The danger with listening critically to sermons

The other day, I wrote some advice on giving feedback to preachers.  I want to add one further piece of advice.  Ration your feedback, give it sparingly.  What I mean by this is that whilst everyone should be getting regular feedback, you don’t want to be giving it every time you listen to other preachers.

I know personally, that as a pastor and preacher, I find it so, so hard to listen to other people preach.  There is a high risk that when I listen, that I end up listening critically. I’m assessing the preacher. I’m thinking about the content of what they are saying and the style.  I will find myself puzzling over their intriguing exegesis, impatiently waiting for the over long introduction to end or getting frustrated at their insistence on telling us what “THE Greek” means when it doesn’t mean that and the congregation don’t need to know a Greek word anyway. 

Now, as an elder in a local church, I do have responsibilities, in that church when others are preaching. I don’t relinquish my responsibilities to provide and protect because someone else is delivering the message.  However I’m not just an under shepherd. I’m one of the sheep and I need to be fed and refreshed with God’s Word. I need nourishing, encouraging, equipping, correcting, rebuking. I need to hear God speak to me.

If every time I listen to a sermon, my posture is that of critic then I am not helping myself to allow the Holy Spirit to work and to hear God speak.  I find that hard enough without making it harder for myself by intentionally sitting down with the pen and feedback form. 

One final thing.  Even when I am listening to give feedback, even when I am taking an elder’s responsibility to keep watch, my primary reason for listening to a sermon is to hear God speak to me.  So, even before I give feedback to someone else, I do well to stop and pray, even if the seron was in my opinion lousy, even if the exegesis was iffy, the illustrations cheesy and the application laboured “Lord what is it that I need to hear, what is it that you are telling me this morning?”