One well-known online sermon library reports an average of fifty thousand sermon-downloads every day.[1] And that’s just one of many online sermon libraries. If you love to listen to preaching, you may be one of the thousands of Christians who’ve committed to listen to recorded sermons throughout the week, or whenever you have a spare moment. Maybe you redeem your travel or exercise time by donning your iPod or inserting the next sermon CD into your car stereo. That’s wonderful! Don’t stop. I commend you for your desire to hear God’s Word preached as often as possible.
But consider this: You may have become so
accustomed to listening to sermons alone that even when you attend church you
are still listening alone. There may be people sitting in
the pews all around you, but you’re still listening alone. That’s one of the
results of our individualistic society. We’ve forgotten how to listen to a
sermon in community. Consider the following ideas to recapture community sermon-listening
as a weekly exercise and to let the shared sermon experience be the focus of
your Christian fellowship.
Arrive at church at least ten minutes early
and encourage someone before the service begins. Get yourself situated so that
you’ll not be a distraction to yourself or others. Look at the people around
you and pray for them silently, asking God to enhance the spiritual impact of
the worship service upon their lives. See yourself as a part of a family of
Christian brothers and sisters who all have the same goals in life—to become
more like Christ. Sunday morning is a weekly reunion of your spiritual family
and is another stride in this community project called “sanctification.” See
yourself as a vital part of this process. Take a minute to thank God for the church
that surrounds you.
As the sermon gets started, be aware of the
fact that you’re listening with others. You’re watching others listen. They’re
watching you listen. Encourage them by being attentive. Nod in agreement with
your pastor, smile at him and others, and take good notes. Do whatever you can
to demonstrate focused listening that will in turn encourage others to do the
same. Try not to distract them but lead them to listen just as you are.
When it’s time to participate in the offering,
see it as an act of worship and know that your sacrificial contribution to the
church is one of the ways you share in the sermon experience. Your financial
support is what allows your pastor to prepare the sermons that your soul needs
in order to continue growing alongside all your brothers and sisters. Your gift
ensures that biblical preaching can go on in the church. Don’t treat this fiscal
participation lightly as it’s directly linked to the sermon event itself.
Embrace the idea that the people sitting
beside you are your spiritual teammates—people whom you want to serve after the
sermon is done, and people who will seek to serve you. So plan for this during
the sermon. Be thinking about what discussions can take place after the final
“Amen.” Jot down any questions you might be able to ask a friend that would
assist them in their spiritual walk. Remember Hebrews 10:24: “Let us consider
how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,” and plan ahead so that
you can be deliberate in your efforts to do this.
Christopher Ash explains how listening in
community helps him:
When we listen together, you know what message I’ve heard, and I
know what message you’ve heard. I’ve heard it. You know I’ve heard it. I know
that you know I’ve heard it! And you expect me to respond to the message, just
as I hope you will. And so we encourage one another and stir up one another to
do what the Bible says. By being with you, I make it easier for myself to
respond the way I know I ought to respond. I can listen to a very challenging
Bible passage preached on a recording, and if I ignore it no one knows. But if
I pay no attention to the sermon I heard with you sitting beside me, you will
know; and I would hate you to know I wasn’t listening![2]
This kind of accountability may seem
threatening but know that truly loving Christian friends only want the best for
you and vice versa. It’s this kind of close relationship that promotes progress
in the gospel for them and for you. You need me and I need you in the sermon
event. Embrace this axiom as a new commitment to sermon-listening.
There are a number of things that can make
community sermon-listening difficult or frustrating. Parents with babies or
young children will resonate with this. What do you do when you have young children
in church with you? How do you encourage them to participate in the sermon?
I have good friends who have worked hard to
teach their children how to sit still and not be a distraction to others. Their
training is accomplished at home so that when the family arrives at church they’re
not starting from scratch. It takes constant, disciplined effort over the long
haul to teach children how to sit for an hour to read or draw without fidgeting
or talking loudly. Others have taught their children to take notes in the
sermon from a very young age. It starts with drawing pictures of words heard in
the message. The child’s choice of word might not always be the best, but it
helps them to get into the practice of listening during the sermon. Later, as
the child’s vocabulary and understanding develop, the quality of the
note-taking improves. Joel Beeke trained his children to take notes from the
age of seven. Having returned to their home on Sunday evening, they would read
through those notes as a family and talk their way through the Sunday sermons.
Beeke explains, “Sometimes the discussions help our children even more than the
sermons themselves,” and he exhorts, “Even when conversations do not produce
the desired results, continue to attempt this review of [Sunday] sermons. It is
better to fall short than not to attempt at all.”[3]
Iain Murray writes, “It was Lloyd-Jones’s
conviction that churches make a great mistake when they do not expect children
to be present during a sermon.”[4]
From before the age of five, infants were present throughout the service at
Westminster Chapel. If we’re going to encourage community sermon-listening, it
could be that we need to listen to Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s call to include all age
groups in the sermon event. Some will argue that no child should be expected to
sit through an entire sermon, and yet “we have every reason to believe that
children benefitted under the powerful preaching of the New Testament times.”[5]
Iain Murray describes one situation in which Lloyd-Jones was ill and was not
able to preach: “A girl of twelve wrote to him on behalf of herself and her
brother to say she hoped he would soon be back.”[6]
Oh that our children could express a similar excitement for the preaching of
God’s Word! Are there ways your new community sermon-listening focus can be
used to include your children?
Just as you might supplement your church
sermon experience with other recorded sermons during the week, you might
consider supplementing your child’s exposure to Christian truth by availing
them of children’s Sunday school and/or youth oriented ministries. But don’t
minimize the importance of involving them in the corporate worship service
where the family of God is growing together and stimulating one another in the
process. Think about encouragements and questions you could use to engage your
children in the Sunday sermon before, during, and after the event.
When the sermon is done, then the real work of community begins. Next week, I’ll discuss post-sermon fellowship activities. Keep reading and make a list of how you can become a better sermon-listening teammate.
When the sermon is done, then the real work of community begins. Next week, I’ll discuss post-sermon fellowship activities. Keep reading and make a list of how you can become a better sermon-listening teammate.
[1] Grace to You, a ministry which distributes the sermons of John
MacArthur, saw almost 18 million sermons downloaded from the GTY website in
2012. This figure was confirmed in an e-mail from Executive Director, Phil
Johnson.
[2] Christopher Ash, Listen Up!:
A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons (New Maiden, Surrey, England: The
Good Book Company, 2009), 13–14.
[3] Joel R. Beeke, The Family at Church: Listening to Sermons and
Attending Prayer Meetings (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008),
26.
[4] Iain H. Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 2008), 35.
[5] Ibid., 36.
[6] Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment