Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music: Listening to listeners

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Bonds, Mark Evan
Copyright Year	2008
Abstract	This article describes one of the first large qualitative studies of people who listen to sermons (“Listening to Listeners”), summarizes the major publications that have come from that study, reflects on the effects of the study in the larger preaching community, meditates on criticism of the study, and reports on efforts to bring listeners and preachers into dialogue about preaching. Since the nineteen-sixties, scholarship in preaching has spoken about taking a ―turn to the listener,‖ that is, a shift from focusing on what the preacher wants to say to taking into account how congregations listen to the sermon. Scholars and preachers have encouraged preachers to imagine that listeners are in the study as the preacher prepares the sermon. ―What would Elder Jane think about this idea?‖ Scholars and preachers have written about and instituted feed forward groups in which laity meet with the preacher to offer lay perspectives on biblical texts, theological themes, and personal and social situations that relate to upcoming sermons. Theoreticians have sometimes drawn from communication theory which relies on empirical data. Ironically, however, authorities in the field of preaching have paid little attention to what listeners themselves report regarding how they listen to sermons. 1 At the beginning of the new millennium, the Lilly Endowment through Christian Theological Seminary funded the first large scale qualitative study of people who listen to sermons. This article describes the study, summarizes some of the publications of findings that have come from it, reflects on the effects of the study in the larger preaching community, and reports on how the study has prompted some efforts to bring listeners and preachers into dialogue about preaching. Description of the Study The Lilly Endowment funded the study in 2000 with the primary initiative taking place in 2000-2004 with additional formal work extending through 2006. Ron Allen directed with Mary Alice Mulligan as Associate Director. It was supervised by a board: Dale Andrews, Susan Bond, Jon Berquist, John McClure, Dan Moseley, Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm, Lee Ramsey, Jr., and Diane Turner-Sharazz. Nancy Eiesland served as consultant. 2 1 Many of these efforts are chronicled in Ronald J. Allen, ―The Turn to the Listener: A Selective Review of a Recent Trend in Preaching,‖ Encounter 64 (2003), pp. 167-196. For a much more comprehensive examination, see Clifton F. Guthrie, ―Quantitative Empirical Studies in Preaching: A Review of Methods and Findings,‖ Journal of Communication and Religion, vol. 30 (2007), pp. 65-117. 2 For a more extensive description see John 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: Chalice Press, 2004),
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1017/CBO9780511481376.003
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.homiletic.net/index.php/homiletic/article/download/3376/1597
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511481376.003
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article