Preaching away from the pulpit

The Rev. Dr. Lis Valle Ruiz suggests using art, music and theater to help preachers get their point across

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Dr. Lis Valle Ruiz

LOUISVILLE — Since people of faith — and those of no faith, too — learn by employing multiple intelligences, it makes sense for preachers to employ music, drama and visual arts on occasion to reach as many people as they can.

The Rev. Dr. Lis Valle Ruiz, Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Worship and Director of Community Worship Life at McCormick Theological Seminary, spent nearly 90 minutes on Wednesday leading the Equipping Preachers webinar offered monthly by the Synod of the Covenant. Watch a recording here.

Valle Ruiz spoke on “ARTivism and Proclamation.” She contributed to a book that will be published Aug. 20, “Theopoetics in Color: Embodied Approaches in Theological Discourse.”

“The kind of preaching we will talk about is probably not the best of every-week preaching, especially if you’re going to coordinate with other people,” she said.

Sermons can take the form of music videos or improvisation. They can employ visual arts, such as comic strips and banners. “I think God intended more of us to be proclaimers,” she said.

The “Don’t Push Me” video by the musician J. Kwest is an example of what preachers can use — so long as they have enough time and talent — to help bring a helpful message to people in a way that’s not a traditional 15- or 20-minute sermon.

Valle Ruiz presented a helpful Venn diagram to explain three hermeneutic terms: art, theology and justice. For ARTivism, art is an alternative means of communication. Prophetic preaching combines a theological argument and justice, “the kind of world God wants us to create,” she said. “The work of the prophet is to be able to project before the people an alternative future to the one the king wants to project as the only thinkable one.”

At the intersection of art and theology is theopoetics, which seeks to articulate the spiritual meaning that comes to us in, by and through a symbolic experience, according to one definition.

ARTivism is the intersection of art and justice, “art in the public square for the sake of justice,” Valle Ruiz said. “ARTivists actively summon the tools of performance to fight for political and economic change.”

Here’s how preachers can generate a work of ARTivism. They should first select their preferred system of communication, such as song, visual art or performance, to design, produce and publicly share a work of ARTivism. The work can include:

• Relevance to an issue affecting the community. She suggested analyzing the issues that impact the specific community and that require intervention.
• Association of the identified issue with a theological concept
• A denunciation of the evil in the world, posing the question, “What breaks God’s heart?”
• A proposal for an alternative order in the world, the “justice that God wants in the world”
• Interpretation of a sacred text, which must be based on careful and thoughtful exegesis and hermeneutic using scholarly accepted methods of biblical interpretation.

In her own preaching, Valle Ruiz has used volunteers to improvise a scene she wants to get across. The more that worshipers’ senses are engaged, the higher the retention level, she said, adding, “We need to think about which system of communication will be the most effective.”

The inspiration comes from the Hebrew Bible prophets, who were “often street preachers, preaching at crossroads or in front of the temple where everyone could see them,” Valle Ruiz said. For today’s faith communities, their online presence is the new public square. “To the extent your church is broadcasting,” she said, “you are putting that content out in the public square.”

Youth can be enlisted to rehearse and act out a biblical scene, she said, with the preacher saying a few words once they’re done. Valle Ruiz’s pastor was a historian and playwright. “He would make the best use of the voices we have in the stories,” she said. “He would fill in the gaps with his imagination, inviting the youth and young adults in.”

While many Christians in the U.S. would relegate that kind of approach to special gatherings including Christmas or Easter, “he did it often — not every week, but not just on Easter and Christmas,” she said. “It had an impact on belonging.”

Preachers don’t have to rely on technology exclusively, she said. “You can use newsprint and markers, or chalk in the parking lot — or just use music, which is something we use every Sunday in church,” she said. “We have this idea you have to have a golden mouth to be a preacher. What is it that members of the church are very good at?”

Valle Ruiz preached at a church in Puerto Rico the Sunday after Hurricane Maria struck in 2017. The church was still without water and electricity, and there was debris strewn all around. She took some of the debris into the worship space. “We sat in a circle between the chancel and the pews,” she said. “I asked them, ‘What can we build out of this?’” After a long silence, one man began putting some debris together into something resembling a bouquet. “I never thought a floral arrangement would preach, but there it was,” she said. “He showed us how beautiful the future could be. It was a powerful moment.”

Valle Ruiz pointed out Jesus’ approach was often to tell a story and then ask some questions. “It’s a way to develop more active participation,” she said. The classic oratory we find in most churches comes from the Pauline tradition, she said, not from Jesus and the prophets.

She suggested starting out by telling people in worship, “Today we’re going to do a little experiment. Let’s see how it goes, and I want your feedback afterward. We are not doing this to entertain or be entertained, but to critically use a different part of our brain to determine the meaning of this text for our time and place.”

Among the books she’s found helpful is Anna Carter Florence’s “Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community.”

“You will notice things in the text,” she said, “and that will give you insight.”

The Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto of Princeton Theological Seminary will speak on “Preaching Luke Backwards” during the next Equipping Preachers webinar, which is set for 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Sept. 4. Learn more and register here.