Preachers Need To Listen!

Yes, we preachers need to listen! We spend so much time talking, speaking, and preaching, we need to be reminded that we also need to listen.

We need to listen to God. How do we do that? We listen to God through prayer. If you think about the earthly ministry of Jesus, we find Jesus constantly in prayer. Even the disciples implore the church about needing time to pray as they study the Word. You and I also need time to be in prayer. And something I've learned not too long ago, there are times I just need to "shut-up" before God. Yes, sometimes we just need to "shut-up" before God so we can hear God speak to us.

We need to listen to the audience. By listening to the audience, we can be more sensitive and more aware of their needs, their struggles, their issues of life, and their spiritual disposition. By listening to those to whom we preach God can speak to us as to what we ultimately preach to His people.

We need to listen to the Scripture. As we read the Scripture for enjoyment, devotion, and/or for preparation of sermons, we need to "listen" to the Scripture. Listening to the Scripture means that we step into the time machine and travel back to the ancient time, and mingle with the time, seasons, the culute, and the ancients. We imagine the smells and the tension. We vicariously experience the ancient text. As we become intimate with the Scripture, we no longer just tell the stories of the ancient text, we re-live them in the here and now. We bring to life for the audience that which has long since died.

We need to listen to other preachers, "good" preachers. Good preachers know how to effectively communicate to the modern audience. Listening to "good" communicators will help us in communicating to the audience that God gives us. Listening to others preach, is not imitating, but refining the rough edges in our own communication.

The audiences which we stand before are exposed to great communicators from television, movies, videos, and the Internet. Not that we are entertainers, but we are communicators of the most meaningful and powerful Word (God's Holy Word).

Be encouraged, as we do all of our listening, let us work to communicate well so that our listeners will listen and not tune us out!

Who are some of the preachers you listen to that help your preaching? (Let me know)