Reading Christianly (Part Five)
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about a way of reading that is — in my opinion — uniquely Christian. My premise has been that being a Christian comes down to glorifying God by becoming progressively more and more like him — particularly in my ability to love and be loved by God and others. My point has been that just about anything I read should be read with that end in mind — whether it is the Bible or any kind of spiritually formative material. I should always read with my eyes open to learn more about God’s character and nature, and I should always ask myself how the material I’ve just read can assist me in my efforts to grow in love.
I would hasten to add that this applies as I listen to a sermon.
As a guy who speaks in just about every kind of church you can imagine, I cannot tell you how many people seem to listen at me rather than listening to (or even with) me. They sit there, arms folded, listening for error or listening to make sure I touch all the appropriate bases. They listen to sermons the way an umpire watches a baseball game. They don’t listen for personal transformation. They don’t listen to grow.
These are the people who always want clarification on some fine point of something I said in passing that wasn’t even the point I was trying to make. These are the people who want to know what version I was reading from and why. These are the people who want to know where I went to seminary. These are also the people who wish their brother-in-law had heard the message. They want to get a copy of the CD for someone at work, because it was just the sort of message someone else needed to hear.
These people never come and tell me that it was just what they needed to hear. They never tell me how they could grow from the message or how they plan on applying it to their lives.
Please understand that not everyone does this. There are also plenty of folks who listen well and humbly seek to apply whatever truth they find in my sermons to their personal lives. I love these people, and I wish I were more like them.
I am as guilty of this as anyone else. One of the things I do — as part of my work here with Faith 2.0 — is critiquing sermons. Preachers often ask me for advice or help or coaching in becoming better communicators. Unfortunately, it’s become difficult for me to listen to a sermon for spiritual formation now, because I’m always thinking about how the speaker could have communicated his/her points more effectively.
So, here’s what I’d like for us to discuss: What would change if people started listening to sermons the way we’ve suggested we ought to read? What if they first asked themselves, “What does this sermon teach me about the character and nature of God?” And second, “How can I apply this sermon in such a way as to help me grow in my ability to love and be loved by God and others?”
Finally, for all you preachers out there, how could we train our listeners in the best way to listen to a sermon and get them out of the bad habit of listening at a sermon?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I just want to say that those are some really important questions that need to be answered because it deals directly with the hearts of the listeners. People need to learn to be active participants in hearing the Word/the sermon – not to be critics but to live out the Word in their lives on a daily basis. We have something to say about the Word and the Word has something to say about us. We critique it and it critiques us – when only one of those two is happening we run into real serious trouble. Critics in the pew are only letting the critique go one direction and that is not how scripture and sermons were meant to be heard.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I really don’t know but do understand the dilemma.
I think a start is doing what you say you should do. If I say X is important but I do nothing to show that X is really important by my actions it tells people just listen because that is really all we are saying.
We can have the classic get out and evangelize message but if the church does nothing to aid that by giving people tools or opportunities we have subtly told them to listen but do nothing.
Possibly stories help because they show practical ways of doing what you are discussing. Maybe it is using a different media to make the point. We used the Brooks and Dunn song “Believe†and it was very powerful.
In the end I really don’t know so I just threw some things out.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
One of the things I notice when reading scripture in order to know God and thereby glorify Him, is the particular style of preaching Jesus used. We say it all the time . . . he was a master teacher. He exhibited an undeniable confidence in the work of the Spirit and the capacity of his listeners to wrestle with fresh ideas. He wasn’t afraid of saying something mysterious or paradoxical.
Yet, we’re sold on the notion that people ought to understand what were saying when we say it, which means we spell everything out with extreme detail.
If Jesus wanted to make the point that we don’t have to step on throats in order to inherit blessing, he didn’t cite a thousand studies or quote 15 experts. He used a paradox like, blessed are the meek for they shall inherite the earth. How can a man find his life? Jesus’ answer–lose it. What?!?! He said things that left the listener with a bit of work to do.
I tend to be insulted if someone hears me and then says, “I didn’t understand that point about . . ..” Pride pokes me and says, “You didn’t communicate well enough!” However, Jesus left his listeners perplexed more often than not.
The stories he told had the same quality. They were simple, but the obivous surface meaning spoke to multi-layed analogies, and it was up to the individual listener to dig out those meanings.
There’s an art to all of this which I’ve only recently started studying and reflecting upon. Maybe the best teacher isn’t the one who talks for 30 minutes, delivering all the fish by the end of the sermon. Perhaps the best teacher baits the listeners out into the sea where they catch the haul for themselves.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Maybe part of the problem is as the centuries passed, bibles were printed, people learned to read, gather information, form ideals based on limited human knowledge and the mystery of God and worship started to take a back seat.
Then, we’d call the body together, sit them down and tell them what it says. We even have study material printed up that has questions that are to be answered in a very specific way. People learned to be spoon-fed and fussy in the process because spiritual transformation and renewal became lost in the process of reading, gathering the list of do’s and don’t, which became the true measure for Christian living, not being holy, grace as a free gift, meditation, thankfulness, prayer and repentance. We lost sight of being image bearers and owning the responsibility of transforming our image into His. After all, how powerful can God be if I can figure Him all out? Oh, we deny it, but that’s not how we act or live. Be careful what you say, how you say it, how you mean it, it may offend a “weaker†person. While this is true, it seems to me based on my own heart, I can feel “offended†when I start to understand that I’ve failed to do what I should do.
This has been a tough year for me in the church I’m now attending. I could write a book about what it’s like to be falsely accused of something, about how others gossip once they hear something, but never care or love enough to come to learn if what they heard was true or false and that means you really have no respectability or personhood within the group. Even those who are “leaders†within this group bear this out, as they knew and did nothing until it became clear that there was no other choice. They all came and sat comfortably in their seat every Sunday, took the Lord’s Supper with me and never even had a pang of conscience about what they were doing. I struggle every time I am there because of hurt and anger. But this much I know, it is upon me to love, forgive because that’s what Christ did for me and so far I’m failing. If a heart desires to learn, the spirit will teach, but it will not happen without tons of suffering, something that isn’t natural to any human and neither is Godly love, I might add. But we seem to have them all wrapped up, too. I guess as humans we resist growing up for as long as we can because the work is hard, but at the same time if you don’t face the challenge, you’ll never taste the sweetness of victory, nor understand what Christ really did.
So as long as we want to feel good by controlling church, God, His Spirit, what worship is, how we do it, who can do it, we probably can expect to see these same results. But, when we begin to trust and understand that God has a plan, we are part of it, it’s in place and we can’t control it, then maybe we will let the Spirit work within the hearts men and women and not get in the way. We’ll offer them every freedom in Christ because of what they are doing in the kingdom and we’ll be at peace knowing that they are compelled to do what they are called to do and it’s the same for us.
Be at peace with what you do and offer to God. His Spirit will guide you to get what is important stated, the focus is on the message, not who’s hearing it, you can’t control what’s being heard, that’s the responsibility of the person hearing. Maybe that message of “hearing†needs to be delivered more than we think and how we choose our own message over His. Remember each of us is different for a reason.
P.S. Hopefully, it’s understood that it’s not you who offends, but the Spirit that convicts the heart and leads it to repentance.
Lorene