What Women Wish Their Preacher Knew...Continued from page 2

Christian women want their pastors to teach them this Word. They also have a number of other suggestions concerning the pastor’s leadership of the worship service.

Carefully and Prayerfully Prepare the Sermon

Women ask that pastors pray and study and allow themselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit as they prepare their worship service sermons.

“I need for my pastor to study and prepare sermons that will help my growth as a Christian,” explains a Tennessee woman. “I need more scriptural ‘meat.’”

“Preach the Bible?study hard?don’t pull sermons off the Internet,” advises another.

“Know that I love you and support you, and I appreciate the time you spend in study and prayer before God,” writes an Alabama woman. “It shows in your messages and I really desire the spiritual food you provide each week.”

Get Rid of ‘Entertainment’ in the Worship Services

Most women go to church to worship God and to hear his Holy Word preached. They are tired of Sunday morning “entertainment” in the service. They want worship, not performance. The world offers them entertainment without ceasing. They expect and want something different from church.

According to pastor/church growth consultant Richard Krejcir: “Some preachers strive to make the gospel more appealing by watering down its message. ... A healthy church will never sacrifice the integrity of the Bible or neuter its message.”

Krejcir advises Christians who are looking for a church community to “first look for a place where truth is preached from the Bible?where God’s Word is seen as living, relevant, changeless, and inerrant, rather than just a ‘good book’ filled with advice on how to be a more loving, moral person.”⁶

A Michigan woman writes: “I would like more teaching from Scripture and less entertainment in church worship. I’m weary of all the skits and sing?a?longs and interpretive dance. Many of us don’t have a strong enough foundation in God’s Word to face life’s struggles. Preachers need to help build strong Christians so that we can weather the storms in life. Many times I feel we lose sight of the real reason we attend church.”

Another complains: “The worship service seems to be all fluff these days.”

I love author Annie Dillard’s comments as she describes the potential power of the Holy Spirit in our worship services, and how unaware Christians are of his power: “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?”