Issue 09 Preaching about MoneyBlog | Preaching problems
Preaching problems
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 16.12.16
THE SCENARIO When I stand at the door at the end of a service, people always seem to say the same thing. They can’t recall anything from the sermon regardless of how hard I’ve worked. How do I preach with passion without getting discouraged and losing my motivation and drive?
RICHARD LITTLEDALE
A visiting preacher once stood at the door and received all kinds of comments, but the same man kept coming round again and again saying negative things. The resident minister, thinking to help, said ‘take no notice of him – he only repeats what other people say!’ I repeat the story because it is a warning to all of us that we should take comments received on the door with a very large pinch of salt. They can be rather like the applause described by an eighteenth-century actor as ‘the crude blast of the fickle multitude’. While it is nice to get any kind of comments on the door, they are no indicator of the real impact of the sermon. Instead, that impact will be measured in an office on a Wednesday afternoon, or a fraught kitchen on a Monday morning. The real litmus test of your preaching’s value is one to which only that person and God will be privy. Those moments when we get to see it as preachers are rare indeed. Preach for a congregation of many but an audience of one. So long as he is pleased, you can hold your head up high.
