Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Preach or teach?

a Biblical thought...
"This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (Luke 18:14)

a Book thought...
The Church must keep alive the ministry of encouragement or it will have no basis for its mission. (p85 Needham)
a Dave thought...
While at the recent Youth Congress in Hamilton, NZ one of the 15 year old girls from our territory had an interesting question. "Why do all the preachers have to yell on stage?" I tried to explain how it was part of the preachers way of communicating and it was not meant to scare her or necessarily be intrusive but it it was more a case of an excited communicator. The girl went on to suggest it wasn't neccesary and she found it offensive and manipulating.

I often wonder why we expect everyone to yell when they are on stage, I've done numerous preaching courses over the years and my feedback is always along the line that I don't get excited enough or I don't lift my voice enough. I say a preacher yells it but a teacher yells it. So I personally can often do without changing who I am and turning into the the yelling preacher but I do long to be a teacher who can help others learn something and teach God's word clearly and without emotional manipulation.

Anyway I heard about this guy 2000 years ago who was just a teacher and he just went around telling stories and he seemed to do okay so how about we just stick to that.

Just a thought.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The cleaner found the preachers sermon notes in the pulpip. As he read them he noticed a note in the margin "yell-argument weak". All too often this is can be the case. WJE