Breaking Through the Fourth Wall.

Have you ever watched a sitcom where the actors are huddled around a kitchen table and taken notice where they sit?

The most noticeable example that sticks out in my mind is “The Cosby Show“: Theo, Cliff, and Claire may be enjoying a nice Sunday morning brunch; perhaps a stern warning to Theo about the dangers of teenage drinking. No matter how many of the Huxtables were gathered around the table, you never saw anyone sitting with their back to the camera.

Ever.

Why? Because this is what people in the industry refer to as “the fourth wall. ” It is the invisible boundary that says, “I am here acting, you are there watching. No matter how much I want to portray real life events, there is a ‘fourth wall’ between us that boundaries us. I cannot get to you and you cannot get to me.“

For some, this is a hindrance. For others, it is a blessing. For some, it maintains the allusion that “I am different, I am other, I am actor.” For others, it is a real obstacle to connecting with an audience.

Take notice of this the next time you watch something on TV or catch a play at the local theatre: No one ever sits with their back to the camera (or audience.) I never really though much about this until I majored in TV broadcasting in college. It smacks of “duh”, but if an actor or broadcaster is sitting with their back to the audience, no one can see them.

Seems obvious, right?

But no matter the “stage blocking” there is still the “fourth wall.“

Why am I belaboring this point? An interesting discussion has popped up in the Twitterspehere about “the fourth wall.” Preachers, whether they know it or not, experience the “fourth wall”, the invisible boundary between us and the congregation. Because of that, whether conscious or not, there is an element of “performance” that sneaks into the delivery of even the best preacher. I have experienced it, and I know others have to.

The question as of late is “how do we break through the fourth wall in a digital, global, and relativistic world?” Luther felt this tension in his time. He stepped down from the pulpit and preached from within the congregation, wandering back and forth through the aisles as he taught (a practice that continues in most Lutheran churches to this day.) How do we, as modern preachers, teachers, and communicators “wander through the aisles” of our modern day congregations?

Solutions abound, we’ll discuss some of them in part two of this “Fourth Wall” series. Stay tuned!

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Contributor: Justin Wise

I am a religious deviant who enjoys coffee, collared shirts, spending time with my wife and son, learning about quantum physics and creatively exploring the riches of the Spirit of Christ. Find more here: JustinWise.me

Sam Mahlstadt

I'm not sure the "in the round" theory resolves the issue, after all, the speaker is in the center of the room... I do believe it is a step in the right direction. It boils down to affectiveness of communication that will break down walls. People want to hear good preaching and teaching, not a really approachable sub-par communicator. Perhaps the solution lies in interaction and speaker/audience dialogue, ie texting questions during a message...

GregAtkinson

Yep - that's why a lot of churches and conferences are setting up "in the round" - with the speaker in the center of the room.

Susan

There's also that part about how if you have your back to people they can't always hear you - particularly a problem if you have a lip reader, or even just someone with a partial loss of hearing. And in most cultures turning your back on someone is considered rude...LOOK at me when we're talking.

As for the performance thing, I have experienced this when singing in choirs. Sometimes it was my problem, sometimes it was other members of the choir having the problem. Once I became particularly aware of it, I would try to give myself a couple moments in the pew before I went into the choir area to remember why I was singing. I was singing for God, not for myself...as part of the worship service, not as part of a show. (Let me state that also helped me chill the few times I had to be a cantor.)

We have been blessed with a recent series of good priests at the churches we've been members of the last few years. All of these men have been very approachable and very much not "I'm up here and you're down there and thus I am closer to God than you'll ever be." I have, unfortunately experienced that kind of preaching and it's very disappointing.

Also at two of our past churches the altar was in the very middle of the sanctuary so the service is done "in the round." This model made some people, used to a more traditional setting, very uncomfortable but it forced the priest to move around face more than just one part at a time. At one of the churches in particular, everything happened throughout the sanctuary. The altar is shaped like an octagon and Father would move sides of it during the Liturgy of the Eucharist so he was never facing the same way every Sunday. The processional wove in and out of the seats (no pews - long story). After a baptism, the baby was paraded around by the parents, and parishioners were able to mark a cross on the baby's head as they passed by.

It was a good model for "we are this church, this church is us." The people are the church, not the preacher.

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