our pastor was sick yesterday and i was one of the individuals called to fill in for the morning message. after preaching i made a new discovery concerning preaching to groups that are primarily adult. in the past i said that i didn’t like preaching to mainly adult church services, rather i would like to stick with youth and those who love youth. yesterday i realized that this isn’t quite true. there is one thing that i do like about preaching to primarily adult groups – the positive feedback at the end of the message.
yesterday i preached at two of our worship services and then spent 15 to 20 minutes after each service listening to members of the congregation tell me how they liked the sermon. truthfully, it was a nice bit of ego stroking and i have to admit that it was enjoyable. i love teens but i can go months without hearing a positive or negative word from a teen concerning any messages i’ve done. of course, i dod “cheat” and read the blogs of so of my kids looking for what they say about each week’s message. still, yesterday i received more compliments from the too church services that i preached than i have received from our youth worship service in a year’s worth of services (maybe two year’s worth).
now don’t get me wrong – i still prefer delivering messages to people involved in youth ministry and specifically my teens. teenagers let you know if you are connecting or not. if my youth get bored they go to sleep, start talking to the person beside them, or begin passing notes. i can tell if i’m connecting with my kids or not. most of our church adults on the other hand, simply stare straight ahead – i can’t read them at all. with nice, passive, polite, “let’s pretend that we’re listening when i’m really not” adults i can’t figure out if things are tracking or if i’m losing everyone. i really don’t like that feeling.
so basically me desired plan is to speak to our adults once every six months or so and get the ego stroking that i need every now and then. the rest of the time i’ll spend on my kids – the ones that i really like doing messages for.