I eval\u00adu\u00adate a lot of ser\u00admons. I don\u2019t just mean that I lis\u00adten to ser\u00admons and decide whether I like them or not \u2014 every\u00adone who goes to church does that. I mean that I pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal\u00adly eval\u00adu\u00adate ser\u00admons and give for\u00admal feed\u00adback to the preach\u00ader. Some I eval\u00adu\u00adate in my role as a min\u00adistry train\u00ader and oth\u00aders I eval\u00adu\u00adate in my role on a preach\u00ading team (before one of us preach\u00ades we preach the ser\u00admon to each oth\u00ader and get feed\u00adback on how to strength\u00aden it).<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ve thought about this a lot. Most ser\u00admon eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion forms you find on the inter\u00adnet and at sem\u00adi\u00adnar\u00adies are not very help\u00adful because they mea\u00adsure too many things.<\/p>\n
These were the top hits when I googled for \u201cser\u00admon eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion forms\u201d Do all the things these long forms ask about mat\u00adter? A lit\u00adtle. But using that to eval\u00adu\u00adate a ser\u00admon is like eval\u00adu\u00adat\u00ading your church\u2019s state\u00adment of faith based on its gram\u00admar. It sort of miss\u00ades the point. Of course you want a state\u00adment of faith that is gram\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal, but if its con\u00adtent is sketchy then every moment spent improv\u00ading its gram\u00admar is wast\u00aded time. Sin\u00adful\u00adly wast\u00aded time.<\/p>\n In the same way, focus\u00ading on the super\u00adfi\u00adcials of a ser\u00admon when the under\u00adly\u00ading con\u00adtent is bogus is ridicu\u00adlous. I real\u00adize that\u2019s not the intent of these forms, but that is what they encour\u00adage.<\/p>\n So this is the form I use:<\/p>\n \nPoint\u00aders (what should I change?)<\/p>\n Keep\u00aders (what was so good I should be sure not to take it out)?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s it \u2014 two ques\u00adtions. I some\u00adtimes do it on a 3x5 index card. Keep\u00aders on the front, point\u00aders on the back (a tip I got from Earl Creps<\/a>).<\/p>\n And this is the grid I\u2019m putting it through: I try to nev\u00ader give them more than three point\u00aders and three keep\u00aders, and I try to be as spe\u00adcif\u00adic as pos\u00adsi\u00adble. <\/p>\n There are lots of oth\u00ader aspects of a ser\u00admon I could nit\u00adpick, but if the per\u00adson is preach\u00ading an inter\u00adest\u00ading, Bib\u00adli\u00adcal\u00adly sound ser\u00admon that exalts Christ and chal\u00adlenges me to obey Him then they\u2019re doing fab\u00adu\u00adlous. Why would I nit\u00adpick them at that point? To demor\u00adal\u00adize them? To clone my habits (\u201cat this point I would have told a joke \u2014 you should tell a joke\u201d)?<\/p>\n Any\u00adway, this post prob\u00ada\u00adbly was\u00adn\u2019t rel\u00ade\u00advant to most of you. But for those of you who have to eval\u00adu\u00adate preach\u00ading on a reg\u00adu\u00adlar basis, I hope I\u2019ve giv\u00aden you some food for thought.<\/p>\n And to those in my min\u00adistry, now you know what I\u2019m try\u00ading to do when I pre\u00adpare a ser\u00admon: pro\u00adclaim the good news of Jesus in a way that is faith\u00adful to the Bib\u00adli\u00adcal text I\u2019m work\u00ading with in an inter\u00adest\u00ading way that chal\u00adlenges you to whole\u00adheart\u00aded\u00adly respond. From time to time, be sure to let me know how I\u2019m doing. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I eval\u00adu\u00adate a lot of ser\u00admons. I don\u2019t just mean that I lis\u00adten to ser\u00admons and decide whether I like them or not \u2014 every\u00adone who goes to church does that. I mean that I pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal\u00adly eval\u00adu\u00adate ser\u00admons and give for\u00admal feed\u00adback to the preach\u00ader. Some I eval\u00adu\u00adate in my role as a min\u00adistry train\u00ader \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cEval\u00adu\u00adat\u00ading Ser\u00admons\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-opinions-and-general-contrariness","category-resources-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-lq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/2298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCalvin Sem\u00adi\u00adnary\u2019s<\/a> (30 ques\u00adtions)
\nThe Ortho\u00addox Pres\u00adby\u00adter\u00adian Church\u2019s Form for Min\u00adistry Interns<\/a> (41 ques\u00adtions)
\nReformed Bap\u00adtist Sem\u00adi\u00adnary\u2019s<\/a> (35 ques\u00adtions).<\/p>\n
\n1) Was Christ pro\u00adclaimed clear\u00adly?
\n2) Was the ser\u00admon Bib\u00adli\u00adcal\u00adly sound?
\n3) Was it inter\u00adest\u00ading?
\n4) Did it ask me to do some\u00adthing appro\u00adpri\u00adate in response?<\/p>\n