What does it mean to engage in active listening during a sermon?

In this video, Jason Dohm discusses the different ways people engage with sermons. He calls for a more active approach to listening and encourages note-taking to help stamp the messages on the listener's memory. According to him, this form of active engagement doesn't just make the sermon more memorable, but also makes it more likely to be discussed and considered after the service ends.

Dohm advocates for the continuation of the sermon's message beyond the service, suggesting that it should be the subject of conversation afterwards. He describes the opportunity to discuss the sermon's content with others as a golden opportunity to engage with and learn from the preached text. This can be achieved in various social settings, such as during a shared meal after the service, where the topics of the day can be put aside in favor of discussing the sermon's teachings and how they can be applied in the upcoming week.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NKJV): 'And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.'

There are a couple of ways that people listen to sermons. Most people come, hopefully they have their Bible in their lap, they don't have a pen and a notepad in their lap, and they listen, hopefully attentively, sometimes yes, sometimes no. And at the end of the sermon, sort of the sermon dies there. I think most preachers certainly would be calling for a different kind of listening to sermons where there's really active listening. For instance, I take notes, I rarely review my notes afterwards, but I get tremendous benefit from taking notes, even if I never read them again because it's a sort of active listening that keeps me very engaged with what's being said and the act of writing it down sort of stamps it on my memory So I always remember things much better afterwards.

And then to have the sermon not die when the amen is pronounced at the end of the prayer, at the end of the sermon, but to have it be the subject of conversation afterwards. It's a great way to spend a part of Sunday afternoon is to be around other people who heard the same things and then just talk through the things that you heard and maybe even how you could apply it in an upcoming week. The way our church is structured is we share a meal together after the service every week and so we're sitting around tables afterwards and the draw is just to talk about sports, the happenings of last week, the happenings of next week, but it's a golden opportunity to actually actively engage in talking about the things that were learned from the text that was preached.