In light of this, here are four more things that will help you to do this better.
1) Prioritize prayerful preparation. Pray for your pastor during the week. He is praying for you, so return the favor. Pray that he would be deeply affected by the Word of God and that he would communicate the truth of the Scriptures in a clear, faithful, powerful way. Prayerfully prepare your heart for the Sunday gathering.
2) Engage in careful listening. Listen to the preaching like you really have to listen. If this is how God has appointed you to grow and the context where you are to grow, then this 45 minutes each Sunday is vitally important. You should listen carefully. Consider taking notes or at least writing down things that arrest your heart.
3) Provide thoughtful feedback. Consider what you can say to encourage your pastor in his preaching. It is not very helpful to say, “Awesome sermon today.” You may really believe that, and without taking anything away from this, it is not very helpful. The pastor is no doubt thinking, “What was awesome?” Consider how different it would be if you said, “You really helped me to better understand how God loves me even amid my sin through your second point.” Or, “I hadn’t thought of God very much as Father, but this sermon on the Lord’s prayer helped me to see God a bit differently. It is helping my prayer life.” Or, “Your third point was not very clear to me, can you help me better understand what your were driving at?” Or, “When you were talking about God creating us in his image I was reminded of how I should love others but don’t. Do you have any practical suggestions on this?”
4) Perhaps it is best to take some time to pray and mull it over. I’m not saying that everyone should rush the pastor every week with something to say. Perhaps take some time and drop him an email, a card or make some time to visit and talk on occasion. Many times people at our church have talked to me weeks after a sermon to clarify or pick up dialog on a topic. I was blessed by their time wrestling through the text and its implications.
When you think of your pastor and his preaching, don’t think of it like an uninterested consumer. Instead think in terms of a family, a partnership in the most important organization in the world. You are working together to display the glory of God as you hear and respond to God’s word together. Be intentional then in your conversations together.
