After reading Five Ways to Make your Pastor's Boring Sermons Come Alive, from Michael McAfee's blog, I chose to respond with the following comment, which I am also submitting here as a basis for the present discussion thread:
I once accepted an invitation in another branch of the Church than the ones I am comfortable with. I decided in advance that if I were to choose accepting this invitation, I wanted to have not only a respectful demeanor, but an attitude of deep respect within my heart and soul. As it turned out, the preacher invited us to come before God right there as he spoke. So I did. He then invited us to present our family and friends to Christ in their difficult situations, which I did too. So I met with God.
However there were things the preacher said that irritated me all along because they seemed an indication that he was himself not being committed to God in his own walk and circumstances. This did not deter me from following suite with what I had decided and that he was inviting us to do: meet God.
Now I sometimes think about this when I find it difficult to concentrate on a sermon at church. It helps me refocus on the fact that I am there to meet God, to hear His voice, to come into His presence.
Please share what it is that you do to help remaining engaged in the listening of God's Word on any given Sunday when the person teaching does not naturally stir you to listen optimally? How do you make the Bible sermons you hear come alive for yourself?
Whenever anyone is sharing something he learned from the Bible with us, even if we are not spontaneously interested by the angle he is sharing from, we may still be able to learn from what is being said. I was for a while in a situation where a Christian from another branch of the Church shared regularly with me her view of Scriptures, a view that did not exactly fit my own understanding. Still, I listened intently to what she had to tell me. As I read my Bible in the weeks that followed such conversations, I reviewed what had been said in light of passages that addressed the same issues. Then, I found, I was able to reformulate the theme in terms that I was comfortable with and that served to the edification of the person I had been having conversations with on a given theme.
How do you deal with Bible teachings that seem off base? What ways have you found to keep the conversation opened so that both the one presenting something he learns from the Bible and yourself may be edified by themes that don't fit your understanding?
