Dissertation Update

In my doctoral research, I have been studying the impact of technology on sermon-listening. It used to be that a listener and a preacher had to be in the same room in order for the preaching event to take place. In Jesus' case, a hillside or shoreline would suffice. Today, that's not the situation. A listener can experience a sermon via cassette tape, CD, DVD, MP3, Internet connection, live-streaming, YouTube, multi-site venue, and virtual church worlds. Some people even attend online church via an avatar which they create, dress, and give a personality all of its own. Future technological advancements will only increase the possibilities.

The point of my dissertation is to connect Christian fellowship with sermon-listening. The two cannot be separated. And yet technology makes it possible to do just that. But is technology to blame? Or is it a deeper issue? I think it is the latter.

I think that we prefer to listen to a sermon alone because we've succumb to the secular attitudes of the day—individualism, autonomy, self-will, anti-authority. We simply don't like the idea of accountability. But that's what fellowship is—a community-oriented effort to become more Christ-like in the context of loving care and encouragement.

We have allowed our secular culture to affect us so much that even if we're sitting in church with other Christians listening to a sermon, we still listen alone. When was the last time you discussed sermon application with someone after the sermon? When was the last time you prayed with someone about their sermon application? That's the measure of our commitment to actual Christian fellowship.

I think that a slow change has taken place in the church over the past one hundred years. We haven't noticed the change. But we need to consider its implications. How we can re-establish genuine Christian fellowship that is solidly connected to the sermon experience in the context of the church?