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PREACHING SKILLS
The Blind Spot of the Spiritual Formation Movement
Listening to a sermon is a spiritual discipline that needs to be learned.
Craig Brian Larson

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Eight years ago I bought a Toyota Camry that has served me well in my daily commute to work. But I have discovered one downside: after several close calls, I've learned when changing lanes that I can check all my mirrors carefully and still miss a car that's right beside me. My car has a large blind spot.

I have had a similar experience with a movement I much appreciate: the spiritual formation movement. Books on spiritual formation speak my language. I'm a pastor who wants to see people grow into strong disciples of Jesus Christ. Disciplines of any sort appeal to me—spiritual disciplines in particular. That's why as much as I respect those who have written on spiritual formation, I was surprised to find that they have a large blind spot: their view of preaching.

Read books on spiritual formation and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who lists listening to the preaching of God's Word as a first-order spiritual discipline. Granted, the writers typically are not attempting to provide an exhaustive list of spiritual disciplines. If asked, I'm sure they would unanimously say listening to preaching is a spiritual discipline. Still, the writers I have surveyed typically mention listening to preaching under the broader discipline of studying the Word—if they mention it at all.

Contrast this with the important description of the early church's spiritual disciplines in Acts 2:42–47. It begins: "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (italics mine). In addition, the importance that the apostles placed on preaching (in passages like Acts 6:1–4; 1 Tim 4:13; 5:17; 2 Tim 4:1–3) suggests that listening to preaching was a first-order spiritual discipline. Certainly the leaders of the Reformation felt that way. They placed primary attention on public teaching and preaching. Karl Barth, writing to the well-educated West, regarded the proclamation of the Word as one of the three fundamental ways that people experience the life-changing Word of God.

Granted again, Acts 2 describes a period when the church did not yet have the New Testament; in a sense the apostles' teaching was their New Testament. In addition, the rates of literacy in the first through sixteenth centuries differed from those of churches in the West today. Still, for Christians in the West, is listening to preaching a second-order discipline in spiritual formation? What is the unique value of the discipline of listening to preaching?

I want to say that sound biblical preaching does the following nine things that individual Bible reading, memorization, and meditation does not:

1. Good preaching rescues us from our self-deceptions and blind spots, for left to ourselves we tend to ignore the very things in God's Word that we most need to see. Preaching is done in community, covering texts and topics outside of our control.
   
   
2. Preaching brings us before God's Word in the special presence of the Holy Spirit, who indwells the gathered church.
   
   
3. Good preaching challenges us to do things we otherwise would not and gives us the will to do them. God has put within human nature a remarkable power to spur others to take action.
   
   
4. Good preaching brings us into the place of corporate obedience rather than merely individual obedience. This is a uniquely corporate discipline that the church does together as a community, building up individuals and the community at the same time. We are not just an individual follower of Christ; we are a member of his church and are called to obey the call of God together with others hearing the same Word.
   
   
5. Good preaching contributes to spiritual humility by disciplining us to sit under the teaching, correction, and exhortation of another human. Relying on ourselves alone for food from the Word can lead to a spirit of arrogance and spiritual independence.
   
   
6. Good preaching gives a place for a spiritually qualified person to protect believers from dangerous error. The apostles repeatedly warned that untrained and unstable Christians—as well as mature believers—are frequently led astray by false doctrines. Christians are sheep; false teachers are wolves; preachers are guardian shepherds. A preacher is a person called and gifted by God with spiritual authority for the care of souls in the context of God's church.
   
   

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	reader reviews

	Average Rating:  by 6 members. (Members, please login to rate this item.) Kevin Miller   (Registered User) Posted: November 24, 2008 well said. Bill White   (Guest) Posted: November 24, 2008 I'm a bit embarrassed that this is the first time the thought has ever occurred to me of listening to biblical preaching as a spiritual discipline. Thank you for this great contribution to the body of literature out there on spiritual disciplines. I hope this becomes more standard in that literature, because it has indeed been a real oversight. Richard Doebler   (Guest) Posted: November 24, 2008 Just as people can listen to sermons for the wrong reasons, we pastors can preach for the wrong reasons: to be entertaining, to gain favor with people by appealing to their natural desires, to impress people with our great knowledge, or to fulfill an obligation (part of our job description). There may be other deceptive motivations for preachers as well. If these times when people will not accept sound doctrine but rather seek to satisfy their own desires (2 Tim 4:3), it should be noted that they have co-conspirators: "a great number of teachers [who will] say what their itching ears want to hear." Read all user reviews for this item