Every Monday night, the men in our church gather for a structured assessment of Sunday worship. Most of our meeting time is devoted to giving feedback on Sunday morning sermon. , in addition to thinking about the following Sunday services.
Do many of the men involved on Monday nights see it as a highlight of their week?A time when you can apply the Word of God even more in an educational environment. Personally, I have discovered that these sect evaluations are one of the most effective tools for advising men and growing up as a preacher.
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In 1 Timothy 4:13-15, Paul urges Timothy to serve the church with his gifts, especially in the public ministry of the Word. He said, “Meditate on these things and be diligent in them, that your progress may be manifest. to all. ” Having a weekly worship service keeps my development as a preacher a priority. This evaluation helps me continue to make progress as a preacher.
Notice how Paul not only emphasizes the importance of Timothy’s progress as a preacher, he also emphasizes the importance of others seeing Timothy’s progress.
It is true that the people of our congregation should see our progress simply being present under the Word preached week after week; However, through weekly assessment of worship, we are giving some people the opportunity to see this progress more clearly. It’s not uncommon for men to tell me how they realized I was practicing the comments they gave.
The ministry of preaching can be lonely and daunting. If you only have a few vague words of flattery on the church door after the service or an occasional email from people who disagree with a sermon here and there, then it’s not. Barnabas, this fuels perseverance in the ministry. It is a great blessing to hear about the specific ways God has used specific things I have said in the pulpit to help men and women love God more deeply and glorify Him more fully.
Pride is mortal to pastoral ministry. In the assessment of worship, I regularly remember places where there is room for growth in my preaching. Having men in the church who encourage me to grow prevents me from thinking that I have already achieved growth. Week after week, I find myself face to face, to face the reality of my desperation that God will act through my preaching, despite the imperfections of the sermons.
Harmful patterns of mood (flattery) and criticism (attack) are illustrated in the media and in society at large. The church needs leaders to provide a better example of more pious commitment. In our weekly assessment of worship, I have the opportunity to provide helpful and thoughtful encouragement and criticism to other church worship leaders and preachers. I try to confirm gifts and trials for free, without unnecessary and vague flattery. I am also trying to make a serious and targeted critique that aims to help an individual grow in loyalty and effectiveness in ministry. My comments set the tone for the encounter and provide an example of healthy and loving commitment, not only for the evaluation of worship, but also for other spheres of life.
Weekly worship is a wonderful opportunity to show others how to receive criticism (and perhaps even occasional corrections) with humility and gratitude. A big part of our job as pastors is correcting the error (Title 1. 9). A review of the sect will provide opportunities to illustrate how Christians should humbly receive a critical contribution from others. It can be difficult to receive critical comments from men in the church who are not formally trained and who have rarely (if ever) preached. However, I have discovered that there is some truth to be extracted from almost every comment I receive. Whenever my sermon is criticized, I have the opportunity to show others in the church how to receive humble help in the form of criticism.
It is not uncommon for there to be people in a church who have conflicts with doctrinal or stylistic elements of the pastor’s preaching. If we don’t give our people a healthy space, with us, to deal with their disagreements, they are more likely to treat them without us in a harmful and potentially divisive way. Because sect evaluation provides an opportunity for people to share their concerns in a healthy way, there is less temptation to chat behind closed doors.
I have discovered that worship assessment is an extremely useful tool for identifying and developing preachers. You learn how someone thinks about the Bible because of the kind of feedback it gives. Not only that, but part of what we do at our worship assessment meeting. is to have next week’s sermon text in perspective, and I often invite the brethren to study and outline the text in advance so that we can compare our work, which gives me the opportunity to see how the brethren prepare the sermons before giving them the opportunity to preach in Sunday service in the morning or evening.
One of the most important parts of preparing a sermon is cutting things. There is often great information in the wonderful text or application points that are cut. I often have the opportunity to share some of these additional ideas at a worship assessment meeting, for the benefit of meeting attendees.
Preaching isn’t all that happens on Sunday mornings. Today, many evangelical churches go from advertisements to songs, sermons, and farewells. Many elements of our church worship— confessions, prayers, readings, and ordinances in corporate scriptures are relatively new to many. As we try to teach the church the elements of worship throughout the service itself, our assessment of worship is an excellent opportunity to explain and answer questions about our order of worship.
More than once I was alerted in the evaluation of the sect for using words or referring to concepts that I assumed were widely known, but that were totally misunderstood in my congregation and sometimes, in the midst of the worship assessment, I came to the conclusion that I had not sufficiently prepared my congregation for a longer prayer or confession. The evaluation of the service prevents me from becoming a pastor as a jealous seminarian and helps me lead as a pastor.
In an effective evaluation of worship, there is an exchange between pastors and church members. While this is healthy, informal conversations on a doctrinal topic can diminish the distinctive authority of elders and those who are solely responsible for maintaining the doctrine of a church. For this reason, I recommend that the church pastor keep the sermon evaluation structured and focused so that he can easily guide the discussion and correct it if necessary. The goal is to allow for healthy interactions and questions while keeping his hands on the wheel. .
I have discovered that after being introduced to the practice of sound criticism of sermons, men sometimes listen more carefully to sermons to be prepared to criticize in the evaluation of the sect. Sometimes this attention can be at the expense of sitting under the Word. of God to feed on and submit to it, so we began to conclude our time of assessment of worship by walking through the room and sharing how the preaching of the Word personally affected us and how we want our lives. be different from what has been preached; to feed on the Word of God, without criticizing his preaching, must always be the priority in our churches; Christian life is not merely an intellectual exercise, but an exercise in submission to the Word of God.
The sermon evaluation helped me prepare the sermon, but it also brought me new temptations. When I write my sermon, I am always aware that something about it will be discovered in the evaluation of the sect. I can also predict whether anything I predict will be to receive special praise in the review. We must not give in to the desire to avoid preaching something simply because we will gain resistance. Similarly, we should not seek to place a particular emphasis on something in a sermon to receive praise from men.
As preachers, we are not primarily servants of our own congregations; we are God’s servants. We must be above all servants of God, if we are to serve His people. It usually means telling people what they don’t want to hear.
We must also remember that people who come to evaluate worship are not a complete reflection of the congregation, some of the men in the evaluation of the sect can really appreciate whether I spend more time on a question of textual criticism. Matthew 18. 15 (i. e. , “against you” is original?). However, spending too much time on this topic would not be useful for my congregation. I do not preach to men in the assessment of worship, I preach to the whole church.
The act of preaching is not a natural fact, it is supernatural because the Spirit of God acts in a not always quantifiable way, by participating in the practice of criticizing sermons, we must not fall into the error of considering preaching as a mere natural act for a man. When we preach, things happen (or not) that are beyond the scope of any useful criticism or stimulus.