Friday, January 13, 2012

My favorite comments to hear after a sermon

I hear all kinds of comments after a sermon - I always love the feedback even if it's less than positive! There's always the old standard, "good sermon Pastor."  It's always nice to receive encouragement of any kind - so I don't want to discourage those who might pull this one out on occasion. But there are some post-sermon comments that really get my attention. Here are a few of them. 


feedback


1. "I was re-reading the passage you preached from ... "
My prayer always is that Sunday's sermon will drive people to the word of God.  I pray that it would compel them to read on their own.  That the treatment of the scriptures would have been intriguing enough for them to look into the Bible themselves. 


2. "That specific part of your sermon helped me to change the way I ..."  
One of the driving goals of preaching is life change.  Only the Holy Spirit can accomplish this in a person's heart, but I believe that the Spirit uses the preaching of God's word as change agent in the hearts of believers. I believe that there are specific parts of every message that God has hand-crafted for certain believers that will be a catalyst for change.  We are not supposed to be just hearers, but do-ers of the word.


3. "Can you explain what you meant by ..." 
I like to view most sermons as the start of a conversation.  For those 35 minutes on Sunday  I realized that the conversation is very one-sided.  But I always pray that it will continue.  Sometimes it continues with me, which is great, but most often it continues in small groups or over coffee somewhere. When people push back about a certain point in my sermon it gives me a chance to either explain further what I meant or to learn from the body of Christ.  I'm still learning and working out my faith as well.  

2 comments:

Danny Lucas said...

I was perplexed that "No Comments" appear on a post about love of Comments!

So I dug up a long ago comment, posted online about 4 years ago, about a sermon I heard at Grace Baptist in Erie, PA. I regret that it was not your sermon, Derek, but perhaps you will pass it along, as I suspect ALL pastor's love feedback, and being remembered.
The sermon was not just GOOD.
It was BETTER!
Hint! Rhymes with the actual pastor's name too, eh?

The blog is called "Dumb Little Man" and the post was titled: "The Power of Writing Things Down".
The author was a young lass, Ali Hale, now a married young woman.

When I saw the post come in my email subscription (something YOU may want to consider doing), my first thought at the title was .... The Bible!
The Power of Writing Things Down starts right with the Word, .....writings from God!

Here is my comment at Dumb Little Man from days of yore:
Danny Lucas · 167 weeks ago

It was early Spring, 1992. I was in church. The pastor said "I want you to think a moment on your favorite gift from Christmas.
Oh wait!
Not last Christmas....scratch that from your mind.
I want you to think about your favorite gift from Christmas of..... 1989.

Blank stares arose as people struggled to recall.
It was only a few years ago, he continued.
At the time you got the gift, you opened it up, and likely exclaimed to the giver "Oh Thank You...this is just what I wanted".
"I'll NEVER forget this!"

Yet, within three short years, your favorite Christmas gift of 1989 can not be recalled for most of you.
Do you know why?
BECAUSE you didn't write it down! You forgot.

I have a gift for you in my message today and I do not want you to forget it, so take out your pens and write it down.
Pens came out everywhere.

It is 2008 and another Christmas is upon us.
Isn't it amazing that I can recall this intro and the sermon almost verbatim, from nearly two decades ago?
I wrote it down.

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/11/power-of-writing-things-down.html

Best regards,
Danny Lucas

Anonymous said...

very good!