Broadening Your Bandwidth:
Called to Speak in a Visual Age

By Jay Akkerman

In a clandestine meeting in 1980, Gannett newspapers gathered a secret task force known only as “Project NN” in a Cocoa Beach, Florida bungalow. Their mission: to develop a publication for the growing segment of Americans who no longer read newspapers. On Wednesday, September 15, 1982, their first multicolored, graphic-laden edition of USA Today rolled off the presses into Baltimore news racks resembling nineteen-inch televisions. It was an instant sell-out. Two months later, the paper already doubled Gannett’s year-end projections. Today, USA Today is the most widely read daily in the country.

More than twenty years ago, the newspaper industry learned a lesson that many churches have not yet grasped. While most Americans are literate today, a growing number of them prefer to gain access to information by means other than the printed page. Influenced by television, film, popular music, and the Internet, an increasing number of people of all ages are tuning out newspapers and talking heads in favor of more interactive, visual modes of communication.

How can preachers, called by God to speak to their culture and carefully labor over their words each week, improve their communication of the gospel? Even more, how can it be done in an age when people are less motivated to invest twenty, thirty (or more) minutes of their time listening to a solitary preacher dispensing biblical content from behind the sacred desk? One answer lies in broadening the preacher’s bandwidth.
The Internet is all about bandwidth, or the number of electronic bits that can be moved through a circuit in one second. In the same way that an interstate highway is able to handle heavier traffic loads with more lanes, the information superhighway centers on processing more electronic data across its “lanes” in the same amount of time. As a result, computer modems now give way to higher-speed counterparts like DSL, cable, or wireless. So how can preachers broaden their bandwidths to better connect with their hearers?

We must begin with the recognition that every congregation is made up of more than just hearers. While God blesses us with powerful senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, and sound, the majority of minutes in most hours of worship target the last sense above all others. Take your last sermon as a case in point: which communication channel did you use primarily? Chances are, it was the sound of your voice and maybe some visual connections like gestures and body movement. This week, invest some creative thought in how you might broaden your preaching bandwidth by intentionally connecting with the lesser-used senses of sight, smell, touch, and taste.

Rather than simply telling an illustration, can you demonstrate it in some other way? Perhaps a video clip or still image could strengthen your point. Reinforce your spoken words through the other four sensory channels. Instead of telegraphing your message points verbally, can you find a way to underscore them visually through an electronic PowerPoint presentation or if your budget is tight, a crisp graphic layout on an overhead projector may do the trick. Try something new. Be creative. Color outside the lines. Or maybe you’ll want to start by learning again from the age-old sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which link all five senses simultaneously and have been powerful connection points for two millennia of believers.

In the process of broadening your bandwidth, commit yourself to engaging your congregation rather than merely entertaining them. Begin now by recognizing that faith not only comes by hearing; it also comes by seeing, smelling, touching and tasting. So add a lane or two to your preaching superhighway. Your congregation will thank you for seeing them as more than hearers and connecting with them in fresh, new ways!

IN OUR NEXT ISSUE Jay will explore connection points between twenty-first century visual communication and how earlier generations of believers spread the Word.
As teaching pastor of New Hope Church in Phoenix, Arizona, Jay communicates each week using visual media. He can be reached at jay@lifepuzzle.org.