“Jumping the shark” is a phrased often used in the television industry to refer to the moment it’s realized that a once-good program has begun a downward descent into mediocrity and eventually obscurity. It refers to a classic set of episodes from the program “Happy Days” where the character Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli (you may know him as “The Fonz”) attempts to water ski over a section of ocean containing a shark. Since then, the phrase “jumping the shark” has become a popular reference to a desperate stunt or attempt to save something that is rapidly headed south.
I don’t view preaching in the same light as producing a television show. Unfortunately, though, our modern tendency to place the pastor in the role of the transformational motivational entertainer has certainly highlighted certain similarities between the creative processes employed in Hollywood and what happens behind the pulpit (or “between the ferns” in some churches) on a Sunday.
That said, I’m curious to discuss experiences we may have had where we felt preaching may have “jumped the shark.” (We might also call this “When Good Sermons Go Bad”.) Your stories can be personal or merely observed. The only thing I ask is that a reasonable degree of anonymity be preserved (aka if I google the situation you are talking about, will it immediately show up?). Our goal here is not to bash sincere attempts to communicate God’s Word, as I’m certain no one who has preached would be able to cast a first stone regarding every sermon or lesson they’ve ever delivered. But it would be helpful to be warned (especially for younger folks in ministry like myself) against blunders that while the preacher may have thought they had accomplished a new high point in the history of preaching (like I’m certain the writers of Happy Days thought of their sending Fonzie over shark-land) were really a sign of that all was not well.
Some brief (though not exhaustive) possibilities that may qualify for “Shark-jumping Preaching”:
1. Sermons that sounded great until you realized later nothing of substance was said.
2. A “gimmick” used that took all the thunder from the actual point of the sermon.
3. Good sermon, but TOTALLY wrong time/place for it.
So have you experienced any of these? Have you ever seen preaching “jump the shark” (perhaps while you were the one on the water skis!) If so, here’s your chance to help the rest of us learn how we might be better stewards of the privilege and responsibility of teaching God’s Word.
The last SBC Church** we attended was having some major financial troubles due to paying the pastor a 6 figure salary on about a $200,000 uear budget. One of the elders had lefr the church to start his own church about 20 miles away due to some disagreements with the senior pastor. Several members left with him including some who gave unusally large sums of money.
Anyway, senior pastor decided to begin to preach a series on stewardship, which was all fine and good until people started to realize that we were in a budget crisis (the elders would not release any financial information unless you asked for it–great passive barrier, huh?) and when some people started to ask for the numbers they started to ask questions to themselves like “We pay this guy WHAT and HE’S asking us to tighten our belts??” This led to people realizing upon further inquiry that his salary and his attempt to justify it revealed his lack of character and integrity which led to even MORE people leaving. It took me a year beyond that to wise up and get my family out of there.
**Offered just as a point of clarification, not as an inditement of all SBC church, obviously. Most SBC congregations are not elder led and those that are don’t have a senior pastor who hand picks “Yes Men” to do what he wants.
I think that many “reactionary” sermons often jump the shark. (I probably could add that to my list, though it’s a form of #3.) Like preaching on stewardship only when the offerings dip (regardless of one’s particular stance on stewardship particulars, it needs to be a core component of your theology and commitment to one another as a church, not just a low offering panic button), or preaching on the sanctity of marriage ONLY when some big news story breaks or a church member is caught in adultery, etc. There’s a way to be timely, but some things deserve a better sermon than the knee jerk.
Thanks for your comment!
Shark-jumping that I’ve done: Spent so much time on background/historical information, especially as an illustration, that the text got lost.
I realized what I had done when someone commented about how much they had learned from the historical figure but couldn’t recall the Biblical text used.
Doug
ouch!
It seems to me that all forms of “gimmickry” .. alliteration, poems, jokes, tear-jerker stories, “fill in the blanks” outlines in the bulletin .. all of it simply should not be, in connection with sermons. It’s the Gospel that’s the power of God, not the tricks we toss in; the things the world uses to keep you awake and interested, to remember what’s being said.
I believe the apostle Paul once commented that he came without “excellence of speech”, but what he DID say was pretty effective. Perhaps we’d do well to model sermons more after him, than after a Xerox salesman. I’ve heard too many of them, I’m afraid.
Thanks, Bob. Very good thoughts.
Haven’t you ever heard that one’s passion for preaching can only be propelled by the power, the purpose, the permanence and the pleasure of alliteration? (lol) A key question many pastors should ask is “does my alliteration or gimmick or Television-show-based series make it harder or easier for people to understand the meaning of Scripture?” Are we forcing connections to be cute (or to fill seats) that will ultimately require us not only to explain Scripture (our difficult but needed task) but to spend time trying to explain our unnecessary gimmick as well?
that said, I wouldn’t want to go to too far and discount everything that’s ever been alliterated or put into a memorable format as “jumping the shark” preaching. Many of the poetical devices in the Old Testament (like the Proverbs or the acrostic Psalms) shouldn’t be considered “jumping the shark”. We wouldn’t say (and I think you’d agree with me here, Bob) that Psalm 119 is gimmicky. And for a New Testament, the beginning of Hebrews in Greek is wonderfully alliterated. But it’s done in a way that reinforces not distracts from its message. I can’t think of anyone in the first century hearing Hebrews read in a church gathering and leaving thinking “Wow, that was such a nice word trick at the beginning.” but rather “Wow, Jesus.”
I “jumped the shark” recently after committing to a Sunday Night Series on The Seven Deadly Sins. Our Sunday night crowd is almost entirely senior adults, so the sermon on “Lust” went over like a pregnant pole vaulter. One octogenarian man came up to me afterward and said, “Pastor, if I can lust, I’M DOING GOOD!!”
Went over like a pregnant pole vaulter? I’ll have to remember that one…but not use it in a sermon!
I have witnessed Purpose Driven canned sermonettes.
I didn’t realize at the time that the sermonette was borrowed but a year or so later I heard the same sermonette from a different pastor.
Of course neither pastor gave the appropriate source credit for what they passed off as their own.
we were at a youth trip last year and the speaker that we had never heard before was preaching on Isaiah 6 and one of my sophomores told me the guys’ entire alliterated outline before the preacher had said anything. apparently the same outline had been preached several times by a former pastor at our home church as well!
Was in the middle of a sermon(ette) when I realized that I was expositing the video clip. :-(( When I realize I am preaching to attract people rather than to expose the Word and glorify God, I figure it’s time for a change.
I think preachers often jump the shark when they preach from the OT and try to artificially make a passage all about Jesus. Don’t get me wrong – you can and should eventually demonstrate how Jesus and the NT addresses a particular issue or problem. But, we’ve all witnessed those sermons where the preacher goes Jesus-hunting in an OT passage and ends up making stuff up.
When you know exactly when the dead kid story is coming up in the sermon, you know your pastor has jumped the shark.
My former pastor (retired after 60 years in ministry) killed off many a child over the years.
the dead kid story? is that similar to the “i’ll get saved tomorrow night” car wreck story?
We had a Sunday to Sunday revival 25 years ago when I was a youth pastor. I think every single sermon ended with a story about someone who almost came forward, but didn’t and then got hit by a bus or something. Lots of dead folks who would have come forward the next night.
Think how good the statistics of the revival would be if people didn’t keep on getting hit by busses on the way home after NOT going forward!
ROFL… I dont know how I missed it, but I just read your comment Dave. Even in my very, very short life I have heard that same story numerous times. If it weren’t for busses I think American might be 90% saved. 😉
To me it sounds like we need to invent a new program. Just as high schools around the nation use variations of ProjectGrad to give students a safe, sober place to hang out after graduations, we might need a “Project Crusade” to keep people off the road after the church events where these bus accidents always seem to happen.
Maybe Lifeway could develop a curriculum
Maybe we could… 🙂
The Bus-Avoiding Way of the Master.
LOL… Yes… “Not Your Best Bus Now.”
“Purpose Driven Bus Dodging”
Milk out of the nose on that one. You guys are killing me…. good thing I went forward years ago.
“I think every single sermon ended with a story about someone who almost came forward, but didn’t and then got hit by a bus or something.”
That’s sad, especially if the bus that hit ’em was a ghastly-colored ’70’s model church bus.
Lay person here,
I cannot tell you how many preachers/teachers have had unforgiveness towards their aunt.
I cannot tell you the untold thousands of people who wanted to accept Christ but those pesky buses took ’em out on the way home.
I cannot tell you how many pastors know that it’s harder to be a(n) Assembly of God/Lutheran/Southern Baptist/etc. then it is to be a(n) Assembly of God/Lutheran/Southern Baptist/etc. for any number of reasons which are usually never questioned in its logicality (is that a word?).
I cannot tell you how many different ways I need to cut back/tighten up/get healthy/get greener/waste less/and give more to my local church(es) while I watch the same church(es) mail multiple bulk, multi-colored mail outs, extend raises to staff, overpay new executive staff hirings, pay for staff’s personal vacation (I’m talking cruises here), spend $1.4K on a Mac laptop where a $600 laptop would suffice, and decorate offices, foyers, etc. with thousands of dollars of amenities which we’re then told not to touch/sit in/etc. because it’s not for that.
I cannot tell you how many times to live healthier because it honors God right before we have pot luck dinners featuring more fried stuff than most fast food joints.
I cannot tell you how many times that I question why I even got up this morning…
Worst shark-jump, from a lay perspective, was when the pastor decided to project a YouTube video clip of a football play as an illustration.