Let me ask you a question, “In your lifetime, how many sermons have you heard?” Has it been one hundred? Five hundred? How about one-thousand? If you had to add it up, how many would it be?
Now, let me ask you another question, “How many of these sermons did you actually listen to?” There is a difference.
Hearing (as I’m using it) refers to simply perceiving sound with the ear. Listening, on the other hand, goes a step further. It takes what the ear has heard and processes it with the mind. Listening makes sense of what is heard.
It’s like sitting in a crowded restaurant that has lots of noisy chatter buzzing around you. You are hearing everyone’s conversations. But you are not listening to anyone. (Which is exactly why your wife, sitting across the table, is fuming mad at you.)
It’s always struck me as funny that we work very hard to train preachers how to preach. But we don’t training congregations how to listen. George Sweazy has said,
“The skills of the hearers are more important than the skills of the preacher.”
Let’s be honest, between the two, in many ways, the listener’s got the harder job than the preacher. As you sit in your seat, there’s plenty of things to distract you from listening to the sermon. Your mind wants to wander. Your cell phone beckons a text message. Your eyelids feel heavy. Your “to do” list needs to be written. Your purse needs to be cleaned out. Your wallet needs to be rearranged. The list goes on and on. There’s plenty of ways to disengage from the sermon.
However, there are also plenty of ways you can be sure to engage yourself in the sermon and listen well.
Here’s a few tips.
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