By TylerR on
Church & Ministry
Preaching

9Marks: The following is a list questions the author uses during a weekly service review.

Discussion

Thu, 03/09/17
Those would be good questions to be asking when a pastoral candidate was preaching. Some of them are probably pretty natuaral to anyone who is trying to pay close attention to the sermon.
In my own experience it’s very easy for me to become hyper-sensitive to anything the pastor says that I disagree with. There is a biblical balance there that can be elusive.

Thu, 03/09/17

Criticism (critique) is a good thing. There are theater critics, food critics, and art critics. My first homiletics class was enlightening when I learned that criticism of my sermon (which was pretty bad) was not an attack on me personally. It has been my experience that a lot of preachers love compliments but don’t freely invite criticism and, if criticism comes, tend to ignore it.

I’ve heard these questions used in the Sunday night elders meetings at Capitol Hill Baptist Church during a Weekender. (How could anyone dare to critique Mark Dever?) Today I have a circle of friends from inside and outside my church who lovingly and bluntly criticize my sermons. I wish I had adopted this practice 30 years ago.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan