What’s important for congregants to understand is that it is not only listeners who need to remain undistracted, who need to battle to keep their minds focused and their thoughts directed. The preacher fights the same battle….So, just as we pray for undistracted minds for those who listen, we would do well to pray for undistracted minds for those who preach.

It is one of the strengths, or perhaps one of the weaknesses, of the human mind that it can have different “tracks” playing at the same time. Even as one series of words is emerging from a person’s mouth, an entirely different series of words may be flitting through his brain. He can have an entire monologue playing internally, even as another is playing externally. Preachers are especially familiar with this phenomenon and become accustomed to saying one thing even as they think another.

I sometimes wonder where this second track comes from, and especially when it is negative or discouraging. Is Satan planting thoughts into my mind that are meant to keep me from preaching with confidence or power? Or maybe Satan does not even need to, since I am plenty capable of thinking those thoughts without his intervention. I suppose it’s probably a combination of those factors and others. Regardless, if you have ever wondered what is going on in your pastor’s mind while he delivers his sermon, here are a few different possibilities—a few different options that may be playing on his second track.

“Did I already say that?” This one is most prominent among those who preach without a full manuscript or who preach at multiple services. For those who preach extemporaneously or from a mere outline, or for those who are preaching the same sermon for the second or third time in a day, that second track can often be playing in the background of the preacher’s mind and inquiring, “Did you already say that? Are you repeating yourself?” It’s a disquieting thought that you may have forgotten words you spoke just moments ago and begun to repeat them. Yet most of us have done it at one time or another.

“That person sure looks interested.” As preachers look toward their listeners and survey the people sitting there, their eye will often alight on a person who appears to be particularly interested, who is bearing down to listen better, who is nodding in appreciation, who is whispering (or, depending on the context perhaps shouting) “amen,” or who is avidly jotting down notes. The preacher can find his mind thinking about this person and appreciating the effort they are expending to listen to every word. Whole conversations or scenarios can play in his mind even as he continues to preach unabated.

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