What can church members and other leaders do to help a preacher?
1) Pray often for their preacher and family
2) Show practical love for the pastor’s wife and children especially on Sundays
3) Give the preacher a book and Bible software allowance so he can prepare better sermons
4) Provide for the preacher a set number of uninterrupted hours to prepare to preach and teach
5) Relieve him of administrative duties on Sundays so he can focus on preaching
6) Give him a day off and have other leaders cover for him so he can enjoy his family
How can I get feedback on my preaching and teaching?
1) Exhibit a humble attitude that really seeks input even if it is negative
2) Make yourself available after preaching for instant feedback
3) Set up a section on the church’s website for questions and discussion of the sermon
4) Humbly consider the pleas of those who lovely confront you
5) Appoint preselected people to write feedback reports on the sermon
6) Encourage leaders to channel feedback from more timid members
Mark Driscoll tells about “One friend of mine who pastors a large church went so far as to pay a non-Christian neighbor to attend his church and write up a full report of what it was like to find the building, park, be greeted, sit the service, hear the sermon, and hang out for coffee afterward. He said it was the best money the church ever spent.”
Can preaching also be done as an interactive dialogue?
Most preaching is monologue and not interactive. But dialogue and interaction could be done to the spiritual benefit of the people. For example, after the sermon, the preacher could conduct a Q&A time. Larger churches, like Driscoll’s, use texting that is screened.
John Stott in the second chapter of Between Two Worlds recommends another kind of dialogical preaching: The dialogical character of preaching provokes questions in our listeners and then answers them. We usually think of dialogical preaching as working for verbal responses from our listeners. This is not what Stott was stressing. Dialogical preaching “refers to the silent dialogue between the preacher and his hearers.” Dialogical preaching anticipates objections and answers them like Paul in Romans 3:1-6. This is the strength of Donald R. Sunukjian’s Invitation to Biblical Preaching where he shows us how to argue for our application. See pages 93-105. Stott adds, “Preaching is rather like playing chess, in that the expert chess player keeps several moves ahead of his opponent, and is always ready to respond, whatever piece he decides to move nest.”
But when the church replaces the preacher with a discussion leader who shares the opinions of the group, preaching loses its authority and heresy is more likely to invade. “The Bible is just one voice at the conversational table. This gives opportunity for false teachers to rise up, speak with equal authority, and lead many astray.” See my review of Doug Pagitt’s book Preaching Re-Imagined where Pagitt endorses the dialogue and interaction that Driscoll condemns. In the Youtube you see Pagitt’s church, Solomon’s Porch, with couches instead of pews or chairs to encourage dialogue during the sermon.
