Preaching quote

[DeWayneTN]

"To preach more than half an hour, a man should be an angel himself or have angels for hearers." George Whitefield

[Dr. Ron]

That gentleman just didn't have enough to say .....

Or his congregation didn't want to hear what he had to say.

[Dr. Ron]

Preaching is like sex.....

If you have to rush through it , it ain't worth the effort.

Take your time.....Dewayne...this is for you newly wed......

[DeWayneTN]

How do I respond to this?

Back to the original non-bedroom discussion, there are preachers who swear by a thirty minute rule and those who will go for hours if no one stops them. On one hand, I think preachers are kidding themselves to think audiences now have the same attention spans they did 30 years ago. Still, I'd say it varies. If you are giving good solid Bible teaching, 30 minutes seems awfully short. At the same time, if it's a sermon built around a single verse with jokes, poems, recipes and email forwards, have some mercy on those folks who are being nice enough to listen.

[Dr. Ron]

I agree with you Dewayne.....

My style of preaching takes a little longer than 30 minutes. Generally about 45. But I use powerpoint, notes, testimonies, clips, lots of stuff.

I don't preach quite like I used to. Too much energy.....I am old....

Some guys can give me all I want in 10 minutes....then there was D.H. Queener......hours seemed like minutes......

[RamboPreacher]

depends. a typical sermon that I preach is about 45 minutes max. When I teach, 45 minutes is not enough time. Both are based on congregation feedback.

[Pastor Bill]

Know your congregation, and their response. Don't belabor a point to fill in time, and don't rush to get one in.

I've seen great sermons that are 10-15 minutes, and others that are well over an hour, it really depends on what God's doing. The most important thing is that we're following Him and not so focused on the time that we are rushing or stretching our message or our audience.

[DeWayneTN]

I was interviewing an author who coaches corporate execs at making presentations and mentioned this quote and asked him what he felt like was the time span for sermons. He laughed and said "minutes." He said the average person's brain goes 4x faster than a person can speak, so that gives opportunity for the mind to drift to other things. It's hard to make it slow down.