The Burden of Threshold Concepts in Preaching
Jan H.F. Meyer and Ray Land’s “Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding” introduce the ideas of “threshold concepts”. Threshold concepts, according to Meyer and Land, are “akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.”[1] They are at their core: transformative, irreversible, integrative, conceptually bound, and troublesome.
As I was reading about each characteristic, I couldn’t help but think about the ways in which I think about or hope for each one of these characteristics to be true of my preaching. Perhaps then, the pressure and burden that preachers face is that every time they preach they are seeking to present a threshold concept.
First, like threshold concepts, preaching should be transformative. As Meyer and Land define it, transformation means that the student experiences “a significant shift in the perception of a subject… In certain powerful instances… the shift in perspective may lead to a transformation of personal identity, a reconstruction of subjectivity.”[2] At the heart of preaching, what else do preachers seek but for the lives of those listening to be transformed?
The idea that threshold concepts are irreversible applies to preaching as well. Preachers hope that as they present the God’s Word that not only are their listeners transformed, but that their transformation is one that lasts and is not easily forgotten.
I would argue that good preaching is integrative in the sense that Meyer and Land argue that threshold concepts ought to be. Like a threshold concept, preaching should help to “expose the previously hidden interrelatedness of something.”[3] Perhaps Christians are more familiar with the term relevant, but the idea is the same. If preaching does not help the listener tie an idea about who God is and/or how God works with their day-to-day life (how they interact with the world, other people, themselves, etc.) than it lacks meaning. In other words, if preaching is not integrative, it is irrelevant.
Preaching often means explaining language that is either used almost entirely in Christian settings and/or explaining language that is used by the Biblical authors in a different way than is commonly used now. In this way, preaching, like threshold concepts, are bounded. Some examples might include the uses of “the flesh” and “the world” as they take the meaning of self-gratifying motivations in the scriptures rather than the actual flesh of a human or the culmination of existence on this planet respectively. Preachers must navigate, explore, introduce, and perhaps even correct the use of familiar words to create a separately understood set of terminology.
Lastly, threshold concepts are troublesome. They are troublesome because they are comprised of conceptually difficult knowledge that fight against the obstacles of “misimpressions from everyday experience, reasonable but mistaken expectations, and the strangeness and complexity of scientists’ views of the matter.”[4] While Meyer and Land were talking about mathematics and science, I believe the same is true of preaching. Preachers constantly fight against and correct misimpressions and mistaken expectations as well as seek to break down the strange and complex views of theologians, conventions, and/or philosophers.
The one difference between threshold concepts and preaching is perhaps in the power that drives the learning. Teachers must rely solely on their own competence and skill to transfer the understanding of threshold concepts to their students. Preachers, while their work is in ensuring that their messages are integrative, bounded, and to some degree troublesome, can rest in knowing that at least the work of transformation and irreversibility is in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
[1] Jan F.H. Meyer and Ray Land, eds., Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. (New York, Routledge, 2006), pg. 1
[2] Ibid, 7
[3] Ibid, 7
[4] Ibid, 11
About the Author
Caleb Lu
7 responses to “The Burden of Threshold Concepts in Preaching”
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Wow! Caleb,
You were able to relate threshold concepts to preaching well! What a great challenge you have:
“Preachers must navigate, explore, introduce, and perhaps even correct the use of familiar words to create a separately understood set of terminology.”
As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have this same challenge. In my field, we call it “reframing”. It can be impacting to reframe something for our listeners in order for them to hear something in a different way.
I, along with you, rest in this:
“Preachers, while their work is in ensuring that their messages are integrative, bounded, and to some degree troublesome, can rest in knowing that at least the work of transformation and irreversibility is in the hands of the Holy Spirit.”
I am curious if you have people in your congregation who have shared something you have said that has helped them see something differently? I know that as a preacher, you do not always get this feedback. I pray that someone will share with you their learnings! I know it is your heart for people to understand God and His great love for them!
Thank you for sharing these thoughts with perfect words!
Kristy, I appreciate you sharing how threshold concepts take shape in your practice.
I definitely didn’t come to these realizations on my own! I’m grateful to be in a church where people do share their thoughts with me. Through their feedback I was able to discover that many who come to hear the sermon are essentially hoping to learn threshold concepts through the preaching. Much of the learning happens in these conversations afterwards, especially on my end!
Caleb,
You have done an exceptional job breaking down the specific roles of a preacher and how it fits into the characteristics of threshold learning. I think the only thing I would add here is that as a Christian teacher in the workplace, I too rely heavily on the Holy Spirit to guide the teaching each day for my students’ learning. Perhaps not to the degree that a preacher does in the pulpit, granted.
It is my prayer for you that you are blessed deeply in your ministry and through your congregation.
Tonette, yes! Thank you for your comment! I didn’t mean to imply that all teachers did not rely on the Holy Spirit. I also probably didn’t aptly express that maybe the burden I feel in preaching is that every time I preach it feels like a threshold concept. Is that also the same in teaching?
Caleb,
Thank you for connecting Threshold Concepts to preaching. You have my mental wheels turning. Particularly in regards to the need for preaching to be “integrative.” This caused me to reflect on the parables of Jesus, and the nature of the parables in general. For a parable is a way of conveying deep wisdom by laying a concept alongside something that is already grasped by the hearer. Good preaching ought to do the same. In your preaching preparation, are there methods you use to implement this mindset? Or, put another way, how do you go about preparing a teaching with the hope of opening up a portal (threshold concept) to the audience?
Hi Caleb,
Great connection made to preaching and threshold concepts. I agree with your observation that preachers desire the portal to open up into the Kingdom of God in each hearer’s life.
I was asked today, what motivates you when you preach?” If I had read your blog post before, I might have said, “Open up a portal of new integrative understanding” but I had to settled for “helping people see that the Kingdom of God is within them.” Probably the same, yet it doesn’t sound as cool.
I do enjoy seeing the “light bulb” come on when I give a sermon. Now we know that a person may just be seeing connections that they had not seen before.
I’m curious if you have a concrete adjustment you are planning to incorporate the next time you preach?
Hey Caleb,
I was wondering if you have time to answer…. What was the last thing that you were researching that you remember shifting into a threshold concept.
What do you think the difference is between teaching yourself a threshold concept and someone teaching you?