Love your audience. "Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.” - Luciano Pavarotti Motivation makes a big difference.
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For the past week or so my right hip has been hurting - to the point that it is hard to get in/out of bed and move in certain directions. Sitting for long periods of time means standing up with a sharp pain and a stiff leg. Jumping up and down is out of the question! When the body is functioning normal, we take our mobility for granted. Getting out of bed doesn't require a strategy; you just do it. It's amazing how vital mobility is to having an enjoyable afternoon or even a productive walk to the kitchen. The part week has made me think about a different kind of mobility ... the ability to quickly adapt your thinking and attitude to changing circumstances. I'm not suggesting moral relativism - truth is truth regardless of our situation or circumstances. But what about our perspective on disappointments? Or how we…
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Use the right language. “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. ” – Nelson Mandela When trying to bridge the world of the Bible and the world of an audience, it's important to understand both contexts. We want to hear from Scripture an authentic and accurate word; to do so means understanding first what the passage meant and then what it means. After that, our next task is to communicate truth in a way that makes sense to our audience. To do so requires finding their language -- what are they dealing with, reeling from, suspicious about? What's their language?
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Know what you're not saying. "A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying." – G. K. Chesterton One of the hardest disciplines in preaching is knowing what to eliminate from your outline. Too many times we have two or three really good sermons packed into one sermon. Slice and dice until you have the essential message.
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