We live in a unique time.  Never before have people been able to listen to so many sermons in a week.  When they leave church on a Sunday morning, they can then take their synced iPods and listen to preaching for the rest of the week.  At the supermarket, in the gym, while commuting, at work in some cases, etc.  I’ve mentioned before how this can be massively intimidating for a normal preacher (to have their listeners feeding on the world’s finest, or in some cases, the world’s flashiest, for the rest of the week).  I’ve mentioned that we shouldn’t be intimidated, or feel hopeless in competition with highly skilled communicators that have been well edited.

But what about our listening?  Should we, as preachers, be listening to other preachers?  Yes.  And no.

Yes.  It is good to listen to other preachers.  First and foremost, it is important to be fed ourselves.  Good preparation does feed us, perhaps more than those we preach to, but we still need to hear from someone else.  I have a preacher or two that I listen to so that I can be challenged and encouraged.  Secondly, it can be helpful to observe how others are handling texts and preaching opportunities.  I don’t like to listen to a sermon on the text I’m about to preach as it is hard not to be overly guided by it, but to observe and learn is a good thing.

And no.  I don’t think it is good to listen to too many other preachers.  It can become overwhelming.  You can end up wanting to do a bit of that like him, and some of that like him, and then it’s great how he, and oh, when he does that, etc.  If you’re not careful you can end up preaching like a medley of other voices and lose your own.  Listening to other preaching can be helpful.  Listening to too much can make it so you lose your own quiet before God, and end up preaching not out of being with Him, but as a preaching karaoke machine.

Do you listen to others?  Why?  How much?

Here’s a mighty little quote from Walter Brueggemann – “If we are to bring a word from elsewhere, then we have to live, to some extent, elsewhere.”

With the huge demands on church leaders and bi-vocational preachers, we have a real challenge.  Too many of us are preparing to preach with the fuel gauge indicating nearly empty.  We run around like headless chickens giving ourselves away in therapeutic care and meetings management and budget discussions and endless emails and emergency crises and fire fighting and political church squabbles and more emails and then when we are almost wiped out, we prepare a sermon.

But what people need is the kind of creativity, focus, passion and “word from God” that can only come from a preacher who has resisted distractions and spent time doing what most needs to be done in preparing to preach.  Reading.  Study.  Thinking.  Prayer.  Time alone.  Time with God.

I’m sure you are asked how long it takes to prepare a sermon now and then.  What’s the answer?  A specific number of hours?  I suppose that technically it depends on how well the text is known, etc.  But the health of the church will not depend on whether you can crank out an acceptable sermon in fifteen hours, or eight, or three.  It is about time in preparation that isn’t rushed and squeezed and forced.

Somehow it is hard to imagine rushing into God’s presence, all frantic and breathless, “Lord, I need help, I need a sermon and I need it fast!” and then to have God get stressed and out of breath as we rush to pull something together.  Somehow that image doesn’t seem right, does it?

God does care, and He does gladly get involved when we aren’t ignoring Him.  And in a genuine emergency He is more than able to help us when we are absolutely stuck.  But God doesn’t seem to live at our frantic pace.  He is with us, indeed.  But somehow by going to Him, we are enabled  to get closer to His pace.  And then, after spending time with Him, we can come back to preach.  Breathless, perhaps.  But for a different reason.  Let’s preach a message from elsewhere.