What Pastors Actually Think About While They Preach

Sam’s experiences mostly match my own, with a couple of exceptions. I absolutely hate not being able to see the faces of the people I’m speaking to… and ‘audience face/body language’ plays a significant role in my delivery. If I see confusion, boredom, anger, etc., I definitely change what I’m saying to try to be more clear, engaging, etc.

So if I was working regularly in one of those ‘stage’ oriented spotlight situations where the audience is a black void, some redesign would need to happen. (Relates to a piece of advice I often repeat: Always talk to the people actually in the room.)

Babies: I find it super hard to keep my thoughts on track if there is a baby crying. It’s a tiny human in distress. Someone should help it. Oddly enough, if there are multiple babies crying in scattered locations, I’m fine. It becomes ambient noise. But one baby… that needs fixing. I can tune it out, but only with great difficulty.

I don’t disagree with the observation that babies and ‘various small children noises’ are signs of life. And I know lots of people do not find that distracting. But please understand that some of us are wired a little differently and we find that very, very hard to ignore. … same with audible conversation by adults.

A small rant…

If you need to chat with each other during a sermon, fine—it can be a sign that you are engaged with the content—but learn to whisper. If I’m preaching and can hear you or am sitting in front of you or behind you and can hear your conversation, you’re too loud. Don’t vocalize. (I’m told some people literally can’t whisper. I’m not sure if that’s true. I mean, if you can exhale and have a throat, a tongue, and a mouth…? Certainly there are some auditory/vocal conditions that make whispering difficult, but it should be possible to learn, with practice. …Or just be silent during preaching. There is that option.)

Anyway, it’s good for both pulpiteers and pew-sitters to be aware that some people have great difficulty isolating a stream of words from other sounds in the room, either for emotional reasons (baby crying) or other factors.

Back to the main topic: When preaching or teaching, I’m mostly thinking about what I’m saying or am about to say… or meant to say and just realized I forgot or said wrong.

When I see one person whisper to another and that person starts laughing, I always think my fly must be down.

When I see a Bible opened to a different place than my text, I wonder “What in the world is that person reading.”

As a sermon listener, I often find that something in the message triggers a memory of another passage or some connection comes together between a truth in focus and some other truth I’ve been interested in. So the message inspires a bit of impromptu self-directed study.

When I was doing pulpit work regularly, I encouraged this. People are not always edified most by what the preacher/teacher has planned. Speaking of teaching, in my ‘school of education’ days, they often emphasized creating a learning environment where even students whose minds wander will learn something from what’s on the walls, etc. The idea was that in a place of learning, there should be lots of side roads that still lead to gaining some knowledge. That made sense to me. Maybe the old traditions of stained glass and banners, etc., had something similar in mind.

In any case, if the preaching stimulates study, that has to be good.