Preach Magazine Issue 3 - Preaching and the Holy Spirit | Page 48

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FEATURE

GROWING WITH THE FLOW
Ideally, when we speak we should
aim to be barbeque man or woman;
what we are like when we are relaxing
amongst friends at a barbeque, with
a glass of wine in our hand, talking
about something we are passionate
about. In these times, we fully inhabit
our own speaking. When we speak
we shouldn’t want to be anyone else,
saying anything else to anyone else.
For speakers to attain this, we have
to cultivate our greatest strength
which is our capacity to be securely
connected to, rooted in and filled with
the Spirit. Do you know why people
say they often remember a story
that was in a sermon more than the
teaching content? It’s because the
story was communicated properly;
in other words, the speaker fully
inhabited the story they told.
In my experience, a good preacher is
a bad preacher that got better. There
are several aspects of preaching that
have to be mastered if we want to be
any good at it. We have to learn how
to be comfortable expressing what
we think in front of people. We have
to learn how to master the technical
side of communication in this day and
age – using a microphone, a speaker
stand, increasingly an iPad for images
and verses etc. We have to learn how
to make sense of a biblical text even
if we have a background in theology.
Also, we have to learn how to be
inspired by the Spirit as we speak so
that the sense of what he is saying and
wanting to do in people’s lives is made
known.
Good preaching is often premeditated
but this makes it unusual; most of the
things Paul expects to see happening
in church are inspired by the Spirit
in the moment. Preaching, like
everything else in the service, should
be subject to the question, ‘What is the

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Holy Spirit saying or doing on this
particular occasion?’ For instance, on
the (too rare) occasions when there
have been prophetic words that have
summarised what I am planning
to say later, I have learnt that this
means I should emphasise those
things. It doesn’t necessarily mean
dropping everything I am planning
to say (though sometimes it does)
but it does mean being responsive
to what the Spirit is emphasising
through the gift of prophecy which is
a more important gift than teaching
according to Paul and which certainly
isn’t the same thing. Neither are they
mutually exclusive of course. Paul
values prophecy above all because
of the potential evangelistic impact
of true revelation being given. As an
evangelist, Paul thinks of Christian
meetings primarily as evangelistic
contexts. Teaching believers comes
second, as does speaking in tongues,
but ideally everything we do should
be subject to the inspiration of the
Spirit.
Because I am only human, despite
my best efforts to turn up ready to
preach as a man of the Spirit, either
my brokenness or inability to process
what may be happening in my life
can limit the effectiveness of my
preaching. However, when I am in
a worship context, acknowledging
my emptiness before God and
being ministered to myself by the
presence of God, I might at the last
minute become aware of what God
really wants me to say; I might at
that moment receive what I need to
actually say. Some people seem to
think that spontaneous inspiration
is all that matters and often turn the
preaching process into a bit of an
agony as a result. I’m simply saying
that the context in which we are
speaking can make us able to say
or reveal to us more fully what God
wants us to say.

Being realistic though, anyone who
has experience of preaching knows
there are some sermons that are
effectively a ‘set piece’; we know what
we want before we start. In my own
context that would be huge Christmas
or baptism services which we use to
invite guests to our version of Alpha.
If