Some ideas on how to prepare to listen to a sermon

Joshua preached last night on Pursuing God through Listening to His Word Preached. I thought his list of ways to prepare for listening was worth repeating here:

·      Read the text that will be preached prior to Sunday.

·      Pray through the text and pray for the preacher of the text.

·      Be inquisitive. Ask questions of the text that you hope will get answered in the preaching.

·      Read all of your Bible as much as you can. Good preaching will almost always be full of Biblical allusions that only get caught and understood as our understanding of the sweep of Scripture continues to grow.

·      Come ready to listen in a way that will enable you to talk about what you heard; then start talking to others afterwards about what encouraged you, etc. Or, learn to explain some part of the sermon to your kids, or somebody else’s kids.