“The secret of preaching is not mastering certain techniques but being mastered by certain convictions”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 12
The Voice of Modest Experience
“Rourke had delivered at least three babies in the back seats of cars and taxi cabs, and thought he was qualified to assert that there was nothing whatever that was natural about it. It was the craziest thing in the world. Women were the kind of people that people came out of, for crying out loud, and he thought it was the kind of thing best monitored by world-class doctors and sophisticated electronic gear, maintained closely by teams of nurses with graduate degrees in astrophysics. But that was just his opinion.”
Starting in This Sanctuary
“Our greatest need, as the Reformers kept insisting, is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that the living God is the Lord of history. We should ask him to push back back the forces of unbelief and thank him for what he is doing already around the world.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 11
Angst as Disinfectant
“He had not managed to see Robert P. Warner—who was still asleep, exhausted as he was from a late night of blogging about the loneliness of urban angst as recorded by French filmmakers, subtitling their angst like crazy, although the existential anguish was redeemed and ameliorated somewhat by plenty of full French frontal nudity, which he felt translated well without the subtitles, as least for him—but Peaborne had obtained a brief audience with Mystic Union.”
The Food Is Not Hot Because Nobody Cooked It
“Finally, it is important to remember that preaching and worship cannot be divorced. The fact that they are so often separated today accounts for the low level of much contemporary worship. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God. Our worship is poor because our knowledge of God is poor; our knowledge of God is poor because our preaching is poor. But when the word of God is expounded in all its fullness, and the congregation begins to glimpse the glory of the living God, they bow down in solemn awe. It is preaching that accomplishes this. That is why preaching is unique and irreplaceable.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 9
Clarity in Some Respects
“Mystic Union held out because while she, the former Mrs. Winmore, had a set of unique and murky perspectives on the care and treatment of virtually every ailment, not to mention almost total confusion with regard to the appropriate laws of inference, almost to the point of thinking that wet streets cause rain, this did not obscure her clear-sighted view of the main chance, and her clear knowledge that she currently had a shot at the main chance. She was dedicated to the proposition that Robert P. Warner had a winning lottery ticket in his clammy little hand, and she was resolved to hold the other hand encouragingly. And occasionally to pat it while giving sound, strategic advice.”
The Importance of Breathing the Same Air
“God himself supplies the best visual aids. He wants the pastor to be a visual aid to the congregation (Tit. 2:7; 1 Tim. 4:12). He also wants the congregation to be a visual aid to the watching world, indeed to the whole universe (Matt. 5:16; Eph. 3:10-11). Virtual images projected on screens are no substitute for real people and loving communities” ().
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 8
A True Difficulty
“‘I am an easygoing man,’ he once told Cindi. ‘I take things in stride. I try to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. I don’t fluster really. So why does this woman make me want to jump up and down on the hassock here, yelling and waving the remote?’ Cindi had been unsympathetic to his dilemma. ‘Because you watch the news on Channel 4? Instead of switching it?’”
Two Sides of the Same Man
“Authority and humility are not mutually exclusive.”
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 4
The Sultry Sage
[He] “discovered in the process that Robert, in addition to his prowess in allegations of wrongdoing when it came to inappropriate touching by pastors, was also a true pasty blogger poet with greasy brown hair hanging in the eyes just right, and a sleepy look that suggested profundity more than bewilderment. Which just goes to show.”