“But when it finally happened to her, the whole thing was far more illuminating than she had thought it would be and went all the way back to her girlhood. Vanity, selfishness, conceit, superficiality, covetousness, ambition—all of them tumbled off the top bookshelf of her mind and were just lying there on the floor, waiting for someone to pick them all up and throw them away.”
Fire in the Bones
“The pressure should begin to build inside us, until we feel we can contain it no longer. It is then that we are ready to preach. The whole process of sermon preparation, from beginning to end, was excellently summed up by an African American preacher who said, ‘First, I reads myself full, next I thinks myself clear, next I prays myself hot, and then I lets go.’”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 73
Thruppa-da-da
“So he just sat, not paying attention to much of anything. But occasionally a phrase from the prayer book would create a little spiritual thruppa-da-da, much like what happens when you forget to put the lawn mower in the garage for the winter, and try to get it started in the spring. Nothing much there, but occasionally there might be a noise that might indicate that at some point in the indefinite future there might be something there. Every three weeks or so, the Rev. Jane Hutchens, for that was her name, would read something profound that Thomas Cranmer had written in the sixteenth century, Lord knows why anymore, and Chad would shift in his seat. Thruppa-da-da.”
Congregations Also Know
“Every preacher knows the difference between a heavy sermon which trundles along the runway like an overloaded passenger jet and never gets airborne, and a sermon which has ‘what a bird has, a sense of direction and wings.’”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 73
Not a Sailing Boat, for Pity’s Sake
“He had been very diligent in his own way, but he was like a guy putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a lighthouse, but one where things got mixed up in the closet, and the picture on the box lid was that of a sailing boat. He was diligent, but was making slow progress.”
Although Some Still Do
“Wordy preachers can hide careless thinking with clever speech; it is much more difficult to get away with a cover-up on paper.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 71
Not an Understated Effect, in Other Words
“The talk had been on confession of sin, and the effect of it had been the equivalent of dropping a hand grenade in your average living room goldfish bowl.”
Start the Journey at the Right End
“We need to start where the people are, rather than where we hope to take them.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 70
One Like Unto the Other
“Martin had been far more discreet about his amours than Chad had been, and speaking quantitatively, if illegitimate dalliances were corn, his Nebraskan combine had not cut so wide a swath, and this meant that many on the leadership team did not even know that they were getting a minister like unto Chad.”
The Size of the Front Porch
“A good introduction serves at least three purposes.First, it awakes interest, stimulates curiosity and makes us long to know God’s perspective on this matter. Secondly, it enables the listeners to sense that they are listening to someone who is qualified to speak for God from this text . . . Thirdly, it introduces the dominant idea and leads the hearers into it”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, pp. 69-70