My guess is that you’ve heard of “active” and “passive” listening. There is one form of listening by which we nod and look into the speaker’s eyes, but are no more engaged in what he is saying than a fish is in touch with a cloud. There is another form by which we follow the speaker’s train of thought as closely as a fox chasing a hare. The first mode maintains civility, but does nothing in terms of learning. True communication only happens through the second mode.
It’s interesting to reflect on what active listening looks like on a Sunday morning. I’ll be honest to admit, for all the thought I’ve given to preparing sermons, I’ve not given much at all to what it should look like to consume them. This is a point of embarrassment. Anyone who has led a classroom knows that teaching well and learning well are not the same. Teaching only results in learning when personal engagement is present. Ultimately, the teacher can only do so much to generate this. For learning to happen, pupils must care enough to listen. The same is true of Christians on Sunday morning. What we get out of a sermon will be largely determined by what we put into it.
So, how should we actively engage with a sermon? As someone still working through this himself, let me offer some humble advice.
First, we need to be aware that our experience of Sunday morning begins the night before. In an essay on the Puritan Sabbath, JI Packer talks about how great pastors like Richard Baxter would exhort their congregants to prepare themselves for worship. Packer says,
Preparing the heart is the most important matter of all, for the Lord’s Day is pre-eminently ‘a day or heart-work’. From this point of view, the battle for our Sundays is usually won or lost on the foregoing Saturday night, when time should be set aside for self-examination, confession, and prayer for the coming day.
For Baxter, such preparation includes the simple discipline of getting to bed on time. He says, “Go seasonably to bed, that you may not be sleepy on the Lord’s Day.”
One of the interesting features of Holyrood’s past is that the prayer meeting used to be on a Saturday night. While I’m not suggesting this pattern should be reinstituted, I have no doubt that those who used to attend these meetings probably can attest to the benefit of doing so – not just on the Saturdays themselves, but perhaps even more so on the Sundays. I always enjoy a meal more if my stomach is grumbling. The heart is the same. Prepare the heart on Saturday night and you might be surprised by the pleasing-aroma of worship the next morning.
Let’s move on to thinking about the act of listening to a live sermon. How should we do so? Here it is worth noting that there are two competing models, each with different strengths and weaknesses. I remember an old Highland minister telling me, “When Scots listen to a sermon, they close their Bibles and look up at the preacher; when Americans listen to a sermon, they open their notebooks and look down at their Bibles.” Although this is a caricature, it is helpful for thinking about different aims for listening to a sermon. On the one side, the so-called Scottish manner of listening recognises that preaching is a real engagement with the living Word. No patient takes a notebook into heart surgery. Following the same logic, the goal of sitting under God’s word is less about learning information than having one’s soul healed. The old Highlanders understood this.
That said, the Americans also grasp something important. Passive listening is often lazy listening. I can attest to this. If I’m not careful, the words of a sermon often pass in one ear and out of the other without touching my heart. A pen and paper are sometimes helpful for making sure ideas linger in my head long enough to impact my soul.
On balance, what should we do? Here I don’t think we need a set rule, but good judgment. Do you struggle to pay attention and retain the core truths of a sermon? See if a sharpened pencil is of use. Do you struggle to experience God in the midst of worship? Perhaps it’s time to shut the notebook and be more present during the act of preaching.
Finally, a word about what to do after worship is finished. Most modern Christians think the work of listening is done once the service is over. Here we can learn something from an older generation. It was not uncommon in Scottish homes in the past for families to discuss a sermon over lunch. The point of the exercise was not to pick apart the preacher’s faults – that’s easy pickings. The purpose was to chew on whatever truth had been communicated for the sake of digestion. Sermons and food are more alike than many realise. Both most be broken down and swallowed for there to be benefit. This happens not during a sermon, but afterwards.
I can’t say that I’ve been personally faithful to these instructions in the past. Like I said before, I’m trying to grow in this myself. But, perhaps we can grow together and, as we do, figure out what it means in an age of relentless distraction to listen well to the Word of God.
