{"id":6309,"date":"2009-11-20T22:08:28","date_gmt":"2009-11-21T03:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/"},"modified":"2009-11-20T22:08:28","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T03:08:28","slug":"rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Bell on Sermon Length &#8212; Shortening?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"RobBell.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/imgs\/RobBell.jpg\" width=\"191\" height=\"223\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\"><\/span> <\/p>\n<div>Rob Bell, <a href=\"http:\/\/burnsidewriters.com\/2009\/11\/19\/rob-bell-2-0-or-where-are-the-artists\/all\/1\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">in an interview with Burnside Writers<\/a>, suggests sermons could get better if they got shorter\u2026<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>Any response?<\/b><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 5px;padding-left: 0px\"><strong>BWC: You\u2019ve already explored the \u201chigh content, low word count\u201d concept with your book Drops Like Stars, and it\u2019s clearly a big concern to you at the moment. What inspired this \u201cendless evolution\u201d you\u2019re referring to?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 5px;padding-left: 0px\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong>\u00a0The first century rabbis were not praised for going on and on and on and on. Great rhetoric has never been about how many words one can fill the air with, it\u2019s always been about how clean and uncluttered and lean an idea can be articulated. It\u2019s always been the short, crisp parable that has infinite layers of meaning that knocks around your head for days. The idea that you have to go on and on to prove that you\u2019re smart, it\u2019s relatively new. Mark Twain said, \u201cIf I had more time, I would write a shorter letter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 5px;padding-left: 0px\">I was working on a new book this morning, and about whole sections I said, \u201cThere\u2019s so much there that can go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 5px;padding-left: 0px\"><strong>BWC: Do you think the church as a whole is embracing a more streamlined approach to message delivery?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 5px;padding-left: 0px\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know if the future is in 17-minute worship services, but I think there is so much more clutter in the world: more advertising, just more. One of the ways you honor people\u2019s time is that you get to what you\u2019re saying quickly, and well. Maybe \u201cquickly\u201d isn\u2019t even the word. Maybe just \u201cwell\u201d\u2013well intentioned, thoughtfully. Distilling an idea down to what it is, making its access easier.<\/p>\n<p><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Bell, in an interview with Burnside Writers, suggests sermons could get better if they got shorter\u2026 Any response? BWC: You\u2019ve already explored the \u201chigh content, low word count\u201d concept with your book Drops Like Stars, and it\u2019s clearly a big concern to you at the moment. What inspired this \u201cendless evolution\u201d you\u2019re referring to? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rob Bell on Sermon Length -- Shortening?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rob Bell, in an interview with Burnside Writers, suggests sermons could get better if they got shorter...Any response?BWC: You&#039;ve already explored the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rob Bell on Sermon Length -- Shortening?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rob Bell, in an interview with Burnside Writers, suggests sermons could get better if they got shorter...Any response?BWC: You&#039;ve already explored the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-21T03:08:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/imgs\/RobBell.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/\",\"name\":\"Rob Bell on Sermon Length -- Shortening?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-21T03:08:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-11-21T03:08:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Rob Bell, in an interview with Burnside Writers, suggests sermons could get better if they got shorter...Any response?BWC: You've already explored the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/20\/rob-bell-on-sermon-length-shortening\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Rob Bell on Sermon Length &#8212; Shortening?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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