Jump Start Your Preaching (part 5 of 6)

Obviously 6 weeks isn't even close to enough time to see major improvement in my preaching... I realize that.  However, I plan on continuing with these challenges, so I'm quite certain their will be significant improvements in time.  I have at least begun to more clearly recognize the areas where I need the most work.

However, I am going to move on to the next area I feel I should work on and that is learning to do things that are out of my comfort zone.  For example, I don't typically get very loud when I preach (I don't think by any means a preacher has to be loud to be effective), and it is mostly probably just because I would feel embarrassed to do so.  Getting loud isn't something that comes naturally with my personality.  Sure, there are times I am a little more passionate about the message I'm trying to give... but never really loud.  So, I believe it would be a good challenge for me to add some places in upcoming messages where I have to step out of my comfort zone and get loud (maybe in imitating a character in a story I am telling where the character is crying out I might put my hands over my mouth and cry out like the character might have cried out)

Week 5 - Stepping out of your comfort zone

So, here are a list of things I would like to add (for each of us there are probably different areas where we feel uncomfortable, but these are the areas that I personally want to work on this week):

• Use more extreme fluctuations in volume (sometimes whisper, sometimes shout)
  
• Add some areas in the sermons where I add long pauses for emphasis (I tend to want to fill the whole time with lots of words, but sometimes less is more)
• Use illustrations, charts, object lessons, etc.  (I've always felt uncomfortable trying to fit these in, but they are almost always effective in communicating a message more clearly)
• Be more demanding of attention (Typically, if people are distracted or dozing off, the most I will do is walk their direction or try to start telling a story or something to get them to tune it, but rarely will I ever say things like "now look up here, I see people dozing off but I really want you to hear this," or clap my hands and say "listen up," etc.

Basically, I want to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I have found that, even if I feel weird trying something new, afterwards I usually wonder why I had never done it before.

Hope this helps.  God bless you and my your passion for ministry grow as you addict yourself to it (1 Corinthians 16:15)
​RR