BOOK SUMMARY: WHY JOHNNY CAN'T PREACH - CHAPTER 3 - PART 2 - JOHNNY CAN'T WRITE

Our culture and even religious experiences are shaped by technology. Oral cultures are changed when they become writing culture. Cultural shifts took place when the printing press was invented. Prior to it, very few people owned books much less a Bible. What would discipleship, worship services, the entire Christian experience have looked like without a Bible in the home or on your phone. 

Consider the technological changes from telegraph to cell phone. These changes have shaped society and the church whether we want to acknowledge it or not. We can communicate instantly with people across the planet which was not possible in until recent advancements. There are pros and cons to distant communications. We can summon an ambulance rapidly. But we can talk to people on the phone or in a text without them seeing our facial expressions or hearing our tone--making communication difficult at times.  

The implications for preaching are far-reaching. We can become less practiced and less skilled at reading people's reactions to what we are speaking or have written for a sermon. There are visible ques people give to our sermons even if they don't respond audibly in some churches. You have to be skilled at getting a read on the congregation to know whether you are communicating effectively. If you are not, you have to be skilled enough to adjust on the fly whether it be tone, mannerisms, abbreviating content, etc. If a pastor is one who doesn't spend time with people in person learning to read people's reactions and if he is only a phone or text or email guy, how can he be skilled at reading a room of people listening to a sermon he may have craftly poorly. Technology can shape our skill sets or diminish them if we are not mindful. We cannot be oblivious to the church's reactions to our sermons and communication. 

Compositions skills can be lost if we only communicate via phone. Composition requires that thoughts be worded accurately and with nuance verses speaking off the cuff.   Our sermons cannot be like telephone calls where there is rambling, rapid shifting in topics and lack of unity.  

Our communication in our sermons must indicate what is significant and what isn't. If everything is spoken with the same tone, the hearer will struggle to grasp the gravity of significant things. Our writing must convey urgency on particular things. And urgent call to respond must not have the same tone as information explained. 
While not mentioned in this chapter, texting is a mode of communication that can potentially crippled our writing skills, thus our preaching abilities. It is certainly good for certain things, but it cannot be the bulk of how we write.  

The reading of texts and composition are rare practices and rare skill sets thus reducing the power of the sermon from everyday pastors. Face-to-face communication has been supplanted by the phone calls, texting and social media. While media is helpful in many ways, it can shape up in negative ways if we are not mindful. 

Seminary curricula is nearly identical to what it was around WWI. But the student entering seminary is radically different now because of technological shifts. Today's young adult does not know anything of classical languages like Greek or Latin. Neither do they compose on a regular basis. This can account for, in some measure, why today's preachers and graduates of seminaries lack preaching skills.