H is for Homilophobia
1 Peter 3:15 “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But, do this with gentleness and respect.”
As I thought about this month’s letter, I decided to look at new words. Maybe I could expand my vocabulary and find a word that began with the letter H, that was unfamiliar, at least to me. I browsed the dictionary for fun. Well actually I googled words that started with the letter H and trusted God to help me decided on the right one to write about.
H is for homilophobia, a word I wasn’t familiar with. So, I checked on the meaning and root of this word, homilophobia. The Greek word, homilo means sermon and phobia is fear. Any phobia can range from moderate to severe. Fear isn’t always logical but it attacks our sense of well-being. What about homilphobia or the fear of sermons? This fear makes the person want to avoid attending church or being anywhere they might be preached at.
How could I relate this to the verse that commands us to share the gospel, the reason for our hope? If we preach at our readers, we will turn them away from finishing the piece or book and never picking up anything again. For those with the fear of sermons, if we preach in our writing, they will be afraid to continue reading and maybe never pick up another book by a Christian author in case they felt preached at.
To gently share means not being heavy-handed or beating them over the head with a Bible as an old saying goes. Preaching is the heavy-handed, in your face method of getting the message out to people. But knowing that some people actually have a phobia regarding sermons, it made me think about what I write and how I say it.
As writers we all know how choosing the right words is important. Not preaching at a person in our writing means showing them the answers rather than telling it to them. This brought it to another point we hear over and over as writers – show, don’t tell.
Internal conflict in our characters gives an opportunity to bring in the reason for their hope. People identify with some type of internal conflict so not only does it help to show rather than tell the story, it keeps us from preaching. After all, it’s the character that is struggling. Relatable but not preachy.
Another good way to bring in the gospel is to have the characters ask questions and someone else answer them in a gentle manner. Those questions could be ones the readers are asking but don’t know where to go for answers.
I don’t think any of us enjoy someone scolding us. It makes us feel like a naughty child whose parent is shaking their finger at them and saying no. When we write we can include ourselves by using we instead of you or talk about our own experience. This gets a message across without the preachy aspect to it. Sharing experience goes such a long way in showing the message too.
One Sunday, we listened to a young man preach. As he made one point and he told the congregation, “You should not do this. It’s not what God wants.” It felt like an attack or that he put himself above doing something wrong. It would have been better to say it like this, “We shouldn’t do this because God doesn’t want that for us.” Then he’d be preaching the truth without condemnation of everyone but himself.
In many ways our writing already should be such that homiliophics could read it without fear. These reminders are good for me and I wanted to share them with all of you. Do you know anyone who has this phobia?
Let’s always be ready to share the hope we have but to remember to do it gently, asking God to help us have the right words to say.
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