You know a lot about preaching. You don’t know everything!

When it comes to preaching, pastors hear most frequently from two groups of people: our fans and our critics. As I tell my speaking clients, their feedback is not terribly helpful. Both groups often have personal agendas which have little to do with preaching.

That, however, does not mean preachers can afford to ignore feedback. A preacher desirous of developing as a communicator is wise to create a system where trusted, faithful Christians can give them honest feedback about how they and others are experiencing the kerygmatic moment.

Preaching Is Inherently Vulnerable

The preaching task is unrelenting. There are 52 weekends a year and each one of them offers an opportunity for a woman or man to stand in the midst of God’s church and speak a word of exhortation. Throw on top of all of that the reality that in the preaching moment, every communicator is offering a piece of his or her self. We tell stories drawn from our lives, our families, our encounters, and the lives of those in the congregation we serve. Preaching is inherently vulnerable.

Because preaching is vulnerable, there are messages we preachers have to tell ourselves in order to manage our anxiety. One of those messages is that what is being proclaimed is worth hearing and the insights shared are worth applying. Some preachers take all this too far. They center their ego and believe a theology degree also credentials them to be therapists, parenting experts, relationship and business coaches, sociologists, political scientists, social activists, and much more. This kind of wrong-headedness might trick us into believing that we are experts and beyond critique.

At the same time, each of us must believe–to some degree–that our words are worth something. That takes ego-strength, not egotism. Developed ego-strength rather than egotism opens the door for preachers to continually develop as preachers. Pastors with ego-strength do something that egotists don’t do when they seek to evaluate their preaching. They seek reliable feedback.

One of the more useful practices in my preaching life is not speaking, but listening. At the end of a preaching series, I convene a group of people who have listened–in person and live–to our sermons. This is their time to tell us what hit and missed, what was helpful or harmful, what didn’t add up, or what there was too much or too little of. It’s in these talkback sessions that we really learn what actually happened and not merely what a pastor thought happened.

Creating Talkback Sessions

Here’s how it works:

The Group Matters

Talkback sessions need to be a cross-population of your church community. You need to hear from fans, critics, the lukewarm, and the engaged. Other factors include: generational makeup, Biblical literacy, race, gender, and other demographic sensibilities, such as empty-nesters, young parents, and the like. To center one group is to ignore others.

Posture Matters

In many churches there is a perceived power differential between the pastor and the rest of the church. This is an unbiblical creation, but it still exists. As group members offer feedback, pastors must resist defensiveness or explaining why particular choices were made. This is time for listening. Talkback sessions are designed for you, not them. This is a time for you to get better at your craft, not explain why you think you are already great.

Ask Good Questions, Shut Up, Take Notes, and Let Them See You Take Notes

Church members tend to want to talk about the teaching they receive. They don’t want to waste their time listening to you each week, so they are invested in their preacher’s effectiveness. Take their feedback seriously. Here are the questions I use in talkback sessions:

• What was helpful?
• What was confusing?
• What stories have you heard from others about the series?
• What do we need to stop doing?
• What do we need to keep doing?
• What do I need to know that you think I don’t know?

Implement What You Can Implement

I never offer to do everything revealed in sermon talkback sessions, but I do what I can. I was once told that I read the scriptural texts too fast. I had adopted doing that out of an unacknowledged anxiety that I would lose the hearer when reading longer passages. Turns out, the church wanted more time to allow the text to marinate. I would not have known that without talkback sessions. After slowing down, I began to hear from others how glad they were that I spent so much time “preaching the text.” I hadn’t changed anything except slowing down my reading.

Most preachers will find sermon talkback sessions too vulnerable and disempowering to implement. That’s because it is. Pastors will have to set aside their pride, power, and egos. But if we want to become great preachers rather than think we’re great preachers, we might open our ears and let other people talk. In your church, you probably know more about preaching than anyone. That does not mean you know everything.

Let them talk back.

Sean Palmer is the Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia Houston, speaker and speaking coach, and author of several books including--Speaking by the Numbers: Ennegram Wisdom for Teachers, Pastors, and Communicators.