A Ladder to Nowhere
I am an aural person. I tend to hear and "catch" everything around me. I learn best by hearing something spoken or explained.
As a result, I have found that listening to other preachers and teachers is a great way to learn and improve my preaching. As I've mentioned in this space before, I listen to a ton of sermons from a wide variety of people every week.
One of the great benefits of doing this is learning how other guys explain things. I am not an extremely creative or compelling wordsmith. Like most simple people, I get by on clarity.
So it helps me to listen to other guys. How does Preacher X talk to non-believers about the reality of their sin? How does so-and-so frame the gospel with his words? Oftentimes I'll pick up a way of expressing something that seems just right and work it into my own preaching to make it more effective.
The other day I was listening to the 9Marks interview with David Powlison, and I heard a great turn of phrase. Speaking of the way sin works in our hearts, Powlison said:
Imagine a spectrum as horizontal... from good looks to athleticism to brains to money to fluency to how well you know the Bible to how big your church is (you could pick a hundred areas... but what our sinful hearts do is they take what is a horizontal spectrum and they turn it vertical as a ladder to nowhere. They rank themselves and either feel superior to people or inferior to people.
What a great description. As Calvin would say, "That will preach!" A ladder to nowhere... that perfectly captures the hopelessness and irrationality of sin. I'm going to work that into a future sermon, I'm sure (with proper credit given, of course!).
It's interesting to observe just how others present. The best ones seem to be those that distract from paying attention to the "how" while the message just penetrates as it is supposed to.
IMO, someone who really has a gift of using illustrations if Bryan Chapell.
Posted by: Mark Lamprecht | May 29, 2009 2:50:06 PM
Mike,
Can you give us a list those you regularly listen to?
Posted by: Mark R. | Jun 1, 2009 1:37:43 PM