Listening to the Listeners
Haddon Robinson
If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time, you are not preaching the gospel at all.
Martin Luther
Preach to the suffering, and you will never lack a congregation. There is a broken heart in every pew.
Joseph Parker
How do preachers know if they are even communicating, much less convincing?
After the sermon is too late. The clipped-or-effusive-comment test at the sanctuary door only grades a completed sermon. Nothing more can be done for it.
Haddon Robinson feels that feedback can begin even "as the sermon is still brewing." The power of persuasion increases when the preacher constructs a sermon for an intimately known congregation. And knowing comes from actively listening to the opinions and passions of the parish.
In the following chapter, Robinson, president of Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary and a convincing preacher in his own right, explores some of the ways to exegete the congregation with the same effectiveness as the text.
What do you think of sermons?" the Institute for Advanced Pastoral Studies asked churchgoers — and got an earful. Sample responses:
"Too much analysis and too little answer."
"Too impersonal, too propositional — they relate nothing to life."
"Most sermons resemble hovercrafts skimming over the water on blasts of hot air, never landing anyplace!"
No wonder sermons are occasionally mocked as "the fine art of talking in someone else's sleep." Communication experts dismiss them as "religious monologues." Communication flows best on two-way streets, they argue, while preaching moves in only one direction. And because congregations can't talk back to register doubts, disagreements, or opinions, many sermons hit dead ends.
A second rap ...
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