Preaching Style Quotes

I write all my sermons.

My uncle was a preacher, and I used to go watch him preach. He was also funny, so I'm very 'preacher-ish' on stage, not by intent but because that's where I learned to talk in front of people.

Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.

The way sometimes we preach we make out that God is waiting eagerly to catch us out. It's not that way at all. I mean, it is extraordinary because it almost is as if God in fact wills us also to sin, but that is not true.

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell.

When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You're supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys.

I see this in the way that sermons are preached. How would you give a Black Nationalist speech or campaign for the Republicans when you're an integrated congregation? It doesn't happen.

I don't have that kind of Southern experience of the fire-and-brimstone preacher type of thing. Certainly not in my comedy.

Most sermons sound to me like commercials - but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.

If people are not sharing their faith in your church, if they're not having a quiet time, if they're not living godly lives, then you need to change your style of preaching. You are obviously not seeing lives changed through the Word of God. So what is the problem? The problem isn't the Word. The problem is your preaching style.

Some clergymen make a motto, instead of a theme, of their texts.

I like televangelism shows. I find it entertaining sometimes to see how a young person would deliver the word versus a old person.

We who preach and write, do so in a manner different from which the Scriptures have been written. We write while we make progress.We learn something new every day. We speak as we still knock for understanding...If anyone criticizes me when I have said what is right, he does me an injustice. But I would be more angry with the one who praises me and takes what I have written for Gospel truth than I would be with the one who criticizes me unfairly.

I am verily persuaded the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ; and the reason why congregations have been so dead is, because they have had dead men preaching to them.

Of all the preaching in the world, I hate that preaching which tends to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with tickling levity and affect them as stage plays used to, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence for the name of God.

I've written a lot of other books and this book [Tears we cannot stop] was different. I couldn't just say what I wanted to say in the same style that I said it in those other books. I felt compelled to preach.

There was a time when ministers spoke forthrightly and named things. We don't name anything anymore. Finney had a sermon on How to Preach so as to Convert Nobody. He said 'Preach on sin but never mention any of the sins of your congregation - that will do it.'

What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.

I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.

We were facing a situation where some preachers have completely alienated themselves from the everyday concerns of the ordinary Muslim. Despite the fact that there are social issues that local preachers are in the best position to address because of the huge influence they wield, particularly in rural areas, they simply were not doing so. We did not want them to preach hellfire but rather to restore hope for Muslims.

Christ never preached any funeral sermons.

I have grounded my preaching upon the literal word; he that pleases may follow me; he that will not may stay.

To love to preach is one thing; to love to whom you preach is quite another.

If in a Christian pulpit you have no business saying, "I suggest to you" No! "These things I declare to you."

I have never changed my message. I preach the Bible, and I preach it with authority.