One of the most amazing things is for a life to be transformed in one service from stranger to life-changer in one sermon.
1. A total stranger.
2. To making them liking you,
3. To having confidence in you,
4. To listening to you,
5. To being captured by a truth,
6. To being convicted,
7. To being changed.
1. Do not take an invitation where your presence might hurt; (This is why Bro. Hyles does not preach in Southern Baptist Churches.)
2. Always help the pastor.
3. There are some men I would have speak for me in vice versa.
4. There are some men for whom I would preach, but I would not have them preach for me.
5. There are some for whom I’d not speak, nor them for me, but I’d share a platform.
6. No one knows who these men are. (I’m just trying to follow my conviction. There is no use trying to hurt someone.
7. I would suggest you carefully read the chapter in my preaching book on preparing to preach. (Teaching on preaching.)
8. Do not chose your sermon on the basis of how well it went last time.
9. Choose a sermon with an easy invitation. (ex: The preeminence of Christ ,not practical enough for an invitation, but good when you can’t give an invitation. You aren’t going to transform a life unless it has a hook in it.) A sermon should never be an end in itself.
10. Preach a sermon you enjoy.
11. Keep a record of your sermons and where you preached them.
12. After each Sunday sermon, consider them as possible speaking engagement sermons. (Could that sermon be a life-changing sermon?)
13. Always be considerate of the speaker that follows; if you are the first speaker, give no invitation and always stop on time.
14. Do not be critical in your heart of anything in the service. (You have to block it out; you can’t if you feel critical. Don’t let anything get your mind off what you are trying to do.)
15. Do not try to have a mountaintop meeting. (The purpose of this sermon is not to have a great service. The purposesis to transform lives.)
16. Use only spiritual humor.(no jokes)
17. Do not plan on using the crowd to help you preach. Don’t think they are dead if they don’t say Amen.
18. As a guest speaker, blend the old and the new. (Overlap; you make a mistake if you don’t repeat something, but don’t repeat everything.)
19. Compliment the workers and musicians where you preach.
20. Start slowly and sincerely to convince them that you are for real.
21. Then, lay out the truth. Tell them what the point is.
22. Then, illustrate it seriously.
23. Then illustrate it emotionally.
24. Then close.
Points 20-25 are more important then all the other points combined.