There is an idea floating around my head of throwing a "10-minute party" each Sunday after I teach. The party would be by invitation only. Those invited would be people interested in or believing they have a call of God upon their life to preach.
For ten minutes after each study they would dissect what I just did. What was the homiletical idea? How did I start the introduction? At what point did I draw illustrations? How did the outline contribute? What were the transitions? Was the conclusion appropriate to the subject? Maybe more of a party for me than for them.
Often I will say while I am teaching, "It is not preaching if it's not practical." If I have not made truth practical, I have not preached.
That is true from the listener's side. Equally true from my side is there is no preaching without passion, for preaching is truth shot-through a prism of human personality and Holy Spirit anointing. That means a dominant note in preaching has to be intensity. Well, I have to be intense. I preach to reach the back row.
Study the preaching of the apostles. It was far from the familiar Sunday fare of legalism, humanism, and political correctness wrapped in aphorisms.
For ten minutes after each study they would dissect what I just did. What was the homiletical idea? How did I start the introduction? At what point did I draw illustrations? How did the outline contribute? What were the transitions? Was the conclusion appropriate to the subject? Maybe more of a party for me than for them.
Often I will say while I am teaching, "It is not preaching if it's not practical." If I have not made truth practical, I have not preached.
That is true from the listener's side. Equally true from my side is there is no preaching without passion, for preaching is truth shot-through a prism of human personality and Holy Spirit anointing. That means a dominant note in preaching has to be intensity. Well, I have to be intense. I preach to reach the back row.
Study the preaching of the apostles. It was far from the familiar Sunday fare of legalism, humanism, and political correctness wrapped in aphorisms.
There is no reason why your ministry should not achieve visible results, provided you keep alive within you a sense of the wonder of the facts you preach and of the urgency of the issues with which you deal. Every Sunday morning when it comes ought to find you awed and thrilled by the reflection – "God is to be in action today, through me, for these people: this day may be crucial, this service decisive, for someone now ripe for the vision of Jesus."
—James S. Stewart, Scottish preacher, Heralds of God, 1946, p. 47
