The Visual Preacher

Proclaiming an Embodied Word

Steve Thomason

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781506464732
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506464749
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Steve Thomason's plan was that after graduating from college, God would allow him to become a Disney animator so that one day he could open his own animation studio. It turned out God had other plans, and Thomason became a parish pastor--a pastor with a passion for both art and preaching.

In The Visual Preacher: Proclaiming an Embodied Word, Thomason's winsomely illustrated text shows preachers visual techniques to study the Bible, construct a sermon, use the physical space where they preach, create two-dimensional images, and develop and use videos.

Thomason shares his dual passions based on his conviction that the effectiveness of visual communication lies at the heart of thegospel itself--that it is the reason God took on human flesh in Jesus. Believing that pictures speak differently than words, he offers readers practical ways to combine visual communication with the Word of Scripture and the words of their sermon so that when they are done preaching, their listeners will say, "We have seen Jesus."

He assures readers they don't have to be skilled artists or technological wizards to effectively use visuals in preaching. Rather, he presents basic principles he has learned as a working preacher and encourages readers to use the ones that make sense to them and to throw out the rest.

Preachers are story-tellers, says Thomason. This book will help preachers create and use images that make them even better storytellers than they already are.

Part One

Foundations for Visual Preaching

1

We Wish to See Jesus

Why Use Visuals in Preaching?

The stack of flat brown boxes arrived in my driveway. This was not what I was expecting when I ordered a gazebo for my backyard patio. The photos online showed a beautiful structure with four posts and a roof that would provide shade for my outdoor patio. The opened boxes revealed hundreds of seemingly unrelated parts. Some assembly was required. How was I going to move from a box of parts to the functional gazebo I desired?

I was thankful for the instruction manual. However, the print was small and there were so many words. I started reading and was quickly overwhelmed. How would I ever make sense of how these words connected to these parts?

Do you know what saved me? Pictures.

I am a visual learner, so when I saw clearly illustrated step-by-step instructions, it put my mind at ease. I could easily connect the drawing of the part to the actual part in the box and visualize how the parts fit together. The pictures spoke a thousand words and showed me how to assemble the gazebo.

Preaching is like that. The people who sit in our pews are trying to make sense out of their lives. It can often seem like life is a box full of unconnected, unrelated parts, piled in an intimidating stack in the driveway. They have been told that the Bible has something to say about how to put it all together, but when they open the Bible it’s just a bunch of words.

So. Many. Words.

The preacher’s job is to relate the words to their lives in a way that helps them know how to connect all the parts. The ELCA discovered in the early 2000s that the average church member was essentially biblically illiterate. There was a major disconnect between the words of the Bible and their everyday lives. The ELCA launched the Book of Faith initiative to help correct this problem. After the initial five-year campaign ended, researchers discovered that the initiative had failed to hit its mark. The main problem was that preachers were not connecting it to the congregations through their preaching. Dave Daubert, a Lutheran pastor and PhD in theological studies, says that when the preacher does their job, those same people will find Scripture as a place to start a conversation about God, a “source and norm” for the faith that gathers them each week. From that base they will encounter the God who has come among us in Christ. That encounter with Christ will help what started in the past to become a present reality. And if it goes well, people will discover or rediscover that Jesus loves them and that their lives matter. They will feel useful to God and be sent back to their lives to be a part of what God is up to in the world in which they live every day.1

Karoline Lewis, professor of biblical preaching at Luther Seminary, says that the purpose of preaching is to “embody the Word.”2

Think about that for a moment. A word is an abstract concept. It can be spoken into the air and received by the vibrations of sound waves on the eardrum. The brain decodes these vibrations into a culturally accepted meaning. That is the spoken word. A word can also be written. Text on a page or screen is an abstract visual code that must be taught, received by the brain, decoded, and constructed into meaning. This is a complex process.

There is a fundamental disconnect between words and basic human understanding. We require a certain level of education for words to make sense. The more complex the words are, the more sophisticated the training required to decode and understand the words becomes. Even as I type these words, I realize that I am excluding many people from connecting to the thing that I am trying to communicate.

But if I draw it . . .

Think about your own experience just now. Compare your experiences of (a) reading the words of the last few paragraphs that talked about human communication and (b) viewing the illustration above. In what ways were they similar? In what ways were they different? Pictures speak differently from words.

What did Lewis mean when she said, “Word”? She may have meant any spoken word, for, indeed, preaching is a performative act of speaking words into the air so people can hear them. However, she could have also intended the theological meaning of the term. The first verse of the Gospel of John says, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek term is logos. Brian McLaren—an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian—says that the Logos is like the blueprint (or the operating system) for the universe. The Logos is the abstract idea for existence itself. The finite human brain cannot begin to comprehend the vast complexity of the blueprint for everything.

The Word remains abstract and out of touch.

Until something amazing happens.

John’s Gospel goes on to talk about the Word. In verse 1:14 it says, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” This verse is describing the person of Jesus. The abstract, creative power of God’s blueprint for the universe took on a human body.

Jesus embodied the Word.

Now finite human beings have something to look at and understand. It does not require sophisticated education for a human being to see another human being and immediately connect. “Oh, look! That thing is like me. I get it!”

Do you remember the story of my gazebo and the illustrated instructions? Had those instructions been only text, without pictures, it would have been far more difficult to follow them, especially if the user cannot read English. It requires a certain amount of education, within a particular cultural language, to decode the written instructions to assemble the gazebo. Yet the drawings do not require the ability to read written language to understand. An illiterate person could look at the drawings, look at the pile of parts, and see how the parts fit together.

The purpose of preaching is to embody the Word. People need to see the Word in a way that makes sense to them and in a way that does not require a high amount of sophisticated education to decode.

The Hebrew Scripture is filled with stories of messengers who would proclaim the good news that the King was arriving, that “here is your God!” (Isa 40:9). The Hebrew term for this messenger of good news is bsr. It is translated in the Septuagint with the Greek term euangelizomai. This is the verb form of the term euangelizo. It literally means “good news.” The English transliteration of the term is “evangelism.”

Jesus’s first sermon was simple and went like this, “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news!” (Mark 1:15). The good news is that the kingdom of God is here. It is standing right in front of them. Jesus is the Logos in the flesh. Jesus is the drawing who showed them how the parts fit together. Watch Jesus live his life and you will see what it looks like to live in a covenant relationship with God and how to love God and love your neighbor.

Preaching is a performative act that is a physical embodiment of the gospel.

The problem we have is that we, in the twenty-first century, cannot see the physical body of Jesus like they did in the first century. The four Gospels and the writings of the first church provide our only opportunity to see Jesus. Ironically, the Bible itself has distorted our view of Jesus. The Word that was made flesh in Jesus has been translated back into words and made abstract and disconnected from us.

Good preaching embodies the Word so people can see it.

When Mary Magdalene went to the garden tomb, she encountered the risen Christ. When she returned to the disciples she said, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). She didn’t describe Jesus with words or theology. She simply declared that she had seen him.

When the Greeks approached Philip in John 12:21, they announced, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

When Jesus began his ministry, the disciples asked him, “Where are you staying?” He did not respond with a verbal description of his house or verbal directions to get there. He said, “Come and see” (John 1:38–39).

This experience is what our congregations are asking for when they listen to our preaching.

“Preacher, we wish to see Jesus.”3

People learn in many different ways. Pure words are very difficult for many people. Pictures and visual cues help connect the dots for a vast majority of the people in our pews. My goal for this book is to offer you practical ways to combine visual communication with the Word of Scripture and the words of your sermon, so that when you are done preaching, your listeners will say, “We have seen Jesus.”

A Brief Theology of Visual Preaching

Even if the goal of our preaching is to enable our listeners to see Jesus, we—word-oriented as most preachers are—might still wonder, “Why should we use visuals in preaching?” Some preachers may be resistant to the use of visuals for various reasons. Some might think it is just a gimmick or an attempt to entertain people. Won’t we run the risk of “dumbing down” the gospel?

Some preachers may be skeptical of using images because they realize that images are open to interpretation. Show an image to ten people with no verbal explanation and you will receive ten interpretations of what that image might mean. Some preachers are nervous that an image projected on a screen might illicit an interpretation that does not correlate with the intent of their sermon. Let’s be honest. Preachers generally like to have control of what is spoken and how it is received.

These are legitimate concerns. Some preachers have succumbed to the idea that the church is competing with popular media. These preachers think they must be flashy and attuned to the type of media the congregation encounters every day in order to be relevant. These preachers might be so concerned w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Foundations for Visual Preaching
• Part Two: The Visual Sermon
• Notes
• Recommended Resources