LISTEN UP!
Practical guide to listening to sermons
By Christopher Ash
The Good Book Company (http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk). 32 pages
£1.50 (bulk discounts available)
ISBN 978-1-90633-467-3
First things first: a brilliant little booklet, user-friendly, attractive but searching, timeless but contemporary, relevant and biblical. What else did you expect?
Some quibbles: printed matter over scribbled shading is less readable; phrases highlighted in yellow are not always the key ones: ‘Facebook’, ‘off button’, ‘virtual church’ — but many are: ‘come humbly’, ‘we respond together’, and (crucially) ‘where did the preacher get that from?’ And the capitals for ‘divine pronouns’ (He, His, etc.) are found in virtually no Bibles, Prayer Books or even reputable hymn books, so why here?
Who needs 32 pages on this topic? Christopher Ash asks that too. Answer: probably most of us, today more than ever. The content is spot on; the challenge not always comfortable. It includes ‘How to listen to bad sermons’ (and get better ones), but not ‘How to preach to bad listeners’; others may cover that. The preacher who knows his hearers have read this will preach all the better for it.
Turning up regularly (on time?) matters; so does looking up the Bible passage beforehand (spot the assumption here), talking about it and acting on it afterwards.
Next question: How best to use this resource? Even if it’s not handed out with the pew-sheets, the discount offer suggests that at least home groups could use, discuss, then share it with others. Are its keenest readers already half-persuaded? It will teach, stretch and encourage even the most devoted, alert and note-taking hearers.
And when we have mastered this, how about the publishers producing ‘How to join in the singing’? Including ‘Where did the songwriter get that from?’
Christopher Idle,
who listens to good sermons in Bromley, Kent
