Preaching to the heart

Summary

In this episode of BCUK's To The Heart podcast, hosts Helen Thorne-Allenson, Steve Midgley, and Andrew McKenna discuss the importance of preaching to the heart. They explore the concept of the heart in biblical terms, the challenges of addressing diverse hearts in a congregation, and the role of community in preaching. The conversation emphasizes the need for preachers to engage the heart throughout the sermon, from the introduction to the conclusion, and highlights the significance of illustrations and sermon structure. The hosts also address the balance between faithful exposition and heart engagement, the impact of preparation on preaching, and the importance of follow-up after sermons.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Preaching to the Heart
02:53 Understanding the Heart in Preaching
05:56 The Challenge of Preaching to Diverse Hearts
08:54 The Role of Community in Preaching
11:40 Engaging the Heart Throughout the Sermon
14:37 The Importance of Illustrations
17:35 Structuring a Sermon to Engage Hearts
20:19 Concluding a Sermon Effectively
23:32 Faithful Exposition vs. Heart Engagement
26:11 The Impact of Preparation on Preaching
29:09 Follow-Up After Preaching

Creators and Guests

Host

Helen Thorne-Allenson

Director of Training and Resources at BCUK

Guest

Andrew McKenna

Director of Communications at BCUK

Guest

Steve Midgley

Executive Director of BCUK

What is The BCUK Podcast?

Equipping churches for conversation and counsel

Helen Thorne-Allenson (00:00)
Hello and welcome to episode five of BCUK's To The Heart podcast series. My name is Helen Thorne-Allenson and I will be hosting our discussion today. And our topic for today is preaching to the heart. And it's absolute pleasure to have a couple of colleagues with me today, Steve and Andrew McKenna. Steve, Andrew, many people will know you already, but would you like to quickly introduce yourself for anyone who's tuning in for the first time?

Steve Midgley (00:28)
Yes, ⁓ glad to Helen, lovely to get to this ⁓ final instalment of this podcast series which I've enjoyed so much. ⁓ So my name's Steve Mitchley and I work as the Executive Director ⁓ of Biblical Counseling UK.
before that was working as a pastor and 20 years or so in a church in Cambridge.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (00:51)
Yeah, thanks great to be here. I'm Andrew. I also work for BCUK, serve as Director of Communications and before that role I too was in Pastoral Ministry and Music Ministry and so had been preaching fairly regularly for about 15 years or so before joining the team here.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (01:12)
Wonderful. Well, many of us will have been listening to all of the podcasts in order, but it's possible that someone has just nipped in on episode number five. And so far, we've been talking about the heart, why it's important to attend to our heart and thinking about how our heart changes. Steve, would you mind just giving us a very quick recap of where we've got to so far?

Steve Midgley (01:35)
Yes, I suppose it's helpful to keep reminding ourselves what we mean when we talk about the heart. The Bible uses lots of different words to describe the inner person, soul, spirit, mind, inner person, as opposed to outer person. And heart is one of those many words and they all have slightly overlapping meanings. ⁓

The heart could be described as the real me, could be described as, ⁓ I think helpfully, it's the bit of us that forms allegiances, that makes commitments, that says, you know, I'm for that, that matters to me. And that immediately makes it clear that the heart is the bit of us ⁓ in biblical terms with which we worship, with which we ascribe the greatest worth to God.

my heart is really for the Lord. And therefore, the degree to which our hearts are committed to Christ or find ourselves being drawn away to some other focus for commitment, devotion, ⁓ is absolutely central ⁓ to Christian discipleship.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (02:51)
Wonderful. And over the previous podcasts, we've been looking at how we can be attentive to our hearts in conversations, as we sing. And today we're looking at the attentive to the heart in preaching. And I suppose a place to start is, well, why would we attend to the heart in preaching? Because the heart feels like quite a personal thing. And preaching is a very communal thing. You speak to sometimes quite large groups of people. Why would we attentive to the heart in that setting

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (03:23)
Yeah, great question. think, as Steve was saying, if the heart is the inner me, the real me, the place where I form allegiance is, then that very much feels like it's a place that preaching should be addressed to because actually, as we sit under preaching, God is speaking to us by His Spirit through His Word. As preachers, it's His Word, His voice we want to expand and apply.

And he alone is worthy of our heart's devotion and worship. And so if the heart is where we relate to him, yeah, we want to be preaching to one another's hearts, to people's hearts. You think of the big decisions that people could be making in their hearts. Initially, their heart allegiance is either gonna be against Christ or for Christ. They're either going to be...

in rebellion against him or saved by his grace. so we think of great evangelistic preaching that addresses the heart and the heart's direction and wonderfully God is at work bringing new life by his spirit. But also preaching is one of the great means that God gives us to grow people to maturity in Christ. You think of the Apostle Paul as he talks about his goals and

hopes for preaching to the Colossian Church that he might proclaim Christ, they might proclaim Christ as preachers, so that they might present people mature in him. So I think that maturity, that change happens when hearts are changed, when hearts are receptive to the proclamation of Christ.

Steve Midgley (05:05)
I suppose one way, you're stirring me to think, Andrew, as you describe that, is if we don't attend to the heart, what happens then? And it strikes me that without a focus on the heart, what do we end up doing? We end up focusing maybe on behavior, ⁓ and we just move to the externals, ⁓ sort of conforming people to a sort of style of righteousness.

Steve Midgley (05:33)
Or alternatively, maybe we just attend to people's intellects and we just work with ideas ⁓ and end up with people kind of... ⁓

⁓ somehow assenting to lots of bits of information without any sense that they are for ⁓ the Lord that they've engaged with, which I think picks up on your point, Andrew, about the relational aspect of the heart ⁓ and that if preaching is not personal in that way, ⁓ then we're missing something absolutely fundamental.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (06:19)
In theory, that sounds wonderful. mean, of course, when we are sitting in church on a Sunday, we want to be hearing a sermon that speaks to our hearts, helps us respond with our hearts to the Lord. I mean, absolutely the ideal. But just thinking from a preacher's perspective, I mean, how easy is that? Is it really possible if you have 30, 40, 300, 500 people sitting in front of you? To what extent really can you attend to?

I mean, they're just a huge diversity of hearts that are going to be sitting in front of you.

Steve Midgley (06:52)
I think this is a fascinating question Helen, because in a sense, ⁓ you're absolutely right. And in other places, ⁓ you'll hear us at BCUK talking about the, know, some of the essential differences between this, that sort of public ministry of the word ⁓ and the interpersonal ministry of the word when you are listening to an individual.

And it's a very different engagement because you can adapt what you're saying to what you're hearing from them, what you're noticing about them, what they notice about themselves. And it all becomes very personal, very specific. ⁓ And clearly in preaching, that's different for the reasons you say. But here's an interesting ⁓ idea. And it'll be fascinating to see what the two of you think about this. There is a sense there in which

In preaching, it is the body of Christ that is being addressed. our churches do have a life of their own. Our churches in that sense have a heart. And if you go to Ephesians 4 and you think about the language of growing into maturity, attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ.

Actually, Paul is talking there not about an individual. He's talking about the church, which it's something more than each of the individuals becoming mature. This whole community becomes mature. There is something going on for it as a whole body. And preaching, therefore, the reason that preaching is

is so important in the New Testament, so important in the history of the Church, is for that reason, it seems to me, is that you address the whole community together and the whole community hears together ⁓ and responds together in a sense as a body. ⁓ And that's not something to feel kind of awkward about or isn't it terrible that we're not able to speak to individuals, you know, we've just got to do this clumsy talking to everyone at the same time. Actually, there's something glorious about that.

because you are doing something with the whole body of Christ.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (09:18)
And that's one reason why if you're preaching as a pastor to your own congregation, you're at such an advantage because you are sort of aware of that body and what the Lord is doing in and through it. Yeah, not to say that guest preachers or occasional events aren't effective in these things, but yeah, there is that sense in which that relational aspect does bring more.

And it made me think as well as you were talking, Steve, that actually, yeah, no, we might not be able to, in that one preach, attend to every heart that's out there in detail. But a couple of things struck me. One was that it's amazing as we depend on God to work by His Spirit, how He takes and uses His Word beyond way what we can conceive of He might do in our prayer.

But also as well, if we have that relationship, pastor and people, there will be some other interaction with them. There will be that personal conversations going on in the course of weeks, months, years. And those things can then complement our preaching. They can feed into our preaching as we become more aware of folks hearts, as we then have those in mind as we proclaim Christ to them.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (10:40)
If I'm hearing you right, I think what we're alluding to here, that actually if we're preaching to the heart, this isn't about just getting our application right. This sounds like something that is permeating the whole of the sermon, how we put it together, how we deliver it, how it holds together, how we explain the passage itself. Am I right or am I mishearing that?

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (11:06)
Yeah, I would say that's true. think when we talk about preaching to the heart, do instinctively think application, but I think it's helpful have engaged the heart throughout a sermon and that almost leads more naturally to application when you come to that.

Steve Midgley (11:25)
Yeah, and I build on that by saying, I mean, if you get me going on applications and sermons, that's the rest of the podcast gone. And maybe mental note to BCOK team, let's do something on application at some point. Because I think in all sorts of ways, in the early phase of my ministry, I was working with an understanding of preaching that was

that was kind of explain passage, then apply passage. 80%, 20%, which usually meant 95%, 5%. I think that the latter part of my ministry, I've come to see ⁓ what I think of it, not just the limitations, but probably the mistaken thinking that lies behind that.

and I've arrived at a view of preaching, is much more that God speaks to us by his word. He's trying to do things with his word. ⁓ And ⁓ I love the various authors who've helped us in that kind of thinking. so in a sense, the whole of the sermon, what you're saying, Andrew, application begins right at the beginning.

The whole sermon is application if we're not finding a way of saying God has things to say to us about the way that life is lived. I think if anything, when we think about preaching to the heart, I think the part of our preaching that we need to attend more to is our illustrations.

I could justify that if you want me to. Well, I think it's with the illustrations that ⁓ we most obviously introduce the emotional content to a sermon. They bring the feel of a sermon ⁓ because our illustrations tend to convey emotion with them, whether it's a tremendously weighty kind of story that we might tell.

Steve Midgley (13:38)
⁓ or a metaphor or a picture that we might use to flesh something out. They bring colour, but they therefore bring emotion. And I think, as we've talked about earlier in this podcast series, the heart and our emotions are very closely tied together. So what we're doing at an emotional level in our preaching.

⁓ it seems to me is critical in this aspect of ⁓ speaking to the heart.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (14:12)
Yeah, that's so true because you can tell, can't you, when a preacher uses an illustration that does that so well, how you are then, your heart, as we say, and your emotions are brought alive in an appropriate way that the text is driving at. But you can also see when it's done badly and an illustration is sort of there on the strength of it being a good illustration and you can't quite remember what it was of, but you remember how

made you feel.

Steve Midgley (14:40)
Or if, as you say, if it jars with the emotion of the yes, really, of course, something's not working here. And often the reason is that the illustration may be a great illustration. It may make the cognitive point quite well, but emotionally it's in the wrong place.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (14:44)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, indeed.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (15:03)
Well, can we ground some of this? I'd love us to walk through maybe a typical sermon structure. Now, I am very, very aware there are lots and lots of ways of structuring sermons, and ⁓ some people may not preach kind of with an introduction and a main body and a conclusion. But let's go for that simple structure for the sake of this podcast. We've already touched on a little bit of how we can engage the heart in the main body, though we will circle back to that. just thinking about the very start.

of a sermon. The first few sentences that you say in the introduction, what does it look like to engage someone's heart or a church's heart at that point?

Steve Midgley (15:43)
so what I think both Andrew and I were saying earlier on, which is, you know, that good sermons begin to engage people in terms of engage their hearts right from the beginning and begin to apply the Bible right from the beginning, therefore means that you want to go in by teeing up kind of something that matters to people. And I think, you know, what's that old adage, you know, if you haven't

grab people's attention in the first sort of 60 seconds or 120 seconds of your sermon, you know, forget it. You've got to grab their attention early on. And actually, I don't think that's about sort of, you know, being, you know, sort of a great showman and witty and terribly clever at the beginning. I think it's about saying something that leaves your hearer saying, I want to hear about this. Where you introduce some aspect of life or culture or

an issue in relation to God ⁓ that people puzzle about and you've got the person listening to you say, yes, that's me, or I know exactly what you mean. And so, you know, I'm excited now, I'm interested because you're talking about something that feels relevant to me. Well, what's happening there? ⁓ Something in a person's heart is being stirred.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (16:51)
Yes.

Yes. And I think we're to kind of practice in our preaching prep. Sometimes when we think about the world of the first century or the church or whenever it was in the Bible and our world today, and we are looking to maybe start with where people are at today and take them on that journey cognitively back to them and return hopefully with some understanding and application.

I think to press that point deeper, we want to be doing that with the way we speak to our hearts as well. So it is why should I keep listening? is what is this relevant to me? But it's also, as Steve was saying, and does this sound like the enemy as well that's being do I sort of identify with the issues this is raising? And are these real things for me?

and calling for a response from me.

Steve Midgley (18:00)
which I is why as preachers we need to know people.

Steve Midgley (18:07)
What was ⁓ Tim Keller used to have a little adage which said, if I spend too much time in interpersonal ministry with individuals, ⁓ then my preaching will suffer. I think he said my preaching will suck because he was sort of, you know, that sort of American, but my preaching will suffer because I won't be preparing properly. I'll be using too much time with individuals. But he said conversely, if I spend too little time with individuals, my preaching will suck.

⁓ because I won't understand people, I won't be inside their hearts ⁓ in order to be able to do this introductory and therefore preaching relevant.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (18:49)
Yeah, yeah. And to give an example of that kind of thing, I was just looking over some recent sermons and I was preaching on Ephesians 6 and we were taking each of the armor piece by piece each week and mine was the helmet of salvation. And not because I was thinking about preaching to the heart particularly, but the Lord led me to just sort of start with some almost

case studies, which I think can be an way of engaging folk in their hearts, where I was introducing some characters for them to consider throughout the whole sermon, where we had somebody who was very worried and concerned about their past and what their history meant for God accepting them and saving them in the present. Somebody else who was, didn't have that kind of past, but was looking

to the future and wondering why God would ever accept him then. And some others who were just feeling like life was a battle at the moment in their own hearts And just picking up their stories now and again in the sermon struck me as one way we could do this kind of thing where you're inviting people to say, can you spot any of what's going on in their hearts in your own heart or which of these three?

most identify with and then being able to apply the truth of God's Word into those.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (20:11)
And it's wonderful, isn't it, when you're listening to sermons like that, to think, ⁓ yes, I do identify with that. I do want to know what comes next. And of course, every single Sunday, we don't enter into the sermon going, I really want to hear this. Sometimes we're tired. Sometimes our heart is hard. Sometimes it's been a busy and distracting morning. We can't expect a deep excitement every Sunday, but it is glorious when you are invited in.

Steve Midgley (20:12)
Wait, wait.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (20:40)
to that experience.

Steve, Was there something you wanted to add to that?

Steve Midgley (20:44)
No, just a brief comment to say that is why what you were saying earlier, Andrew, about the loveliness of a pastor preaching to their own people ⁓ is that you can build, you can know that you're addressing different kinds of stages of life, ⁓ heart issues ⁓ at different points week by week and try and make sure that you do have a breath.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (21:14)
Really helpful. Let's go on in the sermon. We've done the first few minutes. People's hearts are beginning to be stirred as the word is opened, the spirit is at work. We talked a little bit about illustrations. That was really helpful. Anything else in that sort of main body that helps us be really attentive to the heart.

Steve Midgley (21:35)
I that we get to God. I mean, sort of that's so blindingly obvious. ⁓ And yet, you know, it kind of is worth saying that we want people to encounter the Lord.

⁓ I remember years ago I remember sitting in the balcony at All Souls Langham Place ⁓ listening to John Stopp preach and ⁓ I can still remember ⁓ some of the languages he used, some of the content of that sermon because it was as if I was being transported. It was such a ⁓ vivid sense that he was taking me into the heaven, ⁓ and ⁓ there was a sort of

there was a kind of an immediate sense of encounter ⁓ with the Lord and with the things of ⁓ the kingdom of heaven. ⁓ Now, that was exceptional. ⁓ And yet there is a sense in which that's what we're always trying to do. We've introduced something that people are saying, yeah, no, I do worry about that, or I do find that difficult, or that does sound like me.

And then what do we want to do next? We want to say, and God matters in the midst of that. Who God is makes a difference to this thing.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (22:53)
Yes.

Yes. And that again, back to the kind of, can't know everyone's heart, but it's so helpful to be able to have one or two of those situations that you perhaps know are live or, or are there in the culture that everybody's facing and to be able to show and tease out from God's word, how.

how he is there and concerned about these things and our hearts as we face them. Yeah, very helpful. I was thinking as well about another sort practical thing sometimes just the way we structure, the way we use headings in our talks and sermons can lend themselves towards or away from engaging the heart

you can harness those headings, not just for statements of fact that you want people understand, but not necessarily remember, but actually to be maybe statements of either heart engagement or concrete application that, of course, then we make sure that that is coming from the text and flowing out from it. But it means that the

trajectory of the sermon and the tenor of it is very much sort of maintained at the heart level.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (24:12)
It's amazing the difference subheadings can make, isn't it? I remember hearing two very similar sermons. I think I was in the same church, but different services and different preachers. I think one person had used a heading like, Jesus calls people to follow him. And the next person had used a subheading, Jesus says, will you follow me? And just that very small rephrase.

actually had a massive difference on how I engaged with exactly the same text ⁓ on exactly the same day. Let's keep going a little further in our sermon. Let's imagine that we've been through the text and we come into the end. And let's be optimistic. Let's say people have been following us throughout the sermon. Though, you know, let's be honest, a few people will just be waking up at this point and re-engaging potentially.

That is the reality of any group of people. There's going to be some people who engage, some people less so. How do we finish a sermon in ways that really engages the heart?

Steve Midgley (25:19)
I think my comment here would, again, it comes back to the issue of emotion and having worked out that the emotional, you know, what we are persuaded is the emotional tone of the sermon will be a big determining factor on the way in which the sermon lands.

you know, have we ever got a passage where it's full of warning and it's going to be a sombre, weighty ⁓

sort of warning to people, ⁓ alerting them to danger and urging people to flee to Christ. Is that going to be that sort of feel? Is it going to be, is this a sermon full of tender reminders of the compassion of God, reassurance, comfort, ⁓ in which case it's going to have a very different emotional tone? ⁓ And the...

There are moments, aren't there, in a good sermon anyway, when you sense that things still in the building, you know, and there is sort of quiet because you sense that this is a moment when something significant is happening between us and the Lord. You know what mean? That sort of moment of kind of...

God is here and he's speaking and he's saying something really significant to us and you know if you're in a church where people take notes that's the point when everyone stops taking notes because now they're not you know that now they're just engaged and this isn't a time for scribbling things down this is a time for for being affected and I suppose in one way or another we want that moment you know there may be more than one of those moments but towards the end somehow or other we want to be bringing things together in that kind of

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (27:20)
Yeah, I was thinking about just how you land something where you've engaged with the heart so much. You want to stay with a heartfelt response, but often people are seeking,

what might that look like now, tomorrow, this afternoon, those kind of questions. so, yeah, think about ⁓ Peter's message at Pentecost where the responders are cut to the heart and they ask the question, well, what should we do? And there's an obvious kind of next step for them ⁓ to ⁓ proclaim publicly their allegiance to Christ and to start living for him.

The steps aren't always that obvious, but sometimes it's nice to just, you know, if you're wondering where to start with this new attitude of heart that we've been sort of hovering around this morning, then why not do this? Why not go and seek that person that you know, things are not right between you relationally and with the words of, you know, this passage in our ears, let's...

Let's seek to humbly engage and say sorry, repent, forgive, whatever it might be.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (28:33)
Sometimes it can be really helpful as well, can't it, to get people chatting to the person next to them. I I realise some people recoil from that. But the more it becomes normal and we do that in a very relaxed way, just turn to the person next to you. How has the sermon impacted you today? We ought to be attentive to our church culture, that won't fly everywhere. But sometimes that can be just a wonderful way of grounding it as well.

Steve Midgley (28:59)
an alternative way, just thinking about that, Helen, an alternative way of doing that, you because you say some people find that very difficult, is to make sure that we help people at the end of a service to engage. know that we don't just sort of drift off and start talking about, you know, what's happened in the news this week, but that we make that connection because that allows some people to want to do it and some people don't want to do it.

Steve Midgley (29:26)
somehow to make sure that we say, you we've heard some pretty striking things from God's Word today. You might want to talk about that.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (29:36)
Yeah, really helpful. I think I know the answer to this question. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Does any of this stand in opposition to really good, faithful exposition? Because, you know, we want to speak to someone's heart. Absolutely. But we don't want to drift off into something that is anything less than faithful. Are there any traps here we need to be aware of?

Steve Midgley (30:02)
mean, I suppose if by faithful, solid exposition, we mean a kind of a wooden commentary style, textual kind of analysis, then does this stand in opposition to it? Yes.

⁓ But if by, you know, kind of solid faithful exposition, we mean a gloriously rich, faithful unfolding of the living word of God that speaks to the thoughts, know, cuts to the thoughts and the attitudes of our hearts in that Hebrews four kind of language, then, you know, absolutely not. This is, you you think about that. I found myself thinking about Paul.

right into the Thessalonians, how did they receive the Word of God? They received it from Him as it really is, ⁓ the living Word that is at work amongst what we're aiming for and that's what God wants from us and for us.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (31:11)
And sometimes

it can feel like maybe folks outside our congregations looking in and wondering about our particular style of preaching. It could give the impression that we're slightly different to particular style of preaching. But I think actually a lot of that just stems from what we've been talking about in terms of as individual preachers, we want our hearts to be engaged with this text at this moment in time.

we want to speak to our congregation's hearts in the way that applies these things throughout, as we've been saying. And so, yes, we might well do the same kind of prep and want to get to the main point of the passage to really let the passage drive our structure and application and all the rest of it. But then maybe the choice of how we get that across to the folks in front of us.

I think there's great liberty there and the opportunity to be led by the Spirit as we engage our hearts with this word and we consider the hearts of those in front of us and we think we're actually for them approaching it in this particular way, though we're still going to keep the big idea the same, the revelation of Christ and his beauty the same, but coming at it from a particular way.

that can be just a sign that we are engaging our hearts and the hearts of those in front of us.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (32:39)
I was really struck by what you said there about this being something that affects your heart as preachers as well. It isn't just about affecting the congregation's hearts, which then occurs to me, well, this surely needs to affect the way you prepare for sermons, the way you prep, the way you pray for sermons. Maybe you can talk me through a little bit of what might be different there.

Steve Midgley (33:03)
One way of coming at this, think, ⁓ the development both of a theme and a name. Some the people listening to this who are preachers may have come across that kind of way of approaching ⁓ preaching preparation. ⁓ Let's have a theme.

to, know, what do we think the predominant theme is from this passage? What therefore will be your aim? My experience in working with younger preachers over the last 20 years or so is all too often the aim sentence is really weak. know, the people have worked hard on their theme sentence, you know, and maybe they're going to preach from, I don't know, about Christ's...

God's victory through the cross leading the powers and authorities in triumphal possession. so, yeah, their theme sentence is, know, God has defeated sin at the cross and triumphed over the evil powers. And then, you you say, OK, well, that's great. know, that's very crisp on the money. What's your aim sentence? My aim sentence is that people might understand.

that God has defeated sin. so often, ⁓ that's as far as people have got. And so I think that the work that needs to be done is to say, ⁓ is the heart transforming change that God might have in mind for people? What will be different in their relationship with him? Bearing in mind that the word of God is personal.

He speaks to us. ⁓ And so what is our personal engagement with him as a result of this? And that will begin to flesh out our aim sentence, how we want things to be different relationally to extus and him. And to anticipate your next question, or maybe it was tied into your earlier question, Helen, that needs to happen in us before.

we seek to make it happen to other people.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (35:26)
yeah, that's so true we know that if you're speaking on any subject and you're passionate about it, people will take home what excites you and what you're passionate about. But yeah, we want to have that aim working in our life as preachers preparing so that we're refining it first for

how we're going to be changed by God's Word. And so then we were able in some sense to model that submission to God's Word as we proclaim. I think going week to week with this as I have done in the past, it can be I found just a bit of a high wire act to sort of go from Monday to Sunday and sort of think, right, this is the passage and it's got to sort of act my heart some way and then for me to

get that across to those on Sunday. And so just practically one thing I've adopted more recently is trying to think a bit more ahead about what I might be preaching on way down the line and start to read those parts of God's Word a few months in advance So I can sort of be thinking what questions are people coming with at this? What might they not understand? But also how is this affecting me?

and how can I be changed by it if I'm seeking to proclaim it to others.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (36:46)
that's got to impact our prayers as well, hasn't it? You know, as we pray for our preachers, know, Lord, please, as they prepare that passage this week, be moving in their hearts, help them to fall deeper in love with you, help them to seek to honor you in all that they say and do. But I guess as congregation members, that also impacts how we pray for listening to sermons and actually maybe even alerts ourselves to the fact that we should be praying for or could be praying for our engagement with sermons. Lord, as I hear...

Helen Thorne-Allenson (37:15)
this preacher to me this morning, let me fall in love with you. Let me see you more clearly. Let me know your grace, your mercy, your love. Let me desire to follow you wherever you lead. And if I'm honest, that's not necessarily what I'm saying to myself or saying to the Lord as I listen to a sermon on a Sunday. And if we're serious about it impacting our hearts, surely we want to be passionate about praying for the Lord's help, both for the preacher and ourselves as we do that.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (37:45)
Yeah, that's one thing I was particularly struck by at previous church I was on staff where they just had developed a culture of people gathering half an hour, 45 minutes before a service and anyone was invited to come and pray for what was going on in the service, but also that actually that God's word would take root in our hearts. And yeah, I think that was a real sort of blessing then going into that as a preacher.

of the congregation.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (38:16)
One last question then. We've talked about the preparation, the delivery to a certain extent. What about the follow-up? If we are preaching to the heart, does that change what as preachers you say to people on the door? How you might speak with them in the week? How you might invite them to speak with you?

Steve Midgley (38:37)
I think it does.

So a while back I had an interesting conversation with somebody who said, you know, thank you very much for the sermon. But it was all very interesting. I don't see how it's going to make any difference to me in the coming week. And I thought, oh gosh. And I looked back on that, you know, I had bit of a conversation with them. And I looked back on the sermon afterwards and I kind of thought.

And it was a sermon that I was very much emotionally involved with. ⁓ It was, that's right. I'd forgotten this actually. was about, bizarrely, it was about God's aseity, ⁓ about his simplicity, his absoluteness. He is simply God. So it was a funny old sermon.

But it did feel very significant to me and I was very much involved with it and thought I had something to say. So, you know, this person saying, I don't think it's going to make any difference to me during the week. And I thought, gosh, you know, you're probably right. I didn't have any sort of application. But actually, thought about it. I then went and I thought about more and I thought, you know, actually, if we reduce our preaching to saying, you know, what am I going to do differently? Then I think we're missing something really important.

Steve Midgley (40:01)
And I found myself thinking, it's a bit like, you you're starting up a relationship with somebody on a date and you go out have a lovely evening together and you talk all evening. You couldn't imagine at the end saying, well, it's been a nice evening, but I don't know what I'm going to do differently as a result, you know, of our date this evening. That was, you know, a sort of bonus advice for your ⁓ romantic life, you know, bad tactic. But, you know,

Steve Midgley (40:31)
What difference does the date make? I feel closer to you. We have connected and that makes all the difference in the world. And I think to see that that is one way of saying, has God spoken through his word? Has my heart been moved by him to engage with him in a richer way? That's the kind of conversation.

Steve Midgley (41:00)
that I'd love us to be having.

Andrew McKenna (BCUK) (41:02)
They're always funny those conversations after you preach and thank you that was really helpful and you kind of would love to go deeper with people and yeah but sometimes it's appropriate there and then to say great you know what was it that you did appreciate or what particularly struck you and things like that how's it been helpful or challenging and then back to the kind of beauty of pastor preaching to your people and knowing your congregation there is a sense in which you can

if you know folks well, you know, jump in a bit more closer to the deep end and say, you know, I realize you're facing a lot this week and you've got that big thing coming up on Thursday. Was any of what we looked at in God's Word really helpful for you there? And things like that. And sometimes I will say to people, you know, I was thinking about you guys as I was preparing and, you know, I hope that what I've said landed okay and things like that.

Helen Thorne-Allenson (42:02)
Really helpful. Guys, thank you so much for your wisdom. It's not an easy task to be a preacher, certainly not preaching week in, week out, but what a privilege and what a privilege to be on the receiving end of sermons that speak to the heart, to get to the end of a Sunday morning. Sometimes ⁓ reorientated, sometimes deciding that things need to be different, but sometimes just dropping to our knees and going, wow, Lord, you are good.

Thank you for saving me. What a wonderful place to be. Steve, would you pray for those preparing sermons this week that they will preach to the heart in the strength of the Lord and for the glory of God.

Steve Midgley (42:46)
Thank you, gracious Father, that you have entrusted your word to us, that you have spoken that we might know you, and that your word is living and active. I thank you therefore that we're not left in the dark and nor are we left ill-equipped. And we ask that you would help us to, those of us who are preachers, to...

to be faithful in our preaching. ⁓ You would help us to be personally engaged with you ourselves, to be prayerful in our preparing to preach that the things about which we speak are things that would have affected us first.

⁓ And through this preaching, your church will be built up to your own greater glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.