Part One
Almost any preacher can be heard on the internet these days. The better speakers gather a following. They are not only interesting and colorful speakers, they are often insightful theologians. Some of my friends have become connoisseurs of this excellent, mass media preaching. It helps them in their Christian discipleship. I am glad such preachers are available and helpful to so many.
However, most preachers do not have a mass audience. Many of them are good preachers who give sermons that are worthy of a wider distribution. However, for reasons of access or promotion or God’s providence their sermons remain locally heard and appreciated but never gain wide spread recognition.
Still, there are many preachers who are not scintillating speakers. They do not offer profound insights. People continue to gather and listen to these more modest preachers week after week. At times I have thought that the people have simply accepted with grace the limited ability of their preacher, and they have allowed their expectations of any improvement in preaching to sink.
Recently, my thinking has changed. I’ve come to believe that many more people in our churches have developed a skill that all of us who go to church need to develop: the ability to listen to a sermon, even a poor one and gain something of value. Mark Twain once said that he had never heard a sermon from which he did not gain something; he did add that there had been a few close calls. I’ve come to believe that more important than the skill of the preacher is the skill of the listener. I am writing this reflection on how to listen to a sermon because I believe we can improve our experience in worship if we develop listening skills that overcome the weaknesses of a preacher.
One foundation for all good listening is the realization that our experience of preaching improves as we appreciate its context in worship. Unlike an internet sermon in which one listens to the preacher while jogging or commuting home from work or cleaning house the preachers we hear on Sunday morning are being heard in the context of a worship service in which the hearers are participating. People sing hymns, offer prayers for their friends by name. They listen to announcements for upcoming activities. They put their money in the offering plates as a part of their worship. They hear scriptures read. They spend time before and after the service talking with people they have come to know in the congregation. Many of these folks will have volunteered in Sunday school or volunteered as greeters or ushers, sung in the choir or stayed after service to count the collection. The sermon fits in the context of congregational life, particularly it is best understood as only one element in worship. So, people who have become good listeners to sermons are people who have thoughtfully realized or simply reached the understanding intuitively that the sermon is a part of worship and not the whole point of their participation. Certainly, the quality of the sermon alone does not determine the validity or power of their worship experience.
Because the preacher and the musicians are up front it is easy to think of preaching and worship leadership as a performance which we in the audience can judge to be good or bad. However, the people who manage to make the most of sermons have learned that the preacher is not performing for the congregation. These good listeners have learned that God is the audience, and the congregation members are the performers. The people are there to offer their worship to God. The preacher and the musicians are prompters who help the people remember their lines as they perform their worship for God. Worship is bigger than the preacher or anyone else who stands up front to sing or give announcements or pray or read. Worship rises to God from the people who are gathered together in the pews. A worshiper who is focused on God may become almost indifferent to the music or to the sermon. Just as a well prepared performer does not really need a prompter to feed him or her the lines in his or her part, so a person who becomes absorbed in worship may not need or even notice the people standing up front in worship leadership because the worship experience transcends the prompters.
As a preacher I know that happens. I have on occasion received a compliment from someone about my sermon as the person was leaving the church after service. They repeated to me what they had heard from God through the sermon. However, I realized immediately I had never said or meant to say what they heard. They were engaged with God. He was speaking to them but not with the words that I had been using.
The same phenomena happens with music. Particularly helpful to worship is congregational singing. People who join their voices with others in praise to God are often comforted, inspired, challenged and confirmed in their faith. The quality of the singing is not so important as the ease with which people can enter into the experience. Music is not meant for the people up front to be honored as performers. Applause in a worship service seems odd to the purpose of worship. Applause from the congregation for musicians reinforces the idea that the performers are the ones up front and it makes the people in the congregation an audience such as you would find at a concert. The music, especially congregational singing, helps the people to offer the performance of their praise to God. The only applause should be applause in heaven.
Applause is not a problem for sermon givers. Very few sermons offered in local congregations elicit applause. That’s just as well! In fact, limited ability preachers can serve God better than highly talented preachers. The limited preacher serves better if the congregation hearing a talented preacher thinks too much of the preacher and fails, thereby, to offer their thoughts and praise where it belongs, to God alone. The sign of a good preacher is his or her ability to help people turn their thoughts to God. Never does a preacher want the congregation to leave the service saying, “What a great preacher!” Always, the good preacher wants the people to leave saying, “What a great Savior is our Lord!” The same applies to music and to all of our leaders in worship. As John the Baptist said in reference to Jesus, he must increase, and I must decrease.
Congregations that listen regularly to good preaching will, hopefully, become accustomed to the preaching. They will not be surprised by good preaching. They will expect it week by week. Hopefully, the congregation will learn to listen for God through the good preaching. The encounter with God will be far more significant than the efforts of the hard working and talented preacher. In time people will no longer notice that their preacher is exceptionally good in his or her calling. They take good preaching for granted. Being taken for granted is probably good for the spiritual health of the preacher, and the reward for his or her efforts will not be applause, but it will be a congregation that worships with reverence and joy.
Congregations that listen regularly to modest preachers with limited ability or even to preachers who could do better if they worked harder, can, also, learn in time to look past the preacher to God. It will be harder for these listeners, but there are ways to become a good listener even to preachers who offer poorly prepared sermons or sermons that seem on the surface to have little insight or challenge to offer. Even these sermons can become in the ears of a good listener the work of God. In my next entry I will give specifics.
