Are You Talking to Me? a Study of Young Institute Listeners’ Connection with Catholic Sunday of Preaching Theology

5/5/2012

AQUINAS ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? A STUDY OF YOUNG INSTITUTE LISTENERS’ CONNECTION WITH CATHOLIC SUNDAY OF PREACHING THEOLOGY

Thesis Project for the Doctorate of Ministry in Preaching Karla J. Bellinger

AQUINAS INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

A STUDY OF YOUNG LISTENERS’ CONNECTION

WITH CATHOLIC SUNDAY PREACHING

Karla J. Bellinger, M.A.

Thesis Project Presented to the Faculty of the Aquinas Institute of Theology, Saint Louis, Missouri in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Ministry in Preaching

2012 ii

iii

THESIS PROJECT COMMITTEE

Daniel Harris, C.M., Associate Professor of Homiletics, Aquinas Institute, Adviser

Ronald J. Allen, Ph.D., Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary, Reader

Doctor of Ministry Committee:

Honora Werner, OP, Associate Professor of Homiletics, Director

Daniel Harris, C.M., Associate Professor of Homiletics

Mary Margaret Pazdan, O.P., Professor of Biblical Studies

Catherine Vincie, R.S.H.M., Professor of Sacramental and Liturgical Theology

For the many young people who have enriched my life and who have allowed me to enrich theirs

In the midst of all this history, at a thousand different times and places, in a thousand forms, the one thing occurs which produces and sustains it all: the silent coming of God.

—Karl Rahner, Servants of the Lord

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS ...... vii

PREFACE ...... x

ABSTRACT ...... xv

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTERS 1 - The Bread And Butter of Discipleship ...... 14 2 - Would You Like to Buy an “O”? ...... 49 3 - Resonance From the Pulpit ...... 80 4 - Are You Talking To Me? ...... 124 5 - Where Now? ...... 165

APPENDICES A - Survey and Interview Materials ...... 197 B - Preaching Assessment Tools...... 218 C - Workshop Resources ...... 231

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 246

BIOGRAPHY ...... 256

vii

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

3.1 To connect means that you can trust that they will understand 85

3.2 To connect means to be in sync 86

3.3 To connect means to share common interests 87

3.4 To connect is pastoral: help me up when I am down 88

3.5 To connect means you can come to them 89

3.6 To connect is to share feelings 91

3.7 To connect is “La-di-da-di-da” 92

3.8 The mutuality of “liking” 111

3.9 Connect via a story which relates 113

3.10 To connect is to make me feel welcome 118

3.11 Connecting is to know my name 118

3.12 To connect is helping me with my problems 119

4.1 Mean values from questions 41-49 and 64-69 129

4.2 Mean values from questions 50-58 and 70-78 130

4.3 Group I Mass attendances by number of weeks in the last month 131

4.4 Number of preachers in the parish, question 11 134

4.5 Averaged responses to the “Person of the Preacher” 135

viii

4.6 Correlation between size of parish and the preacher calling by 137 name

4.7 Question 25: How well does this preacher connect with you? 138

4.8 Averaged responses to the characteristics of the homily 141

4.9 Overall attributes of homilies from question 59 142

4.10 Responses to the homilist and the homily by why attend Mass 145

4.11 Regression analysis between PPRV and HRV 147

4.12 Response to the preacher (PPRV) and response to the homily 147 (HRV).

4.13 Correlation between the respondent’s faith life and perception of 149 the homily

4.14 Number of weeks given their preacher constructive feedback 150

4.15 Averaged response to question 33, understanding Scripture, 154 when correlated with the age grouping of preacher

4.16 Averaged percentage response to “The Sunday Homily” 155

4.17 Would you recommend this preaching to a friend? 155

TABLES

3.1 How to connect 112

4.1 All respondents grouped by faith tradition and attendance 126 response

4.2 Group I – self-described student race 127

4.3 Why did you go to Mass this particular Sunday? 132

4.4 Category of preacher evaluated 133

4.5 Age of preachers evaluated 133

4.6 Percentage response to “The Person of the Preacher” 136

4.7 Percentage response to “The Sunday Homily” 140

4.8 Group I – Recommend a preacher who connects well 144

4.9 Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test of analysis of variance 145 between reason to attend Mass and perception of the homily

4.10 Averaged values of “The Sunday Homily,” questions 26-35 155

5.1 Clergy concerns 170

5.3 Diocesan structure needed for the “Connect” process 174

5.4 Three year timeline for implementation of the “Connect” process 177

5.5 Meeting the needs of preachers in the preaching improvement 179 process

5.6 Workshops for the first year of the “Connect” process 178

5.7 Elements to integrate into a preaching product for the Church 182

5.8 Goals and objectives for the workshop 182

5.9 Are You Talking to Me? Workshop Outline 187

PREFACE

In the summer of 2009, I visited my daughter in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada

Mountains in California. She did not have room for me in her small house, so for three weeks I slept outside on the ground in a pop-up tent. Being on Eastern Time, each day I awakened at four o’clock in the morning with nothing to do in the silent blackness but to bask in the radiance of the stars and moon… and pray. In the daytime, I was reading a popular book that asked, “What gives you life?” My response was—what gives me life is connecting people with God… and its corollary, connecting people with each other.

Where was I to go with that? I did not know.

I had begun this doctoral program with no clear idea where I was going. I had felt strongly called to it, as a call that burned within me and would not go away even as I tried to make it go away. What was I, a married Catholic laywoman, a mother with five children, going to do with a degree in preaching? The call was not logical. Yet there it was, an unmistakable, irrational, smoldering compunction, prodding me toward St. Louis and Aquinas Institute. The first year had passed. I had walked in with my hands open.

Now what?

One dark morning in the second week of prayer, I awoke from a sound sleep with a fresh awareness. I sensed sorrow, grief at the disconnection within the people of God, especially in the gap between those in the pulpit and those in the pew. Jesus prayed that we all be one (John 17:21). That lack of unity made my heart ache, not unlike a mother

who hurts over the fighting of her children. In that moment in the dark in the tent in the

Sierras, I also perceived that as a theologically educated lay woman, I was in a distinctive position: my role could be to offer a view of the pew to those in the pulpit, with a voice of love and hands for healing. Fervor for this task grew inside of me. I could work to connect the church so that those who look from the outside might be able to say, “See how they love one another” (Jn 13:35).

For the past three years, I have studied and thought about and prayed and discussed with anyone who would listen what I have perceived as this call. To “connect” the pulpit and the pew is the key. But rather than assume that I know what “connect” means, the first step has been to operationalize “connection” in the context of preaching, to determine through empirical study what it is and how it works. That is the undertaking that I have set for myself in this study and in these pages.

I have lived and breathed with adolescents for more than twenty years, with my own children and their friends, in youth ministry and through high school theology teaching. My passion is to help young people grow in faith. This thesis is a step toward giving a voice to high school aged youth as they speak about their faith and what it means to connect with them in liturgical preaching.

Many people have given me a hand in this endeavor. I am grateful for their help.

As I began to research how listeners hear preaching, the first name that cropped up in the literature over and over again was that of Ronald J. Allen. I shot off a long email to Ron at the beginning of September in 2009. He responded promptly and conscientiously to each of my questions. He has continued to do so ever since, first as a fellow traveler in listener studies and then in these past ten months as my thesis reader. My thesis adviser,

xii

Daniel Harris, C.M. has joined Ron in helping these pages to take shape. Dan’s sense of humor lightened the load and his meticulous eye furthered the quality of this work. I am deeply thankful for both of them.

The breadth of my debts is vast. I will never forget that blessed day when Mickey

Kulton called me and said that she loved to type; was there any way that she could help me? We spent many hours in the summer of 2011 entering qualitative responses about preaching. Her fast fingers and buoyant laugh still make me smile. Scores of friends have prayed for this work and asked for an update of “How is it going?” It seems that whenever and wherever I have mentioned that I am studying what young people have to say about what connects for them in liturgical preaching, there is abiding interest. For that crowd of witnesses, I give thanks.

The world opened up through my elective courses. I discovered from consumer behavior how much knowledge has been unearthed about how people receive messages. I am grateful to William Baker, the head of the marketing department at the University of

Akron, through the independent study that we did together, for helping to open my eyes to see how that secular information could apply to the sacred world of preaching. Fr.

Mark Latkovich at St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland, in his course “Studying

Congregations: Methods and Research,” continually asked: how do we operationalize that? And how can we measure that? My thinking clarified and my survey sharpened as a result of his questions.

Each of my professors at Aquinas has strengthened some aspect of this journey.

Ann Garrido was the first to believe in me, letting me know during the application process that it was not crazy to be a mother of five, to be working full time, and still to

xiii

pursue this doctorate degree: if I was called to it, it would work out. There were times when I had reservations about that wisdom, but in the end, she was right. Greg Heille heartily embraced my participation in the program after my first semester in his class. He also introduced me to David Bentley Hart, whose Orthodox sacramentality crops up into these pages almost unseen, like crocuses under the snow. Mary Margaret Pazdan gave me new eyesight with which to read Scripture. The pericope of Jesus’ transfiguration will never again be the same for me: Hart’s “Taboric effulgence” incarnated in MM’s beaming face, a joyous encounter. In Dominic Holtz, I was inspired by a man who was as passionate about his faith as he was exacting about his study. Liturgy and I have become rich friends only recently; the teachings and readings in Catherine Vincie’s course fired my sacramental imagination such that I can no longer see the world as anything other than iconic and I wonder how I could have lived so long in a world so flat. Honora

Werner came late to my doctoral education, a smiling jewel to fill out the crown of my preaching education. To all of those at Aquinas Institute, I thank you. It has been memorable.

My family has stood by me throughout this adventure. While coaching me to hit a baseball at the age of five, my Dad taught me that a girl can do just about anything that she puts her mind to, even hitting the ball out of the park. That mindset undergirds this work and my life. The encouragement and prayers from both of my parents has encircled my adult life. I can see my Mom now, just bursting her buttons among the heavenly host as she humbly points toward me, telling them all, “Look, that’s my girl.” My husband

Dan has stuck with me through countless theological conversations, writings of papers, readings and deadlines, doing all of the laundry and some of the dishes. Dan, I thank you

xiv

from the deepest place in my heart. It has not been easy. We have done this together. It would not have happened otherwise. To my daughter Maria, I thank you for giving me a place to run away to, both for rest and for refreshment so that my weary creativity could be refreshed. Thanks also for giving me those two little blonde girls whom I treasure so dearly. In the early days of this project, John was my rock. Jim has cheered me on with bits of advice and wisdom about computers and statistics and life. Tom quietly hears my words and then out of the blue, he offers a conceptual or philosophical understanding that just blows me away. Chris patiently listened to me think out loud in all those many car trips to school as we drove together and talked theology and strategy and life—good times. I thank you all. I am surrounded and held up by your love.

To be so cherished by so many is such a blessing: friends, teachers, and family, I thank you. I hope to pass that blessing on through the words that follow.

ABSTRACT

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? A STUDY OF YOUNG LISTENERS’ CONNECTION WITH CATHOLIC SUNDAY PREACHING

Bellinger, Karla J., M.A., D.Min. Aquinas Institute of Theology, Saint Louis, MO, 2012.

Stories abound. Studies do not. Discussion about the state of Catholic Sunday preaching is largely anecdotal. This thesis is founded on empirical research, asking, “What makes for effective connection with young people?” and “How can we apply that knowledge to improve liturgical preaching to that population?”

Five hundred and sixty-one high school students from six regions of the country described their connection with Catholic preaching. In addition, a review of existing homiletic listener studies, sociological research about the faith life of youth, church documents, and consumer behavior research enriched the understanding of what it means for a message to connect. Focus groups, clergy interviews, and observational research further developed that knowledge.

The role of Catholic Sunday preaching in the discipling of youth was not found in the literature. Yet 55% of those regularly attending Mass were able to describe an experience of faith growth as a result of preaching within the past year. Their qualitative responses suggested that connection is open to any adult who is willing to take time and express interest in them. As spheres of influence grow closer to home, this opens tremendous potential for the influence of a connected and caring local preacher. While Mass attendees rated the person of their preacher highly, they suggested improvements for his Sunday preaching.

Surprisingly, there was little statistical relationship between a youth’s faith life and his or her evaluation of the homily. Nor was there correlation found between the personal qualities of the preacher and his preaching skill. Enhanced spiritual formation therefore will not result in improved preaching. Skill based growth in homiletic competence is needed. Consequently, five assessment tools were developed to measure growth within a clergy-friendly and scalable diocesan preaching improvement process. Parish-centered preaching resources complete the work.

xvi

INTRODUCTION

Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life… — John 6:67-68

The word came up over and over again in the words of the young people in this study: “Confusing.” Life in this world is bewildering. There is too much noise. There is too much to do. There is no one in charge. There are too many options. There is nothing solid to stand on. There is a push to do more and more. What shall we do? Where shall we go? In the midst of over-communication and frenzied activity, the Divine can get lost as if God were just one among the many in the shuffle.

Is there a God?

If there is a God, is God still speaking?

God, if you are here, are You talking to me?

Encountering the Sacred in a Denuminized Age

Speaking and listening are at the heart of this study. The connection of preacher and young person and God through Catholic Sunday preaching is the goal. Yet in seeking to operationalize “connection,” this listener study does not stand as a pragmatically utilitarian pursuit of “What works?” It is cradled in the conceptual framework of both the theology of revelation and the sacramentality of preaching, rocking back and forth from the left-brain of theological and statistical analysis to the right-brain of the image and

metaphor of relationship. Therefore, before moving into the body of the thesis itself, this introduction will briefly sketch out the theological context within which it sits.

Is God speaking? Is it possible for a young listener of preaching to hear the voice of God? This question of revelation is foundational. Glib answers do not satisfy. At its base, agnostics and Christians are in the same situation with this question: empirically we cannot measure the resurrection; we cannot “prove” the incarnation; we cannot experiment on the Holy Spirit. In a scientific sense, if limited to that which we can taste and see and smell and hear and feel, we have to be honest and say, “We do not know.”

Walter Kasper speaks of the denuminization of our age, the loss of the sense of the sacred.1 Young people live and breathe in this agnostic milieu. What word can

Christianity speak to this experience?

The place where the agnostic and the Christian diverge is here: in the belief that we are known; that the God who is love wants to be known; thus God will reveal God’s very self to us. The starting point in the Christian message is rooted in God’s self- communication.2 Historically, the coming of the Word made Flesh is the fullest example of that self-communicating Gift. As the apostle Peter is quoted in the gospel of John, to

Whom else should we go? We are loved. The preacher is a mediator of that message for those who hunger for it.

In the light of that good news, for each generation the revelation that “God is with us” is unpacked and appropriated. Tastes of heaven are mediated by the things of earth.

For me, one way it comes is through nature—I see a sunset and whisper, “Wow!” For

1 Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 17.

2 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 117. 2

some, it is evoked by the small hand of a child; for others, it is in the smile of a friend whom they have not seen in a long time. That revelation can break in as from above, as one falls to her knees in prayer in amazement at the grandeur of God.

The experience of God precedes the articulation of theology. Yet the study of theology itself may also evoke the exhilaration of discovery and inspire a “yes” to the

Absolute Mystery.3 For a man dying of cancer, the love of Jesus resonates in his heart through the words of the Bible: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Moving from the individual to the communal, a deeper understanding of the ways of the Deliverer arises through the interpretation of historical events—a Red Sea rescue when all seems lost; a strike of Polish workers for a more equitable economic system even when it is personally hazardous to do so; the courage to band together to throw off a cruel dictator. The worship of a community receives the Bread of Life in concrete history as the source and summit of friendship with God.

Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.4

Cardinal Avery Dulles has delineated five models of revelation: doctrinal proclamation, dialectical presence, historical unfolding, inner experience, and new awareness.5 At the end of this exercise of analysis, however, he concludes that revelation

3 Ibid., 35.

4 Paul VI, Dei Verbum [Vatican II Document, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 1965], (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), n. 2.

5 Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation, (Doubleday and Company, Garden City, NY, 1983). 3

arises from all of these sources, as a mystery too rich for segmentation and beyond comprehension.6 The give and take of scholars and bishops at the Second Vatican

Council showed by their interaction and expressed in their writing that the Holy Spirit is continually active in communicating the revelation of God:7 “Revelation, rather than being presupposed as fully known from the start, is progressively elucidated as theology carries out its task.”8

Our understanding of the Unknown One is not yet complete. There are still questions. Is God still speaking to us today? Can young listeners experience God through preaching? Might the Spirit speak to the Church through them in this moment in history?

Encountering the Sacred in a Pluralistic World

American society has been described as a culture of “benign whatever-ism,” one which asks the question, “Does church matter?”9 Is this revelation of God simply an ethereal feeling? Or is there a unique location of encounter for this revelation of God? Is there a place where God is speaking here and now? Roman Catholic belief states that

God does indeed continue to concretely speak:

In order to reenact his Paschal Mystery, Christ is ever present in his Church, especially in liturgical celebrations. Hence the Liturgy is the privileged place for the encounter of Christians with God and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ (John 17:3).10

6 Dulles, 283.

7 Dei Verbum, n. 8.

8 Dulles, 283.

9 Kendra Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 9.

10 John Paul II, Vicesimus Quintus Annus [Apostolic Letter, 1988] (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1995), n. 7. 4

In the early centuries of Christian faith, “bishops did not ask their faithful to ‘go to Mass’ on Sunday… but to ‘go to church,’ an expression that designates the assembly;” even more particularly, to the local church, since “every Eucharistic assembly truly realizes the church of God.”11 Therefore the revelation of God is not to be found floating in the clouds, but in the concrete interaction of the community in which Christians live. Within the liturgy of the assembly, the homily has a place of distinction:

We also recognize that for the vast majority of Catholics the Sunday homily is the normal and frequently the formal way in which they hear the Word of God proclaimed. For these Catholics the Sunday homily may well be the most decisive factor in determining the depth of their faith and strengthening the level of their commitment to the church.12

The purpose of the homily then is “a preaching event that is integral to liturgy that… calls and empowers the hearers to faith, a deeper participation in the Eucharist, and daily discipleship to Christ lived out in the church.”13 Sacrosanctum Concilium states that the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist are one: “The two parts which, in a certain sense, go to make up the Mass, namely, the liturgy of the word and the

Eucharistic liturgy, are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship.”14 These deliberations on the place of the homily within the scope of

11 Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001), 36-37.

12 The Bishops Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly (Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1982), 2. Referred to hereafter as FIYH.

13 Daniel E. Harris, We Speak the Word of the Lord: A Practical Plan for More Effective Preaching (Skokie, IL: ACTA Publications, 2001), 24.

14 Paul VI, Sacrosanctum Concilium [Vatican II Document, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963], (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), n. 56. 5

revelation may grow to be self-evident to those steeped in Catholic homiletics. But is this understanding so readily apparent?

The essential question narrows from the broad encounter of: “Is God speaking?” in the world, to: “Is God speaking here and now?” in the church, to: “Is there a Word from the Lord for me today?” and/or, “Preacher, are you talking to me?” in the particular, historical assembly on Sunday morning. In a specific way, as an event within liturgy, the purpose of Sunday preaching is to draw the community more deeply into the worship of

God. The experience of the homily as an encounter with God thus grounds the sacramentality of preaching as integral to the sacramentality of the overall liturgy.

What does it mean that the homily is an element of the act of worship? What difference does that understanding make to a preacher’s connection with young people in

Sunday preaching?

The Homily as Encounter with God

In liturgical theology as in systematic theology, the experience of God precedes analysis and articulation. Stated as lex orandi, lex credendi, the core of liturgical scholarship is that the articulation of belief is founded on the lived experience of the prayer of the Church. Therefore what is happening in liturgical prayer is the source of liturgical theology, not its byproduct. This is what Fagerberg calls an observation of “first theology” or “theologia prima”:

Any theological effort involves a quest for meaning (logos).But in this case, the quest does not occur inside the scholar’s mind; it is a meaning sought by the liturgical community… The scholar seeks to understand what the liturgical community understood.15

15 David Fagerberg, Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2004), 41- 42.

Perhaps to broaden Fagerberg’s use of “understood,” it is not simply the intellectual comprehension of the community upon which the liturgical scholar founds his or her theology, but a grasp of what the community has experienced and appropriated, taken for its own and put into practice, both within and from the experience of worship. This appropriation comes through symbol, a sense of mystery, impressions, relationship, and images, not as a one-time experience but the long-term take-away that forms a community. Liturgy works slowly. Within this transformational milieu, the homily is integral to communal worship and growth in discipleship. Therefore, the continuing encounter with the Sunday homily as theologia prima is a superlative place to observe what God is doing. Listening to the listening of young people informs our understanding of their assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions of God. This “first theology” is: “that which

“forms” us almost unknowingly in the faith, in ways in which we find ourselves ‘putting on the mind of Christ’, yet not simply by how the homily taught us but how it reveals a mind or heart…”16 Awareness of what is happening within the members of the young congregation as a result of the homily “should enable the preacher to imagine homilies that have a good chance of connecting with the congregation, especially if the preacher shares the depth dimension of the congregation’s life of prayer.”17 Therefore

“effectiveness” in preaching is fundamentally a sacramental question: does it enable the young community to encounter the “mysteries” that draw them deeper into the reality of

God? Does this homiletic embrace spur youth toward transformation as invited by the

16Msgr. James Telthorst, email conversation with the author, 9-7-11.

17Thanks to Ron Allen for that insight, 9-30-11.

preaching? As worship, does the homily name the graced experience of adolescents and help them to grow in faith together with the preacher and the rest of the assembly?18

From the view from the pew, a homily can come at a listener or it can come with the young listener. It is the solidarity of a linked-elbow walk toward the cross that evokes a change of heart. Conversion can be a sudden shift or a gradual turning as a result of many homilies. If preaching shares in this sacramental dynamic, then the Word is incarnated in both the preacher and the assembly. This is happening: The words of a sixteen year old boy from this study do not analyze what the homily said or what it meant to him. He describes rather, this “theologia prima” of an experience of solidarity: “I usually look around at other parishioners and feel a strong sense of faith and community after a good homily.”

Herein lies both the strength and the struggle of the interplay of the theology of revelation and the sacramentality of preaching in this study: the homiletic encounter with

God is mediated through the words and ears, eyes and feelings of concrete human beings—both in the preacher and in the listeners. Does it make a difference what young listeners have to say about Catholic Sunday preaching? Young people may not know or be able to articulate in theological terms (“second theology”) what it is that they experience of the preacher and the preaching, yet as theologians of everyday life

(“theologia prima”), their voices cannot be marginalized—they intuit more than they can tell. The homily can be a source of faith growth in which God is revealed, as one seventeen year old young lady described:

18Mary Catherine Hilkert, Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination (New York: Continuum, 1998). 8

I was really confused about what God wanted me to do when I walked into Mass. That week, the homily was all about giving your life up to God and trusting in Him. I have had other experiences like this where the homily is exactly what I needed to hear that week. It just helped me believe that God was real and was trying to talk to me.19

The homily can also not propel the hearer toward faith, as the face of God is hidden:

Coming to Mass and listening to a sermon that does not help me to grow in my faith is very discouraging, especially when considering going to Mass every week for the rest of my life. …Most of the sermons at my parish bore me or irritate me, especially when the priest continually repeats a point that doesn’t apply to me.

What can listening to these experiences tell us? Walter Burghardt, S.J. quotes

John Courtney Murray: “I do not know what I have said until I understand what you have heard.”20 If we observe what is taking place during the homily at liturgy, we gain key insights into our expressed theology as well as that out of which we function.

Yet is the homily that important? Pockets of fervor and renewal within the Church currently have a strongly Eucharistic bent. Catholics weigh the liturgy of the Eucharist more heavily than the liturgy of the Word, asking, “Since we are a sacramental church, shouldn’t people come for the Eucharist and not for the homily?” If we grasp this sense of the liturgical homily as worship and encounter and thus work toward strengthening it as such, the two halves of the liturgy will be complementary. Both in the theology of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and in the ideal for the faithful, Eucharistic renewal and the renewal of preaching flow together. There is no need to pit them against

19 Mary Alice Mulligan, Diane-Turner-Sharazz, Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm, and Ronald J. Allen, the authors of Believing in Preaching: What Listeners Hear in Sermons (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005) categorize listeners’ responses of what God is actively doing in a sermon into four groupings: God acts in providing the specific message; God is active in inspiring the construction of the sermon; God is active in actually performing tasks in the congregation; and God is active in assisting the listeners (pp.152-153). This young lady’s comment fits best in this last grouping.

20 Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., Preaching: the Art and the Craft (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 13. 9

each other. They serve the same Lord.

Naysayers blame parents for the poor attendance of teens, for not forcing them to pay attention to preaching, and for being so permissive that youth develop an entertainment mentality toward church. Is this supposition true? Unless we study these factors, we only make presumptions. Scrutinizing “the signs of the times” in the light of the gospel is a duty of the church.21 The “signs of the times” may sit listening to an iPod in our pews. Avery Dulles writes, “The term ‘signs of the times’ can remind Christians of their responsibility to keep alert to new developments. The stirring of God’s Spirit in the world… often brings the Church to new awareness of what lays dormant in its faith.”22

This study, then, will build off of this underpinning of the theology of revelation and the sacramentality of preaching, painting a “theologia prima” portrait of liturgical preaching as it is encountered by young listeners. That portrayal can inform our concrete understanding of what makes for effective liturgical preaching.

Mastering the Engineering

I come from a family of engineers. I grew up with the questions, “Does it work?” and “What makes it work?” and “If it is not working, why not?” Whereas some prefer to study physics, my personal bent leans toward, “How do we take our understanding of physics and build a bridge that holds?” Manuel Flores’ echoes that same propensity toward the practical in his comments about the implementation of the vision of the

Second Vatican Council:

21 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes [Vatican II document, On the Church in the Modern World, 1965], (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), n. 4.

22 Dulles, 236.

The problem was not our vision of church but rather how to make it happen. The architectural blueprint, the picture, was there; but we had not mastered the engineering. Most priests learned about ministry by trial and error, by learning from experience. In our seminaries, we got an “architecture” or theological vision, but very little on the building of that vision. You have to do that on your own. That is a very costly way to learn, costly to people’s faith.23

Preaching is like theological engineering. Rahner’s anthropology and the perichoresis of the Trinity and the implications of the two natures of Christ have to be translated so that the people in the pew ‘get it.’ The gospel of John and the letters of Paul have to be unpacked. With Flores, we take the blueprint of the gospel message and build a bridge that connects our people with God.

The thesis question which guides this study therefore combines the theoretical and practical: How can preachers effectively connect with young people in Catholic Sunday preaching? Each of the upcoming chapters incorporates a different element of research in order to definitively respond to this question.

The first chapter, “The Bread and Butter of Discipleship,” centers on building the case for this listener study: Why is it needed? In what larger context is it situated? Where does preaching to Catholic youth fit into the broader system of forming young disciples?

The chapter searches the literature of the sociology of religion, church documents, and previous listener studies in order to correlate each of these to the current study. A summary of the design of the paper survey Are You Talking to Me? lays out the rationale and sources for each of its various components. The chapter transitions to the introduction of consumer behavior and consumer psychology as a source of wisdom for creating effective connections with young people.

23 James S. Torrens, “Lessons from Evangelicals: An Interview with Manuel Flores,” America, July 19, 2004. 11

A retelling of the engineering of Sesame Street in the late 1960’s opens chapter 2, entitled “Would You like to Buy an ‘O’?” The creators of the Children’s Television

Workshop believed that if you could hold children’s attention, you could educate them; but how do you hold children’s interest? 24 Since that time, the fields of consumer psychology and consumer research have teamed up to stretch the business world’s understanding of how to get and maintain attention. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell offers this summary: “The lesson of stickiness is the same. There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.”25 Chapter 2 combines observational research and literature review to put a liturgical and human face on the fundamental consumer behavior concepts of attention, knowledge and memory.

The third chapter, “Resonance from the Pulpit,” is founded in the qualitative responses to the open-ended questions from the paper survey. Five hundred and sixty-one young people pen their thoughts about “What is connection?” and “What does it mean to grow (or not grow) in faith as a result of preaching?” The quotes and stick drawings of teenagers narrate and illustrate that chapter. Categories of response inductively arose from those qualitative answers.

The fourth chapter, “Are You Talking to Me?” summarizes the quantitative data from the study. Demographic data describe the population characteristics of the Catholic

24Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002), 99-102.

25Ibid., 33.

high school students who took the survey. Tables and graphs illustrate their response to the person of the preacher as well as their perception of the last homily that they heard.

Correlations between demographics, perceptions of the preacher, and the attributes of the homily provide a picture of the current state of Catholic preaching as seen by young people of high school age. Conclusions from the data complete that chapter.

The final chapter, “Where Now?” synthesizes a process for preaching improvement. The design of this process pulls together this study’s research, clergy interviews, and input from other empirical studies. The chapter then lays out the design of a packaged collaborative hands-on workshop for preachers with their youth minister and several articulate young people, according to a reverse mentoring model. The ultimate goal in the preaching improvement process as it is described is to focus efforts locally in order to strengthen preaching collaboration at the parish level.

Are You Talking to Me? A Study of Young Listeners’ Connection with Catholic

Sunday Preaching is a hands-on study. Yet the pragmatic question “Preacher, are you talking to me?” mirrors the transcendent query, “God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are

You talking to me?” The young listener seeks to know and to be known. The preacher seeks to know and to be known. God knows and seeks to be known. Within this reciprocity of knowing and loving and serving is the dance of solidarity toward oneness; connecting the pulpit and the pew can make good preaching great.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BREAD AND BUTTER OF DISCIPLESHIP

A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.” After saying this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear… The seed is the word of God… —Luke 8:5-8, 11b

The Weight of Words

In his homily for the Sunday vigil Mass at World Youth Day 2011, Pope Benedict

XVI spoke 1384 words as he addressed young people in seven languages.1 A conversational Catholic homily contains about 1000-1200 words; an average Protestant sermon uses 1400-1800 words. Orations of old were longer: John Wesley’s 1747 sermon

“Almost Christian” wound through 3458 words.2 Preaching is a word-filled business.

Yet an iPod classic in the pocket of an American teenager can contain up to

1,200,000 words. In an ad for that product, more is touted as better:

Decisions, decisions. Who needs them? Why should you have to choose what to put on your iPod? With up to 160GB of storage, iPod classic lets you carry

1As translated into English at http://www.lifeteen.com/blog/vigil-homily-by-pope-benedict-at- world-youth-day-2011 [accessed 9-10-11].

2 http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-2-the- almost-christian/ [accessed 9-10-11].

everything in your collection - up to 40,000 songs or up to 200 hours of video - everywhere you go.3

Adults, too, are constantly bombarded by words through advertising and email, from TV and computer. We live in an overcommunicated society. We learn how to tune out. We

“tighten the intake valve” so that we are not overwhelmed by noise. This is an act of self- preservation. We are a culture that is learning to specialize in how not to listen. 4 How then, can we hear the word of God that is sown, when so many other seeds are also applied so thickly? How can we get people’s attention?

Stories but not Studies

The question of being heard is one that the business world also asks. The world of marketing research spent 6.7 billion dollars in the United States in 2005 to determine whether or not the products or services that they provided were actually desired by their customers. Teenagers were projected to spend 208.7 billion dollars in 2011,5 an invaluable segment of the population to whom marketers sell. The marketing research lab at the University of Akron uses “contemporary psychological and cognitive research techniques, such as eye tracking, and brainwave and physiological analyses, that allow researchers to comprehensively understand the respondents’ real time feelings,

3This number is based on the assumption that the average number of words per song is 30; therefore 40,000 songs results in 1,200,000 words. This product description is from the Google products catalog at: http://www.google.com /products/catalog?q=160gb+ipod&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE- SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGIK_en&um= 1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=18145243408964402428 &sa=X&ei= eXxrTqDAGOrc0QHH8dy OBQ&ved =0CJcBEPMCMAI# [accessed 9-10-11].

4Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for your Mind: How to be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), 7.

5Marketing Vox, “By 2011, Teen Market Shrinks, Spending Clout Soars to $200B,” http://www. marketingvox.com/by-2011-teen-market-shrinks-spending-clout-soars-to-200b-031001/ [accessed August 8, 2010]. 15

impressions, and emotions toward marketing messages and products.”6 The continual process of determining how to reach the hearts and minds and pocketbooks of young

Americans is big business. Yet the search for studies of that same population’s response to preaching comes up almost empty-handed. Questions essential to determining basic effectiveness in drawing our young people into an encounter with God such as: how is this experience of preaching for you? What is helping you to grow closer? What is not?

What is happening within you as a result of that preaching? These are not being asked.

Anecdotal evidence abounds. Parents hear responses to preaching from their teenagers regularly as families prepare for Mass. A friend who is a newly ordained deacon asked his sixteen-year-old son, “What can the Church do to reach you and your friends?” The boy’s response was immediate: “It’s the preaching, Dad!”

An eleventh-grader raved about her youth group and the youth Mass on Sunday nights. “The music is great! There’s SO much energy!”

I smiled and nodded and then inquired, “How’s the preaching?”

She pulled back and rocked on her heels. She said nothing. As she started to look away, I raised my eyebrows, encouraging an answer. “Well…,” she said, “We… uh, sorta ignore that part…”

Anecdotal evidence abounds, but studies do not. Adolescence is a pivotal age.

According to the Pew Forum study “Faith in Flux,”7 four out of five Catholics who are now religiously unaffiliated became that way before they reached the age of twenty-four.

6The University of Akron, “The Benjamin and Nancy Suarez Applied Marketing Research Laboratories,” http:// www.uakron.edu/cba/cba-home/dept-cent-inst/suarez.dot [accessed August 3, 2010].

7The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S,” http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux(3).aspx [accessed May 5, 2010].

Most of those who left before they were eighteen say that leaving was their own decision.

Many factors were involved in why young people left their parents’ faith. Seventy-one percent of those surveyed who became Protestant cited “spiritual needs not met” as the number one reason for leaving Catholicism. Eighty-one percent of those raised Catholic who are now Protestant gave as the first reason for what they like about their new place of worship was “enjoy the religious services and style of worship.” What percentage of their enjoyment comes from preaching within the worship service? How much of their earlier frustration comes from the preaching? On that, the Pew study is silent. Stories abound. Studies do not.

The Catholic reader who hears those statistics may immediately formulate a mental response in his or her head. These rejoinders are heard: “Oh, they just wanted to be entertained.” “Liturgy isn’t about enjoyment.” “They must not understand the value of the Eucharist if they leave so easily.” Statistics may be rationalized and thus brushed aside, but the experiences that they represent are genuine. If God has something to reveal to us through this, are we listening? If the purpose of sacramental preaching is to draw the community more deeply into the worship of God, then the Church must open the conversation and address the serious questions about what is being experienced in the encounter of the homily.

The hope of the church is sitting in our pews. The business of selling bases both its predictions for the future and its strategies to shape that future on an intensive analysis of the present. If we are to envisage the future of preaching and develop strategies by which to shape that future, we need stronger data.

Bread and Butter Preaching

Lori Carrell asked 479 church-goers what component of the church service has the most impact on their spiritual life. Both Protestants and Catholics, by a wide margin, said “the sermon.”8 The Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests similarly states:

The people of God is formed into one in the first place by the word of the living God, which is quite rightly expected from the mouth of priests. For since nobody can be saved who has not first believed, it is the first task of priests as co-workers of the bishops to preach the Gospel of God to all. 9

Though preaching is a high priority for both Catholic people in the pew and for those who worked for renewal at the Second Vatican Council, the practice of preaching does not always live up to its potential. Some would say that the expectation for the

Liturgy of the Word is low,10 that the Church is not the healthy and vibrant Body that the

Spirit would like it to be. It is like a deficiency or a gap in the nutrition of the People of

God.11 A scarcity of iron in the diet does not lead to immediate death, but a continual absence of that mineral leads to lethargy, a lack of energy and anemia. Many have found that a fortifying Sunday homily is an essential ingredient for a healthy spiritual diet. I

8Lori Carrell, The Great American Sermon Survey (Wheaton, IL: Mainstay Church Resources, 2000), 95.

9Paul VI, Presbyterorum Ordinis [Encyclical Letter, The Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, 1965] (Northport NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1996), n.4.

10Richard John Neuhaus, who moved from the role of a Protestant minister to being a Catholic priest, says, “It is only human that low expectations and low execution go together; homiletically speaking, priests are under little pressure. Ten minutes of more-or-less impromptu “reflections” vaguely related to the Scripture lessons of the day, combined with a little story or personal anecdote, is “good enough.” Richard John Neuhaus, “Low Expectations and Catholic Preaching,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April 1, 2004.

11Neuhaus diagnoses this same “nutrient deficiency” as banality. He quips, “As one priest friend half-jokingly remarked in defense of homiletical mediocrity, “We must be careful not to raise their expectations.”

have heard teenagers’ stories. Some are satisfied. Many are hungry. The noise of the rumbling of a stomach is not loud unless those in the room are quietly listening.

I am not an unbiased observer on this subject. I am a woman of the pew, not a man of the cloth. I have heard much preaching. Some is inspiring. Some is not. From my theological context, I see preaching as connection: Spirit to spirit, heart to heart, life experience to life experience. Jesus preached the message of the gospel in the words of the people. Whatever it took to get his message across that is what he did.

To me, good liturgical preaching connects people to God; it sinks in like good butter melted on warm toast. A preacher is a local prophet who asks, “Is there a word from the Lord for this people this day?” Ideally, the aroma of communal prayer, the self- surrender of everyday life, and personal prayer has warmed the congregation to absorb and live into that message. The preacher is the agent of that slathering, the one who churns and spreads the butter of the Lord for an absorbent congregation. 12 They move into the mystery of God together.

Thomas Long also uses this analogy of nourishment:

The church is blessed, of course, by the rare preacher of exceptional ability, but the church is sustained most of all by the kind of careful, responsible, and faithful preaching that falls within the range of most of us. In this regard, preaching is a little like cooking. There are, to be sure, a few five star chefs whose gourmet meals dazzle and delight. We can learn from them and be inspired by their gifts, but no one eats a steady diet of five-star meals. Instead, what truly sustains is daily bread – food lovingly, ably, and carefully prepared. So it is with preaching. God’s people are nourished most not by the five-star preachers but by those preachers who, week in and week out, lovingly, ably, and carefully prepare the “daily bread” of sermons, and the art and craft of this kind of preparation can indeed be learned.13

12… or the “mediator” between God and the assembly, as described in FIYH.

13Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 14. 19

As an adolescent, I sat at the feet of a rare preacher of great ability. Dr. Ernie

Campbell of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan was a minister who could craft a sermon. I mean, he could really preach. My teenage take-away was that this subject of God was weighty, substantial, of importance and worthy of my deepest consideration. Campbell told stories of everyday life—the discussion that he had with a man that he had met on the plane, what it was like to share a meal with a family, and how all of that pertained to the gospel. In his later years, he taught homiletics. My parents also watched Billy Graham on TV. When my husband and I joined the Catholic Church during college in Raleigh, N.C., Fr. Thomas P. Hadden’s preaching touched us deeply.

These experiences gave me a feel for what toe-tingling preaching could be. In the intervening years, I have both seen and experienced frustration. As a convert to

Catholicism, perhaps I expect more? As one who works with young people, I believe that we as a Church can do better.

As a theologically trained mother, I offer a perspective which is also not often academically heard. This problem does not just grab my interest—it fires me deeply.

Why? Because I care; I care that the message of the gospel transforms us; I care that the grieving are comforted; I care that those in despair are filled with hope; I care that the light of Christ is effectively preached and brightly burning in a “whatever” age; I care that the people in the pew hear a word that gives them life. These are my people. These are the ones I live with. These are my children, my students, my friends. We are worth better preaching. How do we know what young people need, want or are able to hear?

Ask them. Market researchers do. If the secular world is willing to invest so much into

understanding them, as people of faith who care about their spiritual welfare, so should we.

The Call to Discipleship

The Sunday liturgy is the prime point of contact with the Church for most

Catholic high school students. For those who are not involved in youth groups, service groups, or religious education classes, it is the only point of contact. How do we know this?

Dr. Christian Smith has done ground-breaking research on the religious life of

American young people. In his 2005 National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), he discovered, rather than rebelling against their elders, “that the vast majority of American teenagers are exceedingly conventional in their religious identity and practices.” Rather than embracing the “spiritual but not religious” mantra projected in the popular press, as a rule they view religion rather positively.14

In terms of life outcomes, Smith discovered that parents, youth groups, youth minister mentoring, and supportive congregational life have a strong influence on what youth believe and how they live their lives. The good news is that the building of young disciples is alive and well in America.15

The flip side of that generally good news is what is happening in the Church of

Rome: Catholic youth consistently score much lower than average on all measures of religiosity. Smith focuses an entire chapter to Catholic youth, asking, “Why? Why do

14Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 119-120.

15As of 2002-2003 when the data was collected.

U.S. Catholic teenagers as a whole seem so less religiously engaged than their teenage counterparts in other U.S. Christian traditions?” Why are the majority “religiously and spiritually indifferent, uninformed and disengaged”?16 Eighty-seven percent of Catholic youth do not attend a weekly youth group. Seventy-seven percent have never been on a religious mission team or service project and 59% never go to religious education classes or go only a few times per year.17 For those who are not involved in these outside activities, the Sunday liturgy is the prime point of contact for those who are still attending

Mass. Yet only 37% of surveyed Catholic teens (ages 13–17) said that they had ever had an experience of spiritual worship that was very moving and powerful—the lowest of any

Christian or Jewish denomination. Only the non-religious scored lower. 18

What does this mean for a Church which has historically centered itself in its sacramental heritage over and against its homiletic acumen? The homily is one of the three variations in the rubric of a Catholic service.19 How much does that preaching form the young laity’s impression of the institutional Church? And if the majority of Catholic teens are only seen at Mass, can the Catholic homily carry the weight of this being their only source of faith growth?20

16Ibid., 194-196.

17Ibid., 53.

18Ibid., 45. This data has provoked much soul-searching in Catholic youth ministry since it was published. The National Initiative for Adolescent Catechesis at http://adolescentcatechesis.org/ is a multi- organizational group which is developing desired outcomes and programs for families and parishes. Ironically, though the prime point of contact for teens, there is no mention of the role of liturgical preaching in the faith growth of adolescents.

19The others are the lectionary-based Scripture readings and the music.

20In interviews with Catholic clergy, some in the pulpit weigh the homily more lightly than do those in the pew.

If a parent struggles to get his teenage son to Mass each Sunday for the four years of high school, is there a word from the Lord for him? Whereas some Protestant churches have age-segregated worship experiences and Sunday school classes for children and teens, an average Catholic assembly does not: forty percent of the pew-sitters could be under the age of twenty on a particular Sunday.

Because of this demographic difference, mainline Protestant homiletic style does not transfer to a Catholic context. It does not fit.21 The silent gray-haired congregation who quietly listens to a manuscript preacher at my father’s church 22 does not look anything like the toddler-child-teenager squirm of some American Catholic Masses.

Though with the aging of the priesthood, the preacher may look more like the

Presbyterians, his congregation does not.

The Blind Spot in Church Documents

What has been written in official Church teaching about the relationship between preaching and the discipling of our youth? Do we have the vision of inviting them to enter with us into the mystery of God? Church documents do not specifically connect the faith lives of young people with liturgical preaching. FIYH highlights the significance of the homily in Catholics’ lives and the need to know the assembly before preaching. This broadly applies:

21Until the last decade, homiletic training in Catholic seminaries used Protestant texts such as Long, Craddock, and Buttrick. Catholic tomes by DeLeers, Harris, Wallace, deBona and Hilkert have now broadened that education.

22Denominations vary widely in their numbers of young people. See the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life U.S., Religious Landscape Survey at http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious- landscape-study-chapter-3.pdf [accessed August 16, 2011]. For example, the demographic of Presbyterians has aged, while the Mormon and the Muslim populations are, in 2011, decidedly young.

Unless a preacher knows what a congregation needs, wants or is able to hear, there is every possibility that the message offered in the homily will not meet the needs of the people who hear it… Homilists may indeed preach on what they understand to be the real issues, but if they are out in touch with what the people think are the real issues, they will very likely be misunderstood or not heard at all. What is communicated is not what is said, but it is what is heard, and what is heard is determined in large measure by what the hearer needs or wants to hear.23 The document makes the point that knowing one’s congregation matters.24

FIYH defines preaching as “a scriptural interpretation of human existence.”25 The preacher is to make use of Scripture as a lens on the community, naming its grace and its pain.

The General Directory for Catechesis similarly highlights the homily as an ongoing adult educational experience:

The ministry of the word is at the service of this process of full conversion. The first proclamation of the Gospel is characterized by the call to faith; catechesis by giving a foundation to conversion and providing Christian life with a basic structure; while ongoing education in the faith, in which the place of the homily must be underlined, is characterized by being the necessary nourishment of which every baptized adult has need in order to live. 26

Explicit mention of youth is absent in these two documents. This lacuna reveals a blind spot, a perception that the kids are not present in the liturgical assembly. A comment that frequently arose in the current study is reflected by this suggestion from a fourteen year old boy: “I would tell them [preachers] to use examples that we can relate to, as most

23FIYH, 3.

24In the Protestant tradition, knowing one’s congregation has been emphasized by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) and James R. Nieman and Thomas G. Rogers, Preaching to Every Pew (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001).

25FIYH, 29.

26Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis. n.57 found at: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_17041998_di rectory-for-catechesis_en.html (Italics mine.).

homilies are geared towards older adults.”

What about documents that are written about young people? Do they highlight the role of preaching in the lives of teens? The ground-breaking document on ministry to youth, Renewing the Vision, describes its first goal in the 1997 document:

The challenge of discipleship—of following Jesus—is at the heart of the Church’s mission. All ministry with adolescents must be directed toward presenting young people with the Good News of Jesus Christ and inviting and challenging them to become his disciples.27

Discipleship built within community is the goal. This U.S. Catholic bishops’ document urges solidarity with youth: “In youth-friendly parishes, young people should feel a sense of belonging and acceptance as full-fledged members of the community.”28 Yet preaching is mentioned only once in those sixty pages, in the third section on the themes and components for a comprehensive ministry with adolescents, buried toward the back in a subsection about prayer and worship:

Specifically, the ministry of prayer and worship …promotes effective preaching of the word. (Parishes and schools can invite young people to reflect on the seasonal readings and to offer suggestions to the homilist for connections to young peoples’ lives, provide regular opportunities for adolescents to study the Scriptures, encourage those who preach to use current examples and storytelling techniques, and investigate the developments within culture for their impact on the "vernacular.")29

When once asked, “What is in this homily for the young people in your assembly?” a clergyman responded, “Oh, they stopped listening a long time ago.” Might

27National Council of Catholic Bishops, Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry (Washington, D.C .: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1997), 9. (Italics in the original.)

28Ibid., 13.

29Ibid., 46.

our youth have absorbed that which is reflected in the documents, the perspective that they are not there?30

Attuned to this situation as a result of the comments of the young people in my study, I sat at the back of a church a few weeks ago and listened to a homily that talked about “the youth” and “the children.” As I looked in front of me, almost every other person was young. In some of the pews, one adult sat with three or four “youth.” I watched the interaction. The preacher talked about “how much we love the children,” speaking of them at arm’s length as though they were an “other.” He looked satisfied with his talk and unaware that he was marginalizing half of his listeners. The grandmother in front of me appeared to melt with gratitude for the focus on loving children. The kids themselves seemed embarrassed. The middle-school students acted self-conscious, as though they were trying not to eavesdrop on an adult conversation that was obviously not for them. The older ones simply tuned out.

Humus and Humility

When FIYH was written in 1982, the Catholic assembly was presumed to be composed of Christian believers.31 This assumption also runs through other contemporary preaching literature. Can we hypothesize that we are preaching to Christian believers in this second decade of the twenty-first century? Smith’s NSYR study has found that American high-school students, across the board, mirror their parents in a

30Maria Mo.tessori, in studying children, suggests that they absorb attitudes as much or more than they hear content. See The Absorbent Mind (New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 1967). Though Montessori observed younger children, many who are experienced with teens describe the same phenomenon.

31FIYH, 17.

belief which he characterizes as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” They believe in a God who wants people to be nice, good, and fair, a divine butler who will come running when you need him; the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself; that nice people all go to heaven. According to Smith, there is little common understanding among both youth and their parents of the basic Christian teachings of sin, redemption, or the paschal mystery.32

Biblical literacy also cannot be presumed. In 2010, the Pew Research Center studied religious knowledge in the United States. Not quite 75% of Americans knew that

Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that Moses was the biblical figure who led the Israelites out of Egypt. On other questions, “religious people” did not do any better than those who were not: “White mainline Protestants and white Catholics each closely resemble the public overall, getting about half of the 32 religious knowledge questions right on average.” 33 Atheists and agnostics actually did better in these religious questions. This study evaluated only adult responses. Yet, if as Smith found, that teenagers mirror their parents in religious understanding, this data may also reflect a similar lack of biblical literacy among our young people. In Smith’s chapter on Catholic teens,34 he summarizes his sociological findings about the youth of our Church: “Evidence suggests that more than a few of today’s Catholic youth may be falling through the organizational cracks without much notice.” He found that: 1) Catholic youngsters have a low level of what he

32Smith, 162-171.

33Pew Forum, “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey,” http://pewforum.org/U-S-Religious- Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What-About-Religion.aspx [accessed 9-10-11].

34Smith, chapter 6.

measures as “religiosity” when compared to teens of other Christian denominations; 2) that Catholic parents are less likely than others to say that their church has been supportive or helpful to them in trying to raise their high school students; and 3) that the

Catholic Church is relatively weak when it comes to devoting attention and resources to its youth and their parents.35 He concludes that “contemporary U.S. Catholic teens are faring rather badly.”36 If the challenge of following Jesus is at the heart of the Church’s mission in all its ministries with young people, then the recognition of the pivotal ministry of Sunday liturgical preaching has passed us by unseen. It is as though we fling the seed in the vague hope that it will somehow take root.

Listening to Listeners as Cultivating the Soil

In the parable of the sower which opened this chapter, the soil was a given in the equation—where the seed landed, it landed. Nowadays, genetically modified seed is too valuable to be arbitrarily tossed. Soil preparation has become central to healthy crop growth. One of the advances in agriculture in the past fifty years has been this attention to the dirt. For an organic gardener, if the soil is rocky, organic matter is added to create humus. If the birds are a problem, a thin sheet of netting is laid down to keep them away until after germination. If weeds threaten to overtake the tender plants, mulch is carefully spread like a blanket. In the biblical telling of the parable, the hearers of the word are the soil upon whom the seed is dispersed. In a modern understanding, the soil has to be carefully nurtured since the seed as the word of God is more than expensive: it is priceless.

35Ibid., 211.

36Ibid., 216.

This “nurturing of the soil” is at the heart of the turn toward the listener in recent homiletic years. In love, we humbly and honestly dig around to find out: What is the soil like? What do we begin with? What soil amendments do we need? What is the current pH—is the soil imbalanced as too acidic or too basic? Where are the microenvironments of receptiveness and how can we duplicate those characteristics elsewhere? The emergence of the study of soil as essential to crop production parallels the surfacing of the study of listeners as integral to preaching.

The ground for the voice of the pew has been broken. What has been found in the diggings about listeners and their relationship with preaching that can inform this current study of young listeners?

The name most associated with the turn toward the listener in the last half century is Dr. Fred Craddock of the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. 37 In his 1971 book

As One Without Authority, Craddock attributes to Werner Jetter, professor of preaching at

Tubingen, the origin of the paradigm shift toward the listener in this quote: “… the preacher must treat his [or her] hearers as mature men [and women] and learn to hear his

[or her] own words with their ears.”38 In his 1985 textbook, Preaching, Craddock devotes his fifth chapter to a listener exercise in homiletic preparation.39 Imagining the life of the

37 For an historical account of the “turn toward the listeners” as it has developed in the Protestant homiletic world, see Beverly Zink-Sawyer’s, “The Word Purely Preached and Heard: The Listeners and the Homiletical Endeavor,” Interpretation 51 (1997): 342-357. Zink-Sawyers asserts (p. 354) that attending to the listener is not a “new discovery but a recovery of an ever-present concern.” Also see Allen’s “The Turn to the Listener: A Selective Review of a Recent Trend in Preaching,” Encounter, 64 no. 2 (Spring, 2003), 167-196.

38 Fred B. Craddock, As One Without Authority: Revised and with New Sermons (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 159, endnote 1 to Chapter 3, paraphrasing Jetter from page 46 of Wem predigen wir? (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1964).

39Fred B. Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 84-98. 29

listener impacts what is preached:

The preacher who responds to the question, “What’s it like to be fourteen years old?” will not likely preach one of those “The Trouble with Young People Today” broadsides which have the net effect of emptying the sanctuary of its last few teenagers. The loss is too tragic to be redeemed by a compliment from the shrew who is pleased that someone finally put the young people in their place.40

Thomas Troeger penned his 1982 book Creating Fresh Images for Preaching around an imaginative conversation with various elders of his Presbyterian church. In talking of images that resonate with his listeners, he says, “People say and hear and see what is inside of their heads, and everyone is hearing and seeing something different...

They are there taking your words and supplying the meaning from their own lives.”41

The image of sermon preparation had been the man in his study with his Bible and his books and his God. Then the listener joined in the preacher’s imagination. (Also about that time, in some traditions, the picture began to include “her” study, Bible, and

God…) Preaching preparation further broadened: rather than presuming the experience of the listener, some preachers began to listen to the listeners themselves. Starting in 1975,

Bishop Ken Untener of the Saginaw, Michigan diocese kept a notebook in his pocket and talked to lay people every chance that he could—strangers, at parties, on airplanes:

I bought a pocket notebook and began to ask people (Colombo style) what they liked and didn’t like about homilies. I asked only “the people in the pew,” that is… (those who) had no particular axe to grind… They talked; I wrote. Surprising how willing people were (and are) to talk about this. Others who overheard chimed in.”42

40Ibid., 98.

41Thomas H. Troeger, Creating Fresh Images for Preaching: New Rungs for Jacob’s Ladder (Valley Forge: Judson Press), 22.

42Ken Untener, Preaching Better: Practical Suggestions for Homilists (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999), 1.

Untener went after his feedback by asking listeners, “How’s the preaching?”

Other feedback can come in without asking. As preachers (hopefully) know, the voluntary feedback that comes to them may be skewed by the fact that respondents have the candor or the passion to volunteer it. Untener said that the immediate post-worship response of “Good homily, Father!” or “Great sermon, Pastor!” is “usually not helpful and should not be taken too seriously.”43 Yet he admits that good feedback is hard to get.

Listeners tend to keep their responses to themselves.

As a pew-sitter for all of my life, I have heard much discussion in the parking lot, over a picnic lunch, in the car on the way home, in the schoolroom, etc. Comments from

Protestants and Catholics range from: “Do you think she needs a new wardrobe?” and “I don’t know what he said… he rambled all over the place” to “That story really touched me” and “Hey, wanna hear a good joke?” I recently ate lunch with a voice teacher who had taught for vocal performance for decades. She described in detail the throatiness of a young former ministry intern and how she could so easily help him to fix it. “Did you ever tell him?” I asked. “Oh, no,” she shook her head. What has surprised me, as I have moved from swaying babies in the pew to sharing homiletical method with the theologically educated, is how much that preachers do not hear these comments. I had always presumed that they hear what I have heard. Children as young as five share in

Sunday dinner discussions about preaching, especially if they have heard something that connected with them. Those in the pew informally discuss preaching and preachers all the time.

43Ibid., 99.

In the listener study entitled The Great American Sermon Survey, Lori Carrell conducted a paper survey in which she asked ten open-ended questions of self-selected listeners who picked up a questionnaire at the door of their place of worship.44 In compiling responses to preaching from both clergy and congregants, she found two cultures that moved in parallel:

When it comes to perceptions about the sermon, preachers have much more in common with each other than they do with their listeners. Preachers read the same books, experience the same preparation challenges, have the same occupational stresses, and may talk to each other about preaching from a “sender” approach. Listeners share the experience of listening to sermons week after week. Listeners talk to listeners about sermons. Our perceptions are therefore reinforced by our own “co-cultures.”45

Carrell surveyed both Protestant and Catholic preachers. If feedback and honest dialogue about preaching are as negligible as Carrell’s statistics suggest, both pulpit and pew interpret the behaviors of the other according to preconceived notions—both positively and negatively generalizing or stereotyping rather than getting to know one another.

Richard Stern listened to lay people assess homilies of seminarians. From their comments and from observations by faculty members, this “co-culture” was also present in his seminary setting: “There was still work to do in the area of adaptation to a parish- based hearer, however. Illustrations were not parish-oriented. Respondents desired more of a connection to their daily experience.”46 Preaching styles that had been modeled by

44Lori Carrell. The Great American Sermon Survey (Wheaton, IL: Mainstay Church Resources, 2000).

45Ibid., 133. Often, feedback from one vocal listener can impact the direction that the preacher takes even when it may not represent the norm, 137.

46Richard Stern, unpublished essay attached in an email message to the author, 7/26/10.

academic faculty in the school chapel tended to be dry. The laity liked more energy.

From their feedback, Stern suggests that the teaching of seminarians may need to adapt in order to create effective preachers for a parish setting.

How are we to connect two cultures that run in parallel like two rails of a railroad track? How are we to find the points where the two intersect and can talk to each other?

Carrell suggests that dialogue between the two cultures promotes understanding.47 John

McClure, in The Roundtable Pulpit, has laid out a process of discussing the experiences of listeners during sermon preparation so that it is in conversation with their concrete needs.48

Feedback from the Catholic pew is freshly available. The initiative “To Preach the

Good Word Well” has resulted in several recent studies of the interactions of listeners with preaching. The National Catholic Educational Association Seminary Department’s

2009 study “Effective Preaching: What Catholics Want” did an online survey of 434 active Catholics about which characteristics are important to them. Both clergy and lay people agreed: homilies that are “clear, compelling, pertinent to life and memorable.”49

Funded by the same initiative, David Shea assessed unmet needs in Catholic preaching in his Cincinnati diocese. He found that both adults and teens care deeply about the Sunday homily (100% of those recruited for the focus groups showed up, some at personal expense) and that their expectations were higher than he (and by implication, most other

47Carrell, 131.

48John S. McClure, The Roundtable Pulpit: Where Leadership and Preaching Meet (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 59-72.

49 Katherine Schmitt, “Effective Preaching: What Catholics Want—A Project of the NCEA Seminary Department,” Seminary Journal 16, no.2, Fall 2010. (Published in September 2011.)

Catholic preachers) had previously thought. High levels of distraction in the encounter with God in the homily came from the preacher’s oratorical skills and the relevance of the homily: “More than half cite homily content issues including not being relevant to daily life/today’s world, unfocused/not on a single topic, not connecting to the day’s readings, and simply being too boring or repetitious.”50 All of them provide these criteria for the Sunday homily: quality delivery, clarity of message, and authenticity of the preacher.

Donald McCrabb summarized the purpose of the various projects of the “To

Preach the Good Word Well” initiative as “to improve the quality of preaching.” He suggested that building a culture of feedback would create a culture of “co-responsibility” with the preacher for the Sunday homily.51 The antidote for Carrell’s “co-culture” findings is found in McCrabb’s call for “co-responsibility” in parish homiletical communication.

One of the insights about people who listen to preaching is, “If you ask, they will talk.”52 The Channels of Listening study, spearheaded by Ronald J. Allen and Mary Alice

Mulligan, interviewed 263 middle-western church-going adults from 28 Protestant denominations. Initially their plan was to produce one book of their findings, yet the wealth of material that was produced by these face to face and group interviews was so

50David J. Shea, “Unmet Needs in Catholic Preaching: A Project of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati,” Seminary Journal 16, no.2, Fall 2010, 33-42.

51Donald R. McCrabb, “Improving Preaching through Feedback,” Seminary Journal 16, no.2, Fall 2010, 5-6.

52John S. McClure, Ronald J. Allen, Dale P. Andrews, L. Susan Bond, Dan P. Moseley, and G. Lee Ramsey Jr., Listening to Listeners: Homiletical Case Studies (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004).

rich that four volumes have been produced. These people who heard sermons had much to say. Preaching matters to them. 53 As co-author Mulligan states, though preachers usually look to books, conferences and written resources for preaching help, “… an often untapped resource for assistance is the local congregation, made up of people who listen week after week to the minister’s preaching. People in the pews are easily overlooked as resources to help identify what makes for better preaching.”54 The focus of this study was to discover from listeners how they process preaching in order to help ministers become more effective. Like the sonar signal of bats, the team of homiletics professors looked to find pockets of resonance to determine what type of signals would draw in the listener.

Working within the Aristotelian categories of ethos, logos and pathos, these “senders” of messages evaluated how listeners heard sermons.

How does this Channels of Listening study impact the current study? The fourth book55 advises preachers about what lay people want in good preaching. These dozen chapters are consistent with the findings of Carrell and Schmitt. Commonalities arise from these listener studies: 1) preaching matters to the people in the pew and 2) attending to effective sermons can be transformative, gradually deepening the spiritual life of the disciple. An urban Caucasian woman describes this second effect: “I don’t expect big things from any one sermon. I’m always kind of surprised if it happens. Just steady growth…” In his accompanying commentary, Ramsey says, “The sermon plants

53Ronald J. Allen, Hearing the Sermon: Relationship/ Content/ Feeling (St Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004).

54Mulligan, Mary Alice, et al, Believing in Preaching: What Listeners Hear in Sermons (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005), pg. vi.

55Mary Alice Mulligan and Ronald J. Allen, Make the Word Come Alive: Lessons from Laity (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005).

ideas for this listener that are like seeds that slowly grow and one day surprisingly push her toward change.” 56 It is this “daily bread” that effects change.

The results of these listener studies suggest that tailoring a gospel message to the needs of the hearer is not a form of “selling out.” In his straightforward way, Craddock feels no compunction about this turn to the listeners:

One should not feel guilt or compromise with the world if a parishioner expresses genuine interest in a sermon. The most penetrating analysis of the human condition with the clearest call to repentance can be interesting. Why? Because most of the people are not interested in ornamentation nor entertainment. They know where to go for that. They are interested in the removal of ornamentation and affectation in order to be intersected where they live. The old patter about those who dress up on Sunday to sit in church and play the hypocrite is out of date. The reverse is more true. It is the world that six days a week demands pretension and hypocrisy that has become a burden. These people come on Sunday hopeful of that which is becoming increasingly interesting these days: the truth, shared in a context where the push to impress and be impressed is absent. The fact that they chose to come to the sanctuary rather than elsewhere is clue enough for the preacher that these whose steady diet is cake still have an appetite for bread.57

The current study has been developed through consultation with each of the previous listener studies, hoping to build on the shoulders of these giants. It seeks to describe Craddock’s young people’s “appetite for bread,” that “daily bread” experience of preaching as an encounter with God. To further the discipline, then, what questions need to be asked? How do we find out how to “connect”?

Operationalizing “Connection”

Preaching is an applied field. The initial thrust of this study is to seek to understand the concept of “connection” in Sunday liturgical preaching. The inquiry

56McClure et al, 2004, 41.

57Craddock, 2001, 56-57. 36

cannot remain in the abstract. The research question that guides this study is: How can preachers more effectively connect with young people in Catholic Sunday preaching?

The first step to operationalize the concept of “connection” was three open-ended inter-parish focus groups to ascertain what young people heard in Catholic Sunday preaching. This was a purposeful sample of active, engaged Catholic youth—those who have weekly knowledge of Sunday preaching and are committed to their faith. Since they were intimately involved in retreat planning and the development of “connection” with their peers in that context, it was hoped that they would be articulate in describing

“connection” in the encounter with God and what that meant to them. The purpose of this free-form discussion was to listen to what they had to say about preaching in their parishes. The conversations were recorded, transcribed and then categorized. These questions guided the conversations:

1) Fill in the blank: Sunday preaching in your parish is______. (Tell me more about that.) Think of an image or metaphor that describes that preaching.58

2) Tell me about a time when preaching really “connected” for you.59

3) Can you tell me about a preacher who helps you to grow? What are some of the things that he does or says that makes that happen?

4) If you could tell your preacher one thing that he could do in his preaching to help you grow in your faith, what would that be?

58Marketing Profs, “How to Evolve Your B2B Customer Experience Using Images,” Marketing Profs, http://www. marketingprofs.com/ articles/2011/5435/how-to-evolve-your-B2B-customer-expereince- using-images#ixzz1S6MG7xn5 [accessed 9-10-11], suggests that the use of images and metaphors evoke rich descriptions of experience.

59Sharan B. Merriam, Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (San Francisco: Jossey Bass), 98. For questions two and three: “Ideal position questions reveal the positives …of a program.”

The next step was an exploratory cross-sectional descriptive quantitative and qualitative paper survey to describe a preliminary portrait of “How are we doing in the sacramental encounter with God through Catholic preaching?” The objective of the survey was to evaluate the current state of connection, delineate characteristics which stood out in determining the connectedness of that experience, and to give direction for further study.60

The survey instrument was designed through literature review and discussion with market researchers and homiletic researchers. It went through numerous drafts through consultation. Demographic information provided a basis from which to compare and contrast regional differences, ages of respondent, ages of preachers, and personal religiosity variations, as well as eligibility for inclusion in the main section of the survey

(the baseline being at least monthly Mass attendance). Those who were Catholic and did not attend Mass at least monthly, as well as those who were not Catholic filled out a second section of the paper survey. This alternate section provided a description of the experience of young people who attended a Catholic school but were not practicing

Catholics; it has been instructive about faith life perspectives among marginal Catholics; it will also be useful for publication beyond the current thesis.

Seeking Heroes

The quantitative section of the Are You Talking to Me? paper survey is broken into four main parts. Following the demographic questions, the first major bank of questions, “The Person of the Preacher,” comes from consistent findings that the person

60For a copy of the original paper survey, see Figure A.3 in Appendix A.

of the preacher deeply impacts the reception of the message of the homily. Anecdotally, this witness of the preacher—the sharing of “this is God in my life” —is significant.

Young people hunger for authenticity, implicitly asking the preacher, “Are you for real?

Do I matter enough to you that you will let me share your life? Do you care that my life is changed by this encounter? Am I wanted here? Am I loved? Are you talking to me?”

According to Hearing the Sermon, the relationship that listeners have with the preacher is the primary area of processing a message for about 40% of Allen’s surveyed listeners.61 The first thing that they ask themselves is this: can they connect with the preacher as a person and as a leader? That credibility and relatability of the preacher undergirds whether or not they hear and how they hear what they hear. Allen categorizes these hearers with the ancient rhetorical label of hearing within an “ethos” setting. This relationality setting is exemplified by the following listener’s comment:

I like them (her preachers) because they’re approachable. They are down to earth. They speak clearly, to the point, but yet make it inspiring and enjoyable. I don’t know how to explain it anymore than that. Just that they seem to make it more like a family situation for the whole community, the whole church.62

Carrell says of listeners, “It’s not just what is said but who says it that makes a difference.”63 Carrell is not a preacher but a communications educator. From this context, she draws from research on teacher communication effectiveness in order to inform the study of preaching. Her seventh chapter, “The Preach as a Teach,” is particularly

61Ronald J. Allen, “Listening to the Listeners Five Years Later.” Homiletic 32.2 (2009), http://homiletic.net/viewissue.php?id=4#Articles [accessed July 27, 2010].

62Mulligan, et al, 83.

63Lori Carrell, The Great American Sermon Survey (Wheaton, IL: Mainstay Church Resources, 2000), 64, 169-172.

intriguing in her description of what education communication research labels “teacher immediacy.” Consistent findings indicate that strong teacher immediacy enhances learning in the students.64 Immediacy behaviors have been operationalized into verbal and non-verbal clues. Some of the verbal responses that connect teachers with students are humor, verbal affirmation, willingness to converse outside of class, and statements of approachability. Non-verbal responses that enhance a sense of closeness are eye contact, warm vocal expression, relaxed posture, and receptivity in body movement. Though the teaching role is only part of preaching connection, this delineation of characteristics of

“ethos” gives the current study a parallel context from which to study the personal aspects of connection. Hence, individual survey questions were developed from

Gorham’s measures of teacher connection in educational communication in her

“Immediacy Assessment Instrument”65 as well as from Allen’s appraisal of elements of the ethos setting in listeners’ response to preachers.66 The strength of the relationship through the perception of the preacher can then be correlated to the personal response to the homily and to the subsequent faith growth of a young person. Will it be possible to pin down that elusive trait called the heroism, role modeling, or sainthood of the holy preacher which then triggers imitation?

64 Gorham, Joan, “The Relationship between Verbal Teacher Immediacy Behaviors and Student Learning” in Communication Education, January 1988. Carrell quotes from Gorham’s Immediacy Assessment Instrument on page 171. In Carrell’s study of preachers, many of them self- identified as teachers. The field of education has a strong body of research on effectiveness. How much of this might be transferable to assessing relationship in preaching?

65Gorham, 40-53.

66Allen, 18-41.

The Experience of the Homily

The second bank of questions, “The Sunday Homily,” began with the NCEA project’s summary of characteristics that Catholic laypeople look for in one particular homily.67 The survey questions were then apportioned to line up with categories identified by the study of consumer behavior: they evaluate cognitive (mental), connative

(behavioral) and affective (emotional) responses to the homily.68 (These categories overlap somewhat with the logos and pathos settings from the Channels of Listening findings.)69

There was one further significant change to the bank of survey questions about the homily. Most homily assessment tools have traditionally focused on the particular homily just heard as short-term feedback. What Untener found in interviewing parishioners for twenty-five years was that an immediate response to a homily tended to show: 1) politeness—“Good homily, Father” means that people want to be friendly; though meant kindly, it was not careful critique; 2) affection or liking of the person— they were affirming the preacher’s whole ministry; 3) enjoyment—they were grateful that the homily was interesting or entertaining or contained a good joke. Some preachers would add: 4) they did not know what else to say. The former bishop of Saginaw

67Kathy Schmitt’s email message to the author, June 14, 2010, included an attachment of the NCEA “Survey on a Good Homily- A.” This survey is now to be found in the Seminary Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, fall 2010, p. 30. The characteristics which lay people found to be most important were used with the initial focus group to ascertain their applicability to high school students. The NCEA survey itself found no difference between older (over 40) and younger raters (under 40) as the dividing line between old and young, 28.

68Wayne D. Hoyer and Deborah J. MacInnis, Consumer Behavior, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 130-131. In a doctoral independent study with William Baker of the University of Akron, correlations between consumer behavior and consumer psychology with listener characteristics inform the final thesis project as to how to effectively connect a message with a young listener.

69Allen, 42-95.

suggested that there are two ultimate criteria for a good homily: that the people remember the encounter and that memory furthers their relationship with God.70

This study postulates that delayed feedback may give a more accurate assessment of how homilies affect people’s lives, since their reflection on it can continue for days or weeks or months. The Heath brothers in their book Made to Stick tested what students remembered from speeches and found no correlation between “speaking talent” and the ability to make ideas stick.71 Therefore the different questions about the homily reflect these various influences—they deal with factors of “takeaway” from the homiletic engagement. This is an original attempt to assess not “how did the respondent like this homily?” but “what sticks with the listener as a result of the homily?” This hopes to more closely describe the long-term “theologia prima” of the experience of the homily as an encounter with God.

Self-Evaluation of the Listener

The third bank of questions (“Your Way of Seeing the World”) builds a picture of the respondent’s personal faith life as adapted from Smith’s values of “religiosity.”72 The fourth bank (“The Person of the Listener”) gives the respondent a chance to appraise his or her life as to what is important. Why is this included? Smith found a significant correlation between teens’ level of extra-curricular activity, the quality of their relationship with their parents, an active social life, and positive peer influence, with their

70Untener, 99-100.

71Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 2008), 242-244.

72Smith, 108-113, especially table 32 on 109.

perspective on and involvement in religion.73 These two banks of questions will provide input into listeners’ energy levels for processing a message, which in turn can generate ideas for influencing response by altering the style and content of liturgical preaching.74

They will also provide for correlation between religiosity factors of the listener and the responses given to the preaching that he or she hears. Personal characteristics of the listener in relation to the perception of the homily have not been examined in previous listener studies.

Open-ended questions are interspersed throughout the survey to provide a thick description of what “connection” means to this group of high school students. They will have the opportunity to describe the experience of what it is like to grow in faith through preaching. If they have not experienced a growth in faith within the past year, they will describe what it is like to sit in a pew week after week and not be helped in their faith.

The last question is: “If you could tell the preachers in your parish anything about their preaching and how to make it more effective in connecting with you and other people of your age, what would you tell them?” At the end, young listeners have an opportunity to nominate a preacher who connects well with young people. This information can be used for post-doctoral research to observe characteristics of

“connecting” preachers.

From the National Study of Youth and Religion, to the documents of Vatican II, to listener studies series, to the heart of a mother, to the final words of young people, come these two conclusions: 1) preaching matters; and 2) the faith of our young people matters.

73Ibid., 106.

74Hoyer and MacInnis, chapters 6 and 7. 43

Yet so many words bombard young disciples in this overcommunicated world. How can we invite our youth to an encounter with God through the Sunday homily when it is so hard to be heard?

“How to Make Us Want your Sermon”

We turn for further insight to the earliest of listener studies. O’Brien Atkinson, a writer of secular advertising, was more than seventy years old when he urged a turn toward the Catholic listener in 1942. How to Make Us Want your Sermon: by a Listener was a one-of-a-kind primer on preaching for Roman Catholic priests.75 This member of the Catholic Evidence Guild taught public speaking for twenty-five years and preached as a lay evangelist on the street and on the radio for six years.76 In the early years of advertising, this Catholic layman answered that listener survey question of “What would you tell your preachers?” in great detail. From his secular training, he had a unique vision for preaching as tailored to the needs of the listener. He was well ahead of his time. Was he heard? No. Do we wish that he had been? Yes.

Rather than writing about preaching from a “sender” perspective, he wrote as a lifelong “receiver.” He opened his preface: “This text is a plea for better understanding. It tries to bring to you the story of what happens to the words of your sermon after they leave your lips; a story that no one else is so well fitted to tell as the layman.”77 The advertising man was focused on getting results. Buying and selling was his world. From

75O’Brien Atkinson, How to Make Us Want Your Sermon: By a Listener (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1942).

76The Catholic Evidence Guild was an early-twentieth century organization of lay evangelists who preached on the streets primarily of England (founded in 1918) and New York (in 1928).

77Atkinson, v.

his marketing framework, Atkinson provided what he saw as a clear example of why defining one’s market and understanding the “customer” should matter to the “product” of preaching:

A secular speaker asks himself, what should I say to this particular audience? An advertising man realizes that the woman who buys a fur coat and the farmer who buys paint for his cowshed have very different views, tastes, and motives. A $5000 advertisement might be wasted by appealing to such a woman in a way that would bring orders from thousands of farmers. Yet the clergyman often seems to take his audience for granted. He delivers a sermon that is not what the people need, but what he would like to say. Why?78

The accountability of a “seller” relied on discerning what his customer wanted so that he got the sale. If the customer refused the “company’s” product, the seller was not effective. Atkinson offered a parallel of this interaction:

You are to preach. You may be a curate or a cardinal. We are to listen. We may be a small town congregation or a vast multitude attending a Eucharistic world congress. In either case, and in every case, we have one advantage. Whoever you are, wherever you preach, however lowly or lofty the occasion, the prosperity of your sermon will rest with us. If we say it was over our heads, or hard to follow, or dull and wearisome, there will be no appeal from that verdict. You may think us stupid, and we may be stupid, but our verdict will be final.79

But the truth is that we want to listen. We are hopeful that your talk will interest us and hold us. And if you go about it the right way, you can interest us, and greatly help us…for we want to understand you…whenever your sermon speaks our language, deals with our spiritual troubles, raises our hopes, inspires us to carry on – we are truly grateful.80

The turn toward the customer had greatly increased the effectiveness of advertising in the early twentieth century. Public relations departments were the hot and

78Ibid., ix.

79Ibid., x.

80Ibid., 5.

new item for big corporations. Bethlehem Steel had opened a public relations department in 1930; General Motors followed suit in 1931 and U.S. Steel in 1936.81 Atkinson’s vision was that if the method worked in advertising, it should work in preaching. If it did not work in advertising, it would not work in preaching: “You can’t sell heating plants in the South Sea Islands, no matter how ingenious the sales talk.”82

Yet the persuasive skill of the salesman did not stand alone. The Holy Spirit moved within the hearer as well as in the church. As a faithful Catholic, someone had stirred the flame of Atkinson’s love for God or he would not have taken the time to write as he did. Some preaching somewhere had “sold” him. He had bought it as “theologia prima,” an experience of fire in the heart to be kept blazing. He wanted that same encounter for others:

How well will you preach? You have three courses open to you: You may set preaching down as a bothersome task, to be done in the usual manner; to be done as others do it; to be done with the least outlay of time and effort; to be done in a way that will not be challenged. Or, you may view it as the road to distinction. You may labor untiringly to become a preacher of wide repute, respected for your learning, for the brilliance of your thought, for your command of expression, for the power of your argument, for your great usefulness to the Church. Or you may think of it as the priceless opportunity to step into the minds of the common people, the poor and untaught, and there to clear up and straighten out their thinking. You may view it as the priceless opportunity to find a place in their hearts where you can tend the fire of their love for God and keep it in high flame.”83

To “find a place in their hearts” in effective preaching was this salesman’s ultimate

“priceless opportunity.”

81Trivia Library, “A History of Advertising in America in the 1930’s and 1940’s,” http://www. trivia-library.com/a/history-of-advertising-in-america-in-the-1930s-and-1940s.htm [accessed 5/2/2010].

82Atkinson, 143.

83Ibid., 171-172.

To tend the fire of the love of God is a high calling. Craddock said that people do not come into the sanctuary for cake; the secular world sells plenty of “cake.” It is the nourishment of the daily bread and butter of discipleship that we hope to “sell.” Atkinson the listener closed with a prayer for the preacher who can nourish:

We don’t know much. But we do know what it means to struggle – to marry with a good job, and suddenly be laid off; to get a fine young woman to share life’s venture with and then be taken desperately ill; to bring into the world five or six fine boys and girls, who are sure that Dad will never fail them, and then have the future turn black… Such trials come to most of us—men and women, young and old—in one way or another; and they bear down hard on the effort to get to heaven… Then it is that your simple, homely talks will delight our minds and make our hearts grow; then it is that silent prayers of thanksgiving will go up to a good God who has brought into our troubled lives a priest who knows how to preach.84

In the seventy years since Atkinson wrote his little book on preaching, the turn toward the customer has made great gains in understanding how listeners process and buy into messages. The discipline of consumer behavior has found that incorporating the voice of the customer into the creation of the product is at the heart of good marketing. In particular, customer surveys study satisfaction. Yet a vague satisfaction does not suffice.

The quest is to strengthen commitment and build loyalty toward a brand or a product so that those who are deeply committed will create “buzz” in the marketplace. (A premier example of this buzz is the early Christian experience of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.)

The field of homiletical listener studies can be enriched by learning the agreed-upon listening fundamentals that have been uncovered by consumer psychology and customer behavior research. In the next chapter, we investigate what is going on within those

84Ibid., 173. 47

minds and hearts that preachers hope to delight and grow. We turn first to Jim Henson’s big floppy puppets to find out how people listen and attend.

CHAPTER TWO

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY AN “O”?

A Fuzzy Yellow Bird Dances with Maria

In the late 1960’s, the creators of the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) sought to improve children’s readiness for school. They believed that if you could hold children’s attention via the medium of TV, you could educate them. But how do you do that? Through extensive study, a research team of educators and child psychologists analyzed which program elements kept children’s interest. They observed five-year-olds for attention by measuring distracters. What did they find? It was not entertainment. It was not stimulation. It was comprehension that maintained attention. “They [the children] watch when they understand and look away when they are confused.”1

As a result of CTW’s research, as they developed the program Sesame Street, the producers kept what connected and cut what did not. Yet before the show aired, they ran into a snag. In a pilot of the first five episodes in the summer of 1969, there were long moments when the children tuned out and were “restless and inattentive.”2 The puppets delighted them. But they paid no heed to the Maria and Luis, the grown-up humans.

Child psychologists had presumed that mixing fantasy and reality would mislead children, so originally the puppets and the adults had appeared in separate scenes. Yet

1Gladwell, 99-102.

2Ibid., 105. 49

from their research, this conjecture did not hold true. Thus, the creators of the show threw out the expert assumptions. They asked Jim Henson to make life-sized puppets to dance and sing with the real people on the street. Big Bird was born.

Results can surprise. It is more fruitful to study than to presume. The fields of consumer psychology and consumer research have scrutinized attention, knowledge, and memory to determine how messages connect and stick. Rather than making sender-side assumptions, well-funded marketing research has uncovered receiver-side factors that influence the reception of a message. They have devised tactics that promote buy-in and strategies that encourage intense, active loyalty to a product. If preaching opens a window into an encounter with God, its end result is a wealth richer than monetary gain.

For that reason, if in marketing, even more so in preaching: rather than assume, ask. The human brain is a God-given instrument to be treasured and respected. How does it work?

What is going on inside of a listener’s head? What opens the mind and prepares the heart? What resonates? What makes a message so beautiful, so appealing, and so transforming that the congregation wants to shout it to the whole world? Preachers who listen form listeners who preach.

Observations from the Pew

This chapter covers broadly accepted principles about what is going on inside of the receiver’s mind, focusing primarily on attention, knowledge and memory. Do these research findings apply to young listeners? The vast majority of consumer behavior and cognitive psychology theory was developed through experiments with college students, therefore these commonly accepted findings are perhaps even more relevant to a study of high school students than they are to the broader adult population. Though adults and

adolescents react differently to messages because they have different interests, activities and frames of reference, the principles of attention, learning, and memory are similar.3

To illustrate these tenets without having the complex facilities of the Children’s

Television Network or the eye-blink capabilities of a marketing lab, I took to the ground to examine listener response. In a series of visits to a Catholic parish, field notes recorded body language and posture, distracters, smells, noise and silence, and the behavior of listeners. 4 Observations were made sitting in parallel with the congregation, listening with the listeners, so eye movements were only minimally discernible. The examples given are a compilation of three liturgical observations at the same parish. Descriptions come from the broad Mass experience and a sweep of ages rather than simply as responses to the homily from the youth population.5 The purpose of this chapter is to lay out basic principles of attention and knowledge in what is happening within the listener.

As these characteristics unfold, questions about implication for preaching will also arise.

This type of qualitative research has the advantage of immediacy in painting a portrait of pew life in a live situation. Limitations come from having only one observer, from the fleeting nature of the observation, and the distraction of trying to observe while

3William Baker, personal email conversation, 10-24-11.

4Sharan B Merriam, Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, 2nd ed. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 124-137. Participant observation is a qualitative research method in which the investigator goes “undercover” to detect what is actually going on.

5These examples are from the viewpoint of a stranger. In visiting this parish, the parishioners do not know me and I do not know them. My personal biases and prior knowledge cannot help but influence my observations, but this as a “new” parish will hopefully strengthen objectivity. The Masses described take place in the Midwest region of the United States; the respondents are primarily white and middle class. Indicators of response vary by listener and by culture; therefore each preacher has to learn through experience what constitutes “paying attention” and “getting it” for his or her own people. The symptoms may change, yet the characteristics of listeners seem universal.

simultaneously participate at Mass. Merriam proposes that the observer also self-examine and record his or her responses, since that interplay is also instructive.6

Paying Attention

We begin the description of the characteristics of listeners with the fundamentals of attention. First, attention is selective.7 As mentioned in the previous chapter, we

“tighten the intake valve” so that we choose where to focus. We are most alert to that which is novel.8 As a visitor to this church, I am inundated by unfamiliar sights and sounds even in the parking lot. A sixteen year old driver gets out of the driver’s seat of a red Honda Civic. She hands the car keys to her dad. She appears shaken. Might this new driver have driven to church intently staring at the white lines on the road in order to stay in the proper position in her lane? New experiences, thoughts, or ideas cause us to focus our vision, to condense incoming of information into packets that we can handle.

People pay less attention to what they have seen before than they do to things they encounter for the first time.9 The mind grows used to processing sounds, sights, smells and experiences. After two years of driving to this church, that same driver may know where she belongs on the road, recognize road signs, observe other cars, and therefore may add text messaging and a chai latte to her routine of driving. Religious rituals can

6Merriam, 124. Videotaped responses of the congregation scrutinized in parallel with a videotape of the preaching of the homily would create a more distant but detailed analysis of listener eye blinks and body movement. Each sentence and the resultant response of multiple respondents could then be stopped and evaluated. That more technical method of determining listener response is not within the scope of this current research, yet would add depth to the study of the characteristics of listeners to liturgical preaching.

7Hoyer and MacInnis, 84.

8Heath and Heath, 65.

9Hoyer and MacInnis, 91. Habituation is the reason that stimuli pass into the background and we no longer pay attention to it.

also become habitual and thus fade into the background of what captures attention. As a result, they weave a web of experience at the edge of our focus; something is processed without our conscious awareness of that processing.10

Walking into the church building, my mind selects which items to attend to. On this particular Sunday, two ladies rush from opposite sides of the greeting area to hug as though they had not seen each other for a long time, and then begin to chat with each other. Attention is also hierarchical: we attend most to that which matters to us most.11 In this moment, for these friends, their relationship is highly relevant. Movie scenes put this type of encounter into slow motion to highlight the intensity of the attention that each gives to the other. People also pay most attention to those who are similar to themselves: children watch children and teenagers attend to other teenagers for clues to a social situation.12 Perhaps my mind paid the most attention to those two friends because in my own home parish, one of those ladies would have been me?

As I move into the pew, I kneel and then sit. I feel a gentle pat on my back. A little blond head is jumping up and down on the kneeler behind me, singing in his three- year-old voice, “We are marching…” Attention can be divided.13 Distraction pulls us from one stimulus to another. Our mental resources turn toward whatever captures us at the moment. Diversion comes from external factors like the activity of this child, from

10Ibid., 95. In “pre-attentive processing,” we pay just enough attention to know that it is going on.

11Ibid., 60.

12Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 173. This factor is often used in youth ministry in peer-led retreats for this very reason. The faith of one young person can be very influential in impacting the faith of another.

13 Hoyer and MacInnis, 84.

unexpected noises, and from visual movement. Distractions can also come from internal factors, both mental and emotional, which cause the mind to focus elsewhere. We stand for the opening prayer. An older gentleman slides in next to me and sits. His wife then kneels. I notice in the pew ahead to my left, a forty-ish mother amidst her three teenage sons. Her jaw is clenched. Her face muscles are tight. She is not looking at them. What went on at home and in the car before they got here? What internal conflicts are sidetracking her?

We sit. A man in a tan golf shirt five pews ahead keeps turning his head around looking for someone; his internal consternation of “Where is my wife?” turns into an external distraction for those of us behind him: during the first reading, he spots her entering the church and three times waves his hand high as though summoning a taxi. As she and her sister or friend slide into his pew, fifty people lose the first paragraph from the reading from Isaiah. All are now seated. As the choir sings the response to the psalm, a quiet begins to fall over the congregation. The body language of the assembly focuses forward.

The mother behind me and to my right stands to sing the “Alleluia” before the gospel. With her left thumb and index finger, she hands her blond son a zipped bag of cheerios, puts her right arm around the shoulder of her five year old daughter, and lifts the kneeler with her left big toe. Though multi-tasking has been touted as the modern way of processing, attention is limited. We can only truly pay attention to many things if the processing of each of those things is routine, well-programmed, and requires little

effort.14 She is practiced in doing each of those tasks. As I glance behind, her eyes look eagerly forward to hear Jesus’ story. The man next to me still sits with head bowed.

The focusing of attention can be trained.15 The teenager across the aisle plants his feet and centers himself forward, as though his coach was about to outline an important play. The priest proclaims quietly, gently of the landowner who builds a vineyard and rents it out, only to have his servants and his son killed. We strain to hear his soft voice.

We sit. The homily begins before the pews stop creaking. After the first four sentences have sped by us, we have settled in to listen.

The engagement of listeners rely depends on capturing and then maintaining attention. Untener describes one of the symptoms of attention to preaching as “The Fidget

Level.” Other than from the sounds of crying or cranky children, he maintains that

“Homilies generally start out with zero fidget level. A good homily will retain this from beginning to end… If the fidget level starts to rise… we can be sure there is a homily problem—too long, too abstract, too many thoughts, not connected with life, no depth, and so on.”16

There is no fidget today. The homily takes about four minutes—from “story” as important, to how the apostles wrote down the stories, to how surprising it is that the landowner kept escalating the importance of his messengers, to how God sent his Son because he loves us. There is no forward lean, no head nodding, and no laughter as positive response. There is no backward lean, no clenching of teeth, and no crossing of

14Ibid.

15Amishi P. Jha, Jason Krompinger and Michael J. Baime, “Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention,” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 7, no. 2, http://www.springerlink.com.ezp. slu.edu/content/kn27087813v84771/ [accessed October 12, 2011].

16Untener, 101.

arms as symptoms of negative response. It is quiet. It is over.17

Attention tends to wander when the mind is given free space. In the long pause after the homily, my mind begins to ponder the vastness of the information in this world.

Even this church environment and this Mass experience are cluttered and complex.

Preaching does not float out into a vacuum. Influences from our worldly lives walk in and sit down with us. The homily could speak to those or it could ignore them. Today it ignored them. So many voices vie for attention in our heads. In the past, life was simpler.

There was not so much competition; how and whether preaching addressed those things was not nearly so necessary since the support for faith was also woven into the culture.

Schemas and Categories or Why Ernie Doesn’t Buy that “O”

How does the twenty-first century brain adapt to handling so many stimuli? How are we to organize so much knowledge? We do not store things as isolated random facts; each piece of information is linked or associated with another concept. This linked cloud of data associations is called a schema.18

To keep information organized, we have schemas for people, like grandmas, preachers, and teachers; schemas for TV shows, such as children’s shows, crime shows, and Japanese anime; and schemas for football teams. Within schemas are brands. In this moment of silence, more than one mind in this room may be floating in the cloud of

17At the first visit to this parish, the same preacher had promoted attendance at the upcoming parish festival, giving thanks to a list of volunteers; though his speech occurred during the time slot for the homily, it could not be technically described as such: there was no reference to Scripture, Jesus, God, or the life of faith. In terms of types of communications, it fit best in the category of “public service announcement.” It was friendly. It was pleasant. It did not provide opportunity to evaluate the response of the listeners. The third experience of the homily informed the parishioners that the church heating system was almost finished, where to sign up deceased loved ones for prayers in November, why the mums on the altar were so large, and not to forget to register for the volunteer “Thank-you dinner.” If the litmus test for encounter with God were the Hippocratic Oath of “first do no harm,” this preaching is doing well.

18Hoyer and McInnis, 102. 56

associations of Big Ten football teams, thinking of yesterday’s experiences of the various brands of the Michigan Wolverines, the Ohio State Buckeyes, and the Nebraska

Cornhuskers. We group incoming knowledge according to what we already know or have experienced; with so much information coming our way, input is clustered to keep it in order.

Like a sunny or dark cloud which surrounds an item or person, we associate schemas and brands as favorable or unfavorable based on our past encounter with them.19

A specific type of schema that represents knowledge of a sequence of events is called a script. Scripts, like the ordered elements of this liturgy, help us to organize tasks with less effort. The schema, or set of associations that surround a product or message, impacts a receiver’s “buy-in” of a message.

There is a squeak from the pew in front of me—a five year old girl is coloring with her invisible markers. She shows no signs of having “gotten” the parable of the vine grower or the homiletic message. Like the children in the original Sesame Street research, it is not entertainment or stimulation that keeps her attention, but comprehension. She sends my mind back again to Jim Henson’s puppets.

Lefty the Letter Salesman is the Sesame Street sneak. He slinks in to the beat of shifty music, glances around to make sure that he is not being seen, and pitches this shady proposition for Ernie: “Would you like to buy an “O”? It will cost you just a nickel…”20

His dubious and manipulative demeanor is reminiscent of the schema in which we place

19Ibid., 104-105.

20For a moment of pure enjoyment, check out this Sesame Street clip: http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=ml6Yqu-spnM [accessed April 20, 2011]. In other whimsical clips designed more for parents than their children, Lefty also tries to sell Ernie an 8, an invisible ice cream cone, air, and an empty box.

used car salesmen (often with unfavorable associations). Lefty is convincing about the price and usefulness of his O, yet Ernie simply shoots him a quizzical look, gives his impish smirk and does not buy. The message, though endearing, does not turn into a sale.

Likewise preaching that causes one to glazes over does not make an impact. Why not?

Ries and Trout suggest that the solution to the “no-sale” problem is inside the receiver’s mind: “… Since so little of your message is going to get through anyway, you ignore the sending side and concentrate on the receiving end. You concentrate on the perceptions of the prospect.”21

An adult may perceive the humor of Lefty’s dilemma. A preschooler may not see it as funny. Why? If Ernie and the child do not know the value of money or that letters are generally free, to buy something “for just a nickel” does not hook into their prior knowledge; they do not recognize the sender’s message because there is nothing to stick it to. The little girl in front of me huddles in the world that she understands—her coloring pad and her family. Nothing outside of that seems to have engaged her.

At all ages, data pours into our minds. How do we structure knowledge in order to keep it straight? Cognitive scientists tell us that we label or identify something according to what we have encountered before; we categorize. Then we use our past knowledge to comprehend what we have categorized. What are the implications of categorization?

Once information is placed into a category, the mind makes inferences—the object is expected to have the features typical to that category.22 I think back ten months

21Ries and Trout, 8.

22Hoyer and MacInnis, 115. 58

to an experience of preaching in a Protestant church: the listeners placed a woman speaking from the pulpit into the category of those who are ordained. Categorical assumptions may or may not be correct.23

We stand for the creed and the petitions. Suddenly, the unexpected snaps my own mind to attention. The first of the intercessions reads: “That the Church would heed the experience of the faithful, we pray to the Lord.” It invigorates me to hear aloud the thought with which I have lived and breathed for the last two years. I wonder, who wrote that? Since thought travels faster than word, it also can get stuck. I do not hear the rest of the petitions, as my mind wrestles with what it means for the Church “to heed the experience of the faithful.” Categories reframe and inferences form like a river full of lemmings in my head.

Categorization influences how much we think about something.24 If incoming data labels easily, the mind glosses over it. We tune out steady sensory stimulation, like the hum of a refrigerator. The parish choir stands to sing the offertory hymn. The seven of them are late middle age to elderly, singing a customary song. The congregation seems not to give it much thought. If suddenly four young people of the current “alternative” style processed in and began to jive with them, the newcomers would break the pattern.

Parishioners would sit up and take notice—the disconfirmation of the stereotype would unsettle. If the experience is too “weird,” too far removed from the surety of habit, some

23Ibid. At my mother’s funeral, my sister-in-law inferred that I was an ordained “Catholic minister” since I spoke from the pulpit. As a result, she and my brother asked if I would perform their son’s wedding the following summer. As a certified lay ecclesial minister under the authority of the bishop of the diocese of Cleveland, I could not. With no prior knowledge of Catholic canon law, for them that word “minister” was shelved as “ordained.”

24Ibid. 59

might block it out, write it off, or even reject it.25 The brain is acutely attentive to change.

The category in which a person or object is placed impacts how the listener feels about it and what the expectations are. The priest prays: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” To my left is a fiftyish man staring into space with his arms crossed, his long legs stretched out. He has a category for “Catholic priest.” If he is a lifelong

Catholic, he may unconsciously compartmentalize “Father” based on early experiences or perceptions of clergy from his youth. That label may have nothing to do with the particular man who is now quietly in prayer. His categorization impacts how favorably or unfavorably he sees this gentle pastor, what his hopes are, and how pleased he expects to be with him. If the reality disconfirms the expectation, whether negatively (in a homily, he expects motivational and gets boring) or positively (he expects harsh and gets gentle), he might give the preacher more thought. If the priest fits his stereotype, little thought will go into his categorization.26 Once people have categorized something, even if it is placed incorrectly, they have a hard time repositioning it. Satisfaction is based on whether it performs as something in that category should.27

The implication of categorization is that the mind accepts communication that it understands. It rejects that which does not compute. The difference between the two is

25Noordewier, M.K., & Stapel, D.A., “Stereotype Disconfirmation Effect: When Sweet Hooligans Make You Happy and Honest Salesmen Make You Sad,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 33, no. 1 (February, 2011), http://www.tandfonline.com.ezp.slu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/01973533.2010.540135 [accessed October 12, 2011].

26I wonder…does my inner twelve year old label “preacher” as “Ernie Campbell”? If so, that would personally put me out of sync with the preaching expectations of my fellow Catholics. (See n. 10 in ch. 1.)

27Hoyer and MacInnis, 115-116.

often small. New information has to have some point of familiarity—a hook of relevance from personal life on which to shelve a concept or a recognizable image that sparks the imagination. An innovative product has to relate to a familiar one in some way.28

We stand as the priest begins to recite the Eucharistic prayer. He uses “churchy” words: sacrifice, grace, salvation, mercy, redemption... These prayers rely on a memory of stories and images from sources that we as the community have in common, a give and take of shared language and human experience. Yet these words and stories are no longer in everyday usage. Unless we pump air into liturgical language that has gone flat, listeners may not have the knowledge or experience to fill in meanings; hence the prayers become just “words.”29 If these are categorized as “something the priest says” or “church talk” without translation into the everyday life of the person in the pew, then two cultures run in parallel without really speaking to each other. Listener-side understanding is assumed here. Yet there is a colossal information imbalance. The Heath brothers call this

“the Curse of Knowledge”—the tune that is playing in the sender’s head does not correlate with what the receiver knows.30 The words of the prayer go on. Congregational responses seem automatic. We have said this before.

My mind travels back to the homily that we just heard. What did we as listeners already know? How did we shelve that information that God sent his Son into the world because He loves us so much? The apparent comfort level around me seems to indicate

28Ries and Trout, 29. For an early twentieth century population, for example, there was no meaning to “car” except in relation to railroads; the term “horseless carriage” connected two words people did know.

29Gail Ramshaw, Reviving Sacred Speech: The Meaning of Liturgical Language (Akron, OH: OSL Publications, 2000), 25.

30Heath and Heath, 20.

that the four-minute talk slid with ease into the cozy category of the prior knowledge of

“God loves me” without stretching us too much. The mother of the teenagers with the clenched jaw has relaxed her face muscles. The tone in the room is pleasant, safe and friendly.

The Anatomy of Comprehension

Categorization is the labeling and classifying of knowledge. Comprehension, on the other hand, is the deepening of understanding. The study of comprehension is at the heart of what preachers want to know about the reception of their liturgical message: what are my people “getting”? How much of my intended content actually gets into the heart and mind and behavior of my listeners? How much does my congregation understand of what I mean? The correlation of intended sender-side message to its receiver-side understanding is termed objective comprehension. Subjective comprehension is this: What does the listener think that he or she already knows… and how do those presuppositions and inferences shape the internalization and actualization of the message?31

To determine objective comprehension requires testing and feedback. Teachers give exams. Marketers gauge purchase. Preachers wonder.32 The strength of correspondence between the sending and the receiving is based on three listener characteristics: ability, motivation, and opportunity.

31Hoyer and MacInnis, 116-127. The background for the discussion of objective and subjective comprehension comes from these pages.

32And get occasional feedback. As described in the previous chapter, feedback rates are abysmally low in the field of preaching. On page 141 in The Great American Sermon Survey, Carrell says that there is little give and take between preacher and congregation among those she surveyed: “The lack of dialogue is at the root of differences in …perceptions about the sermon.”

Ability

Objective comprehension is impacted by the capacity of the listener to process a message. In addition to having the prior knowledge or experience on which to shelve new knowledge, the ability to absorb a message varies by learning styles, intelligence, educational level, age, and cultural background.33 Oral/aural learners are at an advantage in this word-heavy Mass experience. Visual learners best process narratives that form images or pictures in their minds. We kneel after singing “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might…” This continual bodily engagement of a Catholic Mass connects well with kinesthetic learners, those who learn through movement.34 Vocabulary and ease of abstract thinking differ with intelligence, educational level, and mental development— children under the age of fourteen tend to be concrete thinkers. What does “holy” mean to them? Is it like a pit in your back yard? The analysis of ability is fundamental to education—continual testing of students reflects what has been learned; thus pedagogical research studies gaps in understanding. Advertising, likewise, studies the “ability to get through” to the customer for economic gain.35 Research has found that not only the quality of the intake but also the focus of processing differs by levels of expertise: those who are highly trained consider the points of a message, whereas novices tend to want to

33Hoyer and MacInnis, 72.

34Thomas J. Lasley II, Thomas J. Matczynski, and James B. Rowley, Instructional Models: Strategies for Teaching in a Diverse Society, 2nd ed. (Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Inc., 2002), 32.

35This field is wide open for research in the discipline of homiletics. How many preachers would like to say, “After the homily, there will be a test”? How would attention and motivation to process differ if they did; and how might attitude change toward the preaching and the preacher? It would certainly disconfirm expectations and thus garner notice.

know how it will benefit them.36 The ability to comprehend metaphor, image, and symbolism is also influenced by culture. An analogy of pregnancy may fall as flat to a group of male celibate clerics as an insider seminary joke might to a group of grandmothers. Jesus’ washing of feet connects more strongly with African villagers who have no shoes than with the teenager across the aisle from me who sports new Nike basketball shoes.

Like the little girl coloring in her pew, a listener who does not have the ability to understand does not receive the message which the sender intended to send. On the flip side of that, even when the ability is there, the listener may not be motivated to hear it.

Motivation

Motivation is the inner fire that charges a person toward a goal. Like the revving of a motor, this energy and excitement drives both mental processing and behavior. In spite of complaints from parents, teachers, and bosses, there are no unmotivated people.

Each motivates differently—not necessarily toward the goal which that authority figure would prefer, but still compelled toward his or her own goals.37 (As a result, in this study we will use the words “high-energy listener” and “low-energy listener” rather than

“motivated” and “unmotivated” to identify the vigor applied toward listening to a homiletic message.) When driven, people are enthusiastic about doing the things that help them get where they want to go. In this high energy state, receivers of messages pay

36Eric J. Johnson and J. Edward Russo, “Product Familiarity and Learning New Information,” Journal of Consumer Research, 11, no. 1 (June, 1984), http://www.jstor.org.ezp.slu.edu/stable/2489141 [accessed April 20, 2011]

37Thanks to William Baker for this insight during our discussion on February 28, 2011, in our “Marketing and Preaching” independent study.

careful attention and spend the time to painstakingly process. Receivers who are not motivated to attend to a message apply little effort toward processing that same communication.

Motivation to listen is influenced by personal relevance.38 Does the communication matter? Does it speak to my life? What does it have to do with my self- concept, how I define myself, and my life issues? Does it have a direct bearing on me?

Two elements that affect motivation are messages that are: 1) it is consistent with my values, goals and needs; and 2) it is somewhat risky and moderately inconsistent with my prior attitude.”39

Listeners are motivated to concentrate when a communication talks about what they hold most dear. As the priest prays, “Remember, Lord, those who have died and have gone before us marked with the sign of faith, especially those for whom we now pray… ,” the grandmother in front of me reverently bends her heads. This sentence may trigger deep prayer for those who have recently lost family members or friends. The goal of heaven inspires some to pray and some to be here.

The satisfaction of personal need also motivates.40 Advertisers are especially interested in identifying needs of consumers in order to influence the purchase of a product. Yet at this moment of the consecration of the Body and Blood of Christ, there is an expressed need far richer than secular purchase. Across the aisle, I notice a seven year old kneeling with his head bowed, black hair covering his hands. The room is still. All

38Heath and Heath, 177.

39Hoyer and MacInnis, 59.

40Ibid., 61-67.

are on their knees. An outsider would read from their body language that what is happening here has great significance to these people. The hunger to encounter God fills the church. Even the man next to me who has stared at the ground throughout this Mass, looks up as the priest prays, “This is my body…” Need motivates.

In addition, a message that is moderately risky motivates listeners.41 This does not seem intuitive. Yet when an outcome is uncertain, playing with high stakes is uncomfortable. That in turn sharpens the mind. People stand near the edge of the cliff of the familiar when there are discrepancies with existing knowledge or attitudes.

Conversely, lack of challenge demotivates. In preference to the “same-old-same-old stuff,” the message or image that creates conflict or ambiguity spurs a person to concentrate. Lowry makes use of this in his homiletic structuring of “Lowry’s Loop”—he suggests a deliberate upsetting of the listener’s equilibrium, which is then resolved by a turn toward the gospel.42 Yet like categorization, if the message is radically incompatible with attitude or prior knowledge, there is no “fit.” Fear, anxiety, and self-protection block uneasiness. Listening to a theology that annihilates self image or undermines key values causes the receiver to protectively tune out. To stretch the rubber band of knowledge encourages comprehension. To snap it discourages understanding.

Opportunity

The man next to me seems to have the motivation and the ability to process what is going on around us. Yet he has spent this last forty minutes staring down at the kneeler.

41Ibid., 70.

42Eugene L. Lowry, The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 31.

Each time he moves, he emits a soft groan. Now as he grips the pew to stand and leans on his cane to shuffle toward the communion line, I recognize the scent of gauze, ointment, and bandages from my chaplaincy days. He smells of hospital. The opportunity to mentally deal with information also impacts how a message is engaged.43 I wonder if this man is in pain. If so, how does that affect his chance to listen? Mental resources can be so focused inward that a person is oblivious to input from outside. In addition to physical pain, this can have roots in emotional grief, debilitating anxiety, and mental and physical exhaustion—in short, opportunity is lost by any internal factor that obliges a listener to so shrink inward that the message sent is not heard.

As I move toward the aisle to enter the communion line, I see a woman two rows behind me shoulder her purse and help her soccer-suited son into his jacket. These are the

Catholic symptoms of a parishioner intending to walk out the door straight after receiving communion. Time anxieties pressure receivers; they are not fully engaged, but only get part of the message. “I’m in a hurry” equates to “I’m not listening.” Interestingly, time pressured receivers “not only process less information but also put more weight on negative information; they are quicker to reject (messages) because of negative features.”44 Does the negativity in our culture arise from such harried lives that we do not hear each other?

External factors also limit the opportunity to handle information. From the sender side, delivery impacts processing: unsupported technical jargon, incoherent words,

43Hoyer and MacInnis, 76.

44Peter Wright, “The Time Harassed Consumer: Time Pressures, Distraction, and the Use of Evidence,” Journal of Applied Psychology 59, no. 5 (October 1974).

and rapid sentences run rough-shod over the listener. As an incoming stream of words or images grows more complex, the chance to process it also decreases. In a word-inundated situation, the mind expends its energy toward controlling the flow of information.

Knowledge processing suffers.45

In this moment of music and the movement of members toward the altar, this is a transcendent moment. We move as a body to receive the Body of Christ. Those who have already partaken kneel in their pews in reverence. Some sing. Some lean their heads on their hands. Some rest chin on cupped hands. The morning sun filters in through the sky light on the south side. Gentle peace fills the room. I pull inward and leave the role of observer to become participant. I sense a tacit knowledge present here, a knowing transferred through communal experience, as an apprenticeship of imitation and modeling. The reception of the Body of Christ has informed generations of Catholics.

Knowledge seems more heavily weighted toward this second half of the Mass: symptoms of attentiveness and motivation have been much stronger for the liturgy of the

Eucharist than they were for the earlier liturgy of the Word, both from the priest and from the parishioners. It matters deeply.

Subjective Comprehension

Ability, motivation, and opportunity influence objective comprehension.

Subjective comprehension, on the other hand, starts from what the listener thinks that he or she knows. The receiver of a message infers meanings. These are based on assumptions that he or she makes from earlier knowledge or experience. It does not

45Dan Ariely, “Controlling the Information Flow: Effects on Consumers’ Decision Making and Preferences,” Journal of Consumer Research 27, no. 2 (September 2000), http://www.jstor.org.ezp. slu.edu/stable /10.1086/314322 [accessed April 20, 2011]. 68

matter whether this inferred understanding is accurate to what the sender intended: it still impacts what the person hears.46 As ability, motivation, and/or opportunity decrease, the receiver becomes a more passive recipient. The elderly lady two rows ahead of me has spent the Mass struggling to hear, continually looking to her husband for clarification; those who are going deaf are known to only hear some words or phrases and thus struggle to intuitively fill in blanks.

In subjective comprehension, the listener acquires belief by suggestion, implication, and insinuation. This is a fertile field for marketers. Researchers study people’s interpretations. They can then create advertising that sways perception in their direction, since the receiver puts little work into objective processing. The secular world manipulates the factors of subjective comprehension to assist the customer toward a favorable feeling for their brand or product or candidate.47

Parishioners also form impressions. High-energy listeners work to process the information provided. Yet much of the time, those sitting in the pews are passive recipients. They are heavily influenced (for good or ill) by this peripheral route.48 Within sacramental traditions, liturgists have historically been more aware of these subjective factors than preachers have. Preaching as a liturgical action contains more than

46 Hoyer and MacInnis, 118.

47Ibid., 121.

48In some evangelical Protestant traditions, there is discussion of creating an “experience” through liturgy and preaching, which is a sender-side attentiveness to the subjective comprehensions of the listener. An example of this approach is Kim Miller, Designing Worship: Creating and Integrating Powerful God Experience (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2004).

objectively enters the mind.49 The symbolism of the placement of the pulpit within the design of the building reflects the physical relationship of the preacher to his people.50

Body language and the accessibility of gesture make the invisible visible.51 Eye contact conveys sincerity.52 All of these factors, as well as homiletic style and expressed theology contribute to the positive and negative impressions that form the take-away of listeners.53

Miscomprehension

The final element of knowledge structure is miscomprehension. Ability, motivation, and opportunity are factors here also. Cultural differences lead to misunderstanding: the implied meanings of gestures, postures, spatial relationships and words vary by age, ethnicity, race, and gender.54 A large-scale study in the 1980’s found that almost 30% of television ads and 35% of print ads were misunderstood. It did not matter whether the information was directly stated or simply implied—the rates at which consumers inaccurately received the meaning of the message were fairly equal.55 A

49Yves Congar, “Sacramental Worship and Preaching,” in Karl Rahner, ed. The Renewal of Preaching: Theory and Practice (New York: Paulist Press, 1968), 60.

50United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship Guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington D.C., 2000), n. 61.

51Todd Farley, “The Use of the Body in the Performance of Proclamation” in Performance in Preaching, ed. Jana Childers and Clayton J. Schmit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 118.

52Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins, Speaking to Teenagers: How to Think about, Create, & Deliver Effective Messages (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 236.

53An empirical study of listener inference and subjective comprehension would make a valuable contribution to the field of homiletics.

54Hoyer and MacInnis, 116.

55John Jacoby and Wayne D. Hoyer, “The Comprehension-Miscomprehension of Print Communication: Selected Findings,” Journal of Consumer Research 15, no. 4 (March 1989), http://www.jstor.org.ezp.slu.edu/stable/2489540 [accessed April 30, 2011].

school class that curves around a mean of 75% as a “C” assumes an average miscomprehension of 25%. In like manner, is 25 to 35% of preaching misunderstood?

How much of the take-away from a homily is flat out wrong? Preachers have many stories of miscomprehension. We do not yet have data but it is a fertile field for study.

Memory and Attitude

To understand knowledge processing is to perceive what is going on inside the mind of the listener. As one acquires knowledge, this fills the memory with information.

As we sit after communion, the grandmother in front of me softly caresses the white blond hair of her five-year old granddaughter as she helps her put away her markers in preparation to depart. She then gently pulls the child onto her lap. The short-term sensory impression of “sitting with grandma in church” goes into the girl’s mental storage facilities.56 Will this form the predominant feeling she has for “church”? What will she afterward pull out of the long-term reservoir of recall? What will stick?

Memories have strengths. Memories interact with each other, seemingly for dominance. Therefore, retrieval of messages can conflict.57 An adult recall of “Dad yelling at me in the parking lot” at the age of thirteen could in the future overpower the weekly tenderness of “Grandma’s lap” from the age of five. More significant than what is said, is what is remembered. Stories told and retold form long-term impressions.

The priest says, “The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” As we stand to sing the closing song, what sticks? What are we taking out with us? What has

56Heath and Heath, 109.

57Hoyer and MacInnis, 183-193. The retrieval of memories is based on their strengths, interferences, activation, and how recently those memories have been recalled.

made an impression? What thoughts, experiences, emotions, and images fill our storehouse of experience? I personally feel a bit freshened—not sparklingly so as though

I had come from a feast with friends, but content as with a good sandwich eaten in the car. The man next to me hobbles toward the door and waits for his wife. The three-year- old is still bouncing. His mother continues to love him. The teenage boys are talking to friends. The taxi-signaler is surrounded by a group of guys in hearty conversation as if they were about to go play golf. We move to the parking lot. The sun shines. People wave good-bye. It is another Sunday morning. God is at work still.

How do we summarize and simplify all of this? What is going on inside the head of the receiver of preaching? First, a message goes into the listener’s ear. The mind processes it. The knowledge is then appropriated in some form. Knowledge then fills the memory. That memory forms an attitude. Attitude, an overall evaluation of “like” and

“dislike,” in turn, guides thoughts and influences feelings. Most importantly for “buy-in,” attitude drives behavior.58 The detailed study of attitude and how to change it, strengthen it, and influence it is integral to developing strategies for behavior change in advertising.

The behavior of buying the product is the goal.

To Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord

Knowledge, memory, and attitude formation—preachers have much to learn about each of these. As we go in peace to love and serve the Lord, we go back out into a world that is cluttered with information. If incoming communications are placed on a set of scales, will the homily that we have just heard plus the worship that we have

58Hoyer and MacInnis, 130.

experienced, outweigh the worldly data in forming our lives? It is a tough world out there. A friend recently shared this about preaching at Mass: “When you get beat around all week, you hope for a message that refreshes.” Do we have enough fuel to love and serve the Lord until we come back next Sunday for more?

Preachers can learn more about their listeners from what consumer psychology and customer behavior have discovered. Yet there is a concern that it might be improper, almost unholy, for the sacred discipline of homiletical listener studies to sully itself with the secular world of selling things.

In the introduction to his book Influence, Robert Cialdini states that he has been a life-long “sucker,” buying unwanted magazine subscriptions and tickets to sanitation workers’ balls. As a result, he has made the study of the psychological principles behind

“the weapons of persuasion” as his life work. He asks, “Just what are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person?” The psychologist took to the ground to get inside organizations that specialized in salesmanship to find out: “I would need to look at the compliance professionals—the people who had been using the principles on me all my life. They know what works and what doesn’t… Their business is to make us comply, and their livelihoods depend on it.”59

Like Lefty the Letter deal-maker, the schema surrounding salesmanship carries questionable associations. How can marketing be a source of ideas about holy preaching?

Questions arise, not from the volumes of data about the inner workings of the customer, but in how that information is to be applied. Like Cialdini, we have an aversion to being take advantage of. We do not like to be suckers or to be “played.” The ultimate goal of

59Cialdini, xii. 73

the prodigious investment in understanding the customer is to sell products. How does that harmonize with preaching as an encounter with God?

Cautions about Marketing as a Source of Wisdom

In encouraging attentiveness to the inner workings of a customer, how is that knowledge to be used? Does the end result of financial gain or conversion in faith justify the use of an immoral means? Are a person’s convictions to be manipulated for the purpose of a “sale”? People are not objects—not numbers to be counted, not attitudes to be manipulated, and not bodies to be used. The relationship proper to a person is trust, care, sensitivity to true needs, and the meeting of that need. John Paul II urged the

Church to combat the growing utilitarianism of our culture, to “rediscover and promote the inviolable dignity of every human person.”60 In his theology of communitarian personalism, he suggests “a radical interdependence and consequently of the need for a solidarity.”61 Rather than exploit people for the sake of profit, we succeed together because we cannot succeed alone. To understand how a human being receives a message and then to use that knowledge for personal or institutional gain misses the mark.

A second flare erupts when comparing the turn toward the customer with a turn toward the listener in preaching: If we give listeners what they want, are we selling out?

How dare we tinker with the gospel so that folks better understand it (!). Is there not some degree of relativistic treason implicit in that adaptation? Does that not make the timeless

60Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., “The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II,” in Church and Society (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 143.

61John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis (Apostolic Letter The Social Concern of the Church, 1987), n. 26, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp- ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis_en.html [accessed October 14, 2011].

Word of God dependent on the fad and fancy of the listener?

In his 1975 encyclical Evangelization in the Modern World, Pope Paul VI wrote that the task of preaching is “assimilating the essence of the Gospel message and of transposing it, without the slightest betrayal of its essential truth,” to put the message of the gospel into the words of the people.62 The world has changed. We need up-to-the- minute perceptions. The gospel message does not change, but its presentation has to continually be offered anew. Like home-made bread, preaching is best when it is fresh.

To be engaging does not compromise the time-honored message. To be inspiring is not to entertain. To be interesting is not contrary to being faithful.

A third objection surfaces from a key question on the purpose of preaching—are we selling? Should preaching strive to persuade, change motivation, and alter attitude?

Might the use of marketing techniques turn preaching into a sparring match where the homilist tries to “win”? And if so, how is that consonant with the theology of communitarian personalism?

This question of the purpose of preaching has been batted back and forth throughout the history of Christianity. In 1942, according to Atkinson, the goal of

Catholic preaching was to save souls.63 In the decades of the nineteen–sixties and – seventies, as a response against authoritarian preaching, the discussion was framed more tentatively as, “Oh, please honey, sweetie, would you like to try an O?” Dogmatism and absolutes became suspect. As Craddock describes, “firm periods slumped into commas

62Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi [Apostolic Letter, On Evangelization in the Modern World, 1975] (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), n. 63.

63Atkinson, 27.

and so many triumphant exclamation points curled into question marks.”64 Some in the current generation again hanker to go back to absolutes and unchangeable truths. Is there a place in modern preaching for Augustine’s persuasion of “to teach, delight, and move” the hearer?65

If bombarded listeners in an overcommunicated society specialize in how not to listen, what happens to the efficacy of the gospel message if we put no focus on influence in preaching? Can we persuade people to hope? Encourage them to love? Plead our case to live a life of caring for others, to fight for justice, and to join in solidarity with others who want to make a difference in this world? Why should the secular understanding of how to get a message across only be used to promote purchase of worldly goods?

Response to Marketing as a Source of Wisdom

Mike Graves writes that in Augustine’s day, rhetoric had a bad rap—to use the non-spiritual medium of words to persuade was to forsake trust in the movement of the

Holy Spirit. The bishop of Hippo saw it differently: “…Augustine wondered why eloquence should be a tool used only by those speaking falsehood and not by Christian preachers, an approach he laid out in what is considered the first homiletics textbook in the history of the church.”66 In the same way, the study of consumer behavior is a means for: “understanding internal psychological processes that people use to make decisions, external cultural factors that influence how they buy into things, and methods to develop

64Craddock, As One Without Authority, 11.

65Lucy Lind Hogan, “Persuasion,” in The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson et al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), 360-362.

66Mike Graves, The Fully Alive Preacher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 95.

strategies to be more effective in reaching people.”67 The goal is not to trick people into buying, but “to integrate them into the product development process to give them exactly what they need and to provide top-notch service throughout the relationship.”68 Customer surveys and focus groups help to create products that meet those needs. Good marketing is not based on gimmicks or manipulation. At its core, marketing is about maximizing customer commitment to a product, service or idea. Not fluff, but substance, is required to realize this end—great organizations produce great products, services and/or ideas.

Marketing is simply a process to make things great.69 Increased competition has made attentiveness to the customer all the more necessary.

What is good for business is true for preaching also.70 To integrate the listener into the development process and to give them what they need is to make that communication great. It comes from a true caring for them that bears lasting fruit.

Effective organizations find that there is value in caring, in building an honest long-term trust relationship with a customer or a listener. Khan says:

The implication to the sales role is that you must help your client succeed. If you do, you both win. If not, you both lose… It is no longer sufficient to get them to buy… If you can’t help them achieve sustainable results, you will be a one-time player rather than a long-term business partner.71

This parallels John Paul II’s theology of communitarian personalism. To listen to the

67Hoyer and MacInnis, 1.

68Chris Murray, The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 50.

69William Baker, personal conversation, April, 18, 2011.

70 See McClure’s The Round Table Pulpit, pg. 2.

71Khalsa, Mahan, Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: The Demise of Dysfunctional Selling and the Advent of Helping Clients Succeed (Salt Lake City: Franklin Covey White Water Press, 1999), 7. 77

listener is to frame a message based on a deepened understanding of what the parishioner knows, feels, and does. To help the listener succeed is to buy into Thomas Aquinas definition of love: to will the good of the other.72 This works both as a unifying theology and as an ethical means of selling.

Utilitarianism, relativism and secularism are valid concerns when approaching marketing as a source of wisdom for preaching. We must be watchful that our goals are not lead astray, but like Augustine infers, we cannot leave selling to the secular world.

We can learn what there is to be learned. The stickiest preacher that ever lived said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Mark 4:9).”

Pulling it Together

As has been seen in this chapter, the homily is one piece within the larger context of Catholic liturgy, which in turn is one element (from liturgical theology, ideally the source and summit) of parish life.73 The parish is the local expression of the world-wide

Church. As a result of this framework, response to an individual homily is complex. The young listener walks into a parish Mass with a preformed picture of “Church” based on memories of experience and encounter, implicitly asking these questions of ecclesial identity: “Who are you?” “What are you?” “What do I think or feel about you?” and

“What kind of a relationship would I like to have with you?” The listener positions

“Church” according to that mental image formed. The apriori picture impacts the take- away from a specific homily. “Why am I here?” and “What does this mean to me?” and

72For an elaboration of this thought see the author’s 2011 Academy of Homiletics white paper, “Innocence and Improvisation: Listening with Young Listeners for an Ecclesiology of Preaching.”

73Paul VI, Lumen Gentium [Encyclical Letter, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 1964] (Northport NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1996), n. 11.

“Are you talking to me?” influence the buy-in of the teenager. Growth in discipleship is grounded in that appropriation.

The next chapter describes the qualitative responses of young listeners to the Are

You Talking to Me paper survey. Preaching cannot ignore the system that enfolds it. Each of the elements of assembly, preacher, and homily relationally intertwine. From what they take away from preaching, it will become clear that they do not hear a homily in a vacuum. We look at these questions: In their own words, what does it mean to them to connect? How has a homily helped them to grow in faith? What has it been like to sit in a pew and not have a homily help them grow in faith? What would they like to tell their preacher if they could tell him/her anything? The fundamentals of consumer behavior research will continue to converse with those listener responses to build toward an answer to this question: How can the fire of the Holy Spirit connect and resonate in the minds and hearts of young listeners through Sunday liturgical preaching?

CHAPTER THREE

RESONANCE FROM THE PULPIT

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures… Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us? —Luke 24:27, 31-32

Preaching creates an encounter.1 For the apostles on the road to Emmaus, the encounter consisted of the unpacking of the Jewish scriptures and the breaking of the bread. Their eyes were opened to recognize Jesus. Their hearts burned within them. The event resulted in elation, insight, heartfelt recommitment to Jesus, and a rush to witness to the One whom they had seen and heard. Jesus the preacher knew how to connect.

What does it mean to preach in ways that connect? Homiletical literature has traditionally focused on three elements of preaching—the preacher, the assembly, and the homily. These constituent parts are essential. Yet what about the way these three connect? As a soccer coach, I have seen six year old players run back and forth and up and down the field in a pack, all of them focused on the ball, but none of them connecting with one another. At nine years old, they begin to look up from the ball to see the other players. By eleven years old, some have mentally developed enough to be able to coach

1 Paul Scott Wilson, The Practice of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 20.

them to send the ball to space, to see relationships between players, to anticipate where the ball is going, and to begin to work together to take the ball to the goal—in other words, rather than seeing the objects of sender, receiver, and ball, they can be taught to see their relationships. This shift in vision causes the playing of soccer to become more of a relational dance. (Basketball point guards and football backs also look to spaces for an opportunity for a steal or a “hole” in a defensive line.) Similarly, preaching has traditionally focused on the homily (the ball) and the sender of the homily (the player with the ball). In recent years, it has begun to look up and see the receiver of the ball (the listener). To “look to space” is to shift the vision toward the relationships between those

“objects in the game.”2

In the earliest stages of designing this project, this third chapter had planned to express the state of affairs in preaching as a market researcher would, by describing

“what works” with respect to getting the soccer ball (sermon) from the sender to the receiver. The strategy was to define the homily as product, the preacher as producer of the product and listener as consumer. However, in listening to five hundred and sixty-one high school youth in the spring and fall of 2011, they themselves spoke much more deeply about their encounter with preaching and preacher than as the commodified interplay of product, producer, and consumer. The technical question of “What works?” therefore was replaced by the much richer sacramental question of efficacy expressed as:

“How does this event impact my life? How does it echo within me? How does it spur us to grow more deeply into our life with God?”

2 Harris, 116, is of the same mind: “The interaction of these elements… is the basis for good preaching.”

Thus my thinking about this chapter took a Gestalt-type shift. 3 Not unlike

Augustine articulating the Trinity as Love, Beloved, and Love, homiletic connection is much more than an object, not a “what,” but a “Whom.” The One who is the Tie that binds, the Source of unity, the inner Revealer—the Holy Spirit could also be titled with a capital “c” as the Trinitarian “Connector.” The invisible flow of the Spirit cannot be delineated in a quantifiable way, yet the words and pictures of the young people illustrate a rich relational interaction. These responses paint a picture of how the Spirit connects the listener and the preacher in helping the young assembly move toward the goal of growth in discipleship.

While continuing to integrate the principles of consumer research, their expression in the following pages will be framed and illustrated by the qualitative responses of the young people themselves. The chapter will first draw from the transcripts to characterize “connection” as these young people see it. Then it will discuss the homily as a location for encounter, both in the effect of a single homily and in its cumulative effects. Subsequently, the young people themselves will describe their experience of preaching. Finally, they will speak of what it means to connect with a preacher. Each of these sections arises from particular questions in the survey and has been categorized inductively as themes arose from their comments.

3Marketing research is similarly increasingly looking to interaction as its unit of analysis, rather than the behavior of either the marketer or the consumer. See David W. Stewart and Paul A. Pavlou, “From Consumer Response to Active Consumer: Measuring the Effectiveness of Interactive Media,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 30, no. 4 (2002): 376, http://jam.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/ 4/376 [accessed April 13, 2011].

“Connection” in the Lives of Young People

The premise for this thesis is that through listening to young listeners and integrating that listening with the principles of consumer behavior research, we can discover what makes for effective connection. What, then, is this elusive “connection?”

In this survey of 561 students, five hundred and thirty-one responded in writing or in picture to the first qualitative question:

The concept of “connection” is important to this study. Think of an adult who connects well with you. How would you describe what happens when that person connects with you—are there specific things that he or she does or says, or a way of acting, that strengthens that bond, makes that connection work? (Some kids are not “word” people. If it would help you to describe it better, draw a picture or a cartoon of what “good connection” looks like.)4

What is Connection?

Because the question was so open-ended, responses to “What is connection?” varied widely. Yet after coding and sorting the data, patterns emerged. Like Jesus in the

Emmaus story, there was always a personally admired “who.” Connection was never described as something one did with oneself. There was: 1) a “how it happens,” a means, a vehicle for making that connection as in the gift of presence through “walking together”; 2) a “what happens,” the gift of understanding in “unpacking the scriptures”;

3) and a “who,” as a fellow traveler offering the gift of “doing something together,” as in breaking the bread. The concrete symptoms of connection that were articulated by these young people paralleled the disciples’ description of “our hearts were burning.” And finally, from the disciples’ recognition of their bond with Jesus and their dash to go

4The pictures which illustrate this chapter come from the drawings that the young people included in their responses. The pictures add nuances to their comments which may not be captured by the words that they use.

witness to their experience, there were behavioral consequences to those connections.

Few student responses mentioned all of those characteristics, but combined together, they repeated them over and over again. We peer over the shoulders of teenagers in a Catholic theology classroom to hear what connection means to them.5

Who are the People Connecting with our Youth?

Young people talk most frequently about their bond with adult family members.

They connect with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, older brother or sister, an aunt, and a cousin:

I have a connection with my mom. For some reason, she can always tell what sort of mood I am in regardless of if I say anything.

My father connects with me mostly. He inspires me to do better and become better. He tells me his life experiences and the gift earned from God when we do better.

I have many people I connect with but one special connection with my grandma on my Dad’s side. She is very old and she is very religious. She has had a hard life and so have I but she is closer to God. As I have gotten older, we have formed a deeper relationship with her and I enjoy our conversations.

Teachers and coaches can also connect well:

My German teacher from sophomore year connects with me. She is very understanding and compassionate and does not judge me.

The math teacher here at [my school] really connects with me. I have had to pay bills and pretty much become an adult since my father passed in 2006. He understands my hardships and poverty and is just here for me. I can relate to him on a lot of things.

Yes, my soccer coach used to connect with me very well. What happens is that it gives you this feeling that you have known them and developed a relationship with them over years. It also makes you feel as if you can tell this person anything

5Identifiable features such as names have been replaced with generic descriptors.

and that you can trust that they will understand where you are coming from and you are safe with them. (Figure 3.1)

Figure 3.1. To connect means that you can trust that they will understand.

Religious leaders of many varieties were mentioned third most often, with youth ministers and confirmation leaders leading the way, followed by priests and parish employees:

My youth group leader connects very well with me. He is young, funny, and easy to talk to and knows my name. He keeps me coming back to youth group every Sunday because of his energy and youthfulness.

I connect very well with my parish’s assistant, [name]. She is truly a role model for everyone. She’s kind, sweet, and loves to talk to me. I feel really connected to her when we talk about God.

Mentors, neighbors, friends’ parents, choir director, school alumni, and close older friends were also mentioned as those with whom young people connect.

Thirty students did not answer this question. Some of those who did respond did not have an adult with whom they connect:

There are no adults that really “connect” with me. I am good friends with many adults. However they tend to not understand me as much as my friends. I am afraid to say something personal to them, in case they go tell my parents.

No. I think that adults don’t really understand the people of today’s world. Yea, they were teenagers once, but the world has definitely changed so much in the last 20 years. No matter how hard they try to connect with us, it just won’t work. We connect better with people our own age.

How are These Connectors Connecting?

Young people offer much insight in how to pass the ball to them. The three major categories that arose from their responses centered on: 1) relate; 2) understand; and 3) help.

Rows and rows of data speak of the most common response of the “how” of connection: Relate to me. This is described as: “being chill,” “in sync,” “come down to my level,” and “relate to my life.”

When a teacher, priest or whoever connects with me it means that he/she relates to my life. If they can teach about things, that seem important or have nothing to do with me and then can legitimately connect what they are teaching to my life, they will have my full undivided attention.

Yes, my last theology teacher. He is really nice and chill and taught religion in ways that we could relate to, not something an adult should be doing.

This teacher is really COOL. He is just so in sync with what goes on at school. He just knows how to relate and is a really cool guy. (Figure 3.2. For the uninitiated, “Sup” means “what’s up?” and a bumping of fists is a sign of solidarity.)

Connection to me means being able to relate to a person, to have in depth conversations, and to be on a personal level. Figure 3.2. To connect means to be in sync.

A subset of “relate to me” is included in this previous answer—have meaningful conversations, be interesting, talk about things that matter. Young people appreciate when adults respect their intelligence and are articulately engaged with them:

They just talk on our level; they act like they are interested in what we say. They are easy to talk to.

The second most common category of response in “how to connect” centered on mutuality in understanding. There were three forms of this affinity.

Each used the word “understanding” but used it differently. The most frequent was as a common bond of understanding: “to know me,” to “hear me,” to “get me,” essentially to be in sympathy and show respect and care for the young person:

They understand me. They get where I’m coming from.

Yes, I have a mother of one of my closest friends who knows everything about me. It feels great to have her understand my thoughts, actions, and feelings… She always keeps me grounded and feeling love. She’ll have long talks de-stressing me or give me hugs and kisses when I just need them the most. She constantly betters me and keeps me on a positive track.

Similarity of interests, experiences and/or goals were a second source of

“understanding.” This connoted a common ground for building an understanding of each other—“same sense of humor,” “interests in common,” “similar likes and dislikes,” “common enjoyable experiences.” The word “sharing” often arose as an indicator of this sub-category of mutuality:

My dad, we share many things in common. He knows me better than anybody. My father and I have a good connection. He is much like me and often an invaluable teacher in my life.

The person looks at you, listens to what you say, and shares common interests.

When the person connects with me I feel as though he/she truly understands me and can relate to my situation. We connect from a level of similar likes and dislikes and our personalities fit with each other. Figure 3.3. To connect means to share common interests.

Yes, my uncle. It feels good to talk to a person who feels the same way you do about a lot of things. He likes the same things I do and we act kind of the same.

The third type of mutual understanding keyed from the word “open.” “Share personal life,” “let me relate to your life,” “treated you like family, like a brother” and “make it a one-on-one” thing revealed a desire for a reciprocal interchange that was trusting and true and jointly uplifting. Passing the ball back and forth, the connector was willing, not just to listen and take in the concerns of the young person, but also could openly communicate his or her own vulnerability in an effort to connect life experiences:

If someone opens up about themselves and relays a message using personal examples, I can connect with them. To make a good connection work, one must be able to listen to others ideas and thoughts.

A personal story makes for a good connection. One that you can feel what the person went through. It’s like you were on that journey as well.

The final category of “how to connect” was pastoral. The connector “helps.” “Take the time to help me” and “be there for you when you are down” and “knows what to say to lift me up” characterized this bond (figure 3.4). In times of

Figure 3.4. To connect is pastoral: trouble, the connector has come to his or her assistance and help me up when I am down. thus the youth trusts and has attached to that person.

It’s when a person knows about your life and doesn’t judge you but tries to help you when you ask for it. It’s a person you trust.

They know how you are feeling and are able to help you with tough decisions.

My dad. He always listens to my problems and helps me get through it.

When my choir directress (or I also call her my big sister) is around I can always talk to her even when I am extremely mad. She has this way of letting me know that she is always there for me even when I think no one cares. Just by her being around she has this strong connection that says you can come to her (figure 3.5).

One of my teachers from last year because she really understands my pain, and makes me feel better, even when I’m going through terrible things.

I’m Mad + She’s there = I feel better Though some may bemoan the Figure 3.5. To connect means you can come to them. pervasive influence of the internet and mass media in the formation of our young people, the vast majority of these youth surveyed could identify an adult who has had a personal impact on them. It appears to be a role that almost anyone could do for them if an adult were willing. Rather than stemming from the position that the connector holds, connection arises through taking the time to relate, understand, and help.

What “vibes” does the connector send into the space that the young person detects? What are they looking for in that person? They describe connectors as role models of integrity:

Someone that connects with me is someone that not only I can confide and trust in; they are someone that I look up to or hope to be like in some ways.

If that person is real with you. Not just putting on a show to try to get personal gain. Just wanting to be true to you because they want to.

One who is “real,” “listens to me,” “believable,” “true,” and “knows how kids think” is respected and revered. Character traits of “fun” and “humorous,”

“friendly” and “easy-going” and “approachable” combine with “respect” and

“compassionate” and “kind” to identify their ideal connector.6

Indicators of Connection

In watching tapes of past plays, a coach can diagnose the relational strengths of a team. There are symptoms of connection. How is an adult to know whether or not he or she is connecting with young people? What goes on in the space between them? There are consistent signs that reveal that connection is happening.

First is the element of spending time with ease, “being yourself” in the presence of the other, the sense of safety to just “be.” Whether in a time of difficulty or a moment of joy, over and over again, students speak of “good” or “natural” conversation as a symptom of connection:

When I connect with an adult, everything just flows. We can continue on the conversation and it’s not uncomfortable at all.

I can feel a person truly cares when they connect with me. Signs of feeling safe.

No talk, just hang out.

Good connection comes from a bond you two share. They are easy to talk to, funny, and they are there for you when needed. That person tends to always know what to say when things are hard.

Accompanying that comfortable and easy flow of conversations are the symptoms of smiling, humor, feeling good, fun, and laughter.

In a connection I have with an adult, there is a conversation that relates to both of us and is a good nature. Laughing would normally occur.

6Malcolm Gladwell uses the same word “connector” in his second chapter of The Tipping Point (see footnote 26 in the introduction). The “connector” that these students describe is not Gladwell’s social gad-about who collects people, but an adult who enriches their lives through deeply listening, one who shares with them and cares about them personally. This “connector” role is accessible to many more personality types than the one-in-a-thousand “connector” that Gladwell describes.

It feels very good when an older person connects with you because at this young age we often feel very confused.

There are adults that connect with me. What happens is we laugh; there isn’t a serious nature in the conversation. There are jokes and the conversation is about interesting topics. A sign of the “connection” would be smiling and laughter.

Secondly, in American mainstream culture, eye contact shows connection:7

The person I can think of that connects with me is a teacher. She makes eye contact, listens well and gives great advice I can relate to.

A small number wrote of physical contact as expressive of connection:

One of my teachers is a good friend and person to talk to. If anything is wrong, she asks me are you ok and touches my shoulder to show that she is there as support.

FRIEND/High five! Joking around.

Whenever my mom is around, I always get a positive feeling. When I’m sad, she hugs me and tells me everything will be alright. I know if anything happens, I can go to her. I can share my feelings with her (Figure 3.6).

Figure 3.6. To connect is to share feelings.

7In other cultures, avoiding eye contact may be a sign of respect.

A fifteen year old boy simply drew a picture of connection with the word “La-di-da-di-da” and left the interpretation open to the imagination. Figure 3.7. To connect is “La-di-da-di-da.”

In summary, to the respondents in this study, the symptoms of connection are comfort, safety in being oneself, naturally flowing conversation, laughter, eye contact, and physical interaction. The “how” centers on relating, understanding, and helping. The

“who” of connection can be anybody willing to invest the time to listen and be there for the young person. What happens when the event of preaching, as the interaction of preacher, listeners, and homily, connects?

Homiletic Encounter

Like the fire burning in the hearts of the disciples on their way to Emmaus, the encounter of preaching can impact a young person. A high school junior from Ohio writes about how preaching has influenced his life:

A lot of it had to do with accepting difficulties in life. Often, people will either turn to or turn away from God during the extremes in their life, the homilies I’ve heard usually kept me closer to God in these times.

Jesus unpacked the Scriptures for the disciples on the road to Emmaus in just such a moment of difficulty. Through liturgical preaching, young people’s eyes can be opened.

They have much to say about what a preacher can do to help this to happen.

The Impact of the Individual Homily

A single homily can stick in the memory. A single homily can connect so as to help. A single homily can also hurt at this vulnerable age. Almost as a mother hen protecting her chicks, a twelfth grader from Indiana urges caution as she describes the power of preaching: “I would tell them to consider my age group. Our faiths are fragile right now and homilies could either make or break them.”

When faith is fragile, the world is confusing. There is so much conflicting information. In an individual homily, one way to differentiate from all of the noise is to meet the personal need of the listener. What would this twelfth grader hunger to hear? In meeting the need, the homily should be as simple and clear as possible. The messenger selects that which has the best chance of getting through. Less is more.8 As teens grow, their view of the world broadens. They have many questions. The adult world does not always make sense to a child-becoming-adult. When preached simply, an image, story, or statement can “hook” into their mental framework.9 A profound analogy can further understanding. A fifteen year old girl may not grasp the complexity of suffering, but this visual image from a homily resonated with her life experience:

It was odd to think that Jesus, who is supposed to love us, could let us suffer so much sometimes. But after hearing a preacher’s homily about how to make gold, you must put it in the fire until it is ready and beautiful, I realized that I shouldn’t give up on my faith just because life doesn’t go my way.

8Ries and Trout, 7.

9Heath and Heath, 57.

When the message is distilled to a core concept, that idea reminds the hearer of what is important.10 Beliefs then change, which adjusts attitude and thus behavior.11 A seventeen year old Ukrainian Catholic boy describes just such a change as the result of a homily:

The homily helped me see a bird’s eye view of life or the “big picture.” I started to stop worrying about the petty arguments about things that didn’t really matter that were harming my relationship with my family (parents and siblings).

How do we know what the Holy Spirit is doing in a homily; are there identifiable attributes of the Connector in the encounter with a homily? Some young people described moments when they saw their faith more clearly. The invisible became more visible:

The homily motivated me to worship God more and opened my eyes to how I should worship God and respect other people.

A preacher who is theologically educated may not remember what it is like to not know theology. “The Curse of Knowledge,” was described in the previous chapter as the tune that is playing in my head may not be playing in your head. Once we learn something, it is difficult to perceive what it is like not to know, causing a tremendous information imbalance.12 Similarly, a robotics engineer can explain the intricacies of motion controllers to his mother but get nowhere. A nuclear physicist can describe the implication of neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light to his sister and it still may make no sense to her. A poet can wax eloquent on the beauty of iambic pentameter to his son, but if there is no schema, no hook, no source of connection for that

10Heath and Heath, 37.

11Hoyer and MacInnis, 135.

12Heath and Heath, 20.

information, there is no understanding. Young people are listening. But as the creators of

Sesame Street found, it is not entertainment or stimulation but comprehension that maintains attention. A Hispanic Greek Orthodox girl suggests to preachers, “Remember what it is like to be young again.” A Korean seventeen year old boy says, “Understand the common teenager and talk about things they can relate to.” Another says “Speak more in young kid terms, i.e. examples that could relate to us.” One young man found courage from an older priest through just that type of homily:

Well, it was when the preacher’s homily was talking about an event in my life that I was currently going through. That homily kind of uplifted me to push on in my life.

In creating a single homily, the preacher imports the mindset of the listener insofar as possible. As was illustrated in the chapter 2, the listener walks into a church service with a mind that is awash with secular messages. How does a homily address this competition? In Positioning, Ries and Trout suggest finding a hole and filling it.13 What is the culture leaving out of their lives? What is missing? What is not being fulfilled by other messages? What does Christian preaching have that is unique? If the message is just that we are one among many others who are similar, then that communication has little influence. Auxiliary to “relate to me” is “stretch me” and “give me something to stand/live for.” The core message does not change. Its packaging sometimes must inculturate.

If the Holy Spirit as Connector is to be given a chance to stick like the thousands of tiny hoops in Velcro material, then the preacher has to search for hooks to latch onto.

This is a commonly recurring theme:

13Ries and Trout, 54. 95

I would tell them to continue relating their homilies to real life situations in order to help the people in their journey to become more Christ-like.

I like real life examples.

He has to know what its like for a teenager in 2011 and not in 1960.

He talks about things that I can relate to in my own life as a teenager in an engaging original fashion while simultaneously teaching the messages set forth in the gospels.

How is a preacher who does not live with teenagers supposed to preach to what is going on in their world? Those who work with teens know that their day to day struggles and concerns are very real. They like to be asked.14 They do not like adults to superficially assume that they know what is going on in a high-school student’s mind. They are attentive to gaps in authenticity with antennae finely tuned to what they consider

“fakeness.” Shallow presumptions leak through a homily and can be both disrespectful and alienate:

Be truthful in all things; never try to be something you are not just for the sake of relating. Ask us what we want to know and we will tell you.

Sometimes his message is too blunt and just makes you feel bad for being on Facebook too much or something that isn’t actually bad.

To relate to topics teenagers deal with daily, such as peer pressure, bullying etc.

You should truly know what people/teenagers are going through on the day to day life. Don’t tell what we can and can’t do (we hate that) but try to instruct us to make the right decision and expand our spiritual life.

As a model preacher, Jesus valued his hearers. He took the ordinary “stuff” of his world and taught lessons that resounded within ordinary human life. Something happened. As a result, they asked, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” From this

14Chapter 5 will lay out a reverse mentoring process through which young listeners can be heard.

single instance, the Word reached a deep place within the hearers which opened and readied and echoed in their hearts and minds. In listening with young listeners, this is what spurs passion. This is what engenders commitment. This is what made the disciples in the Emmaus story sprint off to tell the world about their encounter.

In the marketing world, that burning of the heart about one’s brand of Apple

Computer or Harley-Davidson motorcycle is called “resonance”:

A brand with the right identity and meaning can result in a customer believing the brand is relevant to them. The strongest brands will be the ones to which those customers become so attached that they, in effect, become evangelists and actively seek means to interact with the brand and share their experiences with others.15

Yet resonance in preaching and resonance in branding are seldom based on one experience. Like the continual watering of a field yields crop growth, a seventeen year old girl from New York resonated with not just one preaching event, but with the composite of all of the homilies that she heard:

I WOULD TELL THEM HOW MOTIVATED THEY MAKE ME TO FOLLOW Jesus and how much I want to tell others about it. I hope to help others in experience from the homilies every week. I really connect to my parish homilies.

The attributes of the Connector in the encounter with a homily are more apparent as long- term effects:

It [connection] is not one particular experience. I feel uplifted by homilies when a preacher engages in the aspects of my life that I struggle with. When a preacher touches on a problem I have/have had/will have and helps me with these problems I feel enlightened.

15Kevin Lane Keller, “Building Customer-Based Brand Equity,” Marketing Management 10, no. 2 (July/August 2001): 19. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.slu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=104&sid=19e08a31 -df26-49cd-86fa-79568792b59e%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3 d%3d#db= buh&AN=4966486 [accessed July 10, 2010].

To recap from the Introduction, foundational to this study is the premise that “the true test of good preaching is the effect it produces in the lives of believers.”16 The connection that lodges in the memory offers a long-term assessment of how a homily impacts peoples’ lives.17 Recall that the Heath brothers found little correlation between the perceived “speaking talent” and the stickiness of the message.18 In marketing, an advertisement is not evaluated on its depth of color or the artistry of its layout, though each is important—the ad is judged on how well it sells its product. In like manner, the individual homily does not stand-alone. Therefore the survey questions sought to ascertain not “how did the respondent like this homily?” nor the perennial (and liturgists’ least favorite) question, “what did I get out of it?” but “what changed and moved within the listener as a result of the homily?” and “how did preaching shape the experience of and encounter with God?” The bulk of the results, then, express the experience of the homily not as a single event but as an ongoing engagement with God.

Long-term Homiletical Takeaway Reveals the Face of God

One question in particular described how the homily provided the bread and butter for growing disciples. In the fourth section of the survey, two hundred and ninety- four students (Group I) responded to the Sunday preaching that they had heard in the past year.19 They checked the words that described their overall impression of that preaching,

16Harris, 116.

17Untener, 99-100.

18Heath and Heath, 242-244.

19Group I was composed of baptized Catholics who attended Mass at least once per month, the baseline for inclusion in the section of the survey that evaluated Sunday homilies.

marking as many of the sixteen characteristics as fit their experience.20 The follow-up question then asked: “If you marked the box above ‘helped me grow in my faith’ or

‘uplifting, made me a better person,’ what was that experience like? Please describe that as clearly as you can.” Fifty-five percent of the respondents were able to articulate an experience of preaching within the past year that connected so as to help them grow in their faith or uplift them.21 It was as though the ball was passed to them and they took off running toward the goal with it. A tone of energy, lightness, and joy characterized these comments. Chapter 1 pointed out that the documents of the church do not mention the significance of the homily as source of faith growth for young disciples. These young people did. Of these, some said that the ongoing experience produced a positive emotional response within worship:

I usually look around at other parishioners and feel a strong sense of faith and community after a good homily.

Listening to the homily just uplifts my heart and I just feel really good about myself when I hear about Jesus. It’s like my own little world.

Well, when you hear a good homily you fall into a state of calmness. It’s hard to explain but it’s peaceful and you feel like a different person in a way.

The largest category of response centered on a deepening of understanding, whether to better understand God or life, Church teaching or Scripture, or one’s vocation. This richer

20Characteristics were: comforting; flat, boring delivery; helpful to my life; talked down to me; helped me grow in faith; uplifting, made me a better person; harsh, judgmental; frustrating; rambling, pointless; interesting, mentally stimulating; confusing; didn’t seem to matter I was there; easy to follow; inspired me to commit myself to following Jesus; helped me forgive someone; made me feel good (see figure 4.10 for a graph of the responses to this question).

21Though the questions are only somewhat similar, this is a higher percentage than Christian Smith’s findings in the National Study of Youth and Religion in which only 37 % of surveyed Catholic teens (ages 13–17) said that they had ever had an experience of spiritual worship that was very moving and powerful. The source of the difference may be that question 60 was only asked of those who regularly attend Mass. The average would drop if the baptized Catholics who do not attend were included. See Smith, 53. 99

awareness led to an epiphany marked by courage, comfort or inner leading:

The experience was like I actually know that God listens to me. He may not answer me right away or when I want but he does hear me. He also forgives me when I do wrong and will help me through life as long as I follow and worship him to the best of my ability.

The Sunday homily taught me about Jesus and his teachings. Hearing and learning about the goodness in the world made me want to do as HE did.

They helped explain the gospel and help me find a calling.

A lesser number described a change of heart or attitude as a result of the connection of the preaching:

This experience was a huge impact on my life. I was so done with my terrifying experiences and going to Sunday homilies made me finally let it all go.

Whatever worries I had, they would preach something relating to that that would calm me down.

Well, it made me feel like I should be thankful for everything I have.

A large number also spoke of an intensified spirituality or deeper relationship with God.

Most of these responses used the word “closer” or “strengthened.” This hunger expressed itself in both general and specific ways:

It helped me to understand God more and grow closer to him.

When I heard Fr. J. preach, he touched me.

I felt a stronger longing for God. I wanted a better relationship with Him.

I’ve had a few enlightening moments at a parish I went to. I was at a point where my faith was being challenged and what the priest said made me turn more towards my faith.

Finally, a common result of the homily was a modification in the teen’s behavior: to help others, to be better, to go to church more, to imitate Jesus, and to forgive. Scripture calls it “go and do likewise.” Here is how they express this conversion:

100

The experience was not really divine or euphoric but rather contemplative, forcing me to think about certain parts of my life that I could or should have changed.

That experience uplifted me because I felt as if I could change myself and strive with motivation to become a good, God loving person.

Fr. A. gave a homily about LOVING HUMILITY. It helped me want to grow more deeply into my relationship with God. It made me want to be a better person.

It made me realize who God really wants me to be. A good and caring person. And to use the gifts that I have and share them with others.

Made me want to be more like Jesus.

These comments are reminiscent of the “aha” moments in coaching soccer when a player looks up from playing “his” ball and sees the new world of space and relationship for the first time. Some young listeners put a lot of energy into processing a homiletic message. They will work to sort out ideas, they may be emotionally connected to the person of the preacher, have a strong commitment to God, and may have had positive experiences with homilies that have helped them. These high-energy listeners expect homilies to connect:

If they help me to understand and make me aware how Jesus is always present and loving, I feel they have done their job!

These comments are expressive of the ongoing transformative power of preaching in the context of the liturgy. The community’s experience of preaching, its homiletic take-away as “first theology,” has co-created meaning with the preacher to actualize encounter with the Trinity in its midst. The Holy Connector has aroused that give and take of faith

101

through the event of preaching. If the task for the Church is to transmit its message to the next generation, these responses indicate that it can do so. God’s Word goes forth into the world. This is cause for celebration. The kingdom of God is here.

Long-Term Homiletical Take-Away can also Obscure the Face of God

The kingdom of God is also not yet here. Some young people verbalized spiritual growth as a result of homiletic take-away. Others articulated how homilies had not helped to strengthen their faith, describing “what is not working” toward growth in discipleship.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed who regularly attend Mass could not recall an experience of preaching that had helped them to grow in their faith in the past year. These responses also coalesced into consistent themes. When asked to describe what that experience was like, it is as though they ran up and down the soccer field and never got a change to touch the ball. They described a sense of dullness, sleepiness, or heaviness characterized these comments. For some, the experience was emotionally painful:22

It makes me frustrated and confused that the preaching doesn’t help me grow in my faith. I hate not being able to focus my attention on the homily.

It just seems like not only me and the rest of the people at the church are going through the motions but also our priest was.

SAD.

It feels pointless.

If I am not helped in my faith when I come to Mass, at the moment I feel lost because I have nobody to help me understand God.

When the desire to grow is not met in this encounter, it also has a cumulative dulling or

22Hoyer and MacInnis assert that dissatisfaction is costly. Negative word-of-mouth spreads quickly and sticks firmly in the memory. One European study showed that it took twelve positive experiences to overcome one negative one, 281.

102

demotivating effect among these young people who have been consistently going to church:

It feels like no one is really reaching out to me. I feel obligated to go to Mass.

When I come to mass with the intention of learning and becoming closer to God and leave with having neither of those fulfilled, I do not have as strong of a desire to go the following weekend.

A second theme that reverberated throughout the comments of young people who were not growing in faith was “boring.” If the message were coming through their cell phone, it was getting no signal. There was no connection. They described this weightiness as

“watching it happen,” the “same everything every time,” and “not worth it.” High school students described sources for “boring” as repetitiveness, lack of a central message, rambling, and poor delivery:

I usually end up spacing out during the homily and getting sleepy because of the rambling (which may have much meaning behind it, but puts me to sleep). I end up losing concentration, thinking of other things or yawning.

The same point is made over and over and it gets boring. Sing a new song for once.

It feels like there is no point to go. If I open my Bible at night and read, I feel closer to God then when I listen to a priest with awful speaking skills.

A small number of young listeners dismissed the homily as unnecessary to their growth in faith. The expectation was that the homily was of no help. Not only was there no signal, the cell phone had been turned off as though there was no service:

Honesty, I feel that I’m a pretty good person, so they don’t do much.

Not having a preacher to connect with isn’t life altering. I still have a family and friends I connect with. Most sermons come off as lectures and information shoved down your throat to me.

I try to learn outside of church with my family about my faith. The church only provides the sacraments to help me. 103

It depends when I go, some Sundays are brutally boring and others can hold my attention, it depends on the priest. I grow in faith through myself and my experiences, not a homily.

These listeners have shrunk inward and turned “self” off. The ongoing fruit of preaching that does not connect is that the encounter does not occur. The preaching event as icon becomes like a window that is dirty, smudged, or darkened. The face of God is obscured or hidden. Even though they sit in a pew with others, it is though these young disciples sit alone, isolated from the Connector that would rouse them.

If the homily is to create an experience of God in the midst of a world that constantly bombards adolescents with words, then preaching has to work to connect.

Listeners are co-narrators in creating an effective message.23 To pass the ball back and forth between preacher and assembly results in a stronger team effort toward the goal.

Therefore we seek to understand how and why and to what they are motivated.

The Motivation of the Young Assembly to Connect

Situational moments of high sensitivity impact how the homily is received. Peak experiences come from retreats, mission trips, youth conferences, work camps, and conversion experiences. A previously taciturn student may pump the preacher’s hand and exude, “Great homily!” Preaching plays a role in continuing to strengthen that (perhaps temporarily) receptive disciple, before the inner excitement wears off. A sixteen year old boy describes his experience:

I go to [youth conference] every year, and we go to mass during our time there. It is an amazing experience overall, but the homily was really good this year. It told

23Janet B. Bavelas, Linda Coates, and Trudy Johnson, “Listeners as Co-narrators,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 6 (Dec 2000): 941.

104

about how he (the priest) was struggling in his faith and how he partially got out of it, but never fully can. It changed my outlook on my faith. I often feel lost and confused, but this homily in particular helped me to realize that God hasn’t chosen to reveal more to me yet, and, for now, I need to do the best with what I have.

Adults are sometimes put off by what looks like cockiness in teenagers. Many young people project the confidence that they are solid in their take on life, yet the marketing world knows that those most easily influenced are ones with an innocent mind:

The first thing you need to “fix your message indelibly in the mind” is not a message at all. It’s a mind. An innocent mind. A mind that has not been burnished by anyone else’s brand.24

In times of emotional fragility, their question may be “How do I make sense out of this?” When their view of the world broadens and new information prompts mental adjustment, kids ask, “How do I integrate this into my current belief system?” When they have taken a new behavioral path and as a result are shifting their identity and beliefs to be in accord with what they have begun doing, questions arise: “What should I do?” and

“What is right?” and “How does faith speak to this in my life?” In suffering, they can ask the profound question of “What kind of a God would make this happen?” In addition to the confusion that many youth express, valley experiences are also moments when preaching can help:

When a preacher gives a sermon, I try to listen for advice he can give. Sometimes he will talk about things that I am going through at the time and what he says can be helpful or at least get me thinking.

In times of uncertainty, people of all ages are most likely to look to the actions of

24Ries and Trout, 20.

105

others to see what they should do.25At this receptive time, unfortunately, adults can also

“majorly blow it” by not providing guidance, support, answers, and/or direction. This is the flip side of the high energy listener—when the listener is receptive, ineffective preaching can also deeply dishearten. These vibrant disciples can be candid about losing their drive to hear the message of the homily:

The Eucharist (Jesus!) and my faith community is the reason I love the Mass. I generally hate homilies… this summer they even became my “nap time” on my mom’s shoulder right before I had to go to work (after Mass). I would consider myself deep in my faith, but I want to make the preacher sit down so many times and have someone else talk.

One eighteen year old high-energy listener plans to enter a cloister of contemplative nuns. Leah is the most high-energy young listener that I interviewed.

Though passionate about God and her faith, when asked to describe the preaching at her parish, she laughs:

Confusing! [The preacher] seems like he is wandering through the jungle, hacking away with a machete with no idea of where he is going. He has no idea of what he is going say when he gets up there and makes it up, wanders around as though, “well… there’s something we haven’t heard yet... so… let’s throw that in… ” He knows the jungle, probably better than all of us, but he doesn’t know where he is going in it. If he would make a path, I could follow him.

(How are you doing with following him?)

It depends on how much I’m trying to follow… I usually… try to hang in there for about two minutes; I’m always hopeful… and if it’s not going anywhere, it feels like it just goes into my head and trickles down to my feet.

In the same focus group, seventeen-year-old Leo is sprawled on the couch with his long legs stretched onto the ottoman. He laughs about the same preacher:

25 Cialdini, 129.

106

I zone out within, like… once he stands up to walk to the pulpit. In one ear and out the other…

(Is that based on your previous experience?)

Yup. In one ear and out the other.

(Why do you come?)

You come because your parents say, “Get in the car.”

Leo is not unusual. When queried, “Why did you go to Mass this Sunday?” about a third of those regularly attending Mass checked, “Because I was required to.” To get feedback from low-energy listeners, the preacher who wants to connect has to do the seeking. They will not come to you. This is a crucial population. When beliefs are not deeply held, these young people are vulnerable. In the sample surveyed, they are not hostile. Those who are regularly attending Mass rate the “person of the preacher” rather well.26 Their response to the quality of the homilies could be articulated in their language as “meh… ” In spite of what looks like disinterest, though, these young people are listening. They value being treated with respect. They want to be challenged. From chapter 2, the four factors of motivation are: 1) personal relevance; 2) moderately risky;

2) somewhat inconsistent with prior attitudes (stretches); and 4) consistent with values, goals, and needs.27

From across regions and ethnicities, many youth feel that the preaching is directed toward the adults and not to them. They repeatedly express that it feels as though they are

26 Quantitative analysis will comprise the next chapter.

27 Hoyer and MacInnis, 55.

107

not really there.28 In looking for connection, a sixteen year old Asian-American girl finds

None. I find it frustrating. Shouldn’t a man of God be able to connect with us laypeople? Especially us young members. We are the next generation of Catholic/Christians/etc. If we get disconnected, we won’t want to come or listen and eventually separate for good. It saddens me that most people I know turned atheist b/c they were not able to connect.

If the response to the homily within liturgy is like a mine from which to quarry data,29 then what can we learn from this description of the ongoing experience of the homily? Identifying these no-service areas can pinpoint areas for needed growth in the encounter of preaching. Dissatisfied listeners, when needs are met, can become deeply committed ones. For both the sender and the receiver, locating the source of disconnection is a springboard toward strengthening their bond. Where there seems to be no connection, the Connector can build new cell towers if we are listening. All through

Christian history, from Francis of Assisi to Martin Luther to Teresa of Avila to Juan

Diego, the Holy Spirit has connected the age-old gospel afresh in new ways in new places.

Rather than attending to homiletic words, low-energy listeners are more observant of and impacted by non-verbal cues—the body language and tone of the speaker, the music, the physical environment, and the welcoming of the community.30 If a preacher

28 For a detailed literature review of the marginalization of youth in preaching (not just in Catholic preaching), see the 2007 Academy of Homiletics paper by Richard W. Voelz.

29 Fagerberg, 55.

30Hoyer and MacInnis, 155. The “peripheral route to persuasion” influences in ways other than main message arguments. When effort is low, listeners let their guard down. They are then swayed by forming simple inferences and do not put forth the mental energy to develop counterarguments. (See the “subjective comprehension” section in chapter 2.) Many adolescents are lost to the faith as a result of this style of persuasion from non-gospel sources.

108

wants to know what is going on in the world of these low-energy listeners, his strongest recourse is to sit with them and observe. These listeners seek for holiness from the preacher.

The Witness of the Preacher

The spiritual formation of the priest is a priority in Catholic clerical life. He is to be a man of Scripture. If he has encountered God in the Scriptures, then his people will too. He is to be a man of tradition. If his life is imbued with the richness of history, liturgy and prayer, and the witness of the saints, he will embody the holiness of the

Church. He is to be a man of communion.31 If he is connected to his people and in solidarity with them, then the Holy Spirit, the Great Connector, who wants to be here, wants to be at work, and wants to unite us, will speak through him. Ideally, in the preaching event, a priest paints an icon by how he invests his life, composes his words, and bodily expresses them. The receivers communally enter into that preaching event with the preacher on a journey to the Father. The Invisible is then seen by its visible fruits. Young people hunger for that authentic communality:

When a preacher connects with me it means that God himself is connecting with me.

To be able to show you in the face of God.

(Connecting with a preacher) is special because he is a role model and has a relationship with God that I want to model mine after.

31Shawn McKnight offered these sources of priestly identity in a presentation and dialogue at the annual meeting of the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics (CATH), Austin, TX, December 1, 2011.

109

Personal Positioning of the Preacher

In priestly formation, a man is taught to be humble, not to stand out or exalt himself.32 At the same time, the ethos of the preacher matters. This is a delicate balance.

Augustine believed that the “life of the speaker has greater weight in determining whether he is obediently heard than any grandness of eloquence.”33 When young people look at their preacher, what do they see? The source of the message plays a major role in facilitating the encounter of the receiver. What counts is not what the preacher thinks that he projects, but the image of him that the listener remembers. This impression of presence that is formed in a listener’s mind is called positioning.34 To be attentive to the positioning question of “How do they see you?” is more humbling than just seeing one’s own image of self. Questions to test personal positioning are:

What is in the mind of the hearer? What will they already give you? When a young woman thinks of people of faith, is her parish priest among the top ten that come into her mind? When a young man considers his vocation in life, does his local preacher stand as a vibrant representative for a future priestly role? What image springs up when they hear your name? What obstacles pop up when they hear your name? What memories are you giving them? Have you made a connection with teens through non-preaching venues? Do you have a reputation for treating them with caring, kindness and love? What is your personal “buzz?”

32Timothy Dolan, Priests for the Third Millennium (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2000), 53-65. This tug and pull was also expressed in clergy interviews with the author in the spring and summer of 2011.

33Andre Resner, “Ethos” The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson et al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), 350.

34Trout and Ries, 4.

110

In short, what is your position in your people’s minds? And how is that impacting your effectiveness as a preacher? Listeners who are not highly invested in processing words are especially swayed by the friendliness, credibility, and authenticity of the preacher.35 In Figure 3.8. The mutuality of “liking.” the shifting world in which we live, “who can you trust?” becomes critical. The findings from marketing studies parallel those expressed by the young people earlier in this chapter—a strong local connection can carry an influence over the barrage of the outside world. 36 This opens up a tremendous personal opportunity for the caring and credible parish preacher.

In the theology of the seven sacraments, their efficacy is not based on the holiness or personality of the minister but on Christ himself as the author of those sacraments (ex opere operato). Does that concept consciously or unconsciously trickle into perspectives on preaching? In conversations with clergy, some imply that preaching is just not a priority. That is not why they entered the priesthood.37 Perceptions vary: “I do it well enough to get by”; “it does not really depend on me”; “I have so many other things to do”; and “I am not an entertainer.” Yet that outlook can leak into the homiletic message.

Young listeners’ antennae are keenly attuned to this; they are not fooled: “(I would tell

35Hoyer and MacInnis, 164.

36Ibid., 396-408. The strength of the bond within a person’s reference group impacts its influence.

37Rick Sterns, personal communication, December 1, 2011, says that consistently, in informal surveys of beginning homiletic students, about 15% of those coming into the priesthood say that they do so because they want to preach. Ironically, this is the same percentage of homilies that young people would recommend to a friend (figure 4.18).

111

them) To do their homework and be prepared.” “For a priest to connect with younger people, he has to have energy in his voice and sound happy to be there.” If the preaching event is iconic, then the preacher cannot get out of the way. He is the way. Rather, the icon should be painted as beautifully as possible. The person of the preacher matters. He should strive to be wide open to the indwelling of the Connector so that the congregation can encounter God.

As young people articulate about connection, they have quite a bit to say about how their preacher connects. The earlier responses described how young people saw

“connection” in general. A subsequent question asked: “The concept of “connection” between the preacher and a young person is important to this study. Please describe what it means for a preacher to “connect” with you.” Each of the responses about connecting to a preacher arose from memory since the survey was filled out in a focus group or a theology classroom. Which memories stuck?

The Hard Skills of Preaching to Connect

The broadest category of response to the question of connecting with a preacher gave a clear “how” to connect. From their perspective, the “hard skills” of speaking to youth divided into two sub-groups, homily content and delivery (table 3.1.):

Table 3.1. How to Connect Homily Content Work on Your Delivery Skills

Come to our level, relate to my life Use good eye contact Bring meaning, be interesting Keep it relaxed Have emotional appeal Make it to the point Be personal and open with your life Speak clearly Help us – know our problems and speak to Use words that people understand them Be organized Help us to understand/teach me Be enthusiastic Apply the gospel to my life Do not repeat yourself

Source: Are You Talking to Me, questions 24 and 63. 112

The majority of these young people wrote that connection with a preacher came from relating at their level: “real-life examples,” “to talk about things you can relate to,” and “be relatable and down to earth.” To get across, the message has to fit into the cloud of associations that the young person already knows and then re-tie the connections that are already there. Pages and pages and pages of comments described how the homily has to hook to connect:

For a preacher to connect with me, he must be able to see in the eyes of a kid/teenager. My deacon is very good at communicating with kids as much as he does with adults.

For a preacher to “connect” with you, he needs to understand how I am as a person. He needs to be accustomed to what kids my age are going through.

The preacher needs to speak to me, not talk down to. He or she also needs to put things in “teenage terms” so I understand more fully.

Figure 3.9. Connect via a story that relates. Consumer behavior research tells us that motivation to listen is influenced by personal relevance, “the extent to which it has a direct bearing on and significant consequences or implication for your life.”38 Some might caution about being so accommodating toward getting their attention and relating to youth that the core of the message to them would be

38Hoyer and MacInnis, 59.

113

lost. Watering down the gospel was not desired by these Catholic young people. They wanted more, not less. They sought for the homily to be about a topic that touched their lives. When that happened, the connection felt tailored to that individual:

When a preacher connects with me, it means that he understands me and what I believe in. Also it means I understand him and feel as if his words mean something special to me.

They can apply gospel stories with real situations that I deal with in high school.

For a preacher to connect with me personally is when he describes an event that I can relate to, or if he is preaching about a topic that I find interesting.

Part of this relatability factor comes from perceiving that the preacher knows what the world is like for a teenager. Ries and Trout suggest, “You have to get off of your pedestal and put your ear to the ground. You have to get on the same wavelength... ”39 When teenagers do not hear something that they relate to, it not only makes them tune out to a particular message, but colors how they position the preacher. Since memories vary in salience, unfortunately negative perceptions most easily come to mind:

For a preacher to connect with a young audience, he needs to be aware of current events in the news/media that pertain to their age group. When my priest rambles on and on about things I don’t know/care about, I lose interest.

To be in touch with the world. Sometimes older preachers are disconnected from the changing world and don’t seem to care.

A variation of “relate to my life” was “let me relate to yours.” Both positively and negatively, they called for an authenticity or truthfulness that they gained through hearing the preacher’s life experiences. This can be either implicit or explicit:

It made things clearer to me and I felt like that my priest really understood what I was dealing with. It was almost like he was talking directly to me.

39Ries and Trout, 18.

114

They’ve been in my footsteps before. Been there before. Admits it’s not always easy.

For a preacher to connect with me he must bring in real life situations and talk of his personal triumphs/failures.

The preachers are terrible at connecting with the young. They need to include something that kids can relate to. Only talking about the bible and not expressing their life experiences in a believable manner is failing.

If I feel the priest is being genuine about his experiences/emotions/thoughts and not making too many assumptions/talking down, I can relate as a fellow human with experiences/emotions/thoughts.

Students sought for content that was meaningful or interesting. They were not looking for fluff. Those who were attending Mass wanted substance. This came through both positively and negatively:

Preachers rarely connect with me because half the time they aren’t saying anything interesting. Most homilies don’t have any practical use to me because there’s no real world application. Instead of telling me what the readings were, how about trying to describe why the readings actually matter in today’s world? The only time preachers actually keep me interested is if they tell a relevant story, or describe an overlying theme of the readings instead of reiterating them.

Make it more interesting because it’s the same boring thing over and over again.

To “connect” with a preacher for me means that the preacher interests me, holds my attention, and makes me understand God more. I want to feel inspired by God’s love and the stories I hear. Nowadays, it is hard to connect with all the hate in the world. Unfortunately, sometimes that gets brought into the church. That is why I don’t go as often as I used to.

Some looked for “insight into the Christian belief system” and wrote, “He helps me to know the meaning of the word of God.” Two boys raved about the intellectual quality of their preachers’ homilies at school:

They were smart & shared relatable and intellectual ideas in their homilies. They were enthusiastic about what they were talking about, not bored. They had a way with words, well spoken and gave educated insight into their homilies.

115

I also like the Jesuit homilies I hear at school masses. They seem to challenge me more intellectually as opposed to just hearing the same about trying to be better and don’t sin!

Many more sought for intellectual understanding:

Use analogies that I can understand, that provide a comic relief, and that I can apply to my everyday life.

When a preacher connects with me, it means that he or she has spoken truthful words of God with me. It means that I understand God and understand most of His aspects. I feel as if God is sitting in front of me and I can understand Him. Also the role God plays in my life as well as what my responsibilities as a daughter of God are, should be highlighted in the preaching.

For a preacher to “connect” with me would mean for him to understand the times we are in but still use his experiences and the word of God to teach the truth.

When a preacher is convinced about the message, he is also convincing:

When a preacher “connects,” they are interested in who you are, and they want to convey an important message.

To be open and truthful. Show excitement, respect.

A large number of kids want to be understood and helped in the preaching that they hear.

When a message applies to a young person’s life, they are grateful. When it seems that the preacher understands their problems and can speak to them, they are uplifted. When they learn to apply the gospel to their lives, they feel connected.

It was good to hear a great homily by my favorite priest, he makes the gospel into life lessons that we can incorporate into our lives.

For a preacher to connect with you, they must be able to see out of your eyes and to feel what you are feeling and truly understand where you come from.

The preacher needs to connect with one in a personal level—he can’t just be talking to [me] as if I’m a 50 year old man.

He is able to just talk to me and help me to understand the gospel.

For a preacher to “connect” with you, he needs to understand how I am as a person. He needs to be accustomed to what kids my age are going through. 116

When a preacher is speaking, his message should relate to my life and his life. I want to hear a personal story about him, and I want him to apply it to my life, as though he was only talking to me. That is a connection, for me at least.

Preaching delivery is also indicates a preacher’s connection: use good eye contact, keep it relaxed, make it to the point, speak clearly, use words that people understand, be organized, be enthusiastic, do not repeat yourself. High school students who are involved in drama, speech, and debate are especially attentive to content and delivery of public speaking. In giving his advice to preachers, one seventeen year old boy summarized the comments of his peers:

Personal Stories. How message of readings apply to “real world.” Be a good Story-teller. Talk loudly and slowly. Include pitch and tone into your talk (when applicable, no monotone). Call to action. Open with a semi-relevant joke. Be honest and sincere. Keep it fairly short: 1-3 examples will suffice (as opposed to 6-10).

The Soft Skills of a Preacher’s Connection

Many young people did not describe connection with their preacher as linked to the words from the pulpit. They described these signs of relation as the social qualities of: being friendly; easy-going, approachable, and comfortable; and says hello and greets you outside of Mass. These “soft skills” go a long way in connecting a young person with their parish priest:

I have had a deacon that has really connected with me. He always greets me with a hug or a smile. He calls me by name and always asks what’s going on in my life. Even though he is friends with my parents, I feel that he genuinely cares about me. When he preaches, he’ll make eye contact with me and that makes me feel like he is genuinely talking to me.

To be friendly and have a good understanding relationship with you.

Yes, (he) always greets me and regularly checks up on me in a caring fashion. He is fun when hanging out with but also is a great example and teacher of God’s word. 117

To be friendly and not treat as just another member of the parish.

A preacher that connects with me makes one feel welcome. At the beginning of mass my priest greets my family and welcomes us to the parish (figure 3.10).

Figure 3.10. Connecting means to make me feel welcome.

Many respondents wanted to be known personally. Not just a face in the crowd, their plea was “know my name,” “learn something about me,” and “treat me as a friend”:

I go to a very big parish so just knowing my name and some stuff about me makes me feel very connected to him.

To know your name and be nice, and to not treat you like you are stupid.

They call me by name and we just have a natural connection and they are very easy going and easy to talk to.

The preacher should know who you are, by name. He should also know a little bit of your personality so that he can relate to your life and make the homilies relevant. Figure 3.11. Connecting means knowing my name. A third category of soft skills revolved around counseling, helping with problems, and “being there for you.” There are times in teenagers’ lives when they are highly vulnerable. The Sunday homily does not preach into a vacuum. Parents, friends, relatives, and clergy as authority figures, role models and

118

heroes can have a lasting impact and create turning points in life. In their vision of connectedness, they saw their parish priest as a valued companion as they travel the confusing journey of life. The sacrament of reconciliation can create just such an opportunity for those youth who still go. In the harried world of Catholic parish busyness, this pastoral counseling aspect of clerical life may not be as accessible as in the past, yet a large number of young people wish that it could be so:

For a preacher to connect with me, it means that we can have normal conversations and that I feel comfortable going to him for help or to talk.

They understand you and can relate/help you w/ problems and advice (figure 3.12).

He tries actively to talk and help you, bring you closer to God.

You can feel like you can tell the preacher any of your problems and trust him. Figure 3.12. Connect by helping me with my Contrary to what has been historically intuitive, it problems. is with a touch of vulnerability that an authority figure most connects. In a series of studies on influence, especially in situations where there was no single clear or obvious answer, when an expert expressed minor doubts about his advice or opinions, he was more readily believed. 40 Greater influence is granted to the preacher by coming “down to the level” of a young person, asking their opinion, being “real,” and (occasionally) admitting weakness. Rather than being a form of “selling-out,” it is a sign of strength.

40Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala. “Believe Me, I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About: The Effects of Source Certainty on Consumer Involvement and Persuasion,” Journal of Consumer Research 36, no. 6 (2010): 1033-1042.

119

In conclusion, young people who continue to attend Mass through high school seem cautiously hopeful about preaching. If the event of preaching were a soccer game, most of them want to be out on the field and to be valued as a member of the team. They want to play. They are listening. They are watching.41 They hunger for both a human person and a personal message that will inspire them, give them direction, and be a vibrant living expression of what their faith life is to be.

Preaching with Resonance

In market research, a survey like this one is used to create a picture of the customer’s perception. Researchers extrapolate from those results to understand what the customer needs and then design their product to meet that need. Why do they do that?

People speak out of their current experience. They do not necessarily envision their needs more than as an extension of what they have. For example, customers in Henry Ford’s day may well have said they would fancy a faster horse. They did not foresee the creation of the horseless carriage. In painting the portrait of the world of the young listener, they have described what their world is like. How, then, do we move from that depiction to a vision of what they need in preaching?

Two overarching symptoms from the qualitative responses to connection and faith growth give major clues toward evaluating the dance of homiletical interaction: 1) Does the ongoing experience of the homily bring energy, light, and vibrancy, imitating the delighted connection of the dance of the Trinity? 2) Does the preaching induce heaviness, plodding, dullness and self-protective disconnections that block the image of God and the

41High school students’ sensors are finely tuned to interpreting body language. Most of the “under- the-radar” communications of “like” and “dislike,” “in-group” and “out-group” in classrooms and hallways are passed through subtle physical signals. They can at times also be over-sensitive in their responses to body language in authority figures (as parents and principals know). 120

movement of the Spirit? As an eschatological event, preaching is likely to contain elements of both. If weighed on the balance of the Paschal Mystery, which one is the more pronounced—death or life? Sorrow or joy? Despair or hope? Darkness or light?

Flourishing or fading away?

If asked the theological question of revelation, “God, are you still speaking?” many of these young folks would give a resounding “yes!” If asked of their preacher,

“Are you talking to me?” some would give a high five and state “For sure.” Some would say, “Um, no, not really.” They are not seeking for a faith that is blind and dark, but a faith that is revealed and shining, challenging and motivating through the preaching that they hear. McCarty, who has worked extensively with young people, describes his vision of their need in this way:

There is no need to “water down” our theology or our teachings. Ministry with young people is not served by appeasing their youthfulness. Rather, the church must preach the authentic Jesus Christ, who challenged the world of his day and now the world of ours. They deserve the whole Gospel, the Gospel that calls young people to authentic discipleship. Young people are looking for a noble adventure, and the reign of God is that adventure.42

The final question in this survey offered a young person an opportunity to say anything at all to their preacher. Some simply expressed gratitude for giving them meaning:

I would tell him how much his preachings help me in my life and how much I love going to Mass to hear him speak. He connects so well with others and keeps everyone interested.

Keep up the good work. I am always listening.

Thank you Father for how you guide me to be more faithfilled. I like how you are comforting and always there to help. I can’t thank you enough.

42Robert J. McCarty, “Young People are Listening! Preaching and Liturgy with Youth,” Seminary Journal 13 no. 2 (2007), 27.

121

From the results of this study, it is apparent that we have pockets of connection.

Yet there is still work to be done. If the young assembly theologically absorbs and adjusts to the message that it hears, then the fruit of the preaching can be discerned in the life of that assembly. In evaluating the impact of preaching, is there a long-term behavioral change among young listeners? Do they resemble the gospel that is preached?43 Long- term impact also creates kinship. “Homilies connect preachers with listeners and listeners with one another.”44 Is there a bond between hearers and between listeners and preacher?

Has the community encountered God? Does the preaching resound—not simply through the individual hearer in a solitary spirituality but as a communal trumpet blast of faith?

The resonance of faith as modeled by the response of the disciples on the road to

Emmaus is the goal. Yet the competition is fierce. Like an expert builder, the marketing world constructs “brand resonance” methodically: the fervor for Nike basketball shoes, the zeal for the Notre Dame football team, the passion of those who will not buy anything but a Honda, the eagerness for a Coach purse and the enthusiasm for a “Let’s Rock

Elmo” action figure, is not accidental.45 If only Jesus were positioned so painstakingly!

When preachers connect, faith life has resonance. One element of the continuing pursuit of excellence in preaching is to attend to data like that uncovered in this study.

What is being done well? Where is there room for growth? What factors impact young

43Ronald J. Allen, “Assessing the Authority of a Sermon,” Encounter 67, no. 1 (2006), 74.

44Harris, 125.

45For a detailed analysis of brand resonance and the steps to build it, see Kevin Lane Keller, “Building Strong Brands in a Modern Marketing Communications Environment,” Journal of Marketing Communications 15, nos. 2-3 (April-July, 2009), 139-155. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.slu.edu/ehost/ detail?vid=3&hid=104&sid=83b73351-083b-4d07-9729-567359ddec26%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpd GU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=42411097 [accessed July 10, 2010].

122

people’s response to preaching? The next chapter will look at the quantitative responses from this study to see what young people have to say about the strengths and weaknesses of their connection with Catholic Sunday preaching. On their personal roads to Emmaus, what resonates for them?

123

CHAPTER FOUR

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

Let no one despise you for your youth... —I Timothy 4:12

We were halfway through the discussion in the focus group when a blond sixteen year old shifted his chair around the table to face me. He leaned forward and earnestly told the group that he planned to become a priest. This discussion on preaching interested him greatly. He declared:

You need to get this information to the younger priests. This input could help the ones who are learning how to preach. Go to a seminary. Tell them what we have said.1

A seventeen year old girl across the table added,

If we are going to be open to listening to their homilies every week, or more than once a week, they should be open to listening to our advice about it. If they’re standing in for God at Mass because they’re presiding, also seeing us as all being equal, hopefully, they will be open to listening to what we have to say.

This is a generation which is growing up accustomed to interaction. As I write this, Super Bowl XLVI advertisers are preparing to invite viewers to interact with the commercials that they will see on the screen. No longer satisfied to let us lounge in a recliner and stare at the big screen, Audi will be prompting consumers to tweet about

1The average age at which the ordained class of 2011 decided to enter the priesthood was also 16. Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), “The Class of 2011: Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood,” CARA, http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/vocations/ordination-class/upload/ ordination-class-2011-report.pdf [accessed July 12, 2011].

124

their commercials; Go-Daddy is enhancing ads with quick-response codes (QR) which will take people to a website to see more ad content and download coupons. We inhabit a two-way world. Young people ask questions and register their opinions. They grow up expecting to interact and to be heard.

The opening query of this thesis was the question: God, if you are here, are you talking to me? Is there a word from the Lord for us this day? If preaching is the bread and butter of discipleship as postulated in chapter 1, the stories and illustrations from chapter

3 paint pictures of individual experiences of connection and growth in faith. It seems as though the Holy Spirit, the “Connector,” is at work in their lives. How many of them experience their Sunday preaching as a locus of encounter and faith growth? As a group, how common is this—does it happen often?

This chapter will look at their collective quantitative responses to ask: what do these young disciples have to say to the Church about preaching? The first section will describe the demographics of both listeners and preachers. Statistics of response to the person of the preacher constitute the second part. The evaluation of the homily in the third subdivision of this chapter will be presented as short-term responses, long-term take-away, and relationships. The final segment will discuss key findings of the study. To begin, who are these young disciples who have so much to say about preaching?

Demographics of the Study

Self-Described Characteristics of Listeners

In May and September of 2011, seven Catholic high schools: two from New York and one each from California, Maine, Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana, participated in the paper survey Are You Talking to Me? A Study of Young Listeners’ Connection with

125

Catholic Sunday Preaching. 2 Of these schools, three were inner city schools, three were suburban, and one was rural. The focus groups from Ohio completed their discussions of preaching by also filling out the paper survey. The average age of the 651 respondents was 16.2 years old.

As a random cluster sample, in five of these schools, all of the students in a particular teacher’s theology classes responded to the questions of the survey. Two schools required permission slips of the students’ parents, therefore only those with the proper paperwork answered the questions. Of these, 470 were baptized Catholics representing 203 Catholic parishes. Of that Catholic population, 294 (63%) attended

Mass at least once a month (Group I),3 which was the baseline for inclusion in the evaluation of the preacher that they last heard (table 4.1).

Table 4.1. All Respondents Grouped by Faith Tradition and Attendance Response % of % of % of Number of Group Number of Group Grouping Number % of Total Catholics Males that is Females that is Surveyed Male Female

Group I – Baptized Catholic, 294 52 63 184 63 110 37 attends Mass at least once per month

Group II – Baptized Catholic, 176 31 37 89 51 87 49 does not attend Mass at least once per month

Group III – Non-Catholic 91 16 --- 51 56 40 44

Total 561 99 100 324 58 237 42

Source: Are You Talking to Me? questions 8 and 9

2A sample of the paper survey Are You Talking to Me? is found in appendix A, figure A.3.

3Coincidentally, 63% is the same percentage of Catholic adults who attended Mass at least once per month in 2005 as determined from the chart on page three of: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), “Self-reported Mass Attendance of U.S. Catholics Unchanged during Last Five Years,” CARA, http://cara.georgetown.edu/ AttendPR.pdf [accessed 7-15-11].

126

The other baptized Catholics (37%), those who did not attend once a month

(Group II), answered a second bank of questions including “Why not?” Ninety-one of the respondents were non-Catholics who described themselves as atheist, agnostic, Orthodox, various kinds of Protestants, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Taoist, Rastafarian, animist,

Deist, Wiccan, and nothing (Group III). The population was sought for its diversity of parishes and geography, clarity of articulation, and ease of administration.

In ethnicity, the make-up of the Group I sample population was broadly similar to the United States population of Catholic high school students. The African-American

Table 4.2. Group I – Self-described student race

National Average

for Catholic Race Number Percentage Secondary

Schools4 White or European 223 75.8 68.6

Hispanic or South American 24 8.2 12.3

Asian or Asian-American 14 4.7 4.4

Black or African-American 8 2.8 8.2

Filipino/a 7 2.4 1

Creole 1 0.3 N/A

No Response 17 5.8

Total 294 100.0 Source: Are You Talking to Me? Question 5 population was considerably lower than the national average and the Hispanic population somewhat lower, perhaps due to regional differences (table 4.2). The Filipino population

4National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), “Catholic School Data, United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2010-2011, The Annual Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment and Staffing,” NCEA, http://www.ncea.org/news/annualdatareport.asp#ethnicity [accessed 1-17-12].

127

of the current study was higher than the national average. Catholic high school students come from more affluent and educated families than the broader U.S. teen population.5

Economic data was not collected in this survey, but the characteristics of the particular schools as described by their respective websites would indicate that this may also hold true for the population sampled.

As discussed in chapter 1, in his nationally representative sample of U.S. teens,

Smith found Catholic teenagers to be religiously lax in all of his measures of religiosity when compared to their counterparts in Protestant faiths.6 As I designed this study, I wondered how (and/or if) the respondents’ faith life would impact how he or she evaluated and responded to Sunday preaching. Therefore, questions 41-49 and 64-68 in the survey, “Your Way of Seeing the World,” inquire about personal faith life.

Their strongest reply about faith was belief in God (question 47): 87.4 % of students in these Catholic schools agreed in some way (combining “strongly agree” with

“somewhat agree”) that they believed in God. Those who disagreed (combining strongly disagree and disagree) were 6.2 % and those who neither agreed nor disagreed that they believed in God were also 6.3 %. Most considered themselves to be spiritual and/or religious. They were generally pretty happy with their lives (see Figure 4.1). For the baptized Catholics who did not attend church (Group II), they disagreed that going to church matters to them. For the group who did go to Mass at least once a month (Group

I), the agreement tended somewhat lackadaisically toward its importance. Group III was a combination of church-going Protestants and non-church-goers, so that mean is mixed by

5Smith, 212.

6Smith, 209.

128

responses from both sides.

Describe Your Own Religious Life 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 41/64. I 47. Following 42/65. I 45/66. I am 48/69. My 43/67. Going 44. I'm 49. I talk to 46/68. My Believe in God Jesus is consider happy with parish helps to church involved in my others about friends are important to myself the way my me grow matters a lot faith more my faith strong in their my family religious life is going spiritually to me than Mass faith and/or spiritual

Group I Group II Group III

Figure 4.1. Mean values from questions 41-49 and 64-69; 5=strongly agree, 4=somewhat agree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 2= somewhat disagree, 1=strongly disagree.7

For parents who both pay Catholic school tuition and get their teenagers to Mass regularly, they can be reassured that their offspring know that following Jesus is important to their families. Support structures that undergird the faith of these young people (other than family) ranked lower.8 Smith found that 11% of all Catholic youth in his 2002-2003 study participated in religious activities outside of Mass.9 The responses to this study reflected similarly: there was a moderately low influence of parish, extra-

7The average of Likert scale values does not represent a true mean since the distance between the intervals may not be perceived by the respondent as equidistant. These figures are an indication of central tendency; for the average response to hover around the value 3 demonstrates that about as many disagree as agree.

8Lisa D. Pearce and Melinda Lundquist Denton, A Faith of their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 143-170. Pearce and Denton describe interviews with adolescents about the sources of social scaffolding which impact their refinement of religious identity.

9Smith, 209. 129

liturgical involvement, and friendships in faith. In general, as an average, peer faith support seemed weak for these Catholic high school students even though they were surrounded daily by the accouterments of faith in a Catholic institution.

Initially, the set of questions 50-58 and 70-78, “The Person of the Listener,” was created to correlate response to the homily with values which the listener deemed important. Yet one discovery became immediately clear: the highest average value in all three groups was overwhelmingly “trying to be a good person.” The lowest two were

“making God first in my life” followed by the rock bottom value: “praying.” Though the students merely rated each of these values as to their importance, when ranked, the order across each of the three populations was identical—the numerical values varied between attending and non-attending, but the sequence of values did not change (figure 4.2).

Values Important to my Life 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 Group I 1.5 Group II 1 Group III

Figure 4.2. Mean values from questions 50-58 and 70-78: 5=really important, 4=important, 3=somewhat important, 2= not important, 1=not at all important.

130

Trying to be a good person mattered. Being God’s person was not as important— it ranked lower than good grades, an active social life, excelling in extracurriculars, and getting along with parents. This was a consistent finding between Catholic and non-

Catholic youth. Smith described similar beliefs in his study of American youth—religion is only one element among the many other things that young people in our country value and are involved in. According to Smith, teenagers believe that there is a God; God is useful when life has problems, God wants people to get along amiably, be happy and feel good; and good people go to heaven.10 The stated values of the studied population broadly fit with this mainstream cultural belief.

The baseline for inclusion into the evaluation of the Sunday homily was attending

Mass at least once per month. Therefore, the student data henceforth described in this chapter will be taken from Group I, those who self-described as regular Mass attendees.11

Mass attendance in this group ranged from one to eight times per month with an average of 3.32 times (figure 4.3).

They were asked, “What was the chief reason that you went to Mass this particular day?” As shown in table 4.3., the greatest number (41%) responded that they came to worship God. About a Figure 4.3 Group I Mass attendances by number of weeks in the last month, question 9a.

10Smith, 163.

11The data from non-attending Catholics and non-Catholics who attend Catholic schools are also interesting and will be used in a future publication.

131

third (32%) admitted that they were there because they were required to be:12

Table 4.3. Why did you go to Mass this particular Sunday?

Response Number Percentage

To worship God 134 41.3 I was required to 104 32.0

To be with friends and/or family 58 17.9 Other 15 4.7 To be entertained 2 0.6

No Response 11 3.4 Total 324 99.9 Source: Are You Talking to Me? question 37. More than 294 data points are recorded because respondents could pick more than one response.

To summarize, the average respondent in Group I is a 1 6 year old boy or girl who goes to Mass just under four times per month. He or she believes in God, tries to be a good person, and wants to get good grades. Praying and putting God first are not that important. As a Catholic school student, his or her parents can or choose to afford to pay tuition or he/she is there on a scholarship. He or she comes to Mass to worship God and/or because mom or dad says so. Following Jesus matters to their families. In short, these young respondents are the present and the future of the Catholic Church. What do they have to say about their preachers?

Demographics of the Preachers

On the day that the students took the paper survey in their theology classes, they were asked to evaluate the homily and the homilist that they had last heard. In this way, they did not get to select the preacher about which they wrote. Two hundred and two

12Only two ninth grade boys said that they came to Mass to be entertained, dispelling the shibboleth that “kids only come to be entertained.”

132

preachers were evaluated, determined by the first letter of the preacher’s name, the age of the preacher and the name of the parish per geographical region. Ninety-one percent of those were priests (table 4.4). Four percent were deacons. One was a bishop:

Table 4.4. Category of preacher evaluated Category Number Percentage Priest 184 91.1 Deacon 8 4.0 Bishop 1 0.5 No 9 4.4 Designation Total 202 100 Source: Are You Talking to Me? questions 3, 10 and 10a

Based on the student’s evaluation of the age of the preacher, the median category was 46-

60 years old (table 4.5). This closely reflects national statistics of the age of Roman

Catholic clergy in the U.S.13 Table 4.5. Age of preachers evaluated

Student The number of clergy assigned Age Grouping Percentage Response to a parish is a rough approximation 25-35 years old 27 9.2 36-45 years old 58 19.7 of the size of a Catholic parish. The 46-60 years old 125 42.5 average number of priests in a U.S. 61 – 79 years old 73 24.8 80 + years old 7 2.4 parish was 1.8 in 2005.14 To give a No Response 4 1.3 Total 294 99.9 Source: Are You Talking to Me? question 12

13United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “The Catholic Information Project,” USCCB, http://old.usccb.org/comm/cip. shtml#toc5 [accessed 1-31-12]. The average clergy age in 2006 was 60 with a median age of 56. In 2009, a third of all active diocesan priests was 65 or older. A 2008 survey of Catholic diocesan priests revealed that half of currently active diocesan priests plan to retire in the next 10 years.

14The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood (NIRM), “The National Catholic Parish Survey,” NIRM, http://www.jknirp.com/castell.htm [accessed 1-31-12].

133

rough estimation of parish size, students were asked to record the total number of priests and deacons in their parish. The number of preachers (priests and deacons) ranged from 1

– 10 with an average for the sample population of 2.9 preachers per parish.

Number of Preachers in Parish

Respondents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NR Number of Preachers

Figure 4.4. Number of preachers in the parish, question 11.

The demographics from this study generally mirror national statistics of Catholic high school student life. The four hundred and seventy baptized Catholic high school students surveyed hold values not unlike the overall beliefs of U.S. Catholic teens. The

202 preachers evaluated come from parishes of average sizes and mirror the age range of

U.S. Catholic priests. Therefore, the data of this study should be fairly indicative of the responses of the U.S. church-going teen population.

What, then, did these young people have to say about the preacher and the

Catholic preaching that they last heard? Chapter 1 described Gorham’s study in which factors of immediacy in connecting with a teacher correlated to better learning by students. Would this be true also in preaching? The next section looks at the person of the preacher in order to subsequently determine if the character of the homilist is a key to how Catholic youth relate to the homily.

134

The Person of the Preacher

On page three of the survey, one sixteen year old sophomore boy, whom we will arbitrarily name Tony, circled that he strongly agreed that his preacher was friendly to him, treated him with respect and called him by name. He was ambivalent as to whether the preacher was approachable, interacted with young people regularly or was real and in touch with the world. When he got to “exudes a love for Jesus,” he circled “strongly agree.” There he penned in a comment: “Yeah, he’s a priest?” It was a remark written to the author of the survey as though to say, “Duh... ” His clergyman was expected to exude a love for Jesus. How could it be otherwise? For his own life, he wrote, “Uplifting to me does not entail more Christian-like acts, just generic good deeds.” Though more expressive than most, Tony captured the expectation of the majority of these church-

Character of the Preacher 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1

Values: 5 = Strongly Agree, 4 = Somewhat Agree, 3= Neither Agree or Disagree, 2 = Somewhat Disagree, 1 = Strongly Disagree

Figure 4.5. Averaged Responses to the Person of the Preacher

135

goers (figure 4.5): they think highly of the person of their preacher and presume faith from him.

Young people who are actively going to church show remarkably low levels of disagreement with the statements of immediacy from questions 14-22. Their preachers are, in the words of a seventeen year old boy, “nice guys.” Table 4.6 gives the percentage of response per immediacy type.

Table 4.6. Percentage of Responses to “The Person of the Preacher” 14. 18. 13. 22. 21. 20. 17. 16, 15. 19. Treats Exudes Friendly Real, in A role Uses Approach- Interacts Calls Looks me a love to me touch w/ model personal able, with me by at me with for world to me examples easy to young name respect Jesus talk to people

Strongly Agree 79.1 76.1 70.5 57.3 56.9 54.9 52.7 46.0 45.2 33.8

Somewhat Agree 13.7 16.5 20.5 27.0 24.7 29.4 25.0 28.9 11.4 29.0

Neither Agree or 4.8 6.0 6.5 9.6 13.8 10.2 13.4 17.2 16.2 24.5 Disagree Somewhat Disagree 0.7 0.0 0.7 4.8 2.5 4.1 6.8 4.5 6.9 6.6

Strongly Disagree 1.7 1.4 1.7 1.4 2.1 1.4 2.1 3.4 20.3 6.2

Source: Are You Talking to Me, questions 13 – 22

From all regions of the country, these young people who are regularly in the pews rated their preachers as treating them with respect, exuding a love for Jesus and friendly.

Significantly, 82% of them agreed in some fashion that their preacher was a role model for them. As shown by the qualitative responses in chapter 3, they are obviously not disengaged. They are listening. They are observing what their priest or deacon does. They watch how he interacts with his people.

The lowest average value in figure 4.5, which resulted from the greatest level of disagreement (27%) in question 15, came from the preacher not calling the youth by

136

name. This mildly negatively correlated (r2=0.4579) with the size of the parish as indicated by its number of preachers (Figure 4.5, 5=strongly agree that he calls me by name). Many preachers in a parish meant that the particular preacher who was being evaluated was less likely to call the young person by name.

5 y = -0.1238x + 3.9563

4.5 R² = 0.4579 4 3.5 3 2.5 2

Calls me by Name by me Calls 1.5 1 1 3 5 7 9 Number of Preachers in the Parish

Figure 4.6. Correlation between questions 11–“How many preachers are in the parish?” and 15– “Does this particular preacher call you by name?”

Central to this study is the concept of connection. Question 24 was an open-ended query of what it means for a preacher to “connect.” The responses to that question were categorized and described in the previous chapter. Question 25 then asked those surveyed to put a number value on that connection: “From your point of view, how well does this particular preacher connect with you?” On a gradient scale of one to ten, Tony the sophomore drew a broad circle around the numbers three through seven and scrawled in,

“somewhere in here.” He again captured the heart of the responses (figure 4.7). Of the

283 young people who answered this question (11 left it blank), the mean was 5.6, slightly above “somewhat connected” with a standard deviation of 19.95 responses. The

“nice guys” are “sort of” connected with the young people who sit in their pews.

137

70 60 50 40 30 20 10

2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.

1.0

------

0 0

1.1 1.1 2.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 6.1 7.1 8.1 9.1

Figure 4.7. Question 25: How well does this preacher connect with you? (on a gradient scale of 1=completely disconnected, 5=somewhat connected, 10=very connected)

Secondly, the ten data points of “The Person of the Preacher” (questions 14-22) were averaged per respondent to form an overall “person of the preacher response value”

(PPRV). A linear regression was run to correlate that statistic with that same respondent’s connection value in question 25. The two variables showed no correlation (r2=0.173).

How well the preacher personally connected with the young person did not affect the youth’s perception of that preacher. His friendliness, approachability, and love for Jesus were consistently perceived to be higher than the personal connection between them.

It might seem intuitive that younger clergy would be seen more positively by younger people. Statistically this did not correlate (age of preacher/PPRV: r2=0.0255).

Older and younger clergy were almost equally well-respected. When asked to demarcate the age of her preacher, an eighteen year old girl from African immigrant parents, crossed off the survey’s words “really old” (for the 80+ category) and delightfully re- wrote the age designation as “wise and elderly.” These young people think well of their preachers. Does this benevolence transfer to the Sunday homily?

The Sunday Homily

Sunday preaching is a source for jokes, laments, and conversations. A seventeen

138

year old retreat leader narrated the tale of her family dinner table discussion about her upcoming participation in one of the study’s focus groups:

I told my family about this, because they’re like, “What’s up? What’s up with you, what are you doing tomorrow?” (I’ve got a huge family.) And I was telling them, “Oh yeah, before (retreat meeting), I have this huge survey on, like, Catholic preaching,” and then all my little brothers, they were just like, “Oh, my gosh, homilies… ” (her voice dropped, deprecatingly in imitation) and my older brother was, like, “Yeah, homilies are awful” and we just started talking…

Anecdotes abound. Studies do not. Yet creating a homily is hard work and most homilists work hard at their preaching.15 In their individual responses, young people describe times of faith growth through preaching. Can it be that bad? As seen in the chapter 2, anecdotal evidence arises from memory. Memory of negative experience lingers longer and forms stronger emotions than positive recall:16 how many well-crafted homilies does it take to balance out one unforgettably bad one?

Short-term Response

What do young people collectively have to say about the Sunday preaching that they hear? Questions 26-35 asked them to evaluate the Sunday homily that they last heard. Because the survey was given in high school theology classes, their evaluation, too, was based on memory as the take-away from the homily—perceptions that lasted and remained with them days after hearing the preaching. Figure 4.8 reflects the average of those students’ responses. Yet the percentages in each category paint a more accurate picture, since agreement, ambivalence and disagreement varied by characteristic. Eighty- four percent of the respondents agreed that the homily talked about God and/or Jesus

15Untener, 5.

16See footnote 57 in chapter 2.

139

(Table 4.7). The baseline for appropriation of a message is to put it in words and images that the audience knows: 73% agreed that the homily they heard was in language that they could “get.”

Table 4.7. Percentage Responses to “The Sunday Homily”

29. 28. 32. 33. 31. 27. 34. 30. 35. 26. Talked Used Was Helped Full of Had a Opened Helped Inspired Made about words, sincere me to con- central me to me in discus- me following images, and under- viction idea better the sion feel God/Jesus or person- stand receive struggles with full of examples al the the of daily family/ life I know Bible Eucharist life friends Strongly Agree 50.9 34.7 27.1 22.0 17.2 16.4 13.4 12.7 8.1 7.5

Somewhat Agree 33.1 38.5 33.7 30.9 22.1 30.4 30.8 22.7 15.8 38.4

Neither Agree or 12.5 17.5 29.9 32.0 46.3 24.6 39.0 37.1 28.5 37.7 Disagree Somewhat 3.2 6.9 7.9 12.0 9.8 17.1 10.6 18.6 20.1 12.7 Disagree Strongly Disagree 0.4 2.4 1.4 3.1 4.6 11.6 6.2 8.9 27.5 3.8

Source: Are You Talking to Me, questions 26– 35

The level of agreement drops from there and hesitancy begins to set in for the other eight homiletical characteristics. Sixty-one percent felt that the homily was sincere and personal; almost 30% did not agree or disagree. Ambivalence characterizes more than a third of the responses to the take-away of “opened me to better receive the Eucharist,”

“helped me in the struggles of life,” and “made me feel full of life.” “Had a central idea that I can remember” had a mixed response. The lack of remembering may have contributed to the reply that garnered the strongest disagreement: “inspired discussion with family and friends.” They did not talk about it afterwards. In short, speaking as a group, for them the homily was not particularly memorable; its message did not spread like wildfire throughout the city or over the internet; its “stickiness” (as described in

140

chapter 2) was weak.17

Characteristics of the Homily Last Heard 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1

Values: 5 = Strongly Agree, 4 = Somewhat Agree, 3= Neither Agree or Disagree, 2 = Somewhat Disagree, 1 = Strongly Disagree

Figure 4.8. Averaged responses (questions 26-35) to the characteristics of the homily last heard.

One of the clearest indications of brand loyalty in the field of consumer behavior is the willingness to recommend a product to a friend or family member. For that reason, question 36 asked, “If I had a video or a written copy of this homily, or a link to it on the web, I would recommend it or give it to a friend.” There are pockets in the Church where the preaching is sparking enthusiasm among young people. Fifteen percent of the high school youth surveyed would recommend their Sunday preaching to a friend.18

17 This will be one of the topics of discussion in the workshop designed in chapter 5. See appendix C1.7 for a check-list for homiletic “stickiness.”

18Forty-six youth responded “yes,” representing 35 parishes.

141

Homiletical Take-away

In addition to the evaluation of the homily just heard from a particular preacher, the survey also asked the young people to think about all of the Sunday preaching that they had heard in the past year. They could mark as many characteristics as they felt appropriate (see figure 4.10), characterizing their overall impression of their take-away from the Catholic preaching that they had heard.

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

Group I Group II GroupIII

Figure 4.9. Overall attributes of homilies by percentage response from question 59

This bank of sixteen attributes was also repeated in the second half of the survey for those who attended Mass sporadically or at school; the chart illustrates all three group responses: For those attending Mass, the homily traits selected by more than 50% of

142

Group I respondents were: comforting, interesting, and flat, boring delivery. The lowest responses were: frustrating, talked down to me, and harsh and judgmental. The variations between the three groups, though not the subject of this current study, were most striking in the positive take-away from the homilies. Further investigation among those who no longer attend Mass might uncover factors of preaching in the reasons why they are not there.

In accord with the qualitative responses which spoke of preaching as focused on the older folks, almost 30% of youth who regularly attend Mass asserted that it did not seem to matter that they were there. The literature review in chapter 2 pointed out similarly that preaching as a source of faith growth in young people is a blind spot for the

Church. Though perhaps unseen, around 50% checked preaching both as “helpful to my life” and “helped me grow in faith” and almost 40% found it “uplifting.”

Four out of ten marked “rambling, pointless” as a characteristic of the homilies that they had heard in the last year. This was similar to those who would not agree that the homily “had a central idea,” in question 27 of table 4.7. The qualitative remarks also commented about preaching that wandered off on tangents. These three disparate sources confirm that digression from (or a lack of) a central point is a consistently found attribute.

Most young people marked both positive and negative attributes of preaching in the above question. Since they both hovered just above the fiftieth percentile, intuitively it would seem that those who marked “interesting” and those who marked “flat, boring” would represent two different populations—the interested and the bored. Yet 98% of those who checked “interesting” also marked “flat, boring” as characteristics of the preaching they had heard in the last year. Their written comments, some of which are

143

recorded in chapter 3, also described the encounter of preaching as a mixed bag.

For those who regularly attend Mass, there are preachers who connect with them.

They responded to this query:

As we look at preachers who connect well with young people, we would like to observe those whom you feel have really helped you to grow in faith. Would you be willing to recommend someone as a really fine example of what preaching to young people should be like?

Table 4.8. Group I - Recommend a preacher who Sixty-six percent of the connects well with young people. young people who Number Percentage regularly attend Mass Recommendation given 192 66 were willing to suggest a No Recommendation given 102 34 preacher who connects Total 294 100.0 Source: Are You Talking to Me? question 64 well with young people

(figure 4.8), representing

8 deacons and 143 priests. No bishops were recommended.19 Several names came up repeatedly, especially those who were affiliated with that particular high school. But many also contributed names of parish priests who they consider to be examples of fine preaching with young people. One offered Fr. Corapi, formerly of EWTN, as a preacher who connected well. This identification of best praxis offers a resource for future observational study in another research project.

Relationships between Listener, Preacher and Preaching

Chapter 3 looked at the interaction of the preaching event as a relational encounter, a dance of the Holy Spirit. How does one measure a dance? In this chapter,

19Exposure to a bishop’s preaching may be limited to a few times per year. In this study, since only one bishop was evaluated as the preacher who was last heard (at a confirmation Mass), the fact that none were recommended is not statistically significant. 144

numerical values only uncover a small piece of the complexities of preaching, yet they can offer clues to what is happening through the correlation of various elements of response. How do all of these factors of listener, preacher, and preaching interrelate? To begin to find out, the ten responses to the characteristics of the homily (questions 26-35) were averaged to create a linear “homiletical response value” (HRV) per respondent.

The first use of this value was to ask the question of the data: does the evaluation of the homily vary by the reason that the young person was attending that Mass (question

37)? Common wisdom might suggest that those who were “required to be there” would rate the homily more poorly. Figure 4.9 shows in bar graph form a small variation in response to both the homilist and the homily compared to the reason for attendance. Was this a random variation or was it statistically significant?

5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Worship God Entertained Required to Family/friends Mixed Response Average Perception of the Homilist Average Perception of the Homily

Figure 4.10. Average responses to the homilist and the homily by the reason for attending Mass; average values toward 5 = greatest agreement to positive qualities of the homily; 1 = strongest disagreement Because the number of responses in each of the categories about Mass attendance was so highly varied (ranging from 2 to 134), the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test of analysis

145

of variance by ranks was used to best analyze that relationship (Table 4.8):20

Table 4.9. Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test of analysis of variance between reason to attend Mass and perception of the homily Worship Entertained Required Family/ God to Friends Other Sum of Ranks 1598 32 1614 774 661 Average of Ranks 14.66 16 18.13 17.59 14.06 Counts 108 2 89 44 47

The resulting H statistic of 8.77 closely approximates a chi-square statistic. For that value of H to be significant with 4 degrees of variance with an alpha of 0.05, it would have to be 9.49 or above. Therefore, by the Kruskal-Wallis test, the observed aggregate difference among the five types of responses is non-significant. Based on these 290 responses, the perception of the homily does not vary by the reason for attendance at

Mass. Just because mom or dad said, “get in the car” did not mean that their offspring responded differently to the homily (either negatively or positively) than those who were willing to go.

When they do get there, did the young person’s perception of the homilist impact his or her evaluation of the homily? Qualitative studies have discussed the ethos of the preacher and its impact on the efficacy of preaching. From the quantitative data from this survey, how much of an impact does that have? Running a linear regression between the

PPRV and the HRV shows some variation, but not enough to be mildly correlated

(r2=0.1893):

20Richard Lowry, “Subchapter 14a. The Kruskal-Wallis Test for 3 or More Independent Samples,” Vassar College, http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/ch14a.html [accessed 1-16-12].

146

Correlation between Perception of the Homilist and Perception of the Homily y = 0.4541x + 1.7505

5 R² = 0.1893 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 PerceptionofHomily the Perception of the Homilist

Figure 4.11. Regression analysis between PPRV and HRV

A seventeen year old young man described this lack of correlation:

I don’t really follow the older priest’s homilies as much as this younger priest at my parish. The younger one can relate to teens, but he doesn’t have life changing homilies (italics mine).

Though the younger clergyman “relates” to teens, his preaching is not as esteemed as his person. This lag is most easily seen when the two averaged values of homilist (PPRV) and homily (HRV) are drawn together in figure 4.13:

200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 Number ofGroup NumberResponses I 0 Poor Not Good Okay Good Excellent

Average Perception of the Homilist Average Perception of Homily

Figure 4.12. Graph of response to the preacher (PPRV) and response to the homily (HRV). In question 40, when asked to “grade” the homily, the resulting average GPA was a 2.46/4.00, in the range of a C+. The left line (HRV) clearly tells the same story.

147

Are those who express a stronger connection with the preacher more responsive to the homily? When correlating question 25 (the number value given to connection with the preacher) with HRV (the perception of the homily), there was slight variation but it was not statistically significant (r2=.1731).

In the above quote, the young man described a difference in his response to the older and younger preachers in his parish. Does age play a factor in how young people respond to the homily? Are the homilies of younger preachers perceived to be better than those of the “wise and experienced” ones? That was tested in two ways: a linear regression run between age and HRV yielded an r2 = 0.0255, a non-significant correlation. Then, because the categories of age were so highly variable in numbers, I wondered if the middle age groupings might not be weighing too heavily in that analysis.

Therefore I ran the Kruskal-Wallis test which takes those uneven category variations into account. The H statistic was strikingly low (.06). That number evaluated with a chi- square df of 4 and an alpha of 0.05 indicates that the age of homilist is totally not a source of the variation in the perception of the homily for this group of young people. One of the best rated homilists was one of the oldest.

If the faith life of a young person is strong, will he or she perceive the homily better? Even without running a regression line, it is apparent from the data scattered all over the graph below that just because a listener is a believer did not mean that the homily was perceived to be more effective. The reverse was also true—there were many young people without strong faith who rated the homily well.

148

Correlation between Faith Life and Perception of the Homily y = 0.4158x + 1.6854 5 R² = 0.1322 4.5 4

3.5 3

Faith Life Faith 2.5 2 1.5 1 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Figure 4.13. Correlation between the respondent’s faith life and his or her perception of the homily

There are innumerable questions that can be asked of this superabundance of data.

With 86 questions and 561 respondents, there is much more that could be said and many potential relationships that could be tested. Some of that will have to wait for post-DMin analysis. From the relationships that were tested though, it seems that perceived connection did not impact how the homily was heard. A higher opinion of the clergyman did not give young people a positive slant toward rating his homily, nor were younger preachers considered to be better preachers. The faith life of the young person did not vary with how he or she rated the preaching. It would seem that the homily rises and falls on its own merits when evaluated by these youth. They believe their preachers to be good people whose homilies could improve.

How often do they tell their preachers these things? Almost never: question 62 asked, “In the last year, out of a possible 52 weeks, how many times have you given a preacher constructive feedback or input about his homily (other than…”Nice homily,

Father…or Deacon…?).” 149

210

28 23

6 4 5 4 2 12

0 to7 0

8 to13 8

21 to 21 26 to 27 33 to 34 39 to 40 46 to 47 52 14 to 14 20 Figure 4.14. The number of weeks per year that they have given their preacher constructive feedback (by number of responses)

The median, mean and mode of feedback response all fall within the “0-7 weeks” category in figure 4.15. Of those who gave their preacher feedback for more than 0-7 weeks of the year, 93.1% of them gave that feedback to a preacher whom they had rated as very good or excellent. If young people do give constructive feedback on the Sunday preaching, this is an indicator that they have been engaged and the preacher is connecting well with them. The reverse was not true. Several preachers who were rated excellently got zero feedback from their young listeners. The vast majority said nothing either way.

Key Findings of this Study

The Loud Silence

The conversation about preaching is difficult. From the data on feedback, avoidance of the discussion reveals that it is hard to talk about, most especially when the preaching is not going well. 21 Yet feelings on this subject burble like a geyser waiting to erupt. In my experience, pew-sitters talk about preaching all the time. They long for input

21Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (New York: Penguin Books), 1999.

150

into preaching. In their studies of listeners, Allen and Shea both found that listeners want to talk about it.22 The depth with which the young people of this study were willing to engage the survey questions shows that their interest in preaching is strong. The focus group participants were passionate about it. Yet young people rarely share those thoughts in concrete, constructive ways with their preacher.

On the other side of this communication gap, the identity of a preacher is connected to his preaching and the response to it. Yet when I interviewed a half dozen clergymen for input into how to effectively promulgate the results of this study (as background for chapter 5), a common thread from these men of the cloth was that these questions of connection and the encounter of preaching were not being talked about in their world either. “When we get together, we never talk about preaching,” said one pastor of a mid-size parish. This lack of communication between pulpit and pew causes sorrow for some. An elderly priest from a small rural parish wondered about his preaching, lamenting, “People have walked away from my parish and they never come by to tell me why.” Transparency on both sides is lacking. “Good homily, Father” can mean anything.23 Encouragement from the pulpit to initiate feedback is also rare in Catholic parishes.

Integral to broaching this challenging conversation is the question, “Does preaching matter?” The avoidance of the discussion and the lack of feedback might give the impression that it does not. There is a profound silence from our preaching

22See footnotes 50 and 52 in chapter 1.

23Untener, 99, suggests these meanings: Have a nice day; I like you; I enjoyed your joke; I am a kind person. “They (these responses)… tell us nothing about whether we ministered the word of God.”

151

documents, our writings on youth ministry, and our homiletical practice: the discipleship of Catholic young people via the Sunday homily has been acutely overlooked. Yet the voices of 561 young people in this study shout out “Yes! Preaching does matter to us!”

A subset of this silence is that young people also do not talk about faith among themselves. The lowest values of teenage religiosity from questions 46 and 49 (figure

4.1) were “I talk to others about my faith” and “My friends are strong in their faith.” For these regular church-goers, faith may bubble, but it bubbles within. If one goal of preaching is to empower young disciples to be preachers who share their faith with their own generation, then we have much growing to do.

At this juncture in the Christian world, the stakes are high. Ho-hum preaching is good enough when there are cultural supports for faith. That is no longer the case: with cultural support dropping, we can continue to avoid this conversation about strengthening our preaching, but at what cost? This study has been an effort to step back from the feelings and the anecdotes about preaching to determine what is happening on the ground. It is only a beginning. There is still much to learn.

Strengths Observed in the Findings of this Study

I had asked the focus group this question: “Give me one word that describes the preacher in your parish.” The sun streamed in from behind one boy’s head. His eyes began to sparkle. The light gave him a glow. A smile spread across his face. “Inspiring,” the seventeen year old youth said, “inspiring.”

One of the strengths uncovered in the findings of this study was the consistently high status that church-going teenagers gave to their parish preacher. Friendliness, exuding a love for Jesus, respect and role modeling were unfailingly high across age

152

groupings and geographical regions (figure 4.5 and table 4.6). One of the primary goals of a seminary education is to form good men. On the average, these young people would say that the Church is succeeding in that formation.

Has preaching improved since the Second Vatican Council, the publication of the

1982 document Fulfilled in Your Hearing (FIYH), and the increase in the number of preaching classes that a seminarian takes? Stories suggest that is the case. But we have no data. This study cannot statistically say that our seminary training is turning out better preachers. There was no correlation found between the age of the preacher and the overall rating of the quality of the homily. This study describes the situation of preaching in 2011. It is not a longitudinal study. Yet perhaps we have one potential clue: Since the

Council in the 1960’s, the Catholic Church has turned its focus toward Scripture. FIYH defined the purpose of the homily as a Scriptural interpretation of life. In 1995, a study from Chicago Theological Union focused on preaching and Scripture. That study found that 73% of the homilies studied did not show evidence of sound biblical exegetical preparation.24 Has that changed? Question 33 asked about agreement on the statement,

“This homily helped me to understand the Scriptures better.” More than 50% of the respondents were able to agree with that statement (table 4.7). When the average response to question 33 was correlated with the age of the preacher, the relationship

(r2=0.7172) was significant (figure 4.15). Though question 33 does not ask specifically about exegetical preparation, the take-away of Scriptural understanding may give an indication of two possibilities: 1) our younger preachers may be doing their theological

24Barbara E. Reid, O.P. and Leslie J. Hope, O.F.M., Preaching from Scriptures: New Directions for Preparing Preachers (Chicago: Catholic Theological Union, 1998), 21.

153

reflection and exegetical “homework” in preparation for preaching; and/or 2) their training may have better prepared them to move effectively from biblical text to homily.

As the correlation in the chart below demonstrates, a second strength was that the youngest of the preachers were more effective in helping their listeners understand the

Scriptural text. This is good news for seminaries. For those who teach Scriptural exegesis and for those who form preachers, they can be assured that their efforts to flow the two disciplines together seem to be bearing fruit.

5 y = -0.206x + 4.196 R² = 0.7172 4 3 2 1 Leve ofAgreement Leve 1 2 3 4 5 Age Grouping of Preacher

Figure 4.15. Averaged response to question 33, understanding Scripture, when correlated with the age grouping of preacher (1=youngest, 5 = oldest)

In short, two strengths found in this study were the quality of clerical formation and the improved integration of Scripture into preaching. It may be surprising to hear these results from the collective pens of high school students. But they would come as no surprise to those who work in our seminaries: formation and Scripture have been two of the focal points for the last twenty years. If we can shine as bright a spotlight on the discipline of preaching for the next twenty years, who knows where that will take us?

Where should we concentrate our energies in order to do that effectively?

Unpacking Listener Satisfaction

The discipline of consumer behavior has informed this study. An integral element to that sub-section of the field of marketing is the customer satisfaction survey. The

154

analysis of data which expresses satisfaction and dissatisfaction can reveal strengths and weaknesses, thus suggesting strategies for “product” improvement. To analyze this study as though it were a customer satisfaction survey, two sets of data are most useful: First, question 36, summarized as “Would you recommend this (product) to a friend?” gives a key indicator of loyalty.25 Figure 4.17 is a visual representation of the response to that question. Second, the agreement levels from table 4.7 (“The Sunday Homily”) have been averaged for all of the homiletic factors of questions 26-35 in table 4.10 and visually displayed in figure 4.16. What can these two visuals tell us about the response of our population to Catholic Sunday preaching?

Table 4.10. Averaged Values of “The Sunday Homily” Strongly Agree 21.0% Somewhat Agree 29.6% Neither Agree or Disagree 30.5% Somewhat Disagree 11.9% Strongly Disagree 7.0%

Source: Are You Talking to Me? questions 26-35

Figure 4.16. Averaged percentage response to “The Figure 4.17. Would you recommend? Sunday Homily,” questions 26-35

25William Baker suggested this question and its subsequent analysis, spring of 2011.

155

To understand our listeners, we delineate the characteristics of each of the population segments separately. Starting from the top, “Promoters” are those who are enthusiastic and loyal, who talk about the preaching that they hear and want to refer it to others (Figure 4.17: strongly agree-21%; Figure 4.9: Yes-15.6%). Commitment is strong among this group. Loyalty is solid. Preaching resonates for them. If the ordination class of 2011 made the decision to enter the priesthood at the average age of 16, then at that age, those men probably came from this “Promoter” pool.26

At the bottom end are the “Detractors”: those who would not recommend the preaching to anyone (Figure 4.17: strongly disagree + disagree-18.9%; Figure 4.9: No-

38.1%) Detractors can create negative word-of-mouth. When a person complains, it means that the dissatisfied individual is still invested in the organization. Complainers can become supporters. Negative word-of-mouth, on the other hand, influences others—it tells stories and they are not good stories. Negative word-of-mouth is vivid; it is easily remembered and much more damaging than complaining. Those who do not complain are more likely to walk away (see the feedback data cited earlier, especially in relation to poor homilies).27

“Passives” are those who are somewhat satisfied but they are unenthusiastic. They have a low level of allegiance, so they are easily lost to the competition (Figure 4.17: neither disagree or agree-30.5%; Figure 4.9: I don’t know-42.5%).28 “Satisfieds” (Figure

26An intriguing topic for a DMin thesis project would be to evaluate how much that positive decision toward ordination came through the impact of effective preaching. Such data, if positively correlated, might persuade toward preaching improvement.

27Hoyer and MacInnis, 291.

28Marketing Profs, “Net Promoter Scores,” Marketing Profs, http://www.marketingprofs.com/ 156

4.17, somewhat agree-29.6%) are somewhat content but not highly committed. Unlike the “Promoters,” they are not evangelistic or passionate about what they hear. Loyalty is not solid.

Strategies for Increasing Satisfaction

Why does this classification of satisfaction matter? These groups are categorized in order to develop strategies to move them “up” on the bar chart toward greater loyalty and commitment. In the experience of industry communicators, to move “Satisfieds” to become “Promoters” takes the soft skills of friendliness, using their name, empathy

(“know what I am going through” was said over and over again), and letting them know that they matter. About 30% of the studied population falls in this “Satisfied” category in relation to preaching. The content of the homily can be strengthened by speaking to issues and topics that relate to them. The pastor and the parish community can collaborate to invite this sizeable group to deeper commitment. That call may be all that is needed to move them from a nebulous contentment to an enduring loyalty. An essential strategy for renewal of the church is to move this “vaguely favorable” group to become young

“Promoters.” 29 Rubrics of excellence in preaching can be developed, taught and then routinely assessed to facilitate this. Empowering the congregation is integral to this process of excellence in the encounter of preaching. They can learn to: 1) support the preacher; 2) improve listening skills; and 3) learn to give constructive feedback. A “B” preacher is not far from an “A” preacher, but the impact on faith growth of that slight step

charts/2011/5150/privacy-concerns-erode-social-media-user-satisfaction#ixzz1O8jF0B5K [accessed 11-12- 2011].

29Pope John Paul II was especially effective in reaching this group through his World Youth Day messages that exalted heroism and sacrifice.

157

“upward” is significant and can be long-lasting. How to make that happen will be expanded upon in the next chapter.

Another 30% of respondents from figure 4.16 fell into middling “Passive” category (40% by figure 4.17 “would you recommend?”). “Feeling the love” will not bring this group to dedication and loyalty. They seek competency. Improving the quality of the homiletic encounter will strengthen their commitment. This requires growth in the

“hard” skills of preaching as the young people themselves described in chapter 3: put together a clear message that speaks to their world; use stories and images that they can relate to; have a compelling delivery; speak in concrete language that is memorable; strengthen content; and craft a homily that motivates by its riskiness, to name a few. So many actively church-going young people express a “whatever-ism” about their experience of preaching. Three sets of statistics converge: The data in figure 4.13 (the high levels of ambivalence), figure 4.12 (the lack of correlation between the evaluation of homilist and homily), and the high number of responses that fall into the “Passives” category (figures 4.16 and 4.17). They all point to the same conclusion: to engage this group, homilies need to deliver a compelling message that not only connects, but also motivates. A high percentage of response in the ambivalence category is a robust indicator that what is fundamentally needed is training in the basics, the hard skills of how to preach. This suggests an agenda for training both within seminaries and in the continuing education of clergy.

What to do about the “Detractors?” Typically, customer dissatisfaction numbers

158

are acceptable in the 5-10% range.30 Those who are experienced in dealing with customers have found that when dissatisfaction levels creep up to 10-20%, this is a clear symptom that there are system and/or performance issues that need scrutiny.31 From the data from this study, the dissatisfaction levels of regular church-going high-school listeners are higher than optimal (18.9 and 38.1%). From figure 4.10, the rating of “didn’t matter that I was there” at almost 30% of respondents should be of serious concern. The dearth of feedback for poorly rated homilies is an early symptom that church-going young people may simply walk away when they become independent and are no longer required to be at Mass. What can we do? Consultants in consumer satisfaction would strategize for bottom performers that: 1) individual preaching coaching and retraining may be needed and 2) homiletical preparation processes should be scrutinized. That which creates hindrance must be attended to.32 The content of the preaching has to be solid. Preparation has to become a priority. To observe and imitate the skill sets of those rated as excellent preachers would set a higher bar for those whose performance is marginal. If the emphasis on biblical preaching has made an impact in the training of preachers in the last fifteen years, then fundamental skills can similarly be taught. From the students’ written comments from this “Detractor” group, what is missing are the oral communications skills that are taught in a beginning speech class (make one clear point, do not ramble, speak clearly). That would be a good place to start. If listener

30Michael Clarkin, “5 Myths of Customer Satisfaction: Setting your Sights on the Right Targets,” Vovici Webinar, http://marketingprofs.chtah.com/a/hBN75NYAJaJZfB8bk1QNg1pwIPu/alrt27 [accessed June 16, 2011].

31Ibid.

32Michael Clarkin, email correspondence, 6-20-2011.

159

dissatisfaction levels drop under 10%, destructive negative word-of-mouth about preaching will abate. Retention will increase. The retention of young people has been and continues to be a concern for the Church.33 It appears from this data, that preaching plays some part in that defection. There are hungers that we not feeding. The window into the face of God is a bit smudged. What are young people looking for?

More, not Less

In a summer 2011 focus group, a just-graduated senior offered a metaphor for the homily at the last Mass that she had been to:

A self-help book: He’s up there going, “and your life is going to be like this and you’re going to do this” and I’m like, “how do you know that?” It was like the going-off-to-college chapter (of the self-help book) and I have read a lot of self- help books, so I felt a lot like I had heard it before. He said what everyone knew he was going to say and everyone was “okay, he said what I knew that he was going to say, so we can carry on…” It was patronizing. He was making all these assumptions and then telling us how to handle what he thought that we needed to know. He had four main points… only… (The whole group laughs at her tone and facial expression.)… I don’t remember what they were.

To recap from chapter 2, motivation is enhanced when the listener hears something that is

“1) personally relevant; 2) consistent with their values, goals, and needs; 3) risky; and /or

4) moderately inconsistent with their prior attitudes.”34 “He said what everyone knew he was going to say” did not stretch this listener. This was a common theme from the focus groups and in the qualitative responses to the paper survey. From page 36 of the results of his study, Shea’s listeners also consistently expressed the theme of “simply being too

33This high percentage of “detractors” about preaching comes from Group I, the high school students who think highly of their clergy and are still regularly attending Mass. From their response to the preaching, they may be on the verge of joining Group II, the baptized Catholics who are no longer attending Mass.

34Hoyer and MacInnis, 55.

160

boring or repetitious.”35 When asked “If you could tell the preachers in your parish anything about their preaching and how to make it more effective in connecting with you and other young people of your age, what would you tell them,” a fifteen year old boy said, “To stop giving stereotypical and clichéd homilies that a lot of other people who don’t really know anything about the gospel could give.” A ninth grade boy suggested:

“Use inspirational quotes, or say something that most people haven’t heard before.”

These “same-old-same-old” comments are representative of many others.

Young people want preaching to stretch them. Some adults might state that teenagers just want to be entertained. Those who responded to this survey did not ask for the homily to entertain: to engage, to maintain interest, to get my attention, and to motivate, were the words that they used. They were not looking for less. They were looking for more. They wanted more depth. They wanted more creativity. They wanted more passion.

Ironically, in table 4.7 of “The Sunday Homily,” the highest level of ambivalence toward the homily came from the response to question 31: “This homily was full of conviction.” Almost half (46.3%) circled “neither agree nor disagree.” Ironically, there was no conviction that the homily was full of conviction. Coming at it from a different direction tells the same story: a 2.46 grade point, averaged from the responses to question

40, tells a teacher that the student is working hard enough to pass but not really striving hard enough to excel at the subject.

Question 39 asked about motivation: “On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the best,

35See footnote 50 in chapter 1.

161

how would you rate how well this particular homily motivated you to deepen your commitment to God?” (One = de-motivating, five = somewhat motivating, and ten = highly motivating.) The mean was 5.7—a somewhat “somewhat.” Looking at overall homily characteristics in table 4.10, the highest response was the amorphous

“comforting.” The lowest two responses to the bank of positive attributes about homilies were the concretely Christian characteristics of “helped me to forgive” and “helped me to commit myself to following Jesus.”36

The National Study of Youth and Religion found that most U.S. teenagers tend to follow their parents when it comes to religion: religion is a nice thing to have but it does not claim them or concern them greatly.37 Commitment is soft. The responses to “The

Person of the Listener” (figures 4.1 and 4.2) in this study showed a similar shapelessness to their Christian belief. Catholic kids are at the bottom of all Christian denominations for knowing and committing to their faith.38 Smith’s work identifies the parent’s faith life as a clear indicator of the faith life of a teen. Therefore initiatives to bolster the faith of parents and adolescents are being created in many Christian denominations. Is there something that we are not seeing in this picture? Where is the myopia?

The data from this study suggests that we take the progression one step further: teenagers’ faith is soft because their parents’ faith is soft, yes. Yet, as discussed in 1, for the majority of high school and adult Catholics, Sunday liturgical preaching is their only

36Surprisingly, those baptized Catholics who do not regularly attend Mass had a higher response to “helped me to commit myself to following Jesus” than those who attended regularly.

37Dean, 202.

38Smith, 37.

162

source of input. Could it be that the faith of those in the pew is anemic because our preaching is also weak? Preaching is, of course, not the only factor in the system of faith growth, but its impact appears to be a substantial one, more important than most Catholic preachers realize. The current state of Catholic Sunday preaching contributes to the vague

“whatever” faith shown by U.S. Catholic teenagers (and their parents by extension). The young people who were surveyed asked for more from the pulpit. As his final comment, a twelfth-grade boy pleaded, “More life, more passion. Monotony kills interest.”

The homily is a key ingredient in the faith growth of a young disciple. We have pockets of preaching where it is being done wonderfully. Those listeners can respond to the question, “Are you talking to me?” with a vibrant “yes!” Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that encounter with the face of God resonates within them. What do we need to do as a Church to help that to more commonly happen?

Moving Forward

To recap the road which we have walked thus far: 1) The introduction laid out a vision of the homily as revelation, a locus of encounter with God; 2) Chapter 1 pointed out the Church’s blind spot about the significance of the homily in growing the faith life of young disciples; 2) Chapter 2 enriched the field of homiletics with the characteristics of listening as discovered by the field of consumer behavior; 3) In chapter 3, the words of young disciples spoke of their experience of connection and faith growth through preaching. They also spoke of what it is like to listen to preaching that obscured the face of God for them; 4) This current chapter has pointed out strengths and weaknesses in the current state of preaching through quantitative analysis. Now what? Where do we go from here? How can we take what we have learned and fit it all together into a product

163

which will build up the Church? How can this study concretely improve Catholic Sunday preaching?

“Connection” has been the foundational concept in this study. In that spirit, therefore, chapter 5 begins by recasting the conversation, moving from the analysis of the needs of listeners to comprehend the needs of preachers: what would help them to preach more connectively? Literature review and clergy interviews inform the design of the end product of this study. We ask Cleopas and his unnamed friend on that road to Emmaus to link arms with us on this final journey, traveling from connection to encounter to resonance in preaching.

164

CHAPTER FIVE

WHERE NOW?

This is what is needed: a Church for young people, which will know how to speak to their heart and enkindle, comfort, and inspire enthusiasm in it with the joy of the Gospel and the strength of the Eucharist; a Church which will know how to invite and to welcome the person who seeks a purpose for which to commit his whole existence; a Church which is not afraid to require much, after having given much; which does not fear asking from young people the effort of a noble and authentic adventure, such as that of the following of the Gospel. —John Paul II, World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 1995.

The ideal is lofty: The parish priest is a role model for his young people. The homilist preaches a message that is iconic as a window into God. The listener co-creates meaning with that word in an encounter with the Holy Spirit. The parish together is renewed by that connected experience of light and joy and peace. The faith of that community then radiates outward to rejuvenate the culture in which it lives. That is the vision. Even more broadly, in that same spirit, in the opening quote, John Paul II pictured the Church as a locus of passion, enthusiasm, and gospel adventure as a source of hope for the world.

Moving from the lofty to the particular, how does that noble vision work in practice? How is that expectation to be met by a man who every week may preach two funerals, a wedding, four daily Masses and a baptism in addition to two or three services

165

on a Sunday? “Preacher fatigue” can be real.1 Holding the dream up as a standard could simply make an overwhelmed preacher even more tired. Yet to hold an ideal gives a goal to shoot for.

How do we move from what is, to what could be? What steps do we need to take?

How can the findings of this study help preachers in the pulpit better connect with their folks in the pew, especially the young people who are our future?

Listening has been the focus of this study. Connection has been a key concept. So in addition to the words of young listeners, one final set of voices is synthesized into this thesis’ proposal for continuing education in preaching: we must first hear the concerns of the preachers themselves in order to connect and be effective with them. As in the study of young people, it is safer to ask than to presume. Other researchers have asked clergy for their input on preaching. A review of that literature will join my own interviews of preachers to form the answer to this question: What are the concerns and needs of clergy in preaching improvement?2

Clergy Concerns

In the spring and summer of 2011, six Catholic clergy offered a picture of what a parish preacher’s life was like. All but one of these men was fatigued. One seemed on the verge of exhaustion. They expressed a strong sense of feeling time-pressured. For several, parish meetings took up every one of their evenings. With so many things to do,

1vanThanh Nguyen, “Preaching Across Cultures: Response to a Pastoral Need in the Church Today,” Seminary Journal 16 (2010), 18.

2For a list of the clergy interview questions about preaching, see appendix A.5. Their responses are a valuable start for a future publication.

166

getting a homily ready for Sunday was important, but it was not the highest priority. In

The Great American Sermon Survey, Carrell found the same.3 When asked to rate (on a scale of 1-10) how important homily preparation was in terms of the use of his time, one pastor said, “somewhere about a 5.” When asked how his people would rate it, he hesitated and then chuckled, “Oh…probably about a 9!” On the recording, his laughter pealed out when told that he had nailed the response of young parishioners almost exactly: ten of those in a focus group, when averaged, had responded a 9.5. Both Allen and Carrell’s findings also suggest that his people yearn to hear what his homily has to say.4

Constructive feedback is rare. One clergyman said that he regularly asks, so he gets some responses. Another said that he had received two written notes in the past two years at the parish. The majority did not get a response. Shea describes it this way:

Most of us tend to preach in a vacuum where we are forced to assess our own preaching and draw conclusions using the few tidbits of input that we only casually and informally receive. We preach without the benefit of concrete feedback that could make a radical difference in what and how we preach.5

Feedback about preaching reflects a broader cultural reality. There are some preachers who also live and speak in isolation. One pastor lamented that he had never been invited to dinner, to a graduation party or to a birthday party, in his two year tenure at this “new” parish. The parishioners kept him on a pedestal as “Father… a priest, a man in a robe,”

3Carrell, 119 and 139, found that 17% of the Catholic preachers she surveyed considered “sermon prep” to be their most important task (in contrast to 47% of Protestant clergy). Different rewards systems motivate differently.

4Carrell, 144, and Ronald J. Allen and Mary Alice Mulligan, “Listening to Listeners, Five Years Later,” Homiletic 34 (2009), 8.

5Shea, Seminary Journal, 33. 167

not as a human being who needed friendship and contact. How was he supposed to know how his people lived? The closest that he got to interaction was when he wandered down the street and talked to a little girl who ran a lemonade stand. He himself wondered, how could he possibly relate to them? He did not know how they lived. He was interested in making stronger connections with them in his preaching, but he simply did not know how to do it.

Accessibility is a concern as well. Lovrick found that 70% of the preachers who responded to his survey in Canada were at least somewhat willing to participate in preaching improvement workshops or seminars, but they had to travel long hours to do so.6 Access to continuing education experiences is first and foremost an issue of the use of time. One of those whom I interviewed described his experience of workshops as a waste of his time: “They don’t really know downtown (at the diocesan offices) what life is like out here in the parish.” The trip to the seminary (and back) also ate up another two hours. It was more rewarding for him to spend his time with parishioners in the hospital.

Practicality is best. After a week-long course in preaching, one classmate, a pastor, observed that he had spent five days talking and learning about preaching. On

Friday evening, he had to go home and prepare his homily. It might have been more fruitful to have taken the time to create the Sunday homily together in the process of the preaching course. Preachers who come to homiletic workshops would prefer to go home with something in hand. Another preacher suggested sending him a short email about preaching every week. “Keep it simple,” he said. Rather than theory, they prefer to apply

6Peter Lovrick, “A Pedagogical Model for Homiletics at St. Augustine’s Seminary: They Must Increase, and I Must Decrease,” DMin thesis, Aquinas Institute, 2009, 41.

168

learning, asking, “How does it help?”

Perception about the need for improvement can also affect a willingness to participate in preaching improvement. The absence of constructive feedback may paint an unrealistically rosy picture of one’s own preaching. Both Lovrick and Shea separately found that 82% of preachers considered themselves to be above average.7 Shea suggests that this may impact their perception of their need for improvement:

Eighty-two percent of all priests rate their preaching as being above average versus the preaching of all other priests. Since the self-assessment of preaching is so favorable, it could explain why so few priests are prepared to invest the effort and time to improve their preaching.8

When conversation is missing, all we have is assumption. A preacher munched a breakfast bar at the end of our early morning discussion as he grabbed his jacket to be off to an appointment and said, “Good luck. These are good questions.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Nobody is asking this. We just don’t talk about it.” Clergy concerns are summarized in table 5.1.

A deeper level of research is needed to broaden the picture of clergy concerns in relation to preaching improvement. This small sample of interviews focused on the struggles of individual preachers. To get a fuller picture of cultural obstacles, other questions beg to be asked. These are beyond the scope of this project, but opening the conversation would provide additional insights. Taking the aforementioned clergy concerns into account, what strategies and formats for preaching improvement would be most effective?

7Lovrick, 35 and David J. Shea, “Self-Understanding in Catholic Preaching: How the Identity of the Priest Shapes his Approach to Preaching,” DMin thesis, Aquinas Institute, 2006, 72.

8Shea, thesis, 98. 169

Table 5.1. Summary of clergy concerns

Feel terrifically time-pressured. Preaching is just not a priority; there Not as much time for homily are just so many other things to do. preparation as they would like. May not feel a need to improve; the preaching is good enough. Do not know exactly how to improve, how to better relate to Inaccessibility of preaching the people, especially the young. improvement programs (especially in relation to time constraints).

A cultural silence in feedback Continuing education has to be and assessment, both from their practical to make the best use of hearers and from those who are limited time. trained in communication. As a result, it is not really clear how Do not realize how much impact their they are doing. 7-12 minute homily has in the life of their people.

Creating a Strategy for Preaching Improvement

In its original envisioning, a one-day workshop was to be created out of the results of this study. Yet the data has proven to be richer than can be incorporated into that format. In the process of doing this study, I came to see the one-day workshop as a prototype within a process to improve preaching in the Catholic Church. So before moving to the design of that specific workshop, described below is a process within which it could lie. For the sake of simplicity and in keeping with the focus of this project, the process of improving preaching is named “Connect.”9 The individual programs within that “Connect” process will have their own unique titles. Where do we start?

9If acronyms are preferred, it could be: Conveying (Centering, Connecting, Communicating, Co- relating, or Correlating) our Never-ending Need (for) Effective Communications Training (C.O.N.N.E.C.T.).

170

Assessment Establishes a Baseline

To gauge improvement, we measure the baseline of where we are. This study of young listeners is one element in determining the current status of Catholic preaching.

Other studies are needed. Empirical studies must become standard in the homiletic academy so that we can continue to grow the body of information about what makes for connective preaching. Longitudinal studies could then evaluate the long-term effectiveness of preaching improvement programs.

One of the key findings of this study was the need for skill-based growth. To evaluate skills and their growth requires reliable assessment tools. How are we to measure preaching? Can we agree on what makes for “good” homilies? The standards that are set will determine growth toward those goals. So how do we develop those standards?

Chapter 1 described how the different voices in listener studies were joined together to create the original Are You Talking to Me? survey. In keeping with that penchant for synthesizing the best that we have at this point in history, I have created five original assessment tools. These tools establish a baseline from which to design both individualized and institutional preaching improvement training programs. These assessment tools are found in appendix B.

Appendix B.1, “Evaluation of the Homily to Personalize a Homiletic Training

Program,” is to be used by a preaching consultant to evaluate a videotaped “live” homily.

Standards by which to assess preaching come from seven resources.10 Each of these very

10The seven sources: FIYH comes from the bishop’s conference; Wallace’s bent is liturgical; DeLeers creates his rubric from magisterial documents; Fields and Robbins come from a youth ministry 171

different voices combines to weave a comprehensive picture of homiletic strengths and weaknesses.

Appendix B.2, “Self-Assessment of Preaching,” is an opportunity for the preacher to look at his own homiletic style and practice so that he can gauge his own preaching.

The descriptors in this assessment arose from the findings of this study, both from the homiletic desires of young people and from interviews with clergy.

Appendix B.3, the “Parish Evaluation of Preaching,” asks the parish about the strengths and weaknesses of the preaching that they hear. This was adapted for broader parish use from the original “Are You Talking to Me?” assessment tool.

Appendix B.4, “The Long-Term Impact of Preaching,” measures faith growth in discipleship. The young people in this study described many ways in which their faith had grown as a result of their long-term take-away from preaching (question 60a). After grouping those responses (appendix B.5), Chapter 3 summarized and illustrated those categories. The categories of long-term faith growth that were created by the young people in this study were then converted into the descriptors for this evaluative tool.11

Consequently, this assessment measures more than the effectiveness of the unique preaching moment: it systematizes an overall spiritual growth model as a standard for the homily as a means to empower practice-centered Christians. 12 The long-term goal of

perspective; and the NCEA study is empirical, from the desires of the people in the pew. My own standards arise from this study of young listeners. Verderber’s perspective is effective speech communication.

11Each of these descriptors could serve as the “function” of a homily in Long’s method of creating a homily.

12Robert S. Reid, “Learning-Centered Preaching for Practice-Centered Congregations” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Homiletics, Atlanta, GA, December 1, 2010). 172

preaching is to grow disciples, both individually by changing lives and communally by transforming a community.

Appendix B.6, “Personal Goal Setting,” is used in conjunction with the previous diagnostic and summative assessments. At the beginning of the “Connect” process, each of the preceding assessments diagnoses the baseline of how the preacher is doing.

Together with a preaching consultant, the preacher then determines two goals on which to act. After a year of working toward these goals, the preaching is then again assessed to measure growth. Based on improvement, new goals are set for the following year.

These assessments are initially designed to be used in a three year process. Yet ongoing assessment, goal-setting, and reassessment could become an expected component of clergy life, as it is in many other professions.

Structuring Preaching Improvement

Could the Catholic Church actually implement a large-scale preaching improvement process? Is there a precedent that could be used as a model? In his

“Saginaw project,” Bishop Ken Untener worked with two diocesan preaching consultants in the 1990’s to help his preachers improve. Priests submitted a taped “live” homily for evaluation. They got together four times in a year in small groups with the bishop and the preaching consultant to critique each other’s preaching. This model gives some idea of where to start.

The cry for improved preaching comes from all levels of the Church. It seems that the whole body of the faithful (the sensus fidei) is expressing this need. If the U.S.

Catholic bishops internalize the call of their people for better preaching, they can take action. They express an awareness of the need. Thus they could create the infrastructure

173

needed to implement it. Each diocese would develop a diocesan “Office for Preaching” within their already existing Office of Worship. They would hire at least two preaching consultants—one trained in communication and another trained in homiletics and theology, as well as support staff for that office.13 What would those people do? They would oversee the implementation of the preaching improvement process, train district facilitators, and individually consult with each preacher in the diocese to assess and set goals for improvement (table 5.3).14

District facilitators would then present the prepared programs, lead exercises and discussions at the workshops, and empower the teams thus created to continue as preaching preparation groups for their home parish and their own preacher.

Why center the preaching improvement process within the parish community? In addition to clergy requests for accessible and local programming, Robinson describes the local and contextual nature of preaching:

13The size of the office naturally would naturally depend on the size of the diocese and the number of preachers and parishes to be evaluated.

14In a telephone discussion with the woman who filled this role for Untener’s “Saginaw program” of preaching improvement on February 14, 2012, and in email correspondence with one of the preachers who participated, from February 16 and 17, 2012, input from a trained preaching consultant was expressed as pivotal to the richness of that program.

174

Why should we be interested in the assembly as a component of the homiletic experience? First, preaching is always preaching in a context. Preaching is by nature particular and not generic. As a preacher I engage this community, this group, however broad the parameters of the group may be… Preaching engages this people… The preacher speaks to those he knows and loves, those with whom he has cast his lot. The preacher knows their sorrows and their joys, their disappointments and their triumphs.15

The parish is the level at which to target efforts in preaching improvement. Collaborative homily design incorporates the voice of the people in the creation, feedback, and assessment of the preaching. They then become co-responsible co-creators of the homily to meet the local needs of the faithful.

What other structures would be needed? To facilitate this process, seminaries and universities who specialize in preaching would need to develop programs to empower the diocesan preaching personnel. Summer programs could train a cadre of qualified and certified consultants to oversee the process. Master’s degree programs specific to preaching would further strengthen the skills of the consultants. If diocesan positions are created, the market for professional preaching consultant training programs would open up to educate them.

What objections might arise? First, some may protest the cost of adding staff to dioceses that are already cash-strapped. Though empirical studies have not yet been done, anecdotally it has been observed that the financial bottom line of a parish increases with good preaching. People get fired up. Faith is strengthened. Parishes grow. People and money come together. Investments in preaching improvement could more than pay for themselves. Secondly, the role of the diocesan consultant is to help, not to boss preachers.

15Denis Robinson, OSB, “With One Voice: A Program for Parishes,” Seminary Journal 16(2), 2010, 21.

175

In Untener’s project, the bishop himself was involved in homiletic improvement. It was plain from the outset that the preaching consultant was evaluating and assessing because the bishop wanted her to. That line of authority would have to be clear and carefully supported. Thirdly, rather than implementing the process as a sweeping mandate, it could be piloted one diocese at a time to work out the bugs and kinks so that it scales well.16

The goals and objectives for this process, found in appendix B, are themselves a baseline for assessment and improvement. 17

Designing the Process to Meet the Need

Raising the level of conversation, incorporating recurrent assessment, and providing accountability may themselves stimulate growth in preaching. The structure of the process has be user friendly, accessible, encouraging, individualized, and local to meet the needs of clergy. It should include accountability, community input, transparency, and effectiveness to meet the needs of the people. Each preacher takes charge of his own growth, but also is responsible to and supported by others.

To weave all of those factors together, the process consists of these major pieces:

1) Assessment: Pre-assessment of the preacher by a communications expert, self- assessment, and parish assessment.

16Peter Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 69. Drucker suggests that a common mistake in implementing anything new is to go immediately from idea to full-scale operation. In a pilot stage, tiny flaws can be corrected. If too soon implemented, these could destroy an otherwise valid innovation.

17Strategies for designing an initial product with a plan to scale (or grow it) are commonplace in the business world, especially in large-scale improvement initiatives comparable to this one. For an example, see R.J. Perla, Elizabeth Gunther, and C. Murphy-Bradbury, “Large-scale improvement initiatives: A scan of the literature,” Journal for Healthcare Quality, 2011, Sep 14. These authors identify four primary drivers of effective change: planning and infrastructure; individual, group, organizational, and system factors; the process of change; and performance measures and evaluation. This framework of strategizing in order to scale has informed the thinking behind and the design of this preaching improvement process.

176

2) Input: Preaching improvement input via an initial four workshops. 3) Formation of teams: The formation of parish lectio divina preaching preparation teams, preparing the homily as “holy work.”18 4) Continuous input: Weekly emails with preaching improvement information; basic speech classes as needed. 5) Assessment: Yearly reassessment and goal setting.

A timeline to implement a three year improvement process is outlined in table 5.4:

Table 5.4. Three year timeline for implementation of the “Connect” process

PREPARATION STAGE - 6-12 MONTHS AHEAD

Establish a diocesan vision for preaching Diocesan prayer for the “Year for Preaching” Train diocesan preaching consultants Train district facilitators Educate clergy about the process Educate laity about the process

IMPLEMENTATION STAGE - YEAR ONE

Clergy self-assessment and parish assessment of preaching Clergy: two videos to preaching consultant for assessment Individual consult on preaching strengths and goal-setting Parish workshop on listening and its role in spiritual growth Four district workshops (every three months) on preaching Formation and implementation of monthly preaching lectio divina groups in parish Basic speech classes as needed Weekly preaching improvement information via email and web after first workshop Parish discipleship post-assessment for faith growth via the homily

SUPPORT AND ONGOING ASSESSMENT – YEARS TWO AND THREE

Clergy and consultant post-assessment of year 1(2) and goal-setting for year 2 (3) Workshop 2.1 and 3.1 - determined per district per needs assessment Ongoing parish lectio divina discussion groups Continuing weekly preaching improvement information via email and web Parish visits by facilitators and consultants Post-assessment and goal-setting for the future

18Untener, 9.

177

What conditions would be needed for the process to be effective? Untener received feedback from his priests. The clergy themselves said: 1) it has to be mandatory;

2) it should use “live” homilies; 3) whoever leads the group has to be a regular homilist.19

One of the conclusions from chapter 4 was the need for skill-based training. The preaching consultant can assess each of the preachers of the diocese to determine what skills are lacking. Individual goals will vary: Some preachers may need remedial work to focus on one point in a homily and/or to speak clearly. It is essential to identify those who need basic speech class training. There may be unspoken frustrations about inadequate skills in preaching. Those who connect well with their people find preaching to be a satisfying and invigorating experience. What would it be like to preach ineffectively for thirty years? How does a preacher deal with that? If 82% of preachers consider themselves to be above average, then at a table of ten preachers, either three of them are mistaken or those who are below average did not respond to the voluntary surveys.20

Continual assessment and goal setting could grow to be a font of hope, especially for those who do not know how to improve. Some preachers might be initially resistant to a required preaching improvement program. That opposition could swell into enthusiasm as parishioner’s response to their preaching grows more positive. Those with a stellar skill set can strive to add resonance to their preaching. Even the greatest of preachers are not satisfied with the quality of their preaching.

Clergy concerns from table 5.1 were combined with Untener’s specifications to create table 5.5, a comprehensive preaching improvement program to meet their needs:

19Untener, 4. 20See footnote 9. 178

Table 5.5. Meeting the needs of preachers in the preaching improvement process

Clergy Concern How to Meet Need Program elements Means

Time-pressures. Provide on-going Paragraph or short Weekly email homiletic training in article on preaching small bits. improvement

Preaching is just Design the Result of workshop District-based not a priority with workshop so that is a homily roughly workshop so many other there is a practical framed. things to do. take-away product for the time spent.

Accessibility of District-based Four packaged District workshop preaching workshop run by a workshop programs with trained improvement facilitator; develop with focus on parish facilitator and video; programs. a diocesan feedback. local parish facilitator training feedback groups. program.

A cultural silence Incorporate reverse Assessment in many Initial private in feedback and mentoring program forms and from conversation with assessment; as a into workshops and several sources; preaching result, they do not parish discussion discussion consultant; parish really know how groups. questions. interactions and they are doing. assessments.

Do not know how Workshop Share findings from Interactions with important their discussion, parish this study and other parishioners and homily is. feedback. listener studies. assessments.

Do not feel the need Participation in the Results from this Assess and reassess to improve; they are program required by study; individual effectiveness in good enough. local bishop. assessments. long-term improvement.

Do not know how to Continual Skill-based training Each element improve. assessment and through workshops incorporates the goal-setting. and private “how” to improve. coaching.

179

The Resources within the Process

The first year of implementation of the “Connect” process is crucial to its ongoing success. The best intentions can fade if the kick-off year is not carefully done. Therefore, the second half of this chapter will articulate a specific program within that process: the preaching improvement/preparation team workshops (table 5.6):

Table 5.6. Workshops for the first year of the “Connect” process

Workshop Title Topic Who Priestly Participates Identity

1 Are You Characteristics Parish preachers; Preacher as Talking to of listeners, youth minister; man of Me? how to listen 7-9 teen leaders in communion parish

2 Connecting Catechetical Parish preachers; Preacher as Doctrine preaching and 7-9 parishioners of man of To Life how to varied ages; tradition connect it catechetical leaders

3 Difficult Pastoral Parish preachers; Preacher as Conversations preaching- parish staff; man of hearing and 7-9 pastoral compassion meeting volunteers local needs

4 Creating Preaching as Parish preachers; Preacher as Resonance evangelizing parishioners man of the through evangelizers involved in Spirit Preaching evangelization or outreach

Four workshops are envisioned for the kick-off of the “Connect” process. Each covers a different topic of preaching improvement and includes a different parish group.

The first workshop comes both from this study of young listeners’ description of what connects for them and from the insights into the mind of the listener as described in 180

chapter 2.

The second workshop addresses how to connect in doctrinal preaching. In

Catholic culture today, there are repeated calls for an increased catechetical focus for the homily. Young people themselves in this study asked for the preaching to be interesting, the content to be meaningful, and “teach me something.” If catechetics becomes the foundation for preaching content, then it is essential that listening to the needs of listeners be incorporated into that doctrinal preaching. Sermon models from the 1950’s will not suffice to pass on faith in the 2010’s. Connection becomes all the more crucial.

The subject matter for the third workshop arises from young people’s comments in this study such as: “know what I am going through;” “help me with my life;” and

“understand me.” Listeners of all ages seek for preaching that speaks to the difficult matters and moments of life.21 This session teaches how to listen for and how to speak pastorally to those issues.

The fourth workshop expands on the subject of “preaching for resonance” that was introduced in chapter 3 of this thesis. Adapted for preaching from Keller’s work in brand resonance, this gathering looks at concrete homiletic steps to building a community of identity, connection, relationship, and witness.22 The goal is to create a vibrant community of loyalty to Jesus and commitment to living the gospel.

Connecting with Young Listeners

The prototype for this process is a packaged collaborative hands-on workshop for preachers (priests and deacons) with their youth minister and several articulate young

21Carrell, The Great American Sermon Survey, 20, Mulligan and Allen, 79, and Mulligan et al, chapter 5.

22See footnotes 16 and 46 in chapter 3. 181

people of their parish. The ideal would be at least three or four young participants per preacher. Table 5.7 identifies characteristics to be integrated into this workshop:

Table 5.7. Characteristics to integrate into this workshop

Local, accessible Listener-centered Interactive, collaborative Discipleship-oriented Practical, with a take-home result Spiritually enriching Conversational, connective Informational, useful Supportive, community-building Simple, user-friendly

The workshop contains: a) a summary of the results of this study; b) how to effectively connect with listeners based on insights from consumer behavior; c) the interactive creation of a homily; and d) an action plan to implement a young preaching preparation team that learns to make homily preparation and scripture study a communal spiritual exercise. The take-home resource is a workbook for preaching preparation teams (see appendix C.2). The workshop itself would be evaluated and critiqued and thus improved according to the goals and objectives laid out in table 5.8:

Table 5.8. Goals and objectives for the “Are You Talking to Me?” workshop

GOALS OBJECTIVES

Meet the need of the young people of God for Preachers will walk away with an preaching that helps them to grow in faith and initial draft for an upcoming become practice-centered Christians. Sunday homily.

Meet the needs of individual clergy to improve Young listeners will commit their preaching with youth through locally themselves to continuing accessible, “user-friendly” programs. collaboration in preaching preparation. Create an interactive venue where young preaching preparation teams may bond with Both preachers and young disciples their preachers. will grow more attentive to their own facets of listening in both Introduce a process of reverse mentoring for sending and receiving a homiletic youth and their preachers for ongoing message. collaboration in preaching.

182

The workshop as designed (table 5.9) would initially be presented in person. Once the workshop is tested, tweaked, and fine-tuned, it would become the first of a four-part interactive video series. How will the workshop itself connect? Liteman suggests that interaction is the heart of a workshop. Elements of input should be brief, no longer than ten minutes without some accompanying learning integration exercise.23 The opening interaction of “checking-in” sets the tone for the workshop: everyone is included in a non-threatening way. This opens them up and also gently stretches them. Introverts write their thoughts down before they are asked to share them. Facets of listening are interwoven with discussion and activities to a conversational and collaborative character to the day. Prayer weaves throughout so that the program is spiritually enriching.

In the afternoon, the group works on a homily. The preacher brings preliminary thoughts or a rough outline of a homily which the group evaluates according to the stickiness factors that were taught earlier. To set up a group role play, the participants are taught about three channels of listening through which listeners receive the homily— logos, pathos, and ethos. The young people are then given a piece of paper with a randomly selected emotion on it. With the action figure that they brought with them, they become a person in the parish who might be experiencing that emotion (confused, excited, elated, sad, for example) as a result of the way that they hear the preaching. They tell a back story to explain: what is going on inside of that person who is hearing that homily; and why is he or she experiencing that emotion? The purpose of this exercise is to creatively broaden the understanding of other listeners by both the preachers and the

23 Merianne Liteman, Sheila Campbell, and Jeff Liteman, Retreats that Work: Everything You Need to Know about Planning and Leading Great Offsites, expanded edition (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2006), 96.

183

youth. After this (hopefully) light-hearted exercise, the group moves to prayer and then to create an action plan of where they are going with their new learning after the workshop.

The expectation is that by the end of the day, participants will walk away bonded, energized, and ready to do the work on their action plan for improving preaching in their parish. The facilitator can evaluate: were the symptoms of connection present? Was there energy, light, eye contact, humor and smiling, good feeling, a natural flow of conversation, and safety in being oneself?

What would a district facilitator need in order to locally produce the workshop?

He or she would need the video “Are You Talking to Me?” to use with each of the learning segments. Appendix C.1.1 gives a summary of those elements of the workshop in the order that they occur. The roles and responsibilities for each of the leaders and participants are laid out in table C.1.2. A supply list is in table C.1.3; handouts needed are in tables C.1.4 and C.1.5. The comprehensive outline for the “Are You Talking to

Me?” workshop follows the Conclusions section in Table 5. 9.

The other three workshops in the series can be developed in the same informative and interactive way, changing parish groups as homily preparation teams every three months. Notice that the level of interaction increases as the day goes on and participants grow more comfortable with each other. People work together when they trust each other.

One of the goals is to get them to bond together so that the reverse mentoring will continue. Young people bring a lot of energy. Thus this series of workshops would be lively, vibrant and fun. Preaching improvement sessions could be something that a preacher would look forward to.

184

Conclusions

This study started in 2009 with a vision of connecting the pulpit and the pew in preaching. This thesis has ended in 2012 with the concrete description of a workshop to do just that. The voices of young people fill these pages with words and pictures. The voices of scholars and popes intertwine with charts and graphs and tables. The “shoulds” and the “maybes” and the “perhaps-es” and the “coulds” knit together to speak of hope, to speak of love, to speak of faith and growth. It is time to draw some brief conclusions.

First of all, it feels as though articulating the words of these young listeners is like paddling a small skiff in a huge ocean. So much is left to learn. These pages have been peppered with suggestions and ideas for further research in listener studies. There is a colossal imbalance between the knowledge of the consumer who pays money for “stuff” and the understanding of the listener who “gets” faith for free. Within the hearts and minds of the faithful, we have a pearl of great price, but we have not yet sold everything to buy it. Much digging remains to be done. There also seem to be few diggers.24 I sense that the words of this thesis may not be my last, but, God willing, the well-spring for many more.

Secondly, has there been an answer to the title question of this study, Are You

Talking to Me? If the “you” means: are we hearing the God who always is speaking, the response of these listeners seems to be a qualified “yes.” If the “you” means his or her parish preacher, the answer sounds as a “yes” and a “no” which averages out to a lackadaisical “sort of.” If the “you” is the plural “you’all” in the sense of official

24At the Academy of Homiletics conference in 2011, at an impromptu session, those interested in homiletic listener studies fit around one table. 185

documents about preaching in the Catholic Church, the reply is, “Umm... where are we?”

From this study, there is reason to hope. Connection is happening. From the words of the young, more needs to happen. There is much reason to get to work:

Connection can happen. The skills of preaching can be taught. The seminary focus on spiritual formation and Scripture has born fruit. A focus on ongoing homiletical skills improvement could do the same.

From the vigor with which these young people embraced the questions of what makes for good preaching, there is even more reason to believe: Connection will happen.

For the future of the Christian faith, it is the Holy Spirit, the Connector, who wants it to happen and who will make it happen. Let us be listening.

186

Table 5.9. “Are You Talking to Me?” Workshop Outline

Segment Teaching Element Integration (Each about ten minutes of input Exercise unless otherwise noted) (About ten minutes unless otherwise noted)

1) Welcome and District Coordinator introduces workshop facilitator, First the facilitator, Opening Prayer pray together the prayer that will be used throughout then each stanza by the day. group

2) Ground Rules Go over ground rules for discussion: Speak openly and honestly, but only speak for yourself One person speak at a time – pass the Koosh ball (or other) – who has the item has the floor; no side conversations Listen to understand others; since the workshop is on listening, listen. Don’t judge. You don’t really know another person. Turn off all electronic devices for the duration of the workshop and be truly present to each other. Respect each person’s contributions and keep them confidential.

3) Checking-in Group introduction; after the moment of quiet, Take a quiet introduce yourself to the group and mention the thing moment to write that they don’t know, and then pass the Koosh ball to down on a post-it another person. something the others in the group do not Set an interactive tone; make sure each person gets know about you. their say and is valued.

Here’s where we are going today – 4) Listening why listeners and listening matters; Overview describe study and factors of connection; good preachers are first good listeners; Listen to the Holy those who give feedback must first listen Spirit as a focused carefully; “one-minute we can all strengthen our understanding of listener” listening, whether for preaching or for life.

(prayer)

187

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

5) Attention – Attention is limited (notice as you tried to Distraction concentrate in prayer?) We can only truly pay attention to one (Weave the thing at a time. narrative from Multi-tasking only works if the chapter 2 into processing of those things are routine, the presentation well-practiced. of the material.) Name 5 things that Attention can be divided. you thought about Distraction pulls us from one stimulus to this morning other another. than the material We turn our mind to whatever captures us that was just in this moment. presented; write it External factors distract – noises, activity, on an index card; physical objects share with your Internal factors distract – can be both group and tape mental thoughts and emotional conflicts onto a sheet of paper to display on When given free space, the mind tends to the wall wander

(interactive exercise)

6) Attention – Attention is selective. Selectivity We tighten the intake valve. We choose where to focus. We are more alert to what is unfamiliar (learning to drive). Listen to a partner We pay less attention when we have - what sorts of heard or seen it before (implications for things do they like family members, liturgy) to eat? When something grows familiar, it fades into the background We pay attention to that which matters (Wait 5 minutes most to us, what is similar to ourselves. and give the other half of input about (ask the question) attention.)

188

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

6) Attention – Attention can be trained Selectivity, Knowledge of the factors of attention continued helps us to be alert to it. Concentrated moments of attentiveness Then …go get can improve overall focus. your partner a The mind grows according to how we snack at the break train it. according to what you heard… see (take the snack break) how well that you listened.

7) Snack Break

8) Knowledge - (interactive exercise) Categorization Categorizing Knowledge – the input from the big Before – Schema wide world could inundate us; so much to learn; brainstorming – how do we keep it organized? given a word, immediately write We structure knowledge according to down five words what we have encountered before or phrases that you What does the receiver comprehend? associate with it (ten seconds each, Schemas move fast)

Not random facts, but put facts together Put each word on a in a cloud of associations = schema different post-it note: Group incoming knowledge according to what we know Puppy (warm-up word) Rate them favorably or unfavorably Bread according to how we group them: ex. Grace “workshop” has a color to it depending Redeem on your experience of it Water

No category for it, the is “no sale:; we stay in our own world

189

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

8) Knowledge – Scripts Categorization, A sequence of events that we always do Read out the continued the same way. schema responses E.g. Liturgy, football games, getting up and put post-its on in the morning – the more scripted, the 8 ½ X 11 sheet less we have to pay attention to it together. Scripts can be comforting, routine helps us to organize tasks with less effort; e.g. brushing your teeth at a certain time; keeps those things in the background so we can store more knowledge. Implications of Categorization Expectations impact categorical assumptions Categorization influences how much we think about something Ease of labeling, disconfirmation of the stereotype; if it is too far out of the comfort level, the mind rejects it Category in which we place it impacts how we feel about it

8) Knowledge, Example: The Curse of Knowledge Wait to share section 2 the tune that is playing in the sender’s responses until (Could be 2 head does not correlate with what the after the elements in a receiver knows; we don’t know what it information on longer feels like not to know; schemas, then workshop) categorizing “churchy” words; liturgical discuss by word to language that has gone flat because there see where people is no experience to undergird it; listener- intuitively side understanding is assumed here. categorized each Yet there is a colossal information imbalance. If of those words. these are categorized as “something the priest Look for says” or “church talk” without translation into similarities and the everyday life of the person in the pew, then differences; words two cultures run in parallel without really that identify how speaking to each other. we feel about it; how much we (reading of responses to words and discussion) think about it.

190

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

9) Knowledge – The communicator’s conundrum: from what I Objective and said, what do you understand? Subjective Comprehension Comprehension = deepening understanding

(could be two The questions of comprehension that elements in a communicators and preachers ask: longer workshop) Are they getting what I am saying? Do they understand what I am talking (20 minutes) about? How can I make this message clearer?

Those are questions of objective comprehension - Testing and feedback answer those Facilitator reads something highly (understanding exercise) theological – write down what you got Gaps in understanding – why? out of it. Ability Motivation Opportunity

9) Compre- Ability varies by education, intelligence, age hension, part 2 Motivation – how much do they care? Is it relevant to my life? Does it speak to my need or what I value or hold dear? High-energy listener motivated to process the message; Low-energy listener more influenced by the peripherals – the music, the community, the art, the personalities around them Factors of motivation: moderately risky stretches current attitude personally relevant meets need

191

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

9) Compre- Opportunity hension, part 2, internal blocking of message - pain, continued grief, guilt, time pressures externals such as speedy delivery, too soft, too loud, complex wording

Miscomprehension – they hear what you did not say (failed the test completely)

(subjective comprehension exercise)

Subjective comprehension Same reading - Understanding from presuppositions What did you Receiver of a message infers meanings. already know based on assumptions that they thought about that subject? they knew How did that color not what the sender intended but what how you perceived they got from it it?

acquires belief by suggestion, implication, and insinuation passive receivers can be easily swayed form impressions more than processing thought E.g. People going deaf fill in the blanks, also in the game of telephone

10) Memory - Why does memory matter? Prayer by memory Stickiness Characteristics of memory first; what associations come We work out of the narratives that run in to your memory our minds: the narratives arise from when we pray that memory prayer? (The color of it, the How it forms belief attitude experience of it, behavior who is associated with it?) The S.U.C.C.E. S.S. formula of the Heath brothers (pass out table C.1.7 from appendix C) Prayer by stanzas

192

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

11) Lunch During lunch :

Finger tap the rhythm of a song to illustrate the “curse of knowledge” – play that tune – what is it in my head; can you hear it in your head?

12) Recap, Recap of the morning input: review and regroup What do you remember from the morning? Put it on a post-it note, stick it to your back; walk around the room silently reading all of the review notes; when done, stick it to a sheet of paper and hang it up by the group.

13) Large group discussion: Aim for an equal Introduction to What stuck in your memory from this input of both Preaching morning? sending and Application What do you see that you could receiving from the Overview immediately apply? participants. How does it relate to preaching, either in the sending or the receiving of it?

(prayer for the preaching of the Church)

14) Diagnosis (diagnosis of preaching from experience) Stickiness by listener Checklist – response Where are we not connecting? describe your Like doing a strength training analysis – experience (C.1.6) what “muscle group” do we train first? Input on moving up the “satisfaction Homilist shares scale” from chapter 4. (Maybe change the goals from goal metaphor from satisfaction to strength setting session – training?) cannot tackle it all; share: where does What to work on? Delineate: the preacher Hard skills himself seek to Soft skills improve? How can a preaching preparation team help?

193

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

15) Lectio Introduce the lectio divina method; read the Quiet prayer divina Scriptures, share thoughts introduction Discussion of what relates to them in the passage;

What are the needs of young parish? What is going on in their lives?

(30 minutes)

16) Evaluation Hands-on Group Work – Each person of Homily describe the homily evaluates it from read the homily outline one of the 6 use both stickiness handouts characteristics;

What can you do (Collect thoughts, table recorder gives to the to make it stickier, preacher at the conclusion of the workshop) more connective, relate better?

(30 minutes)

17) Parish Training listening as preacher and as learner Pass out emotion Envisioning for role play to Introduction and explanation of the youth (C.1.5); exercise – each listens differently – pathways of logos, ethos, and pathos Give instructions for role-play; learn to be attentive to your own and the Group by half many listening and learning styles in the tables; congregation present final product to other half of the group

(25 minutes) 194

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

17) Parish Young people take the action figure, incorporate Role-play, Envisioning, the emotion given and create a back story - continued continued become someone in the parish who is not you – pick one of the factors of attention and comprehension: How did “my” person hear this homily? What did my person hear? What caused that emotion? What are their needs from this preaching?

18) Action Plan Moving forward with all of this: From action figures to action plan Discipleship-oriented preaching Co-narration of preaching as communal responsibility Group discussion Decision-making: What are we going to do with by table this new input? How do we take this back home?

19) Group discussion – what can I do to help this Talent Recognizing process work? /commitment sheet the talents that I What are the talents that I bring? (table C.1.8) bring to this What kind of commitment can I make to group and this process Large group committing to commitment sheet the process As an action plan, decide the who, what ,when, how, why and where (table C.1.9):

Who will do what? By what date? With what resources?

Set a date and time to get together as a parish preaching preparation group

Sign the group commitment sheet

(Pass out workbooks, appendix C.2) 195

Table 5.9, continued Segment Teaching Element Integration Exercise

20) Conclusion Summarize the day and Closing Prayer Closing prayer (song?)

Sign of peace to all in the room

Afterwards Table recorder : collects all of the sheets on the wall writes up a summary of what was discussed and decided, emails it to all of the participants

Facilitator: checks in with each parish to keep the process flowing writes a summary of the day for the diocesan preaching office

Parish preaching groups check in with facilitator meet regularly to prepare homilies support and encourage good preaching in their parish

196

APPENDIX A

SURVEY AND INTERVIEW MATERIALS

197

Appendix A.1. Parental Consent Form

Figure A.1. Parental consent form for survey Are You Talking to Me?

198

Appendix A.2. Opening Letter to Students

Figure A.2. Opening letter before taking the survey

199

Appendix A.3. The Paper Survey Are You Talking to Me?

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 1.

200

You are on this page because you answered [Yes] to BOTH of questions 8 and 9. This means that you are both a baptized Catholic and you go to Mass at least once per month.

Is that right? [Yes] [No] (9a. In this past month, about how many times have you been to Mass? ______)

If this is correct, please continue. 

If not, please find page 12 and continue there. You will have a different set of questions.  ______

As we begin, think back to this past Sunday or when you last went to Mass at your parish. Who was it that gave the homily after the gospel? That is the person about whom we are asking you to respond.

If you have only one priest in your parish, that’s easy – that is who it is. If you have many priests and deacons in your parish, picture the one that you last heard preach. (If it was a visiting preacher, please go back another week to your local one.)

When this survey talks about “this preacher” think about that person. (Some parishes call him a homilist.)

Stay consistent with that same person. This is very important: your answers to each part must deal with the same preacher throughout.

(If you would like to talk about another preacher in your parish and/or have plenty more to say about this topic, please sign up for an in-person interview on the sign-up sheet at the front of the room.)

10. What is the first initial of this preacher? ______Is he a deacon, a priest, or a bishop? ______

11. About how many priests and deacons are there in your parish? (Give the number or your best guess.) ______

12. How old is this preacher? Young Sorta young Middle-aged Pretty old Really old (Please circle the number (1-5). If you don’t 25-35 36-45 46-60 61-79 80+ know, take your best guess.) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

As we do this study, we seek to understand how you connect with the person of the preacher.

Studies have found that it’s not just what is said in preaching but who says it that makes a difference.

This first section asks about the preacher that you last heard preach…

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 2.

201

THE PERSON OF THE PREACHER Neither Please circle the number that gives your most accurate Strongly Somewhat Agree or Somewhat Strongly response. Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

13. This preacher is friendly to me. 1 2 3 4 5

14. This preacher treats me with respect. 1 2 3 4 5

15. This preacher calls me by name. 1 2 3 4 5

16. This preacher interacts with young people regularly. 1 2 3 4 5

17. This preacher is approachable, easy to talk to. 1 2 3 4 5

18. This preacher exudes a love for Jesus. 1 2 3 4 5

19. This preacher looks at me when he is preaching. 1 2 3 4 5

20. This preacher uses personal examples in his preaching. 1 2 3 4 5

21. This preacher is a positive role model for me. 1 2 3 4 5

22. This preacher is real, in touch with the world. 1 2 3 4 5

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 3.

202

23. The concept of “connection” is important to this study. Think of an adult (teacher, youth group leader, friend, neighbor, etc.,) who connects well with you. How would you describe what happens when that person connects with you - are there specific things that he or she does or says, or a way of acting, that strengthens that bond, makes that connection work? (Some kids are not “word” people. If it would help you to describe it better, draw a picture or a cartoon of what “good connection” looks like.)

24. The concept of “connection” between the preacher and a young person is important to this study. Please describe what it means for a preacher to “connect” with you.

25. From your point of view, how well does this particular preacher connect with you? Put an (X) on the line:

______1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Completely Disconnected Somewhat connected Very connected

    Thanks for your thoughts. On to section two…

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 4.

203

The SECOND SECTION ASKS ABOUT THE LAST HOMILY that you heard this same preacher preach.

THE SUNDAY HOMILY Neither Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly Please circle the number that gives your most accurate response. Agree or Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree (1) (2) (4) (5) (3)

26. This Sunday homily made me feel full of life. 1 2 3 4 5

27. This homily had a central idea that I can still remember. 1 2 3 4 5

28. This homily used words, examples, and images that I know. 1 2 3 4 5

29. This homily talked about following God and Jesus. 1 2 3 4 5

30. This homily helped me in the struggles of my daily life. 1 2 3 4 5

31. This homily was full of conviction. 1 2 3 4 5

32. This homily was sincere and personal. 1 2 3 4 5

33. This homily helped me to understand the Scriptures better. 1 2 3 4 5

34. This homily opened me up to receive the Eucharist better. 1 2 3 4 5

35. This homily inspired discussion among my family and friend(s). 1 2 3 4 5

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 5.

204

36. If I had a video or a written copy of this homily, or a link to it on Yes No Don’t know the web, I would recommend it of give it to a friend.

To be with Other 37. What is the chief reason that you went to Mass this particular To worship To be I was my friends day? God entertained required to and/or family ______

38. On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the very best, how would you rate how well this particular homily connected with you and your spiritual needs? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective:

______1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Completely Disconnected Somewhat connected Very connected

39. On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the very best, how would you rate how well this particular homily motivated you to deepen your commitment to God? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective:

______1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 De-motivating Somewhat motivating Highly motivating

40. As a grade of A to F, how would you rate the quality of that particular homily in relation to other public speaking that you have heard in the non-religious (e.g. education, sports, political, TV, or entertainment) world? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective. The homily was:

______F- F D C B A A+ Worse than other talks About the same Better than other talks

    Thanks for your input. On to section three…

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 6.

205

The THIRD SECTION gives you a chance to describe your own religious life. Please be as real as you can.

YOUR WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD Neither Strongly Somewhat Please circle the number that gives your most accurate Agree or Somewhat Strongly Agree Agree response. Disagree Disagree Disagree (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

41. I believe in God. 1 2 3 4 5

42. I consider myself to be a religious and/or spiritual person. i 1 2 3 4 5

43. Going to Mass matters a lot to me. 1 2 3 4 5

44. I am involved in my faith more than by just attending 1 2 3 4 5 Mass. (Youth group, retreat team, service projects etc.)

45. I am happy with the way my life is going. 1 2 3 4 5

46. My friends are generally strong in their faith. 1 2 3 4 5

47. Following Jesus is an important value in my family. 1 2 3 4 5

48. My parish helps me to grow spiritually. 1 2 3 4 5

49. I talk to others about my faith. 1 2 3 4 5

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 7.

206

THE PERSON OF THE LISTENER

How important are these things to your life? Really Somewhat Not Not at all Important (Note that the categories have changed from “agree” to Important Important Important Important (2) “important”.) (1) (3) (4) (5)

50. Growing closer to God. 1 2 3 4 5

51. Trying to be a good person. 1 2 3 4 5

52. Praying. 1 2 3 4 5

53. Getting along with my parent(s). 1 2 3 4 5

54. Excelling in extracurriculars –sports, debate, music, etc. 1 2 3 4 5

55. Making God first in my life. 1 2 3 4 5

56. Getting good grades in school. 1 2 3 4 5

57. Having an active social life. 1 2 3 4 5

58. Having adults who understand me. 1 2 3 4 5

    Thanks for your honesty. On to section four, the last bank of questions…

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 8.

207

In the first part of the questionnaire, all of the questions were about one specific preacher. Now, in this FOURTH SECTION, think about all of the Sunday preaching that you have heard in the last year. (Do not include special events that you have attended outside of your parish.)

59. Think of all of the Sunday homilies that you have heard in the last year. Put an (X) in the space next to the word(s) that best describes your overall impression of the Catholic preaching that you have listened to (you may mark as many as you like):

[ ] Comforting [ ] Flat, Boring Delivery [ ] Helpful to my life [ ] Talked down to me

[ ] Helped me grow in my faith [ ] Uplifting, made me be a [ ] Harsh, judgmental [ ] Frustrating better person

[ ] Rambling, pointless [ ] Interesting, mentally [ ] Confusing [ ] Didn’t seem to matter stimulating that I was there

[ ] Easy to follow [ ] Inspired me to commit myself [ ] Helped me to forgive [ ] Made me feel good to following Jesus someone

60 a.) If you marked the box above “helped me grow in my faith” or “uplifting, made me a better person,” what was that experience like? Please describe that as clearly as you can. (If you didn’t mark either of those two, go on to the next question.)

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 9.

208

60 b.) If you didn’t mark that you’ve had an experience in the last year where preaching helped you to “grow in your faith” or “uplifted you and made you a better person,” what does it feel like to come to Mass each week and not be helped in your faith? Please describe that as clearly as you can.

61. In the last year, out of a possible 52 weeks, how many times would you estimate that the Catholic preaching that you have heard inspired, motivated, or uplifted you? Put an (X) on that spot:

______0 13 26 39 52 Never Sometimes Every single week

62. In the last year, out of a possible 52 weeks, how many times have you given a preacher constructive feedback or input about his homily (other than… “Nice homily, Father… or Deacon…)? Put an (X) on that spot:

______0 13 26 39 52 Never Sometimes Every single week

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 10.

209

63. If you could tell the preachers in your parish anything about their preaching and how to make it more effective in connecting with you and other people of your age, what would you tell them?

Recommendation: As we look at preachers who connect well with young people, we would like to observe those whom you feel have really help you grow in faith. Would you be willing to recommend someone as a really fine example of what preaching to young people should be like?

Name of Preacher______

Name of Parish ______

City______State______

    Thanks! You are all done with your survey. Please take it to the front of the room and place it upside down on the stack of surveys. Nicely done! (If you have more that you would like to say about Catholic preaching, please sign up on the interview sheet.)

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 11.

210

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? A STUDY OF YOUNG LISTENERS’ CONNECTION WITH CATHOLIC SUNDAY PREACHING Survey B

You have come to this page from page one because you answered [no] to either of the following two questions.

8. Are you a baptized Catholic? [ Yes ] [No] This means that either you are not a Catholic or one who is not 9. Do you regularly attend a religious service (outside of school) regularly attending Mass. Is this true? [Yes] [No] at least once a month? [Yes] [No]  If this is correct, please continue. If not, please go back to page two and continue there.

Thanks! You are now in the right place. Your answers are just as valuable to this study as the first bank of questions. This FIRST SECTION gives you a chance to describe your own life. Please be as honest and real as you can.

YOUR WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD Neither Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly Please circle the number of that most accurately reflects your Agree or Agree Agree Disagree Disagree response. Disagree (1) (2) (4) (5) (3)

64. I believe in God. 1 2 3 4 5

65. I am a religious and/or spiritual person. 1 2 3 4 5

66. I am happy with the way my life is going 1 2 3 4 5

67. I go to religious services in my own faith tradition regularly. 1 2 3 4 5

68. My friends are generally strong in their faith. 1 2 3 4 5

69. I have a church or faith community that helps me to grow. 1 2 3 4 5

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 12.

211

THE PERSON OF THE LISTENER Really Somewhat Not Not at all Important Please evaluate how important these things are to your life. Important Important Important Important (2) (1) (3) (4) (5)

70. Growing closer to God. 1 2 3 4 5

71. Trying to be a good person. 1 2 3 4 5

72. Praying. 1 2 3 4 5

73. Getting along with my parent(s). 1 2 3 4 5

74. Excelling in extracurriculars –sports, debate, music, etc. 1 2 3 4 5

75. Making God first in my life. 1 2 3 4 5

76. Getting good grades in school. 1 2 3 4 5

77. Having an active social life. 1 2 3 4 5

78. Having adults who understand me. 1 2 3 4 5

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 13.

212

79. Think of all of the Catholic school homilies (or sermons) that you have heard at Mass this year at school. Put an (X) in the space next to the word(s) that best describes your impression of that preaching. (Please mark as many as apply to your experience.):

[ ] Comforting [ ] Flat, boring delivery [ ] Helpful to my life [ ] Talked down to me

[ ] Helped me grow in my faith [ ] Uplifting, made me be a [ ] Harsh, judgmental [ ] Frustrating better person

[ ] Rambling, pointless [ ] Interesting, mentally [ ] Confusing [ ] Didn’t seem to matter stimulating that I was there

[ ] Easy to follow [ ] Inspired me to commit myself [ ] Helped me to forgive [ ] Made me feel good to following Jesus. someone

80. On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the very best, how would you rate that Catholic preaching in terms of connecting with you and your spiritual needs? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective. It is:

______1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Completely disconnected to my growth in faith Somewhat connected Very connected

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 14.

213

81. If you regularly attend a religious service of another Christian faith tradition or another religion, please rate the effectiveness of your own preacher (or speaker) in terms of connecting with you and your spiritual needs? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective. He or she is: (I don’t go often enough to say ______)

______1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Completely disconnected to my growth in faith Somewhat connected Very connected

82. The concept of “connection” between a preacher and a young person is important to this study. Please describe what it means for a preacher to “connect” with you. If none do, describe what that is like for you for no preacher to connect with you.

83. Is there an adult who connects well with you? (Think of teachers, parents, youth leaders, etc.) How would you describe what happens when that person connects with you? Are there certain things that he or she does or says, specific symptoms or signs of real connection? (Some kids are just not “word” people. If it would help you to describe it better, draw a picture or a cartoon of what “good connection” looks like.)

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 15.

214

Page 1

84. If you do not regularly attend a religious service, describe why not. What is your (and/or your parents) experience of church?

85. Describe what it is like for you to attend a Catholic school as a non-Catholic or a non-religion-practicing person.

86. If you could tell the people in charge of the Catholic Church anything about their effectiveness in connecting with young people, what would you say?

Name of Preacher______

Name of Church/Synagogue/Mosque/Temple ______

City______State______

   

Thanks! You are all done with your survey. Please take it to the front of the room and place it upside down on the stack of surveys. Nicely done!

Figure A.3. Are You Talking to Me? Paper Survey (in portrait), page 16.

215

Appendix A.4. Focus Group Questions:

1) Fill in the blank: Sunday preaching in your parish is______. (Tell me more about that.)

2) Can you give me an image or metaphor that describes that preaching?

2) Tell me about a time when preaching really “connected” for you.

3) Can you tell me about a preacher who helps you to grow? What are some of the things that he does or says that makes that happen?

4) If you could tell your preacher one thing that he could do in his preaching to help you grow in your faith, what would that be?

216

Appendix A.5. Clergy Interview Questions

Introduction: I will start with the big picture of clergy life and then I will narrow to the specific, so the first questions are very broad. I have spent my life as a person in the pew. In order to learn how to connect the pulpit and the pew, I need to understand your life. I hope that you can help me to do that.

1. In general, what do you want for your people?

2. What do you find most rewarding in your ministry? Why? What are those rewards?

3. When they come away from Mass, what do you want your people to take away with them?

4. What do you see as the role of the homily in creating that?

5. What is your part in that?

6. Other than “Good homily, Father,” what sort of feedback do you get on your preaching from people in the pew?

7. If you don’t get feedback, how do you know how you are doing? If you were to get feedback from people in the pew, what would be most helpful for you to hear?

8. How or when do clergy discuss preaching among themselves?

9. How do you keep your preaching fresh? How do you prepare?

10. Describe this study of young listeners. (Keep the focus specific. Focus on connection/effectiveness.)

11. If I were to present the results of my study of young listeners, what style of continuing education would be effective in presenting this?

12. From your perspective, what is the most effective means of improving preaching?

13. Preaching preparation groups – have you used them? If so, how did they help? If not, what are the reasons that you have not?

14. Parish priests have many things to do. On a scale of zero to ten, zero (meaning not important) to ten (as the most important), how important is the preparation of your Sunday homily in terms of your time commitment? How important do you think that it is in the life of your parishioners?

217

APPENDIX B

PREACHING ASSESSMENT TOOLS

218

Appendix B.1. Preaching Consultant Evaluation

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) FIYH Wallace DeLeers Fields and NCEA Bellinger Robbins Faithful - is it Experiential – Personal – is it a Passion – is the Does it Is it visual – faithful to does it name loving giving of preacher spiritually does it include Church the people’s self, a personal excited about touch its stories, teaching? experience of word of the this message? listeners? images, real- the sacrament preacher to his life examples? being people? celebrated? Conversational Biblical – is Liturgical – does Commonality – Does it inspire Is it concrete – – does it there a it flow from and does it speak listeners to does it connect provide a controlling back into the words that the examine their to those in the Scriptural image from the liturgy? listeners lives? pew where interpretation of Scriptures? understand? they live? human existence? Unifying – does Christocentric Inculturated – is it Concern – does Is it applicable Does the it give – does it make adapted to the the preacher to daily life? person of the expression to Christ present needs of the communicate preacher offer the unity of the to the listeners? that he cares a positive baptized? assembly; about his model of mediate an listeners? Church? encounter with the risen Lord? Meaningful – Ecclesial – is Clarifying – does Fresh and New Does it help Does it love does the there a wide- it bring clarity and Ideas - if an old listeners to and affirm? preacher lens; are all explication to the message, is it in understand Is it warm and mediate who are present Scripture? words that are Church friendly? meaning included in original and /or teaching? through the some way? contemporary? homily? Pastoral – is it Liturgical – Actualizing – is it Personal Style – Does it help Does it prayerful? Does does it evoke a living and is the preacher the listener to challenge the it sound like the response of dynamic, showing approachable? understand hearer to grow preacher knows faith that leads forth Christ’s today’s in faith? his assembly? to the worship presence? Scripture? of God? Witness – does Personal – does Visual – can the Is the message Is it well- it sound like a it touch the hearer see what was clear and constructed person of faith hearts of those the preacher is well- and have one speaking? present? talking about? organized? focal point? Continuity - Brief – was it What is the Memorable – Does it hold Does it does it speak to short enough? preacher’s CQ? does it say the listeners’ connect, help, its broader (Conversational something that attention? and relate to, context in the Quality) the listener can people’s lives? bigger world? remember?

Figure B.1. Evaluation of the Homily to Personalize a Homiletic Training Program, page 219

219

Delivery Analysis Delivery Characteristics (7) Volume – listen for carrying Too soft Too loud quality Pitch – watch changes in Monotone Tentative voice, use changes in inflection Too much Arrogance for effectiveness; watch for inflection extraneous inflection change Pulpit Speak Up-speak Rate – look for speed, silences Too fast Filler words Too slow False endings Not enough pause, silence Voice Quality – look for Fluid Nasal range, seek to vary the voice Breathy Smoky for different effects Throaty Gentle Deep Rich Raspy Thin Loving Harsh Resonant Other Body Language - look for Approachable/ Expressive/Flat gesture, motion, posture, eye Distant Confident/Nervous contact, expression in the eyes Relaxed/Tense Appropriate/Incongruent Stiff/Lively Looking over Interactive/Self-Absorbed heads/looking Distracting mannerisms into eyes Timing of gestures Use of notes/written Stance material Distance from audience

This rubric was compiled and adapted from the following sources: (1) USCCB, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 1982; (2) Wallace, 81-93; (3) DeLeers, 45-46; (4) Fields, and Robbins, 106-184; (5) Schmitt, 27-30; (6) From the author’s focus groups; (7) Verderber, Verderber, and Selnow, 77.

Figure B.1. Evaluation of the Homily to Personalize a Homiletic Training Program, page 2

220

APPENDIX B.2 Preaching Self-Assessment

PREACHING SELF-ASSESSMENT

DIOCESE OF ______(DATE)

The diocese of (____) is pioneering a preaching improvement project. In order to evaluate improvement, we need to know where we currently are. The following questions will give us information from which to begin, as well as to give you input into methods which would be most helpful to you in your preaching. We would like to design the process with you in mind. Please be as straightforward as you can in your answers. Your responses will be kept confidential. The goal of this process is to evangelize our culture by rekindling our parishes through excellence in preaching. Thank you for your sincerity!

DEMOGRAPHICS - First, please give some basic information about yourself.

1. Name ______

2. Name of Workplace ______Email address______

3. Work Address ______

City______Phone ______(C) ______(W)

4. District ______

5. The number of times that you preach in a month ______

6. Your role as preacher: Pastor ___Parochial Vicar___ Retired, part-time ___Visiting___ Deacon___ Other______

7. Your birth date: month ______year______

8. How much time in a week do you take to prepare for Sunday liturgical preaching? ______hours per week

9. How much time per month could you commit to improving your preaching? ______hours per month

10. How often is preaching the subject of conversation with your priest and/or deacon friends? ______times per month

11. How often per month do you get constructive and thoughtful feedback from parishioners about your preaching (other than “Good homily, Father” on their way out the door)? ______times per month

221

ASSESSING YOUR OWN PREACHING

Please circle the number that gives your most

(2) (3) (4) (5)

accurate response to your own personal satisfaction (1) Satisfied

with how you are doing in your own preaching. Not Satisfied

Very satisfiedVery Very Dissatisfied Very

Somewhat Satisfied

12. I put quality time and prayer into preparing my homilies. 1 2 3 4 5

13. Preaching is a fulfilling part of my ministry. 1 2 3 4 5

14. My preaching uses new ideas and is constantly fresh. 1 2 3 4 5

15. My people have become more faith-filled disciples of Jesus as a result of my preaching. 1 2 3 4 5

16. My preaching reflects the teachings of the Church. 1 2 3 4 5

17. I listen deeply and understand the daily lives of my people. 1 2 3 4 5

18. I am supported by my diocese for my ministry in preaching. 1 2 3 4 5

19. My preaching includes and addresses all ages, genders, and races. 1 2 3 4 5

20. I have adequate time for quiet reflection upon the Scriptures upon which I am to preach. 1 2 3 4 5

222

THE CONTENT OF PREACHING

Which of the following do you use in your

preaching? Please circle the number that gives

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Often

Never Rarely

your most accurate response. Always Sometimes Sometimes

21. Explaining the Scriptures. 1 2 3 4 5

22. Giving moral exhortation. 1 2 3 4 5

23. Teaching the doctrines of the faith. 1 2 3 4 5

24. Talking about life. 1 2 3 4 5

25. Discussing world events and issues. 1 2 3 4 5

26. Offering advice. 1 2 3 4 5

27. Telling stories that relate to the Scriptures or 1 2 3 4 5 to the main point.

28. Pointing to the Eucharist and other 1 2 3 4 5 sacraments.

29. Naming the pains of life and offering a 1 2 3 4 5 Scriptural response.

30. Motivating my people to personally commit 1 2 3 4 5 themselves to Jesus.

31. Encouraging mercy, forgiveness and 1 2 3 4 5 reconciliation.

32. Incorporating the arts – movies, TV, 1 2 3 4 5 literature, poetry, music, and dance.

33. Explaining words/ images of the liturgy. 1 2 3 4 5

223

34. In general, what do you consider to be your greatest strengths in preaching?

35. In general, what do you consider to be your chief struggles in preaching?

36. If you could pick two areas in which you would like to grow in your preaching, what would they be?

I learn best through: My preferred method of delivering a Sunday homily is: ___Workshops ___Studying on my own ___With a written manuscript ___Discussing with colleagues ___With notes ___Seeing myself on video ___Without notes, but previously written or outlined ___Watching good speakers ___Without notes, as the Spirit leads ___One-on-one feedback

Other ______Other______

224

APPENDIX B.3. Personal Goal-Setting Form

PERSONAL GOAL SETTING IN PREACHING

Name ______

Date ______

At the conclusion of the preaching consult, together determine two goals that you will commit yourself to for the next year. Aim high but not so high that they are unreachable. You are shooting for excellence in preaching. What two steps can you take that will help you to get there?

You will share these goals with the preaching preparation teams that you will form at each of the workshops in the course of the year. They will encourage and support you toward accomplishing these goals.

GOAL 1 GOAL 2

How will I know when How will I know when I have accomplished it? I have accomplished it?

225

APPENDIX B.4. Parish Evaluation of the Homily THE SUNDAY HOMILY THAT I LAST HEARD

Please circle the number that gives your most

accurate response.

Agree Agree

Agree

Neither

Strongly Strongly Strongly

Disagree Disagree Disagree

Somewhat Somewhat Somewhat

1. This Sunday homily made me feel full of life. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2. This homily had a central idea that I can still remember. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3. This homily used words, examples, and images that I related to. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4. This homily talked about following God and Jesus. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5. This homily helped me in the struggles of my daily life. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. This homily was full of conviction. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. This homily was sincere and personal. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8. This homily helped me to understand the Scriptures better. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

9. This homily opened me up to receive the Eucharist better. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10. This homily inspired discussion among my family and friend(s). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. If I had a video or a written copy of this

homily, or a link to it on the web, I would No

recommend it or give it to a friend. Yes

MaybeSo Maybe Not Don’t know

226

12. On a scale of 0 to 10, ten being the very best, how would you rate how well this particular homily connected with you and your spiritual needs? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Completely Somewhat Very Disconnected connected connected

13. On a scale of 0 to 10, ten being the very best, how would you rate how well this particular homily motivated you to deepen your commitment to God? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Completely Somewhat Very demotivating motivating motivating

14. On a scale of 0 to 10, how would you rate the quality of the last homily that you heard in relation to other public speaking that you have heard in the non-religious (e.g. education, sports, political, TV, or entertainment) world? Put an (X) on the spot that best represents your perspective. The homily was:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Much worse About the same Much better

15. If you could tell this preacher anything about how to improve his preaching, what would you tell him?

Initials of the preacher evaluated______Time of Mass attended______

    Thanks for your input!

227

APPENDIX B.5. Measuring Long-term Impact for Discipleship Growth

THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF

PREACHING

Please describe your experience of what has

happened in your life as a result of the preaching

that you have heard this year. Circle the number of

Agree Agree Agree

agreement that most accurately describes what you Somewhat Completely have experienced. Completelynot do 1. I have gained courage in overcoming the obstacles in my life. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2. I have felt closer to God’s presence. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 3. I have a stronger understanding of Scripture. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 4. I am more willing to speak about my faith to others. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 5. I am more motivated to act charitably as Jesus did. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6. I have improved my attitude so that I am happier. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7. I have grown in my understanding of Church teaching. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. I know better how to integrate my faith with my world. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9. I understand life more clearly. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10. I stay in touch with God and pray more. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 11. I am more committed to improving my relationship with Jesus. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12. I understand better the kind of person that God wants me to be. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13. I participate more actively at Mass. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 14. I more deeply appreciate the Eucharist. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 15. I am more aware of how and where God is calling me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 16. I have grown more thankful. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 17. I have turned my life back to Jesus. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 18. I am more dedicated to serving the poor and marginalized. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 19. I participate more actively in my parish. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20. I have grown more forgiving and merciful to others. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

228

APPENDIX B.6. Categorized qualitative responses to question 60a as the source for the assessment in appendix B.5.

Categories for Growing in Faith from Question 60a Response

1. Changed Emotion a. good/happy 13 b. calm 1 c. uplifting/encouraging 4 d. hopeful 1 e. enlightened/inspired 4 f. comforted 2 g. community bond 3 2. Changed Behavior a. go to church more/participate in parish community life more 4 b. be a better person/better Catholic 18 c. help others/working for others/treat others better 13 d. pray more/stay in touch with God more 5 e. imitate Jesus/saints/other good people 3 f. other/or general 6 g. forgive 1 h. work harder in school 1 3. Changed Understanding a. general better understanding 10 b. understood life better 5 c. understood God/Jesus better/assured of faith 16 d. understood Christianity/Church teaching/Scripture better 10 e. understand the kind of person I want to be/where I am going in my life/my calling/ vocation 14 4. Changed Attitude a. worry/troubles 2 b. understood 2 c. strengthened 1 d. thankful 1 e. affirmed 1 f. hopeful 1 5. Deepened spirituality /relationship with God a. closer to God's presence 15 b. hunger/strengthened for better relationship/overcoming obstacles 9 c. learn more about God 1 d. turn back again/realized forgiveness 6

229

APPENDIX B.7. Goals and objectives in the “Connect” process

GOALS

Meet the need of the people of God for preaching that helps them to grow in faith and become practice-centered Christians.

Meet the needs of individual clergy to improve their preaching through locally accessible, “user-friendly” programs.

Design a pilot program in preaching improvement for a diocese to implement through its districts to strengthen individual parishes.

Design that pilot program so that it is scalable to a national level by diocese.

Find financial resources and build support to implement such a program.

OBJECTIVES

Preachers will learn to assess their own preaching and set goals for improvement on an ongoing basis.

Preachers will grow in understanding of parishioners’ daily lives and how to relate to those concerns in light of the gospel through Sunday liturgical preaching.

Parishioners will grow in their listening skills as an integral element of spiritual growth.

Both preachers and listeners will work together to make their parish preaching as strong as possible.

The institutional Church will take this task to heart to support growth in preaching as a priority for the life of its people.

230

APPENDIX C

WORKSHOP RESOURCES

231

Appendix C.1. Workshop Materials

Table C.1.1. Summary of workshop segments

1) Welcome and opening Prayer 2) Ground rules 3) Checking-in 4) Listening overview 5) Attention – distraction 6) Attention – selectivity 7) Snack break 8) Knowledge – categorization 9) Knowledge – comprehension 10) Memory – stickiness 11) Lunch 12) Recap, review and regroup 13) Preaching application overview 14) Diagnosis by listener response 15) Lectio divina introduction 16) Evaluation of homily outline 17) Parish envisioning 18) Action plan 19) Recognizing talents/committing to the process 20) Conclusion and closing prayer

232

Table C.1.2. Workshop roles

Who What They Do

District coordinator Gets people there, sets up facilities; seat at tables by parish – the parish participants work together as a unit, building as a team to become the future parish preaching preparation team

Workshop facilitator Presents the workshop, keeps an eye on group dynamics, supports and encourages engagement, helps to bond community

Table leader Participant from the parish (not the preacher), responsible keeping the flow of conversation; sets the tone for discussion; sees that all stay engaged in the day; follow the ground rules of open sharing, confidentiality, one speaking at a time, no side conversations, no cell phones or texting, no web-browsing on laptops

Table Recorder Participant from the parish (not the preacher), keeps a record of the discussion of the group; collects post-its from various exercises; attaches sheets to the wall; takes them home with him/her and types up discussion and decisions of the group

Technical Assistant Assistant to the workshop facilitator; does any of the technical details so that the facilitator is free to interact with participants without worrying about technical details of computer, pens, pencils, tape, worksheets – knows the outline and what materials are needed next.

Participants Parish preachers and at least 3-4 young people per preacher, youth minister or other who is actively involved with ministry with youth. (For larger parishes, that may be two tables.)

233

Table C.1.3. Workshop supply list

Materials Needed How Many Segment When Needed

Video Are You Talking to One 4-6, 8-10, 14-15, 18-19 Me?

Video Projector One With video

Computer One With video

Flip Chart and Easel One After each input segment, summarize input and hang up

Koosh balls One per table Each discussion

Copy paper, various colors 100 sheets per table 3,5,8,9,12,14,18

Folders One per participant At the beginning

Pens, pencils, markers One per participant At the beginning

Emotions paper, in an One per participant in an 17 envelope envelope one per table

Group Prayer One per participant 1,10,20

Talent and Commitment One per participant 19 Sheet

Workbook One per participant At the end

2X2 Post-it notes One pack per participant 3,5,8-10, 12, 18

Action figure Brought by participants 17 (bring extras for those who forget)

Snacks Lots, brought by participants 7

234

Table C.1.5. Emotions to be cut apart for role play in segment 17

Fear Joy Elation Acceptance Gratitude

Anger Shame Sadness Distress Frustration

Disgust Contempt Guilt Hostility Shame

Suffering Hope Sadness Patience Envy

Compassion Apathy Confusion Forgiveness Despair

Hope Doubt Empathy Affection Regret

Pity Excitement Horror Rage Grief

235

Table C.1.6. Preaching stickiness: our parish challenges

Symptom Comments from my Experience

Attention-getting: they stare into space.

Attention-retaining: They like the opening, then they seem to dose off.

Getting people to care: They don’t get fired up to deepen their faith lives.

Getting people to understand: They don’t seem to get it.

Getting people to remember: They forget as soon as they walk out the door.

Getting people to respond: There is no fruit in their lives or feedback at all.

Getting people to act

Getting people to believe me or agree with me.

Source: Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Succeed and Others Die, New York: Random House, 2007.

236

Table C.1.7. Crafting the homily: the stickiness check-list

Location in the Factor How to Accomplish It  homily

Find the core of your message: Find the pearl of great price: Determine your single most important point; don’t bury it or wander; prioritize and speak of what matters Simple Share that core: Use proverbs; visual images; sound bites that are profound: 1) Use what’s there – tap into what people know, their existing schemas; 2) Create a high concept pitch; 3) Use an analogy that makes them think Get their attention: Use surprise; take it from an angle Unexpected they never thought of Hold their attention by: create a mystery; highlight something they don’t know; use the news teaser approach Help people understand and remember: preach with the concreteness of a parable; put abstract ideas into concrete everyday language; provide a context they all know; put Concrete real people in the story, ones who have feelings and voices and emotions; Velcro theory of memory – the more hooks they relate to the better: use convincing details – all senses – what it feels, smells, sounds, tastes, looks like Help people connect: find a common ground where you share understanding; set small goals in everyday terms; make it real; create a turf where people live, where they can bring their expertise; talk about people, not abstractions. Help people believe you External believability - from confidence (I know from experience) and anti-authority (I wonder or I too Credible struggle…) Internal credibility - with detail; make doctrine accessible; If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere; use testable credentials (try before you buy); respect their intelligence and make them think Make people care: If I do one thing, I will act Associate your topic with something they really care about Appeal to self-interest - does it matter to them?

Emotional Assume the best; don’t assume they are worse than you Appeal to identity – how do they see themselves? The “Curse of Knowledge” – don’t assume that others know or care at the same level that you do; connect it to their life to help them to know or care Get people to act: use stories Use stories as simulation (tell people how to act) Stories Use stories as inspiration (give people energy to act) Learn to spot inspiring stories, ones that get people moving

237

Table C.1.8. Talent/commitment sheet

I have talents in these five areas:

I will use these talents in the preaching preparation group. This day, I commit myself to this group to help to improve the preaching in our parish.

Name ______Date______

238

Table C.1.9. Preaching Preparation Team Action Plan

What? What are we as a group going to do to help the preaching in our parish better connect the pulpit and the pew?

Why? What do we hope to accomplish? What are our goals?

Who? What roles will each of us play? What will each commit to do?

How? How will we do it?

When? What is our plan for timing? What works best for us to get together? For how long?

Where? What location(s) would work best to facilitate this process?

239

Appendix C.2. Materials for the Workbook

APPENDIX C.2.1 Opening Page for Preaching Preparation Team Gatherings

Seeing the Vision Taking the Steps Needed to Get There

1) Read the quote aloud:

2) Hold up a lofty vision for each member of the group:

The parish priest is a role model for his people. The homilist preaches a message that is opens up a (Graphic window into God. The listener is receptive and open to what God is doing for that and responsive (co-creates meaning) with that word in an vision) encounter with the Holy Spirit. The parish together is renewed by that connected liturgical experience of light and joy and peace. The faith of that community then radiates outward to rejuvenate the culture in which it lives.

    Moving ever more broadly, in that same spirit, in the opening quote that we read, John Paul II pictured the Church as a focal point for passion, enthusiasm, and gospel adventure as a source of hope for the world.

That is the vision. How do we get there? What can each of us personally do to make it happen? How can we work as a team to make it happen?

   

25John Paul II, “World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 1995.” National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, http://www.nfcym.org/catholicym/index.htm [accessed October 10, 2011].

240

APPENDIX C.2.2. Ground Rules for discussion:

Speak openly and honestly, but only speak for yourself.

One person speak at a time – pass the (____ item) to the person who wishes to speak – whoever has the item has the floor; no side conversations.

Listen to understand; listen openly; work to process what the other person is saying and why. Don’t judge. You don’t really know what goes on inside of another person unless they tell you and you are really listening.

Turn off all electronic devices for the duration of the preaching preparation team meeting and be truly present to each other. Work to be deeply attentive to each other

Respect each person’s contributions and keep them to yourself. Do not spread around what you have heard, either in person or online.

241

APPENDIX C.2.3. Suggested outline for preaching preparation groups

Share the vision of where you are going as a preaching preparation team (page one above).

Check-in. Where you are today and what do we need to pray for that is going on in your life? Intercessory prayer for intentions of the group and renewal of the parish

Oral proclamation of the Sunday readings.

Silent prayer and listening to connect with God.

Sharing of a word or phrase that stood out for you.

Silent prayer and listening to connect with the needs of others.

Second oral proclamation of the Sunday readings; assigned “scholar for the day” gives background to the reading.

Sharing of how this Scripture speaks to this particular community – what you know of their struggles, pains, hopes, desires.

Sharing of C.2.3 – Relate to Me Worksheet: name concrete details of connection with daily life and where it is in this passage.

Questioning – what is not clear? What do we need to learn to clarify this reading? Where is God in this passage? What is Jesus doing? Who are other characters in these passages? What are they feeling? Where do I personally connect with the people in this passage? What is it saying to me? What is this saying to our community? What is churning within me as a way to grow as a disciple of Jesus?

Look at the rubric B.5, long-term impact. Agree on one function of discipleship growth that this homily could respond to.

Preacher’s thoughts and questions; his sense of direction for the homily.

Look at the stickiness worksheet (C.2.5). Pick one element to incorporate into this homily. Questions, comments, lingering thoughts and discussion points.

Responsibility for feedback – divvy up who will give feedback: 1) immediate (homily pew cards to go in collection basket; 2) Three days later – what stuck? (electronic form); 3) One week later – what have I done differently as a result of the homily? (Alternate who does what, review action plan (C.1.6) if needed.)

Closing prayer for renewal of the parish through preaching and sign of peace.

242

APPENDIX C.2.4. Relate to Me Worksheet

Relate to me. What does that mean? Start with commonalities.

Identify 3 foods (or…) that you all like.

Describe 4 emotions (or …) that you have all felt.

Look for points of intersection. What do you have in common?

Name 10 things that you all have in common.

What does the Scripture say to any of those?

243

APPENDIX C.2.5. Crafting the homily: the stickiness check-list

Where in the Factor How to Accomplish It  homily? Find the core of your message: Find the pearl of great price: Determine your single most important point; don’t bury it or wander; prioritize and speak of what matters Simple Share that core: Use proverbs; visual images; sound bites that are profound: 1) Use what’s there – tap into what people know, their existing schemas; 2) Create a high concept pitch; 3) Use an analogy that makes them think Get their attention: Use surprise; take it from an angle Unexpected they never thought of Hold their attention by: create a mystery; highlight something they don’t know; use the news teaser approach Help people understand and remember: preach with the concreteness of a parable; put abstract ideas into concrete everyday language; provide a context they all know; put Concrete real people in the story, ones who have feelings and voices and emotions; Velcro theory of memory – the more hooks they relate to the better: use convincing details – all senses – what it feels, smells, sounds, tastes, looks like Help people connect: find a common ground where you share understanding; set small goals in everyday terms; make it real; create a turf where people live, where they can bring their expertise; talk about people, not abstractions Help people believe you External believability - from confidence (I know from experience) and anti-authority (I wonder or I too Credible struggle…) Internal credibility - with detail; make doctrine accessible; use testable credentials (try before you buy); respect their intelligence and make them think Make people care: If I do one thing, I will act Associate your topic with something they really care about Appeal to self-interest - does it matter to them?

244

APPENDIX C.2.6 Feedback Prompts

Figure C.2.1. Homily feedback pew postcard

Electronic feedback, 3-4 days later: Verbal (or written) feedback one week later: Here is what I remember from what you said on Sunday: Here is what I took away from what you said last Sunday:

This is why I remember it:

This is how I have let it impact my life this week: This is how that memory has helped me in the last three days:

Figure C.2.2. Electronic feedback prompt Figure C.2.3. Post - one week feedback prompt

245

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Ronald J. Hearing the Sermon: Relationship/ Content/ Feeling. St Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004.

——. “How Do Sermons Help People Change? Discoveries from 263 Interviews with People who Listen to Sermons.” Encounter 69 (2008): 61-75.

——. “Is Preaching Caught or Taught?” Theological Education 41 (2005): 137-152.

——. “Listening to the Listeners Five Years Later.” Homiletic 32 (2009): 4-17. http://homiletic.net/viewissue.php?id=4#Articles [accessed July 27, 2011].

Ariely, Dan. “Controlling the Information Flow: Effects on Consumers’ Decision Making and Preferences.” Journal of Consumer Research 27 (2000). http://www.jstor.org. ezp.slu.edu/stable /10.1086/314322 [accessed April 20, 2011].

Arnold, William E. and Lynne McClure. Communication Training and Development, 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1996.

Atkinson, O’Brien. How to Make Us Want Your Sermon: By a Listener. New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1942.

Bartow, Charles L. The Preaching Moment: A Guide to Sermon Delivery. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980.

Bavelas, Janet B., Linda Coates, and Trudy Johnson. “Listeners as Co-narrators.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 941.

Bellman, Geoffrey M. and Leslie Kelly. “Create Effective Workshops.” The American Society for Training and Development, 2000. http://www.astd.org/NR/rdonlyres/ FA55FBDC-440B-42D7-B2CB-25BB8BF4E8E4/12363/training_create.pdf [accessed July 12, 2011].

Benedict XVI. Verbum Domini [Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, 2010]. Vatican. http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_exh_ 20100930_verbum-domini_en.html [accessed January 23, 2012].

Brown, Carolyn C. You Can Preach to the Kids Too! Designing Sermons for Adults and Children. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997.

Burghardt, Walter J. Preaching: The Art and the Craft. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.

246

Carrell, Lori. “Communication Training for Clergy: Exploring Impact on the Transformative Quality of Sermon Communication.” Communication Education 58 (2009):15-24.

——. The Great American Sermon Survey. Wheaton, IL: Mainstay Church Resources, 2000.

Chauvet, Louis-Marie. The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001.

Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: HarperCollins Business Essentials, 2007.

Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). “The Class of 2011: Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood.” CARA. http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and- teachings/vocations/ordination-class/upload/ ordination-class-2011-report.pdf [accessed July 12, 2011].

___. “The Impact of Religious Switching and Secularization on the Estimated Size of the U.S. Adult Catholic Population.” CARA. http://cara.georgetown.edu/rel022 808.pdf [accessed October 9, 2010].

___. “Self-reported Mass Attendance of U.S. Catholics Unchanged during Last Five Years.” CARA. http://cara.georgetown.edu/AttendPR.pdf [accessed July 15, 2011].

Chatteris, Chris, S.J. “Preaching in a Vacuum.” America 2000 (2009). http://www.america magazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11679 [accessed June 12, 2010].

Childers, Jana and Clayton J. Schmit, ed. Performance in Preaching. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008.

Clarkin, Michael. “5 Myths of Customer Satisfaction: Setting your Sights on the Right Targets.” Webinar, June 16, 2011. Marketing Profs. http://marketingprofs.chtah. com/a/h BN75NYAJaJZfB 8bk1QNg1pwIPu/alrt27 [accessed June 16, 2011].

Congar, Yves. “Sacramental Worship and Preaching.” In The Renewal of Preaching: Theory and Practice, ed. Karl Rahner, 51-63. New York: Paulist Press, 1968.

Congregation for the Clergy. General Directory for Catechesis. Congregation for the Clergy, 1997. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/ documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_17041998_directory-for-catechesis_en.html [accessed November 12, 2010].

247

Craddock, Fred B. As One without Authority: Revised and with New Sermons. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001.

Craddock, Fred B. Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985.

Dean, Kenda. Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

___. “Preaching to Youth.” In The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, edited by Paul Scott Wilson, Jana Childers, Cleophus J. LaRue, and John M. Rottman, 281- 283. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008.

DeLeers, Stephen. Written Text becomes Living Word: The Vision and Practice of Sunday Preaching. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004.

Dolan, Timothy. Priests for the Third Millennium. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2000.

Dulles, Avery, S.J. Models of Revelation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.

___. “The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II.” In Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.

Drucker, Peter. Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

Fagerberg, David. Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2004.

Feldmeir, Mark R. Stirred not Shaken: Themes for an Emerging Generation. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005.

Fields, Doug and Duffy Robbins. Speaking to Teenagers: How to Think about, Create, and Deliver Effective Messages. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007.

Fink, Arlene. How to Design Surveys. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1995.

Foley, Edward. Preaching Basics: A Model and a Method. Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 1998.

Fowler, James W. Stages of Faith. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1981.

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002.

248

Gorham, Joan. “The Relationship between Verbal Teacher Immediacy Behaviors and Student Learning.” Communication Education 37 (1988): 40-53.

Graves, Mike. The Fully Alive Preacher. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Guthrie, Cliff. “Quantitative Empirical Studies of Preaching: Do Sermons Persuade?” 2006 White Papers of the Academy of Homiletics. http://www.homiletics.org /members/Files/PDFs /2006/2006% 20Guthrie%20-20Quantative%20Empirical% 20Studies%20of%20Preaching.pdf [accessed November 30, 2010].

Harris, Daniel E. We Speak the Word of the Lord: A Practical Plan for More Effective Preaching. Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2001.

Heath, Chip and Dan Heath. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Succeed and Others Die. New York: Random House, 2007.

Hilkert, Mary Catherine. Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination. New York: Continuum, 1998.

Hogan, Lucy Lind. “Persuasion.” In The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson et al. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008, 360-362.

Howden, William D. “‘Good Homily, Preacher’: The Effects of Age, Sex, and Education on Hearer Response to Preaching.” Review of Religious Research 31(1989). http://www.jstor.org/pss/3511190 [accessed March 30, 2011].

Hoyer, Wayne D. and Deborah J. MacInnis. Consumer Behavior, 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Jacoby, John and Wayne D. Hoyer. “The Comprehension-Miscomprehension of Print Communication: Selected Findings.” Journal of Consumer Research 15 (1989):434-443. http://www.jstor.org. ezp.slu.edu/stable/2489540 [accessed April 30, 2011].

Jha, Amishi P., Jason Krompinger and Michael J. Baime. “Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention.” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 7 (2007):109-119. http://www.springerlink.com.ezp. slu.edu/content/kn27087813 v84771/ [accessed October 12, 2011].

John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis [Apostolic Letter, The Social Concern of the Church, 1987]. Vatican. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/ documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis_en.html [accessed October 14, 2011].

___. Vicesimus Quintus Annus [Apostolic Letter, 1988]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1995. 249

___. “World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 1995.” National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry. http://www.nfcym.org/catholicym/index.htm [accessed October 10, 2011].

Johnson, Eric J. and J. Edward Russo. “Product Familiarity and Learning New Information.” Journal of Consumer Research 11 (1984):542-551. http://www. jstor.org.ezp.slu.edu/ stable/2489141 [accessed April 20, 2011].

Karmarkar, Uma R. and Zakary L. Tormala. “Believe Me, I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About: The Effects of Source Certainty on Consumer Involvement and Persuasion.” Journal of Consumer Research 36 (2010): 1033-1042.

Kasper, Walter. The God of Jesus Christ. New York: Crossroad, 2000.

Keller, Kevin Lane. “Building Customer-Based Brand Equity.” Marketing Management 10 (2001): 15-19. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.slu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid =104&sid=19e08a31-df26-49cd-86fa-79568792b59e%40sessionmgr114&bdata= JnNpdGU9Z Whvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3 d%3d#db=buh&AN=4966486 [accessed July 10, 2010].

___. “Building Strong Brands in a Modern Marketing Communications Environment.” Journal of Marketing Communications 15 (2009), 139-155. http://web.ebscohost. com.ezp.slu.edu /ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=104&sid=83b73351-083b-4d07-9729- 567359ddec26 %40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZW hvc3QtbGl2ZQ %3d%3d#db=buh&AN =42411097 [accessed December 26, 2010].

Khalsa, Mahan. Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: The Demise of Dysfunctional Selling and the Advent of Helping Clients Succeed. Franklin Covey: White Water Press, 1999.

Lasley, Thomas J. II, Thomas J. Matczynski, and James B. Rowley. Instructional Models: Strategies for Teaching in a Diverse Society, 2nd ed. Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Inc., 2002.

Liteman, Merianne, Sheila Campbell, Jeff Liteman. Retreats that Work: Everything You Need To Know about Planning and Leading Great Offsites, Expanded edition. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2006.

Long, Thomas G., The Witness of Preaching, 2nd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.

Losoncy, Lawrence. Religious Education and the Life Cycle. Bethlehem, PA: Catechetical Communications, 1977.

Lovrick, Peter. “A Pedagogical Model for Homiletics at St. Augustine’s Seminary: They 250

Must Increase, and I Must Decrease.” DMin thesis, Aquinas Institute, 2009.

Lowry, Eugene L. The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Lowry, Richard. “Subchapter 14a.The Kruskal-Wallis Test for 3 or More Independent Samples.” Vassar College. http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/ch14a.html [accessed 1-16-12].

Marketing Profs. “Net Promoter Scores.” http://www.marketingprofs.com/ charts/2011/5150/privacy-concerns-erode-social-media-user- satisfaction#ixzz1O8jF0B5K [accessed 11-12-2011].

McCarty, Robert J. “Young People are Listening! Preaching and Liturgy with Youth.” Seminary Journal 13(2007): 24-27.

McClure, John S. The Roundtable Pulpit: Where Leadership and Preaching Meet. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995. McClure, John S., Ronald J. Allen, Dale P. Andrews, L. Susan Bond, Dan P. Moseley, and G. Lee Ramsey, Jr. Listening to Listeners: Homiletical Case Studies. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004.

McCrabb, Donald R. “Improving Preaching through Feedback.” Seminary Journal 16 (2010): 5-6.

McGee, Tom. “Research with Kids and Teens: Getting inside Kids’ Heads.” American Demographics 23 (1997). http://www.doyleresearch.com/resources-menu/ articles/23-research-with-kids-and-teens-getting-inside-kids-heads [accessed February 20, 2011].

Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Miller, Calvin. The Empowered Communicator: 7 Keys to Unlocking an Audience. Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994.

Miller, Kim. Designing Worship: Creating and Integrating Powerful God Experiences. Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2004.

Montessori, Maria. The Absorbent Mind. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 1967.

Mulligan, Mary Alice and Ronald J. Allen. Make the Word Come Alive: Lessons from Laity. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005.

Mulligan, Mary Alice, Diane Turner-Sharazz, Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm, and Ronald J. Allen. Believing in Preaching: What Listeners Hear in Sermons. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005. 251

Murray, Chris. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). “Catholic School Data, United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2010-2011, the Annual Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment and Staffing.” NCEA. http://www.ncea.org/news/ annualdata report.asp #ethnicity [accessed January 17, 2012].

The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood (NIRM). “The National Catholic Parish Survey.” NIRM. http://www.jknirp.com/castell.htm [accessed January 31, 2012].

Neuhaus, Richard John. “Low Expectations and Catholic Preaching.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April, 2004. http://www.thefreelibrary. com/First+Things%3A+A+Monthly+Journal+ of+Religion+and+Public+ Life/2004/April/1-p51931 [accessed July 10, 2010].

Nguyen, vanThanh. “Preaching Across Cultures: Response to a Pastoral Need in the Church Today.” Seminary Journal 16 (2010), 8.

Nieman, James R. and Thomas G. Rogers. Preaching to Every Pew: Cross-Cultural Strategies. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Noordewier, M.K., and D.A. Stapel. “Stereotype Disconfirmation Effect: When Sweet Hooligans Make You Happy and Honest Salesmen Make You Sad.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 33 (2011). http://www.tandfonline.com.ezp.slu.edu/ doi/pdf/10.1080/ 01973533.2010.540135 [accessed October 12, 2011].

Paul VI. Dei Verbum [Vatican II Document, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 1965]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

___. Evangelii Nuntiandi [Apostolic Letter, On Evangelization in the Modern World, 1975]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

___. Gaudium et Spes [Vatican II document, On the Church in the Modern World, 1965]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

___. Lumen Gentium [Vatican II document, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 1964]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

___. Presbyterorum Ordinis [Encyclical Letter, The Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, 1965]. Northport NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1996. ___. Sacrosanctum Concilium [Vatican II Document, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963]. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

252

Pearce, Lisa D. and Melinda Lindquist Denton. A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” The Pew Research Center. http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux3.aspx [accessed May 5, 2010].

___. “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.” The Pew Research Center. http://pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What- About-Religion.aspx [accessed September, 10, 2011]. Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity. New York: Crossroad, 1999.

Ramshaw, Gail. Reviving Sacred Speech: The Meaning of Liturgical Language. Akron, OH: OSL Publications, 2000.

Reid, Barbara E., O.P. and Leslie J. Hope, O.F.M. Preaching from Scriptures: New Directions for Preparing Preachers. Chicago: Catholic Theological Union, 1998.

Reid, Robert S. “Learning-Centered Preaching for Practice-Centered Congregations.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Homiletics, Atlanta, GA, December 1, 2010.

Resner, Andre. “Ethos” In The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson et al., 350. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008.

Reynolds, Sean. “Forming Young Disciples: Are We Asking the Right Questions?” Sourcebook on Adolescent Catechesis, vol. 2, ch. 8. National Initiative for Adolescent Catechesis, 2009. http://adolescentcatechesis.org/wp-content/ uploads/2009/08/Reynolds-Asking-Right-Questions.pdf?phpMyAdmin= 42127c7fd043c66a3708134c9f5c61ca [accessed November 12, 2010].

Ries, Al and Jack Trout. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind: How to be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Robinson, Denis, OSB. “With One Voice: A Program for Parishes.” Seminary Journal 16 (2010): 21-25.

Schmitt, Katherine. “Effective Preaching: What Catholics Want—A Project of the NCEA Seminary Department.” Seminary Journal 16 (2010): 26-30.

Searle, Mark and David C. Leege. “Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life, No. 5: The Celebration of Liturgy in the Parishes.” South Bend: Institute for Church

253

Life, 1983. http://www.nd.edu/~icl/study_reports/report5.pdf [accessed March 23, 2011].

Shea, David J. “Self-Understanding in Catholic Preaching: How the Identity of the Priest Shapes his Approach to Preaching.” DMin thesis, Aquinas Institute, 2006.

___. “Unmet Needs in Catholic Preaching: A Project of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.” Seminary Journal 16 (2010): 33-41.

Smith, Christian. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Steinfels, Peter. A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Stewart, David W. and Paul A. Pavlou. “From Consumer Response to Active Consumer: Measuring the Effectiveness of Interactive Media.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 30 (2002): 376. http://jam.sagepub.com/cgi/content/ abstract/30/ 4/376 [accessed April 13, 2011].

Stone, Douglas, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

Tisdale, Leonora Tubbs. Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

Torrens, James S. “Lessons from Evangelicals: An Interview with Manuel Flores.” America, July 19, 2004. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/ article.cfm?article_id=3679 [accessed February 11, 2011].

Troeger, Thomas H. Creating Fresh Images for Preaching: New Rungs for Jacob’s Ladder. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1982.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The Catholic Information Project.” USCCB. http://old.usccb.org/comm/cip.shtml#toc5 [accessed 1-31-12].

___. The Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2001.

___. Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship Guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.

___. Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly. Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1982.

254

___. Program of Priestly Formation, 5th ed. Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 2006.

___. Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry. Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997. http://www.nccbuscc.org/laity/ youth/rtvcontents.shtml [accessed November 12, 2010].

Untener, Ken. Preaching Better: Practical Suggestions for Homilists. New York: Paulist Press, 1999.

Verderber, Kathleen S., Rudolph F. Verderber, and Deanna D. Sellnow. Communicate! 13th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2010.

Wallace, James A. Preaching to the Hungers of the Heart. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Webb, Joseph M. Preaching for the Contemporary Service. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2006.

Wilson, Paul Scott. The Practice of Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Wilson, Paul Scott, Jana Childers, Cleophus J. LaRue, John M. Rottman, editors. The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008.

Wisdom, Andrew Carl. Preaching to a Multi-Generational Assembly. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004.

Wright, Peter. “The Time Harassed Consumer: Time Pressures, Distraction, and the Use of Evidence,” Journal of Applied Psychology 59 (1974). http://web.ebscohost. com.ezp.slu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid= 107&sid=830f 3ae4-4a5b-4fd3-aff7- 8912320b0a3e%40 sessionmgr104 &bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl 2ZQ%3d%3d#db=pdh&AN=apl-59-5-555 [accessed April 24, 2011].

Zachary, Lois. Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Zink-Sawyer, Beverly. “The Word Purely Preached and Heard: The Listeners and the Homiletical Endeavor.” Interpretation 51 (1997): 342-357.

255

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

NAME: Karla J. Bellinger

BORN: 9 October, 1953, Evanston, IL

EDUCATION: Pioneer High School, Ann Arbor, MI 1968–71 Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 1971–75 North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC —B.S., forest management 1975–76 University of Notre Dame South Bend, IN —M.A., systematic theology 1999–2004 Aquinas Institute of Theology, Saint Louis, MO —D.Min. in preaching 2008–12

RELIGIOUS CERTIFICATION: Certified Lay Ecclesial Minister 2006 Diocese of Cleveland, OH

MINISTRY: Director/Author HeroesCamp, Inc. Wadsworth, OH 1996–2006 Pastoral Associate Youth Minister Sacred Heart Parish Wadsworth, OH 2003–06 Theology Faculty Our Lady of the Elms High School Akron, OH 2006–10

256