Enjoying preaching

Over at Pure Church (see link in right hand side bar) they were blogging on how we enjoy church and the dangers of evaluating all the service in the same way. To whet your appetite here is an extended quotation from it:

"To enjoy a sermon or prayer, it seems you really must enjoy:

1. Thinking. Songs carry thoughts (increasingly the choruses only carry one thought). And if we sing well, we sing with understanding. But songs tend to be commercial-length thinking. Sermons tend to be at least sit-com length, and perhaps even drama length. The level of thinking required in the sermon can feel like a tax if you actually don't want to think that much. And so enjoyment may be weakened by a resistance to thinking.

2. Argument. Sermons not only demand thought, they actually demand some level of argument. There is sustained reasoning, illustration, advancement of points, anticipation of objections, and so on. If you don't like thinking, you probably won't like following arguments. You probably won't like the Pauline epistles. You'd probably prefer narratives and the "stories" of the Bible. And you probably won't enjoy preaching that much as a general rule. In fact, you probably don't like the good hymns either, since they often advance an argument of some sort. But to enjoy a sermon, a person must enjoy a well-made argument and be able to follow it.

3. Reflection. Sermons and prayers often insist on a fair amount of introspection and application. Songs and music are outstanding for leaving you with good feelings. And feeling good after singing truth is good. Yet, it takes quite a bit of skill to turn music and singing into extended reflection and lasting change. That's the role of the sermon and to some extent good prayer. In prayer there is confession and repentance and dependence and resolution. In the sermon there is application and teaching and correction and encouragement and rebuke and so on. If you don't want your sins to find you out, if you don't like to be spiritually challenged, if you don't want to reflect on how you think, feel, live and so on, then chances are you don't enjoy sermons very much. To enjoy a sermon, you must be willing to reflect on the implications of what's being said for all of life.

4. Listening. All of what I've said above presumes an ability and willingness to practice disciplined listening. Most people listen differently when they sing. Again, they listen for harmony, melody, rhythm... pleasing sounds that are intuited rather than cogitated (unless you're a musician or can read music). With prayer and sermons, there must be some cogitation; and that requires skillful listening. In a day and age where "huh" is a complete thought, listening may be a rare jewel. Listening is not particularly valued in a culture where laugh tracks cue all our "spontaneous" giggles and "outbursts." But if we would enjoy and really benefit from public or private prayer and sermons, we must enjoy (or at least not mind) listening.

5. Praise. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about how we talk about public services is we limit "praise" only to the portions of the service where we sing or hear music. We even talk about "praise music." So, for many people, in subtle but real ways, "praise" is not what you're doing when you pray or listen to a sermon or give (there's something else that has a different standard for enjoyment). For many people, sermons are not praise because we think we're not "doing anything" when we listen, think, argue, and reflect. "We're just sitting there," we tell ourselves. But I like Piper's definition of preaching as "expository exultation." The aim of preaching is to help our people exult, revel, delight in God. Nothing is more appropriately considered praise than being led by the preached word to exult in the God of all creation who redeems sinners by the loving sacrifice of His Son and seals them until the day of redemption by His indwelling Spirit. We'd both exalt preaching and discover more enjoyment of it if we understood preaching and listening to be acts of praise."