Woodford, Lucas V. “In Living Color: Narrative Rhetoric for a Lutheran Homiletic in the Digital Age” LOGIA 25:3 (Holy Trinity 2015),
Seven minutes. That’s it. That’s all a preacher gets nowadays. After that hands fidget, minds wander, and bodies are restless. Yes, 420 seconds is all that is left of the average attention span. That means seven short minutes is all that the average person is willing to listen to a sermon. Exceed the given time limit and preachers are at the mercy of a congregation struggling with a digitally induced attention deficit disorder. Of course, most preachers do actually preach longer than seven minutes, but understanding how hearers are conditioned to listen and how long they are prone to remain engaged is vital for good preaching…