Two ways to ruin a sermon

I remember (though I cannot now find the reference) a comment that the American pastor Tim Keller made about the connection between preaching and conversational ministry.

His message was this. If preachers spend too much of their time engaged in conversational ministry, then their preaching will suffer – because they won’t have time to prepare properly. However, if they give too little time to conversational ministry their preaching will also suffer – because they won’t truly understand the people to whom they are preaching.

It is a striking observation. The first half of the statement isn’t hard to follow. Every preacher will know weeks when an overfull diary has pushed out proper time for prayerful preparation and they have arrived at Sunday with their sermon half-baked (or barely cooked at all!). While that can’t always be avoided – some crises rightly take much time and attention – we can, and should, be realistic about how much conversational ministry we commit to.

But what of the second part of this observation – that sermons preached by preachers who neglect conversational ministry will also suffer. Here are four things that conversational ministry gives us.

1. Connection. First, it keeps us connected. Our theology must land at street level. If preaching only ever soars in the heights of lofty spiritual truth but never comes in to land, a preacher isn’t loving the people they serve.
   
   Spending time listening to people’s sins and struggles helps to land us in real life. It reminds us of the many varied anxieties and fears, pressures and temptations, losses and disappointments, and relational heartaches that exist in our churches. It connects us to these things not as broad categories we might find in a book, but in the specifics of one person’s life lived. It means that when we set to apply Scripture, the questions and struggles that come to mind have real life written all over them.
   
   
2. Compassion. Second, conversational ministry deepens our compassion. When we have sat and listened, and perhaps wept, with an infertile couple, a betrayed wife or a grieving husband, our preaching is changed.
   
   Preaching is an emotional business. We hold out Christ as the one true remedy for every deep hurt and spiritual failing in our church family. When preachers have felt the pain of those struggles first hand, the urgency and persuasiveness with which they speak of Christ is both more immediate and more heartfelt.
   
   Congregations know the difference. They can hear it in the tone of their preacher’s voice. They can see it by the look in their preacher’s eyes.
   
   
3. Patience. Third, conversational ministry fosters our patience. Especially if we spend time with people who are making slow progress. Many difficulties move slowly – a long-lasting depression; anger problems; long-term unemployment.
   
   Some, like many disabilities, last the whole of a person’s life. It’s not unusual for these longer-term struggles only to emerge later in life. It is particularly important, therefore, that younger preachers spend time with people whose struggles are long-term.
   
   Preachers who imply that victory is quick or progress is easy will seem out of touch to the many people whose battles with suffering or striving for godliness is inching along. But preachers who spend time with the strugglers and marvel at their persistence speak differently about perseverance. Patience in a preacher gets noticed.
   
   
4. Hope. Finally, conversational ministry inspires our hope because it affords us a “front row” gaze on the work of God’s Spirit. We see the glorious transformation that a renewed hope in Christ brings to those who have journeyed through loss: the miracle of reconciliation as Christ-like forgiveness breaks into a fractured marriage; the beautiful perseverance of an elderly saint whose eyes are fixed on glory.
   
   Conversations in such situations remind and convince us that the work of the gospel is real and the power of God’s word beyond measure.
   
   Anyone regularly, and closely, involved in the transforming work of God in a person’s life is bound to speak differently. The first-hand experience of that conversational ministry renews their conviction that the gospel really does change lives. And that conviction will be evident in every word of every sermon a preacher delivers.