Tips for preaching to oral learners
___Grant Lovejoy, preaching professor at Southwestern Seminary, suggested seven principles to guide preaching for an audience of oral learners:
___
Preach from biblical stories frequently. "Highly literate people gravitate to Paul because his writings are easy to outline. Instead, preach from passages that are in story form."
___ Keep the narrative quality of the passage intact. "Give the story as a story," he suggested, rather than imposing a propositional structure and outline.
___ Sprinkle the sermon with proverbial sayings. Oral learners enjoy pointed, pithy, memorable sayings. "Give them the kind of thing someone will bring back three weeks later as a cross-stitch."
___ Respect the power of the biblical story. "Ask yourself, 'What is it that you are doing that improves on what God has given?'"
___ Retain the suspense and drama of the biblical story. Allow listeners to experience the story as it first was presented.
___ Help listeners relive the story. "Don't tell it in Joe Friday fashion--just the facts, ma'am. Surround them with the reality of the story."
___ Resist the temptation to over-explain. Oral learners neither grasp nor appreciate long explanations that dull the impact of a good story.
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