Sunday Sermon Musings

Quality Sermon Time! 

 Recently I attended an English sermon in a church not far from home. On this particular day, we reached bit early for the mass.😉. With empty seats around, I slipped into a side corner seat from where I could see the parishioners and the pulpit. 

English service are usually short, compared to Malayalam service. So, I was prepared for a quick doze of sermon 😇. However, the sermon turned to be a note reading speech, and without any punch! And, as I walked from the church after the service, I was wondering what other parishioners thought of such sermon? 

And, later when I met my wife, she said that she dozed off and missed paying the offering. She's the type of church goer who's attentive during the service. Holy Holy types! 

So, here are my thoughts of today's sermon!

1. One reason for 🥱 sermon  was \that this priest could have been given the charge in the last minute. So, he could not get time to read, make notes and prepare a good speech. It happens! 

2. There's a shortage of priests who can deliver good English sermon. More priests are comfortable with Malayalam sermon. 

3. If we take 100 priests, only few have the skills to give deliver thought provoking speech. Most speeches are just an extension of what is said in the reading. Giving a sermon, just like other skills, is build with practice, reading, training and self evaluation. 

4. There's a shortage of Catholic priests! ( According to one Jesuit priest I met in B'lore, there's less number of people joining the seminary. On top of that there are dropouts.)

5. English sermon is not given importance as the Malayalam mass. Probably, due to this general attitude, church folks don't take extra efforts to make it interesting or valuable for the church goers. Anything might go kind of attitude could be the reason. 

In this context, I remember a Xmas night English mass at a church at Vellayambalam. This happened many years back, somewhere in 2018 or so. The church was packed with immaculately dressed folks, the choir sang beautiful hymns in English, but the sermon was just a drab. 😐 What a waste!

And, keep in mind that this church is just a stone throw from the Bishop house. At least on such days, the parish council or whoever is in charge of allotting a priest should have considered the aspiration of churchgoers who have come that night to listen to a beautiful Christmas mass!

How to Improve? What's the route? Here're four suggestions! 

1. Record each sermon delivered by the priest and let a panel of priests or church committee hear the mass and check the quality. It's very easy these days to record a talk with a mobile phone. Either do a video or audio record. The alter boy can be given the job to record the speech. 

Once the speech is recorded, it will be send to the panel for evaluation. So, each speech will be evaluated based on metrics or score. There should be a basic score which every priest has to score in-order to conduct a mass. The speech criteria could be Clarity, Content, Delivery & Practical Story (analogy)! On evaluation, suggestions, tips and recommendation could be shared! 

However, there's a problem here. The evaluation of sermon might \sound rude and intrusion into the daily working of priests. Moreover, they might consider this as a fault finding activity
But, the whole idea is not to question or provoke. By the way, it can be started as a voluntary project for those priests willing to hear a second opinion about their sermon.🌞 

2. Provide regular training to priests on how to effectively conduct sermon. Another aspect of these training is to include practical tips and suggestions to priests on ways to engage young men and women of different age groups. 

For example, Millennials born 1980-1994., Generation Z - born 1995-2012 and Gen Alpha, require a different style of messages. Each generation has a different outlook towards the world. So, messages and content vary! 

So, while speaking to a young men and women, give focus on their interests such as gaming, sports context, social media, etc. Such, context will help the priest to form more connection with the audience. 

3. Church could make a database ( voice and video collection) of all excellent speeches pertaining to a chapter or verse in the Bible. Such a repository will be good for clergy, seminary students and theologians to learn more about the topic and pick points from different speeches. Imagine if Catholic church in Kerala builds a portal which all priests can access it online.( Star idea - Self praise). 

The online portal will  have an intuitive search option for users to quickly search for a particular chapter or verse or by a phrase. Also, just like any good portal/site, it will list the popular sermon, most viewed one, the key speech topics, trending topics, most searched verse, etc.

Also a separate log-in could be given for public to hear good speeches and its an opportunity for the believers to know in detail about each chapter or verse in the Bible. 

A bit about Current website of Latin Christian Site 

While writing this post, I searched for the Latin Christian site. I found this site and I hope I'm right - https://kcbc.co.in/KCBC/Latin  ). In one look at it, I could feel that I have visited a monolith kind of site. Need to upgrade it man! On the homepage of the site, there's one broken link ( https://kcbc.co.in/KCBC/www.krlcc.org check it out ) 404 error! 

Btw, it looks like a typical govt site made by govt site builders. The site architecture, the color, font, layout and navigation all gives a feel like you're inside a govt office building built by PWD !

One more thing. I also checked Vatican site. https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html I was expecting a more modern site.

( Sorry, this paragraph deviates from the main topic for this post) It can be dealt separately and in detail!

Solution for People to Listen to the Local Church Mass

Many expat Malayalees would love to hear a sermon from their parish priest! Is there a solution to fulfill the unmet desire?

Don't you think it would be great feeling to see or hear the latest Sunday mass from their parish!

So, in this case, recording of the sermon could be uploaded on the portal/site. Once it's uploaded, users can hear or see the mass by searching by the name and place of the church! Wow! 😮

4. Next point is bit radical and I'm not sure if church authorities will approve it. The plan is to make a panel of speakers in each parish who are into charismatic prayers, or those who are accomplished gospel speakers. They are not priests but experienced speakers in the locality who can talk of Bible in depth. So, when required, each church can call them to address the church service.

The regular parish priest will conduct all other proceedings but the main talk will be done by the outsider ( person vetted by the church). So, in this way church get to try a new voice. It's like inviting visiting professors at various colleges who are experts in certain field of study. 

Similarly, the occasional use of guest speakers, in English service and also in Malayalam service will bring a fresh voice for the parishioners. The idea is to try a new voice, listen to fresh thoughts and expression!

 But, the big question is - will church council or the Vatican approve of this?

 I'm not sure. In case church has rules which deny outsider to address, then it's time to RETHINK!  Give a small allowance to the church to hire capable speakers to address the congregation. Probably, they can call one speaker in 6 months or so!

After all, it's the duty of the church to provide value to the church goers. Moreover, from the church's point of view, it's an excellent opportunity to bring people towards church, attract believers and build fellowship. People love to hear riveting speeches! 

Our time is precious and we wish to get the maximum return for the time spent! ROI :)

Vetting of Speech by Church

Before a person address the church, their speech will be checked for clarity, authority and value. Only after evaluation, will a person be enlisted. Through such screening process, the parish council can select right people and also they can find hidden gems 💎( people with exception oratory skills) from the local area. 

Times are changing, and church too need few amends! 

Curious Konnections Blog

I shared this post to a friend by Whatsapp, and he said this  Nice read. Quite novel ideas. Worth a try. Hope the clergy listens.

And, he sent this paper cutting.   👇      

8 minutes for Sermon - Pope says!

P.S - Just like other posts, I'll be taking print of this and will send to  one or two people. One could be the Bishop at Bishop House at Vellayambalam or mail a copy to the Vatican. Another I could send to people who might be interested in this topic.

Btw - I'm planing more posts on community bonding, increasing church collection. Also, few hacks which church can initiate small biz initiatives in the parish. Btw, what can church do to instill fair biz practice and also lead a lending hand for small biz or home based biz initiatives in the local area? What about in places like Pothenthope, St Andrews, Melamkulam side, which is seeing a rush of biz on the beach side!

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Blog posts related to church!

1. Rosa Mystica Rose Garden Run by Catholic Sisters 



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Side Note: I used ChatGpt for searching few things online and today I got this message! 

You’ve reached your GPT-4o limit.

Responses will use GPT-3.5 until your limit resets after 1:33 PM.

 🙏 ( Thank you ChatGpt for whatever you have done. It's been a big jump from normal search to generative artificial intelligence. I think you gave Google a real shocker! Also, you have killed many jobs in content field! That's hard, but that's the way things go in life!