Anchor Points/Amplification Ratio

In our homiletics discussion this week, we began defining a principle we feel may be important for communicating to a contemporary American audience. I'm calling it the Anchor Points to Amplification Ratio, or AP/AM Ratio for short. The idea is simply this:

In any given sermon or teaching presentation, the audience can only absorb so many important points per session. Therefore, a limited number of important ideas must be anchored securely in the minds of the audience by an appropriate amount of amplification (i.e., explanation and illustration) of those ideas.

If in a presentation there are too many important propositions presented relative to the amount of time spent amplifying them, the audience becomes bewildered by the number of things to think about and the propositions fail to anchor in their minds. Too many anchor points relative to the amount of amplification results in a broad but shallow presentation. On the other hand, if only one or two main ideas are presented and then too much time is spent amplifying those ideas, the audience will become fidgety, waiting for you to "get on with it!" Too much amplification relative to the number of significant anchor points results in a deep but boring presentation.

Where's the perfect balance? It depends upon the particular audience and setting, but I would guess that for today's American audience we should present no more than 1 major point for every 20 minutes of amplification. We can present many other points and ideas in that 20 minutes of course, but they should be well organized under the heading of the main anchor point and effectively amplify it so that it solidly hooks into our audience's mind. Do comment!

posted by Roderick of TMin @ 3:37 PM