Sermon evaluations

Someone wrote to me last week and at the end of their message put: Thank you for your messages and looking forward to hearing many more demons in the weeks to come.  S is close to d on the keyboard...anyone could make the mistake!  

It reminded me of the story of the young preacher who was preaching his first sermon in front of a senior minister.  'Well, he inquired' did it do?'  To which the answer came 'Do what".  It is the preacher's longing that in preaching a sermon God will take it and use it to good effect.  

Today I received an urgent plea on behalf of a pastoral search team in  a US church I know, following the retirement of a gifted pastor/preacher.  They have received over 100 applications and have been trying to sift through them using  a very detailed Candidate Sermon Evaluation Form.  I think evaluations forms are invaluable in the classroom (I used them all the time) but how vital it is to discern beneath its questions. For what it's worth I wrote back....

So much more is at stake when considering a new pastor such as their pastoral love for people, their openness to God, their vision for mission and their continued commitment to grow in discipleship with others. Too often the mechanics of analysis can obscure the heart of the preacher. Aspects of performance can cloud judgement. So much depends on whether God may be calling this particular person to your church. Is it evident how seriously they take preaching as an exercise in loving, leading and learning under Christ with their congregation?  How prayerful and worshipful are they in their whole approach? I believe some of these key issues are seen when a person preaches in person but they need discernment.  Such as:

 Have they lived in the text so it is real to them and can become alive to the hearers?  (Is it first-hand experience of God's word?)

Is there love in their approach, their words, but also relevance with a willingness to speak harder words?

Do illustrations show wider curiosity, reading,  (rather than generic and personal stuff)?

Is there expectation of compliance in responding to the sermon's impact?  Is the preacher expecting God to work in particular ways with his word in this sermon? 

So, there's no escaping the need for spiritual discernment..

And we could add so much more, can't we?