If I say that you're brave, will that make you think it's scarier than you already did?
Does your church have the custom of having a talkback at the end of the service, where people can ask questions like for a conference paper? (One small UU congregation I attended for a bit had this, but I have no idea if it's typical.)
I have given three sermons in churches, if you count the one that was me and my dad doing a scripted dialogue when I was 10. I did not push the boundaries of their convictions very much, and the parts that felt scary to me to say in public I tried out on a couple of minister-type people beforehand.
I feel like you know a lot more than I do about how to get people to listen to something hard they don't quite agree with, in a way that leaves them open to re-thinking their opinions. And you probably know more than I do about how many new thoughts people can absorb in a sermon format, because you listen to them more often than I do these days. But if you think a handout of annotated bibliography and weblinks would help, use one. And the same goes for PowerPoint or videoclips. For a topic like that, I'd be most inclined to listen to a differing POV from someone who talked about the personal encounters that let her/him to her/his convictions. And if I did have my differing opinion because of some personal encounter (watching the lingering death of a grandparent when I was a child maybe?), I'd want to hear something that acknowledged my situation.
no subject
Does your church have the custom of having a talkback at the end of the service, where people can ask questions like for a conference paper? (One small UU congregation I attended for a bit had this, but I have no idea if it's typical.)
I have given three sermons in churches, if you count the one that was me and my dad doing a scripted dialogue when I was 10. I did not push the boundaries of their convictions very much, and the parts that felt scary to me to say in public I tried out on a couple of minister-type people beforehand.
I feel like you know a lot more than I do about how to get people to listen to something hard they don't quite agree with, in a way that leaves them open to re-thinking their opinions. And you probably know more than I do about how many new thoughts people can absorb in a sermon format, because you listen to them more often than I do these days. But if you think a handout of annotated bibliography and weblinks would help, use one. And the same goes for PowerPoint or videoclips. For a topic like that, I'd be most inclined to listen to a differing POV from someone who talked about the personal encounters that let her/him to her/his convictions. And if I did have my differing opinion because of some personal encounter (watching the lingering death of a grandparent when I was a child maybe?), I'd want to hear something that acknowledged my situation.