All’s well that ends well- especially with sermons…

How much time do you spend on your sermon endings? You might want to give your endings a bit more attention…

A few years ago in a fairly short period of time my wife broke her leg in three places and I broke two of my fingers on my left hand. (Did I mention I’m left-handed?) We both learned what so many others have experienced: physical therapy and recovery is hard work.

Much of my therapy consisted of contorting my fingers into different positions. As much experience as I’ve had extending certain fingers, I was surprised at how hard the exercises were now. One of my favorite parts of physical therapy were the bowls of cool and warm water. Apparently, moving your hand from a cool bowl of water to a warm bowl of water stimulates blood flow. The only thing I knew is that it didn’t hurt, and I was a fan of that.

It reminded me of another experiment behavioralists ran with cold and warm water- only this experiment didn’t feel quite as good. This experiment aimed to show the irrational way we prefer enduring a longer painful experience that ends well to a shorter painful experience that doesn’t abate. The experiment was simple. Subjects placed one hand in an extremely cold bowl of water for sixty seconds. Then they were allowed to remove it and were given a nice, warm towel. Then, after a break, the subjects put their hands back in the bowls of water for another sixty seconds. The difference here is that at the sixty second mark warmer water was added to the bowl, such that an additional ninety seconds the water was warmer when the subjects were told they could remove their hand. Now, the water wasn’t MUCH more warm- only 1 degree Celsius, just enough to feel. So, the subjects experienced qualitatively more pain in the ninety second experiment than in the sixty second trial. But when the subjects were given a choice between tests for the third and final experiment, an overwhelming number of them chose the ninety second trial. Sure, it was longer. But all’s well that ends well.

Behavioralists refer to this phenomenon as the peak-end rule. The way people remember an experience has a great deal to do with how they experience the peak emotion during the experience in comparison with how it ends. Even though sixty seconds is shorter than ninety seconds, the ninety second experiment ended more pleasantly than the sixty second version. (Kahneman, Daniel (2011-10-25). Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 383). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition)

This brings me to the homiletical moment. Whether we like it or not, people place an enormous value on our preaching. The late Fred Craddock believed the way a sermon ends is so important he published a fascinating CD set entitled: 13 Ways to End A Sermon. Craddock’s instinct was correct. Sure, people remember our sermon endings because it’s the last image, story, poem, or song offered. But, because of the peak-end rule, I suspect people unconsciously rate the entire sermon, perhaps the entire worship service, based on the ending. My hunch is that people would vastly prefer a longer and potentially more painful sermon that ends well to a shorter and less excruciating sermon that ends blandly.

Of course to know this we’d have to test it, and goodness knows I have enough sermons with questionable endings… :p