Sleeping in church
At the close of a recent church service a teenager told me, “I had a hard time staying awake while you were preaching.” I did not tell him that I already knew it. Few realize that the pastor on the platform sees the passing notes, the fixation on the cell phone, and the drooping heads.
Of course, every pastor would rather hear from church members that they found the message timely and helpful. But sometimes the truth is otherwise. Sometimes the sermon preached fails to have its intended effect. Sometimes this happens because people are sleeping rather than listening.
In the Book of Acts a young man named Eutychus dozed off while the apostle Paul was “long in preaching.” I once heard an evangelist call Eutychus the patron saint of all who sleep in church. This young man was sitting in a high window during the preaching service, the room evidently being completely full. When he “sunk down with sleep,” he fell to his death. Happily, the Lord enabled the apostle to miraculously restore him back to life. And no, the account of Eutychus is not intended to warn the drowsy that falling asleep in church could be fatal! However, there are lessons about sleeping in church all Christians should learn.
First, faulting a listener for slumbering during a sermon is not always fair. In truth, in any congregation there are going to be a few people who are indifferent and perhaps even hostile to the message. But the Lord did not call preachers to proclaim the gospel only to the sympathetic and interested. It is the responsibility of the preacher to gain and maintain the attention of everyone.
Sometimes a preacher communicates, without intending to, that his sermon is not worthy of attention. A monotone, emotionless lecture may seem to the congregation no different than a dry high school algebra lesson that painfully taxed the capacity to concentrate. William Quayle, a Methodist preacher from the early 20th century, with a touch of overstatement, wrote, “The sin of being uninteresting is in a preacher an exceedingly mortal sin. It hath no forgiveness.” A preacher must faithfully preach the whole counsel of God. But he needs to preach it as it is – God’s counsel. He should preach with conviction, fervency, and authority. The word “preach” means “to declare like a herald.” The Christian preacher is delivering a “hear ye, hear ye” declaration from the King of kings. His delivery should permit no mistake on the part of listeners that what is being preached is vitally important and is deserving – demanding of attention.
There also needs to be a measure of sympathy. Do not automatically assume the worst. For some elderly people, sitting still and staying awake for any length of time is difficult. It may be that the sleepy listener worked late, or their night’s sleep was disrupted by a crying infant. It could be that they are genuinely tired, yet they still made the effort to attend church. Their drowsiness may be testimony, not to indifference, but to faithfulness.
Second, of course, there is the unpleasant reality that some are sleeping in church because they lack an appropriate care for the things of God and their own souls. They are apathetic to matters of eternal significance, and so easily – and some quite deliberately – give way to dozing off.
An elderly pastor was reminiscing to a group of seminarians about times of revival he had witnessed in his early years. One aspiring young preacher asked him, “Where are the great pulpiteers such as there were in bygone days?” The aged preacher replied that he thought there were still such preachers. “What is missing are the great congregations.”
Surely, every pastor should aspire to faithfully, fervently, and effectively proclaim the word of God. But each congregation and each church member should also endeavor to be ready listeners, eager to hear from heaven when God’s man stands on the Lord’s Day to preach. Listen attentively, expectantly, reverently, responsively.
“Take heed therefore how ye hear…” (Lk. 8:18) “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mt. 11:15)
David A. Oliver is the pastor of Ashley Baptist Church in Belding, MI.
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash