Preparation - Chambers, Oswald
It is by thinking with your pen in hand that you will get to the heart of your subject.
The heart of the righteous studieth to answer (proverbs 15:28). To give your congregation extemporaneous thinking, i. E. , thinking without study, is an insultponderous nothings. The preacher should give his congregation the result of strenuous thinking in unstudied, extemporaneous speech. Extemporaneous speech is not extemporaneous thinking, but speech that has been so studied that you are possessed unconsciously with what you are saying.
Never get a studied form; prepare yourself men- tally, morally, and spiritually, and you need never fear. The great thing is not to hunt for texts, but to live in the big comprehensive truths of the bible and texts will hunt you.
To talk about getting a message, is a mistake. It is preparation of myself that is required more than of my message.
Dont go to your bible in a yawning mood.
As a student of the word of god, keep your mind and heart busy with the great truths concerning god, the lord Jesus Christ, the holy spirit, the atonement, sin, suffering, etc. Slay on the threshold of your mind the thing that makes you sit down mentally and say, i cant. Why be saved and sanctified in a rusty indolent case? In impromptu speaking, begin naturally, and the secret of beginning naturally is to forget you are reli- gious. Many wear a crushing religious garb. Beware of detaching yourself from your theme in order to heed the way you present it. Never be afraid of expressing what is really you.
To develop your expression in public you must do a vast amount of writing in private. Write out your problems before god. Go direct to him about everything time spent on the great fundamental revelations given by the holy spirit is apt to be looked upon as a waste of time we must get to practical work.
The work we do in preparation is meant to get our minds into such order that they are at the service of god for his inspiration.
Conscious inspiration is mercifully rare or we would make inspiration our god.
Dont chisel your subject too much. Trust the reality of your nature and the reality of your subject. The discipline of your own powers is a very precious acquirement in the service of god; it delivers you from breathless uncertainty and possible hysterics. Learn to respect the findings of your own mind. Always check private delight in preparation. Close your preparation with prayer and leave it with god till wanted.
When you speak, abandon yourself in confidence; dont try to recall fine points in preparation. The burning heart while Jesus talks with us and opens up the scriptures to us is a blessed experience, but the burning heart will die down to ashes unless we keep perennially right with god.
Spiritual insight is in accordance with the development of heart-purity.
Every domain of our life which comes under the apprehension of the spirit of god is a call to cultivate that particular domain for him. The trouble is that we wont break up the new soil of our lives for god. Spiritual sloth must be the greatest grief to the holy ghost. Sloth has always a moral reason, not a physical one; the self-indulgent nature must be slothful. Learn to fast over your subject in private; do the mechanical work and trust god for the inspirational in delivery.
Dont memorise what you have to say or you will serve up could kale het.5
In order to expound a passage, live in it
well beforehand.
Keep yourself full with reading.
Reading gives you a vocabulary.
Don’t read to remember; read to realise.
The speaker without notes must have two things entirely at his commandthe bible and his mother tongue.
In impromptu speaking, never try to recall, always plunge.
Let the center of your subject grip you, then you will express its heart unconsciously.
Get moved by your message, and it will move others in a corresponding way.
Watch how god by his angels elbows you out of the hour you thought you were going to get with your bible only you will never call them angels unless you are filled with the holy spirit. That objection- able person was really an angel of god to you, saying get this thing worked out.