Pastors typically spend the bulk of their time interacting with Christians. For this reason, they may not fully appreciate the experiences of their congregants who interact with the non-Christian world on a daily basis. Sermons, for example, from Esther, Daniel, or 1 Peter may be less effective if they fail to grapple with the challenges presented by today’s culture.
To address this concern, preachers should learn from their congregants’ life experiences. In Stott’s words: “we ought to know more about the Bible than they do, but they are likely to know more about the real world than we do. So we should encourage them to tell us about their home and family life, their job, their expertise and their spare time interests.” (Between Two Worlds, p 192). Homileticians recommend that preachers use conversations, interviews, or listener diaries to deepen their understanding of the day-to-day experiences of congregants (e.g. Scharf, Relational Preaching, 2nd ed, pp 170–75; Quicke, 360-Degree Preaching, pp 160–61).
As a resource for myself and other preachers, during the summer of 2023 I conducted focus group interviews, one per church, at eight evangelical churches in the Northeast US and Eastern Canada. These research sites yielded a diverse set of respondents vis-à-vis denomination, age, gender, ethnicity, and locale (urban, suburban, and rural). The focus group interviews probed the 60 participants’ relationships with the world. I asked participants to describe personal experiences in which they found it challenging to interact with the non-Christian culture around them. I asked questions about the temptation to assimilate to culture and the temptation to be embarrassed about being a Christian. Participants discussed external pressures but also their means of resisting those pressures.
Once the focus group sessions were complete, I subjected the interview transcripts to content analysis and narrative analysis. This paper’s content analysis reveals the breadth of the types of participants’ experiences in the world. Content analysis also highlights some of the most common challenges. Narrative analysis adds a humanness and a thick description that fills out the statistics.
This research indicates that preachers ought to address challenges commonly experienced today, including those that arise from LGBTQ ideology, secularism/anti-supernaturalism, safetyism/fragility, and hedonism/lust/pornography. They should be aware that in such interactions lay Christians experience shame, anxiety, and they are conflicted about whether or not to speak up.
At the same time, Christians are resilient to external pressures due to their experience of the New Birth, their commitment to Jesus Christ, their engagement in spiritual disciplines, their participation in Christian community, situational awareness, and their love for neighbor. Pastors do well to preach in a way that encourages such responses. This paper seeks to help preachers become conversant with a wider range of congregant experiences with respect to the call to be in but not of the world.