Tag Team Preaching

Last weekend our church hosted a parenting seminar with Jim and Lynne Jackson from Connected Families and authors of Discipline That Connects With Your Child’s Heart. I was unable to be there, but the Jacksons stayed over for the Sunday morning service and shared some of their principles which have broader application to the church as a whole.

Jim admitted upfront at one point that he was going to go off script, and Lynne confirmed that the Sunday teaching we saw was not their usual fare, but to me it mattered little. What impressed me was the dynamics of watching the interaction between the two of them, as opposed by the presentation by a single speaker which we normally get at church services.

My mind tends to wander, though I need to offset that by saying that by the end of Sunday, I had listened to six sermons. However, this change in homiletic paradigm had me on the edge of my seat. The message took on a different energy and a different life.

I’ve stated this before, but I’m convinced that all the various technologies and social media have wreaked havoc with our attention spans. If you want to connect with people, you need to reinvent the wheel, opting perhaps for three 10-minute mini-sermons instead of the current 30 minutes.

Or consider tag team preaching.