Les Lofquist on Leadership and Preaching
I especially loved this piece by Les Lofquist on how to respond to a criticism of preaching:
I think the only way is to be determined to be prayed up and studied up the next time you’re in the pulpit. Resolve to get up early each day the next week and pray as a man of God should. Then study seriously. Grapple with next Sunday’s text. Turn off the television. Stop surfing the web. Put away your fantasy team rosters. Dig into the Bible. Pull off from your shelves those theology books and commentaries of yours and pore over them. Review your old Bible College / seminary class lecture notes. Accept the challenge of that passage you’ll be preaching and wrestle with its meaning and outline and application.
Approach next Sunday with all the earnestness you can. After all, it’s God’s holy and written Word you are handling! Get serious about it once again, like you did when you first began preaching. Shake off the cobwebs and preach with fire in your soul, accepting the calling from God to be the spokesman to your people in your congregation for Him. Let them see His glory through you as you seriously handle His words. And don’t be afraid of being appropriately direct and bold, assuming nothing with respect to the spiritual condition of the individuals in your congregation. Preach with the authority of God, bearing God’s message, speaking God’s Word and forget about yourself and your own authority.