"My impression across the years," writes CRC pastor Roger Van Ham, "is that many people who listen to sermons have vague impressions about what they should be hearing, but they lack clarity and confidence in speaking about it." His observation leads into a provocative essay, Pew Rights: For People Who Listen to Sermons (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). Others before him had broached the matter of the relation between pew and pulpit, though more from the viewpoint of pulpit rather than pew. They had proposed various solutions, among them the views that pulpit and pew are partners, and pewsitters are participants in preaching. Van Ham looks at the matter from another angle. By framing pulpit responsibilities as pew rights, his essay "offers the people who listen to sermons some guidance about what they have a right to expect."

The Pilgrim's Pathway⤒🔗

Perhaps today the language of "rights" is not all that helpful when we are trying to clarify expectations for preaching in Christ's church. But surely the concern about what pewsitters should be hearing and about what they ought to expect from Sunday's sermons is valid and worth discussing, isn't it? To put it another way: surely the pulpit's high view of preaching should be matched with the pew's high view of listening!

Why Discuss This?←⤒🔗

1. Liturgical reasons←↰⤒🔗

The sermon belongs to the church's worship. If we are unaware of what we should be hearing from the pulpit, if we are vague about what sermons are supposed to "do," then God will be robbed of sincere and glo­rifying worship. We dare not do anything in our worship out of ignorance. Ignorance in the pew about the preaching of the pulpit is nothing less than superstitious worship, an abomination to the Lord.

So we need to talk seriously about listening to sermons in order to worship God aright.

2. Pastoral reasons←↰⤒🔗

Several pastoral considerations come to mind. Because a preacher invests so much of himself and his labor in preparing and delivering sermons, his preaching would be more effective if the congregation knew and shared his own expectations regarding the pulpit.

Another pastoral justification involves the work of elder-shepherds. Note well: Christ Himself has made the elders accountable for the minister's work of preaching and for the congregation's work of listening. Unless the elders know clearly what the pew should be hearing from the pulpit on the Lord's Day, they will be unable to satisfy our Savior when reckoning must be made for His sheep.

A third pastoral reality is that the congrega­tion needs to know "what's going on" in the sermon in order properly to receive it and benefit from it The congregation needs a "theology of preaching" just as much as a preacher does, in order to listen well, to listen believingly.

3. Pedagogical reasons←↰⤒🔗

Another cluster of reasons that warrant this discussion involves pedagogy or teaching. Have you ever noticed how much emphasis the Bible places upon teaching the various disciplines of Christian living? The disciples asked our Lord to teach them to pray. The Ethiopian asks Philip to teach him the meaning of Scripture. The New Testament epistles contain nothing else than apostolic teaching that remains instructive to the church today.

There are so many people who need to be taught how to listen to preaching, and a large number are called to teach!

For example, how do children learn to listen to preaching? Answer: Dad and Mom must teach them. So who teaches Dad and Mom? Perhaps your instinctive answer to that last question is, "Well, Dad and Mom should already know these things." Then you need to hear this warning: As churches committed to the Reformed faith and life, we must stop assuming that everybody has learned everything they need to know in order to be Reformed. Some people in our congregations — probably more than we realize — were never taught the fundamentals of Reformed doctrine, worship, and life. The covenant bond tying them to past instruction about so many features of Reformed church life has been frayed thin, and in some cases severed, during the past generation. Sensitive pastors among us are waking up to the reality that whether a church member was raised in the Reformed faith frequently has no correlation to knowledge of things Reformed. In other words, this generation desperately needs to be taught afresh the Reformed faith and the principles of covenantal living, including how to listen to sermons.

If Reformed churches are going to minister effectively to those within the faith and to those outside the faith, we must not assume that in our congregations, "everybody knows" or that everybody is "on the same page." No, the church must see, and then seize, every opportunity for teaching the teachers – Dads and Moms, engaged couples, students at secular universities, parents, and the like.

Obstacles to this Discussion←⤒🔗

So we need to talk about how to listen to sermons. Before we start, let's face honestly a few obstacles. We meet them from two directions — you guessed it: from the pulpit and from the pew.

What should listeners expect from the pulpit?

Both pulpit and pew can raise, as an objection against talking about this, the truth that the only thing people need to know about listening to sermons is that when the preacher speaks, God speaks. Now this is a very valid conviction, but this view of preaching should not be used to kill any evaluation of how we should be listening to the preacher's sermons (the Dutch word says it all: this reply serves as a dooddoener). Rather, precisely this high view of the pulpit should stimulate us to have "ears that hear" what God is saying to us in the preaching of the Word. Because biblical preaching is not merely the word of man, but the Word of God, we must learn how to listen. And because preaching is also the word of man, we may discuss sermon listening.

From the pew (in which are sitting not a few elders) comes the modest demur: "I'm not trained to distinguish between good and bad sermons. The preacher has received training for his work; who am I to tell him his job?" I don't tell the mechanic how to fix my car, because he's the trained expert. So I'd better let him do his work and just pay the bill. If I'm not satisfied with the repair, I'll find another mechanic. This view (which, incidentally, can be encouraged by the preacher) is really saying: "ignorance is bliss." But what if the Bible teaches that every listener must distinguish between good and bad sermons? That every elder must evaluate his pastor's preaching? That every member of the congregation ought to "take heed how you hear"?

Objections against talking about how to listen to sermons can come from the pulpit too. Consider the claim that preaching is such a unique form of communication that it cannot be evaluated by the standards commonly applied to other forms of public addresses. Again, this observation is true and valid. But it should not be used to dismiss complaints about sermons. Let's be honest. Some ser­mons are so repetitive and vague — in a word: boring — precisely because they violate important rules for public speaking. Other sermons are little more than a rehearsal of pious moralisms, resembling a jet-ski that skims along the surface and zips all over the place with a lot of noise.

Where will we be Going?←⤒🔗

During the coming months we want to look at preaching from the vantage point of the pew. How should we listen to sermons? Do listeners have responsibilities to fulfill, and may they in turn expect certain things from the pulpit?

We hope to answer these and similar questions by looking at the calling of a preacher, along with the necessary qualities and abilities for him to be an effective preacher. We will also consider the proper goal of preaching. Even now you can begin thinking about this question: What is a sermon? What distinguishes a good sermon from a bad sermon? Here we will look at the sermon's relationship to the preaching text, describing the path a preacher travels in his personal study as he prepares his sermon.

This discussion, then, is designed to enhance the meeting between God and His people that we call public worship. It is not designed to arm various sides for combat. Let's grow together in our understanding of and appreciation for the centrality of preaching in our public worship. So that God may be glorified and the church may be edified.