Good Preaching!

Good preaching - okay, I'll have a go at it.

Preparation, preparation, preparation - and that's many years, and still learning, still preparing.

Writing, writing, writing - nothing hones the mind, the thoughts, the ability to give expression to the inexpressible. 

Humility, humility, humility - give it your best shot, and know that it fell short. Period! It was probably good, but there's always another Sunday.

Trust, trust, trust - when spoken in hope for the wellbeing of another, a changed social condition, the welfare of the world, God does something with such efforts.

Energy, energy, energy - deep and penetrating care for the Word, the world, scholarship, politics and hope. If you care about it, preach about it. If you don't care deeply, find something about which you care deeply, and go from there. At such a point, a little pulpit-pounding might just happen, and that's okay, too.

To this, I'd add: use a text, or something similar there to. Have the notes at hand, and let the congregation know that you produced something requiring labor as well as spirit.

Use a lectern, or pulpit - waltzing around on the chancel, platform, is mostly a preacher-centered look-at-me device.

Anyone with thespian proclivities can dazzle an audience, but preaching isn't about dazzle, it's about grace and justice, and those are both amazing things and hard things, requiring a lot of emotional and intellectual effort well-harnessed by training, by sermon-text and by humility.

Nothing wrong with flair - let the Spirit lead, but like a horse, if the preacher is going to pull the wagon, some serious equipment/equipping is needed. Dashing off here and there across the field may be pretty to watch, but in the end, to be of value, the horse is harnessed for the day's work.

Well, that's enough for this morning ... a Sunday morning in Amsterdam.