, that’s not how we preach, David. We preach and boom, you know.” I said, “Yeah, but this is a different world, K.P. I’m encouraging you to go onto radio like I’ve been, but then you have to think of yourself as sitting down…” and I parroted what Mr. Jess has said to me. And he revolutionized that whole country as far as what preaching was thought about, not in totality because you still have the screamers and the shouters and all that.
Joel: There’s a tone you take, if you think about popular preachers like Chuck Swindoll or something like that. His radio program was basically a sermon, right? They’d often cut it into three days and kind of ramp up the music at the end just based on when the time ran out.
David: But that was an amazing thing because he was speaking to an audience which is unlike Mr. Jess. Mr. Jess was speaking in the studio. But yeah, that was pretty neat. They figured out how you could be a preacher and you just put a bed of music under in it. You could stop it anywhere. And thank the Lord because Chuck Swindoll had a phenomenal ministry as a preacher.
Joel: So, you have to find your own voice and you go through radio and you become more of a conversational type of minister. Did that change your content?
David: What changed me was all of a sudden, I had a new part of my ministry that I hadn’t anticipated. But I said it’s kind of odd that almost all of the preaching is done by men, and I would like to dialogue. I would like to change it from just a monologue to a dialogue and I’d like to see if Karen would work with me. And all of a sudden, I found that when Karen stood beside me, and we worked through how we would take turns that I had people riveted. And I think part of why they were so interested in terms of the two of us speaking was because they weren’t sure what we were going to make it through.
Joel: Well, you too. You would have banter back and forth and mom of course is incredibly clever and both of you are playful. I think people enjoyed seeing a couple that was pretty unique. How did people respond to that? Because if you’d say we’re going to bring in somebody and book them to preach, there’s an expectation of what that’s going to be. And then you say there can be kind of a downplaying of well, “this isn’t really preaching. You’re not you’re just kind of winging it up there.”
David: And I would say amen to that because I didn’t think when we dialogue that it was the same as preaching, but it was dynamite communication. Half your audience now was wanting you to win, wanting you to do well, wanting you to say we’re changing the face of what is going on. I’m not sure we ever had that grandiose ideas, but I did find that when I communicated with Karen in a dialogue, I had a far more profound effect on the keen listening of people than I ever had when I did it on my own. That didn’t mean that I stopped doing it on my own, but my most effective times were when I did it with Karen.
Joel: Well, I think there is a dynamic there that is just unique. Yes, because mom can tease you and you can kind of go back and forth. There’s engagement and excitement in that because it is unique.
David: It seems like it’s spontaneous, but in some ways it is. But in another way, there’s control because we’ve said, “Okay, we have agreed. This is what we’re going to talk about, and we agree. This is the response that we’re going to call for.” So, we know where we’re going, but we’re not always sure how we’re going to get there.
Joel: We’re going to that mountain over there, but we may take the river or the road or just hike through the woods. Right?
David: Yeah, and I would say that it’s often the letter. But in the process of that, I came as to my style was saying, I need to know what the subject is and what is the response that we’re calling for because preaching calls for a response. If it’s just informational, it may be helpful, but I don’t necessarily see it as preaching. But that’s my own definition that I’ve put on that. When people would say, “Would you come and speak?” And I’d say, “You know what, I’m finding that we are more effective when we do it as a dialogue.” That immediately meant to the person who was asking you to come that they had to pay for two plane fares. So, everything changed.
But over time, when we are at a comfort level, I think Karen, all of she speaks many times on her own, I think she would say, I would rather go with David to speak together than to do it on my own because I find that that is more effective. And that’s been a massive change in my life. Yet at the same time, I find it more challenging. I find it more engaging. I find that there are two different people who have come to this same topic from different perspectives and yet they meld together. And that’s a very good thing.
Joel: When we look at America and the increasing de-influence of the church, even in my lifetime and your lifetime, I’m sure it’s been massive. When the average person thinks of church, they’re kind of thinking, “We’re going to go and we’re going to sing, but mostly we’re going to hear a sermon.” So, if the sermons are not effective, then I think your culture is going to suffer. At least the Christian culture is going to suffer. At one point, this is pre-COVID, I had started something where I thought, I’m going to visit every church in my zip code.
David: I remember doing this.
Joel: I didn’t realize how many churches there were when you’re willing to include dining churches and things like that. I think I got 22 of them prior to the COVID shutdown in Illinois. The shutdown was fairly severe.
David: But this is in a city.
Joel: Yeah, Aurora is one of the bigger cities in Illinois. And that was a really interesting experience. And then to hear the sermons that many different people preaching and finding little trends or whatever. But I would say one thing that’s unique about you is you’re very big onto application. Well, let’s not just feed the brain. How do the feet get to the road? And I would say in those sermons, probably maybe one or two had any sort of application.
David: That’s quite typical for the day.
Joel: Some of the sermons were interesting. Some of them were horrid. But very few of them, they were mostly ideas. We’re going to talk about the Bible in this idea form. Almost every kind of sin was very abstract. We need not to be sinning. But there was nothing specific.
David: Nothing that’s the how to.
Joel: Not just how to, but even like the specifics of what is it. Are you gossiping or just something as simple as that? But why do you think there’s so little application in sermons?
David: This is one element of what it is. I think the average way a minister lives his or her life is very different from the average way you used a plumber before. The way a plumber does. I don’t think there’s communication between the pulpit and the pew in the process of preparing what’s being said. I think that’s one of the big problems. I also think that most of the preaching is very male. That’s changing. And I’m grateful that’s changing. I’ve had many times, in fact, this happened within the last couple of months. It happened again where a minister said, “Well, I’m interested in your response as you’ve been here to the church.” And I said, “These are the good things. This is one thing that I don’t think is good. And I’ll give it more time to see whether that’s a fair criticism, not in a negative sense, but in a helpful criticism.” I said that I think that the church is better at worship and then the instruction than it is in the application. I think that if you had to, you would need to work on the response area. Which is exactly what you’re saying. But I don’t think that happens often. Ministers say to me regularly, nobody says anything about my sermons. That’s not a good thing. So there needs to be, in my sense, the analyzing.
And I think that’s one of Karen’s strengths that she brings to me. I’m pretty good at saying, “Okay, let’s hone in this subject. It’s too big. Let’s make it more narrow.” So, we got that. And then here’s what we’re suggesting. And the suggestions sometimes are more minister suggestions as to what he or she thinks should be said, as opposed to actually dialoguing with the parishioners in the process of putting that sermon together. It’s not hard to get people to say what they think. So, I find that having that conversation before you preach the sermon or to analyze…
Joel: With a test group or something? What do you mean?
David: Yeah, I did that all the time. I would regularly, even during the radio years, say, “This is a subject whom I’m talking to. I’m kind of at a blank here.” Chuck is the warehouse guy who sends out all the orders. I say, “Tell me what you’re hearing me say and what I’m lacking here because I need your perspective.” It didn’t have to be Chuck. It could be Alice or Rachel, whoever. I regularly would have people come in the office and I’m stuck here. I need to get where this is working or not working in your life. Sermons are still, for the most part, put together with the input of the minister, but very little input from the outside person. “Is this a problem that you’re struggling with?” “Yeah, but you don’t understand the depths of it, pastor.” It doesn’t get to that place. So, I would start working with a group of people three weeks ahead of time on a sermon. “Say, tell me where this relates to your world.” And that’s been a big help to me.
Joel: Well, I think too there’s so many churches and they all run the gamut. But my guess is there were many more sermons when the phenomena of Game of Thrones hit our culture. Zeitgeist is using that as an example. Then there were sermons saying, “Should you be watching this show?” Or the challenge part of that. There’s an effort to be relevant and connect with people where they were, but not always challenging people and how they live. Clearly, we have a culture that’s slipping as far as traditional morals that way. And I have to think that in some ways, those sermons are not being preached.
David: I would agree. I would say that I look most of all at my own ministry and what has been successful and what hasn’t been. I am in a position where it’s very easy to remove myself from the normal world that people live in and think that my ministerial world is where most people are. And that’s not true. I don’t know how to get to it, I’m scratching where they itch unless I talk with them. That takes a certain amount of time, and it takes a certain amount of kind of probing.
Joel: And listening.
David: Listening, yeah. I would agree. And I think one of the easiest things is after you’ve preached the sermon is to just say, “Okay, I told you I was going to do this ahead of time, Bill. I want you to evaluate whether or not this message that I’m preaching this week fits your life.” And people in church are very, very kind to their ministers. I got to the place where with a lot of them, they say, “Well, the truth is,” in fact, I think I’m a given person right now. He said, “You know what?” He said, “I’m dying. I got cancer. And your sermons, they really don’t relate to me at all. I’m living with problems that you tend to not understand.” And then I have to say, “Thank you. Thank you. Now, help me understand so that I can relate to you.” And until that kind of dialogue goes on, we’re not going to solve these problems. We have to feel where these people are coming from. And I have this sense that because I’m so time conscious in my life that maybe we should talk about this more in days to come. I forgot about you going to all those churches. That was an incredible thing that you did.
Joel: I don’t know if it’s incredible. It was very interesting. When you look at your life, as a wrap up here, and think about sermons and communicating, what is your takeaway for you as you look back? I mean, you’ve changed how you communicate. What is your takeaway on that?
David: I think I have gotten better. I think that I have a way to go yet. I believe that I’m on to something with this David-Karen dialogue that reaches a level of honesty and openness that isn’t rehearsed. I think that has to happen more. It takes the minister out of the place where he or she is alone trying to put together things. There needs to be much more dialogue. This is helpful. This isn’t helpful. How to do that honesty so that you don’t kill people or that you just totally discourage them forever. There are enough people leaving the ministry already. Those conversations need to be constructive. And I say that because I have to talk to the people who understand that there needs to be great compassion, as opposed to being a threat to a given minister. “You know what? I listened to your sermon, and I have just one suggestion.” That’s the approach that I need to get better at all the time as I try to be helpful in my old age. That’s as opposed to “You probably missed your calling.” And I don’t think I’ve ever been like that.
Joel: You have an opinion at the office for you.
David: It’s a bigger problem than I have answers for, but I may poke at it. And I’m grateful the Lord has allowed me to still be alive. Thank you, Joel. It’s really fun talking with you and carefully saying, “Lord, bring about the new day when the voice of the ministry will be heard in a profound and powerful way, especially in this country.”
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