“Even ‘sermon-tasting’, a reprehensible kind of ecclesiastical pub-crawling, which involved erratic churchgoing merely with a view to sampling and subsequently comparing the eminent preachers of the day, has gone out of vogue” (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 50).
The Basic Recovery
“It stands to reason that every recovery of confidence in the Word of God, and so in a living God who spoke and speaks, however this truth may be defined, is bound to result in a recovery of preaching. This must be why so many great preachers have belonged to the reformed tradition” (Stott, Between …
Preaching Reality
“Preaching is indispensible to Christianity. Without preaching a necessary part of its authenticity has been lost. For Christianity is, in its very essence, a religion of the Word of God” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 15)
A Professional, In Other Words
“The current tendency is to secularize the ministry, both its message and its office, as if the work of the minister were just the same as that of a teacher, a physician, a scientist, or an artist, only with a slightly different accent. This has done the church no good” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. …
And Without Holding Anything in Reserve
“A preacher may have little or much personality, but certainly, when he gets into the pulpit he needs to use all that he has” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 149).
Preaching Face to Face
“One great advantage of preaching without notes is the power of a direct appeal . . .Preaching without notes gives an earnestness to the preacher which is hardly possible otherwise, and it is earnestness that counts. That is the true eloquence” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, pp. 147-148).
Make It Concrete
“The great doctrines of the Bible and of the gospel ought to be taught and proclaimed from the pulpit. One of the most acceptable and effective ways in which this can be done is through doctrinal preaching that is also biographical. For example, take ‘Repentance.’ Instead of speaking of repentance in the abstract, preach on …
Preach Biography
“God is the great, original, and continual biographical preacher . . . God did not reveal himself in abstract truth, but in a life — in the life of his son Jesus Christ” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 121).
Ow
“One of the men of the French court once said to a famous court preacher, ‘Sire, your sermons terrify me, but your life reassures me'” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 113).
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10 Things an Effective Minister Must Remember
1. You are a minister of Christ, for the people. You are not a minister of the people, for Christ. Always preach Jesus. 2. Acknowledge your sins to God, and do what He says to do about them. 3. Your principal credentials for ministry are maintained, or not, within your marriage and family. 4. Your …