Step 5 : From Monologue Teaching to Dialogue Teaching
Just by way of preface, we need to say something important :
Teaching must happen in the church.
It’s not a church if teaching is not present. So before someone thinks of a small gathering as just a social “chit-chat” community, we need to make sure that we are promoting a church that is pro-teaching. We all need help. We all are sinners and so we come together to learn.
Secondly, this teaching will be primarily Biblical teaching We are going to be taught by God’s word. There may be smatterings of other teaching types, such as science, psychology, or practical wisdom, but primarily the Scriptures will be our headquarters.
So now onto Step 5 : From Monologue to Dialogue
Monologue is this idea of teaching coming from a select few.
Picture of monologue in centre
Generally this is done in the sermon. It is an example of a central culture posture.
But Dialogue is the idea that teaching comes from all people.
Picture of Dialogue
This means that teaching comes from a wide variety of individuals. Now it is important that this is Step 5, because the previous ones will make this step 5 an easier transition.
There will be less people
A monologue makes more sense when there’s a lot of people. Conversely, dialogue with many hundreds of people would be diabolical. Hence, if your church has fewer than 20, then dialogue makes more sense. People can be heard, everyone could share.
Everyone is being trained to lead
If they are doing it properly, then they should already be participating in a laity-led ecosystem, meaning that dialoguing and teaching one another is something that they may be naturally doing already.
A house leads to dialogue
The environment of the church, the setting, with couches, smaller groups, is ripe for dialogue rather than monologue. People don’t realise that if they are in a hall with many pews and a stage, even if you wanted to practice dialoguing, the environment around you screams monologue.
So if Steps 1-4 are done properly, you will notice that your church will naturally slide from monological teaching to dialogical teaching.
Now, there are a few things that may look like “dialoguing” when they are not really that. I would say that these practices are somewhat better than preaching, but they still have traces of monologue.
The Dial of Dialogue
Below are 4 ways of teaching that increasingly are more dialogical, though they still fall short of true dialogical teaching. In saying that, I believe these teaching forms are better than a long sermon.
Mini Monlogues
To make the church more “dialogical” and laity-led, some churches may have a variety of speakers. They may have 3 mini sermons, or it could be a service where multiple people come up and share their testimony. This may be better than one sermon, but it is still in the stream of monologue. A variety of people, but in the vein of monologue.
Q & A
After a sermon, or even as the sermon, some churches have a time where people can ask questions from the floor. It is usually just a question, not a monologue. And the answer is usually given by the preacher. It has a taste of dialogue to it, but again, it is monologue because the teaching is still controlled by the preacher. If it did break out in a back-and-forth scenario, people would get upset by that.
Discussion Panels
This would be the next level up. You would get a group of people “dialoguing” on the stage, maybe a group of 3-4. Others are sitting down watching. When they talk, their teaching is in fact, dialogical. I actually think this would be a much better way to do teaching in a big service, rather than a sermon. It has the elements of Q & A, preaching, and a variety of people giving their opinion. But the problem is that it is still viewed by an audience, meaning it is still monological in nature. I call this type also “Dialogue Monologue”.
Controlled Dialoguing
This is where you do have a group of people dialoguing without an audience, so much like a Bible Study. But a controlled dialogue would have someone leading all the time, answering the majority of questions and preparing the layout of how the teaching would go. They may be done with a series of questions that are down on a sheet.
There must be Dialogical Order
It must be Biblically Saturated
It must be Group-led rather than Individually-led
Have a Facilitator
Rotate the Facilitators
It must be Reproducible
Use Discovery-Based Bible Studies
Have Shallow Pool and Deep Pool Dialogues
The Group Must be Small
Make all Facets of the Meeting Dialogical
The Singing
The Meals
The Meeting Space
The Sharing and Praying