In the preaching at church, have you ever thought about the effect, on the listener and upon the preacher, of the height of the preacher’s platform above the congregation?

Some comments

Recently I had some simple research performed on this matter. The research was un-scientific. We asked congregation members who hear preaching conducted at positions of different heights to give words that described how they felt about the relationship between the preacher and themselves.

It was interesting that when preaching was conducted from a platform that was nearly at ground level the sorts of words used were warm, brotherly, friendly, in it together, and chatty.

When preaching was conducted from a much higher level by the same preacher, other descriptive words were added: words such as loud, authoritative, superior, unable to question, and prophetic.

The preacher?

After that, we asked the preachers what words they used to describe the experience of preaching at both a low and higher level.

Most of the words were the same for both levels, but occasionally words like detached, speaking to a crowd not individuals, above question, more academic were used of the higher level; and harder to be involved with everyone and closer were used of the lower level.

Interestingly, no preachers thought that the level influenced what they said or how they preached, but the listeners perceived a difference.

I don’t know whether the height affects the preacher’s message or manner, but something is communicated by the mere fact of height.

It’s universal

It’s not just preaching that height has an influence on. The same results occurred for leading of meetings as well. In fact congregations strongly correlated the relative importance of leading and preaching based on the height of the activity.

In fact, when you think of Bible study groups height also plays a significant part. In groups where some chairs are higher than others, control of the group is enhanced by sitting in the higher chair.

Conclusions

It is impossible to conclude anything substantial from this survey, but it is interesting that the height of the pulpit does seem to have some effect on the way that a congregation member hears the words of the sermon.

Many of us have heard the concept that when the preacher ascends into the pulpit he becomes two metres above contradiction. While we laugh at this line, there seems to be some truth to it.

At the very least this means that physical orientation has to be considered in our gatherings. I want to call us to do an inventory of how we conduct our gatherings and ask what is inadvertently communicated by the positioning of our activities and what should change to better communicate what we are doing.