Once upon a time, there was a sermon series, acclaimed by the preacher's homiletics professors, that totally bombed in the pews. To explore this situation of "when ecclesial worlds collide", three groups within a UCC congregation were asked to respond to several narrative sermons. One group participated in sermon preparation discussions that lasted several hours, while another attended a Bible study on the text just before worship. The third group simply heard the sermon in worship. It became clear that Christian community is most effectively formed, not by stories preached to the people during worship, but by the active engagement of those people in prior dialogue with the text and the preacher.
