How To Listen To A Sermon
As Christians we know that the Word of God is powerful and life-transforming. We know that hearing it preached is crucial to our spiritual health yet at times we find ourselves distracted during preaching, unmoved by the truths being proclaimed to us, and benefiting very little from what we hear. Rather than regarding our situation as “just the way it is” we must work hard to receive from the preaching of God’s Word all that God has for us.
In How To Survive Your Pastor’s Sermons Robert G. Spinney offers the following six pieces of advice for making the most out of hearing the Word of God preached:
- Listen to the weekly Sunday sermon as if your life depended on it.
- Look for God’s remedies for sin and His instructions for living in a sinful world.
- Expect to be taught by the Holy Spirit as you hear God’s Word proclaimed.
- Be determined to listen…regardless of the speaker’s oratory skills.
- A profitable Bible message is on that delivers one life-transforming truth.
- Pre-commit to apply and obey God’s Word as it is set forth in the sermon.
Spinney fleshes out each of these points in the short pamphlet. One of the most important points Spinney makes in his explanation of these six points is that good listening is work.
A passive listener often mistakenly regards a sermon as all “throwing” and no “catching”: he expects the speaker to do all the work of “throwing” God’s Word at him, while he does the passive job of “catching” what is being thrown. That’s not true. Good listeners must intentionally try to hear what is being said and intentionally apply what is said to their soul. Good listening is work.
The sermon time in a worship service is not a time where we get to relax and let the preacher do all the work. We must work at listening, understanding, believing, and obeying the Word of God preached to us. This year I’ve resolved to work hard, by God’s grace, at listening and receiving the preached Word.
Links:
Tulip Books - Publishes How To Survive Your Pastor’s Sermons and other pamphlets by Robert Spinney.
How To Listen To A Sermon by George Whitefield.
[tags]sermons, listening, preaching, church, worship, Bible[/tags]
Very good stuff Ryan. I have encouraged similar preparation, but this is better. I will be picking up Spinney’s booklet.
[...] Ryan Wentzel summarizes what sounds like a great booklet, How To Survive Your Pastor’s Sermons by Robert G. Spinney. Very good stuff there. Especially relevant if you do not think your pastor’s or chapel speaker’s sermon is immediately accessible. Check out Ryan’s post here. [...]
[...] in the beautiful burg of Bellingham, WA « “Oh, he got out again.” On Preparing to Hear a Sermon January 1st, 2007 Great post on this important and oft-overlooked topic by Ryan Wentzel,including a couple links to other works on the topic. (HT:Joe Thorn) [...]
It really is a great little booklet. I read it on Sunday after realizing that I wasn’t engaging in the hard work of listening.
I followed the link from Pete Williamson’s blog. Please continue with these thoughts. I have pursued them some myself and am doing so more in as part of my dissertation.
http://neoathanasius.blogspot.com/2006/06/philosophy-of-we-preaching-5.html
Then continued to think about the way that our sermon notes effects the way we hear.
http://neoathanasius.blogspot.com/2006/06/listening-sermon-notes.html
I will pick up Spinney’s book, thanks for the recommendation.
[...] Came across this on another blog and wanted to post it here so that I could have it as a reference point. I am not a very good sermon listener and am glad for the guidance that is offered here. [...]