Preaching by Committee

At Purcellville Baptist Church, laymen and clergy offer critiques and ideas to help Pastor David Janney, with head bowed, create his weekly sermon. (Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

The Rev. Randy Roberts has noticed a similar effect at his church, Loma Linda University Church, a Seventh-day Adventist congregation in Loma Linda, Calif., where the worship committee is made up mostly of laypeople. The group, which changes membership each year but typically includes doctors, homemakers, students and retirees, chooses sermon topics and suggests anecdotes and examples for Roberts to weave into the weekly message.

"My belief is that every member of the church is a minister," said Roberts, who set up the committee when he came to the church four years ago.

Roberts noted that the feedback he gets is not from the panel alone. Because the whole congregation knows that he values collaboration, Roberts receives input from just about anyone. "It's immensely helpful for a pastor to have people tell you things, e-mail things and stop to talk with you when you run into them," he said.Some ministers and scholars warn that, despite the benefits of the team approach, pastors must guard against allowing the system to devolve into leadership by polls.

"The office of the minister sometimes needs to say things beyond what the community itself is saying -- not only say those things that everybody is talking about and agreeing with," said David Greenhaw, president of Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, where he is also a professor of preaching and worship.

Richard Lischer, a professor of preaching at Duke Divinity School, thinks that pastors are more inclined to seek advice from people with expertise in other fields because of the demand among worshipers for a multimedia presentation.

But ministers who shift the responsibility for biblical reflection to unordained staff and church members are shirking their duties, he said. "Martin Luther King Jr. did not preach by committee and spoke eloquently and moved the hearts of millions of people," said Lischer, author of a book on King's preaching.

"What is lost is the complexity and the richness of the biblical message," he added. "The Bible portrays people who are struggling with the ambiguities of the faith."

At Cedar Ridge Community Church in Montgomery County, the Rev. Brian McLaren does not discuss sermons with a committee. But he does meet every Monday with Betsy Mitchell Henning, the church's director of liturgical arts, to explore how the church's ministries in music, drama, audiovisuals and decorations can combine to present one theme during the service.

McLaren said he comes to those meetings with little more than a general idea for a theme. Sometimes, the plans of the other ministries influence the sermon, "and sometimes the sermon influences the rest of the service," he said.

"The congregation is not just sitting and listening to words going into their brain," McLaren said. "They're using all of their senses and interacting with the service with their mind, their imagination and their emotions."

Mitchell Henning said she often suggests incorporating skits before, during or after the sermon, with most of those written by members of the church's drama team.

"Not everybody is a sitting-and-taking-notes-at-a-lecture person," she said. "The more we can touch people's hearts, the more likely the things we talk about at church will become part of their real life."

Although the collaborative system is most often found in Protestant churches, some Roman Catholic churches also are using groups to advise the pastor on his sermon.

At Community of the Good Shepherd in the suburbs of Cincinnati, a worship team meets for about 90 minutes on Tuesday mornings to discuss the next Sunday service as well as the previous one. The group is composed of full-time staff members and clergy.

"We talk about the [previous] homily and people's reactions -- whether it was good, bad or indifferent," said Stephen Lindner, director of liturgical ministries at the church. The committee members might also volunteer what the upcoming readings mean to them, and their perspective might influence the homily, Lindner said.

The Rev. Michael J. Graham, a Jesuit priest who is president of Xavier University and frequently preaches at Good Shepherd, said the meetings can provide a helpful reminder of who the audience is and what is going on in their lives.

"It can teach people that Scripture reflection designed toward enriching our lives is something we all can do," Graham said.