Feedback and evaluation

Feedback and evaluation: Key to relevant biblical preaching

Using congregational feedback to improve preaching

Derek J. Morris, D.Min., is senior pastor at Forest Lake Church, Apopka, Florida, and author of Powerful Biblical Preaching: Practical Pointers From Master Preachers.

Lee Strobel is one of the teaching pastors at Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Illinois.

Derek Morris: Lee, you serve as a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, one of the largest Christian churches in the world. Some 15,000 members and seekers regularly attend the weekend services. One distinguishing characteristic of Willow Creek is the strong commitment to relevant biblical preaching, and I would like to discuss that. Let me start with a comment you made in a discussion with Bill Hybels, senior pastor of the Willow Creek Church. You mentioned that feedback and evaluation have been the key factors in your growth and development as a communicator of relevant biblical messages. What do you mean by that?

Lee Strobel: For me pre-delivery evaluation is really important. I don't think I have ever spoken without getting some pre-sermon feedback. I finish a preliminary draft of my sermon manuscript by Thursday night. On Friday morning I'll give it to at least one per son. He critiques it. I expect him to be honest. Sometimes he scrawls at the end, "This is tremendous! God is going to use this." Other times he recommends that I make this or that change. A lot of times he will make suggestions, such as "I think this passage of Scripture would really be meaningful at this juncture." After a written critique of the sermon is completed, we have lunch together and discuss it. I take his advice about 80 percent of the time. I feel free to say, "I disagree. Thanks for the input, but I don't agree with that."

DM: What then?

LS: I don't do much work on the sermon Friday afternoon, but then something hap pens that I call "the Friday night miracle." That is when the Holy Spirit helps me put the final touch on the message.

DM: Bill Hybels has mentioned that if he has a question or concern about something in his sermon, he might also solicit some pre-sermon feedback before he preaches the sermon for the first time.

LS: Yes. If we are addressing a really sensitive issue on which the church doesn't have a clearly defined position, we might solicit pre-sermon feedback from the elders. For instance, a couple years ago, when I preached a series on evolution and creation, I got some pre-sermon feedback from one of the elders and from Bill.

DM: Having preached a sermon for the first time, as you usually do on a Saturday night, do you always receive post-sermon feed back in preparation for again presenting the sermon during Sunday services? LS: Yes. We all receive post-sermon feed back, though it varies considerably. Sometimes it is written; other times it is verbal. On one occasion I received a six-minute voice mail message to which I responded from my car as I was driving home.

DM: One of the things that Bill Hybels emphasizes is that when soliciting feedback and evaluation for your sermons, you have got to ask the right people the right questions at the right time. It is unwise to invite people at random to provide feedback, because you get distortion. Some people are trying to impress you; some people have an ax to grind. How many individuals provide you with post-sermon feedback?

LS: There are three individuals who provide me with post-sermon feedback. I would be suspicious if someone enthusiastically volunteered to critique my messages. I would wonder why.

DM: How does post-sermon feed back on Saturday evening impact your preaching at the Sunday services?

LS: It could be a word, a movement, a gesture. Once somebody noticed that when I made a point I would step backward from the podium instead of stepping forward, which is more powerful. That was great feedback! Another person said, "You are scanning the people, but you are not focusing." I would say 80 per cent of the time there is at least one suggestion for fine-tuning the sermon. The feedback, however, is not always a suggestion. Sometimes it is simply an affirmation. One of the elders likes to write "Waverly Avenue!" That means "home run!" because when a home run is hit at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, it goes out onto Waverly Avenue.

DM: Do you always implement the suggestions you receive?

LS: No. It's important for speakers to have the freedom to disagree and to do what they think is right in the end. I listen carefully to all the feed back, and I disagree with probably about 30 percent of it. And some times the suggestion is too radical. It is too late on Saturday evening to tell me to implement a totally different structure for the sermon. That's a suggestion that cannot be implemented by Sunday morning. Rather, I need to know how I can work with what I have to make it better.

DM: Do you receive any post-sermon feedback after the Sunday services?

LS: The senior pastor, Bill Hybels, always gets a sermon tape and offers some feedback. If he is out of town, I may receive the feedback several days later, but it provides additional helpful advice and input that I can implement in the future.

DM: As you look back and consider how feedback and evaluation have helped you to preach relevant biblical sermons, could you imagine ceasing any feedback at this point and just going on without it?

LS: I wouldn't want to. That is why I solicit feedback before the mes sage. I want the feedback because I know that this is the only way I am going to grow. If you are in an environment where for some reason the people feel the speaker's ego is too fragile, or he or she is too insecure, or there is something wrong with the community that people feel reluctant to provide feedback, it doesn't mean they don't still have opinions. I want to know what my listeners are thinking. I want them to feel free to be able to communicate with me so that I can improve.

DM: If evaluation and feedback are such valuable resources for preaching relevant biblical sermons, why do you think so few preachers solicit feedback and evaluation of their sermons?

LS: Some preachers may not enjoy a level of community where there is trust and love and a feeling of security. It is not always pleasant to receive feedback. I wouldn't like being involved in an atmosphere where there is a lot of feedback and evaluation without a sense of community. I can remember one time I did a mes sage on a Saturday evening and blew it big-time. There was just something wrong with the message, and I didn't know what. Bill pulled me aside and talked with me for about two hours after that message. Now, this was very early in my preaching. It was probably about the fifth message that I had ever given in my life. I stayed up all night and worked on the message, then gave it two more reviews the next day, and it was much better. But if I had not been in community with Bill, if I had not known that Bill really loved me and valued me, that would have been a very devastating encounter. So I think evaluation and feedback have to be in the context of community.

Just recently I did a Scripture slide service and felt very good about it. However, the feedback that I immediately got after the Saturday evening meeting was that I needed to cut a section of it that I really liked. As I thought about it, I realized that I enjoyed this section because of the response that I received, but it didn't really contribute to what we were trying to accomplish in the service. At first receiving such feedback can be a blow to your self-esteem, and it can sting, but the sting goes away very quickly when the salve of the whole community is applied.

DM: I hear you saying that a loving, caring community is an essential context for feedback and evaluation. If that sense of community is missing, it's easy for a preacher to become defensive. Can you think of any other reasons preachers might resist feed back and evaluation of their sermons?

LS: I wonder if some preachers have the feeling that they are a cut above everyone else. They may be the dominant, autocratic type who believe no one should dare to question what they do or evaluate what they say. They might feel free to evaluate everybody else, but have great difficulty with anybody assessing them. To me, such an attitude is a community killer. Bill Hybels notonly accepts the evaluation and feed back of his sermons, he solicits it. Some pastors feel that if they allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to be critiqued, it somehow diminish es their leadership or impairs their status. They think such input some how knocks them down a notch. But I don't think so.

DM: I notice that at Willow Creek you also solicit feedback when planning the whole preaching year. How has that process worked?

LS: Bill pulls together a group of about eight laypeople and staff, women and men, mature and new Christians with different back grounds. He says to them, "I want you to think about what we should include in the teaching diet of Willow Creek. What series do you think needs to be taught and what series would you want to hear personally? Go to the bookstore and get some ideas, see what is being written, talk to your friends, and come up with not just vague ideas like 'something on the family,' but a title for the series, and break it down into what you would cover in the individual weeks and give us specific titles for what you think should be covered.

"DM: How much time would the group be given to do their research?

LS: I would give the group about six weeks in the spring, and then they would go on a retreat. The group could sit around a big table while people share their best ideas. Bill will take notes and elicit comments. The retreat phase might take about a day and a half for all the suggestions to be exhausted.

DM: So now the teaching pastor has a list of relevant suggestions for sermon series. What is the next step in the process?

LS: Bill comes back from that retreat with a list of maybe four pages of potential message series. Then there would be a second retreat in June for elders and some other key discerning staff. We would discuss each suggestion, pray about it, and then take the different suggestions for series and plot them into the calendar. We never actually implemented anything in totality that we had planned in June. After the second retreat Bill would go on a study break in July and August. He would take the calendar with him that we had developed in the second retreat, pray about it, and then make changes. He would come back to the team and say, AI think we need to start off with this series as opposed to that one, and I am going to add a new one here." In the end, maybe half the original suggestions would be implemented. Things have changed somewhat now that we have a team of teaching pas tors. But soliciting feedback regarding topics for preaching is still a very helpful mechanism for us.

DM: Would you recommend that process for others who want to keep on target and preach relevant biblical sermons?

LS: Absolutely! Even if you didn't go away on a retreat, the brainstorming process is so valuable. I had a person come up to me and say, "We heard about this sermon series planning process and we tried it, and it was really hard to implement. We got great ideas and we planned it out, but it didn't come out that way." I replied, "That's OK. It didn't work out perfectly with us either, but the process is important."

DM: Lee, it's been exciting to hear from someone who has a real passion for relevant biblical preaching. I want to thank you for the practical suggestions that you have shared with us that can help us connect effectively with our listeners and preach relevant biblical sermons.

* "Preaching for Life Change," part of an audiocassette series called Defining Moments

 

 


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Derek J. Morris, D.Min., is senior pastor at Forest Lake Church, Apopka, Florida, and author of Powerful Biblical Preaching: Practical Pointers From Master Preachers.

January 2001

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