Preaching Without Experience Quotes & Sayings

Don't you see, Doctor?" said Lasher. "The machines are to practically everbody what the white men were to the Indians. People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don't apply any more. People have no choice but to become second-rate machines themselves, or wards of the machines. — Kurt Vonnegut

All the kids with fancy shoes or clothes, do you know what I got with a family of nine? When ever we said let's play poker, we had a full team of adults right there. — Julia Marriott

What makes the Resurrection so difficult for most people to believe? The fact that Jesus rose from the dead became the central point of the disciples' preaching. Why is the Resurrection so important to Christianity? How can the experience of these first-century Christ-followers and their strong witness give you confidence and hope? The close followers of Jesus ran for their lives from the garden and then kept their distance from the trial and Crucifixion. Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Two of them walked sadly away from Jerusalem, hopeless of seeing Jesus again. Then this same group hid from the authorities in a locked room. But soon they would be boldly proclaiming the Good News about Jesus. What changed these confused and disillusioned men and women? The Resurrection! They saw Christ alive - they knew the truth - and their lives were forever changed. This is perhaps the greatest proof that Christ did, in fact, rise from the dead: the disciples' changed lives. — Anonymous

When people decide to talk publicly about poetry as an art form and how it's received, they often get very abject about it: "Nobody reads poetry," and then a thousand people write back, "No, we read poetry." There's an abundance of this negative preaching to the choir, and it's very similar to the experience I'm having. — Eileen Myles

The aim of preaching is not the elucidation of a subject, but the transformation of a person ... Our task is ... the sharing of intense faith and experience. — Halford Luccock

Preaching is asking people to do what you yourself failed to do and expect they fail so that you can come back and preach at them the next day — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Businesses are, in reality, quasi-religious sects. When you go to work in one you embrace a new faith. And if they are really big businesses, you progress from faith to a kind of mystique. Belief in the product, preaching the product, in the end the product becomes the focus of a transcendental experience. Through "the product" one communes with the vast forces of life, nature, and history that are expressed in business. Why not face it? Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments. — Thomas Merton

You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie. — Patti Smith

I realized that there was an intellectual content in music, a kind of thinking, that I would never be able to hear. — Garth Greenwell

Don't assume that all fat people are gluttons. And don't use the word 'fat.' There is a principle here. Learn from logic and experience not to associate things - especially in preaching - that don't necessarily go together. — John Piper

When I look back upon my own religious experience," says Andrew Murray, "or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ - alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. — D.L. Moody

Proclamation, the preaching of the Gospel, should be central to Christian worship. The sermon is the central dynamic in the worship experience. It is the fulcrum upon which the entire service of worship hinges. Everything that comes before it should point to it, and everything that comes after it should issue out of it. Because of this, the pastor is the worship leader of the church. In too many places and in too many circumstances, worship is only identified with something we do before the sermon. That is, we think the worship leader is one who leads choruses or spiritual songs. The dynamic of the worship experience is a complete package, and it is the sermon, the preaching of the Gospel, that must be central to it. It is the poastor himself who sets the tone for worship. — O. S. Hawkins

And the Church is directed to send the gospel to every creature. We pray for the salvation of all men, but not for the loss of a single human being. Christ interceded even for his murderers on the cross. Here, then, is a practical difficulty. The decree of reprobation cannot be made an object of prayer or preaching, and this is an argument against it. Experience confirms election, but repudiates reprobation. — Philip Schaff

He was inspired, and yet he wants books!
He had been preaching for thirty years, and yet he wants books!
He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!
He had a wider experience than most men do, and yet he wants books!
He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things that it was not lawful for a man to utter, and yet he wants books!
He had written a major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

In a journal entry the famed philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once wrote about some tame geese who, week after week, attended church and heard teachings on God's great gift to geese - wings. With wings, the preaching gander reminded them, they could fly and experience the many blessings known only through the utilization of that gift. But, laments Kierkegaard, week after week they waddled home without flapping their way to the flight they were told was their destiny. In a sobering conclusion Kierkegaard reports that these waddling geese were very well liked by the humans of the land. They grew fat and plump and were then butchered, and eaten. And that, says the philosopher, was the end of that. Lesson? God gives us wings — Matt Friedeman

Friends are the fruitcake of life - some nutty, some soaked in alcohol, some sweet. — Jon Ronson

Until one nation ceases its attempts to dominate another, there will never be true freedom. Until one religion relinquishes its quest to prove its god superior to that of another, there shall never be world peace. We will never truly prosper or experience lasting harmony, until we refrain from preaching the gospel of our own moral values and our personal preferences by forcing it upon others. — Anthon St. Maarten

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. — David Lloyd-Jones

As a child he had often thought of killing himself, but those were sentimental reveries born a wish to punish his father and mother and other enemies. — Truman Capote

If I had a religious experience, what I know for sure is that I would stop doing philosophy and would start doing religion, teaching classes in religion, preaching in a local church. That is fine and noble activity. But I do not feel entitled to engage in it. So for me philosophy is my fate. — Simon Critchley

There is no hint here that preaching is thought of primarily as self-expression
of subjective experience or feeling-disclosure or autobiography or 'telling one's story' so as to neglect Scripture."275 It is the Word that is to be preached. — Ben Witherington III

Without the sharing of personal experience, prophetic preaching is impossible. — Brennan Manning

Offended people still may experience miracles, words of utterance, strong preaching, and healing in their lives. But these are gifts of the Spirit, not fruits. We will be judged according to fruit, not gifting. A gift is given. Fruit is cultivated. — John Bevere

He fell in love with himself at first sight, and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. Self-love seems so often unrequited. — Anthony Powell

One does not see 'what is there' and sees 'what is not there', that is called moha (illusory vision). — Dada Bhagwan

I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world - it would be as dust in the balance. — Dwight L. Moody

I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world. — Richard Rohr