Pastor Martin continues his series on the preacher's physical action, focusing on specific guidelines for both naturally animated and less animated preachers. He emphasizes that the preacher's primary function is that of a herald, not a pantomime artist, and stresses the importance of restraint, self-control, and audibility for the animated. For the less animated, he urges conviction of the necessity of physical action, prayer for liberation, conscious yielding of one's humanity to God, and cultivating animation in non-preaching contexts like storytelling to children. The sermon concludes with practical advice on arranging physical surroundings, seeking judicious evaluation, and exposing oneself to diverse preaching models.
Guidelines for the Naturally Animated Preacher: Herald, Not Pantomime0:03
The Principle of Restraint and Self-Control2:48
Avoid Actions Undermining Audibility or Decorum7:59
Guidelines for the Less Naturally Animated Preacher: Cultivating Physical Activity12:16
Pray for Liberation and Yield Your Humanity to God16:02
Pray for Felt Earnestness in Preaching22:34
Cultivate Animation in Non-Preaching Situations25:28
Concluding Guidelines: Surroundings, Evaluation, and Models28:08
Key Quotes
“God does not war with nature, only with sin.”
“People should always sense that we are in control, that we always have more thought, more voice, and more action than we are giving them at any given point of the sermon.”
“Decently violent, and as a general rule, we may here note that it is the tendency of deep feeling rather to subdue the manner than to render it too energetic. He who beats the air and balls and raves and stamps means nothing, and the more a man really means what he says, the less of vulgar vehemence there will be.”
“Remember our message has an inherent majesty, an inherent dignity, and loftiness which must never be violated by the paralinguistics, that is, by the physical action.”
“Earnestly pray for the more complete liberation of your entire redeemed humanity. Sin has brought bondage and excesses in all areas of our humanity. Christ has come to set us free. John 8, 36 Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”
“The real reason for the lack of animated preaching in our day is the cursed lack of true spirit-wrought earnestness in the hearts of preachers. Preaching has become a business and there is the absence of that earnestness which alone can give birth to true physical eloquence if we may use that term.”
“it is the earnestness of the speaker which is the most important thing which in the words of our greatest American orator comes, quote, beaming from the eye, speaking on the tongue, informing every feature and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object.”
“Now and then ask some true and judicious friend to apprise you of such as may have struck him and no one can in this respect be so helpful as an intelligent wife.”
Applications
All listeners
Know yourself regarding your natural animation; if unsure, ask truthful and accurate friends.
Remember your primary function is a herald, not a pantomime artist, and drain excessive natural physical expressions if they are distracting.
Don't get carried away into physical action that undermines your ability to be heard distinctly, especially with microphones.
Don't get carried away into indecorous or ludicrous physical activity, remembering the inherent majesty of the message.
Become convinced of the necessity of cultivating more physical activity in your speaking.
Pray for the Lord to free you from excessive moderation in physical action, cultivating aspects of your humanity for more natural physical action.
Take specific steps to cultivate natural physical action in speaking.
Earnestly pray for the more complete liberation of your entire redeemed humanity.
Consciously yield your entire redeemed humanity to the Lord as the vehicle of conveying His truth, including all your faculties.
Pray for more felt earnestness in preaching, as it is the natural regulator of animation.
Work at developing animation and proper physical action in congenial, non-preaching situations, such as telling stories to children.
In conversation, get your hands out of your pockets if you have that habit.
Whenever possible, seek to arrange the physical surroundings in which you preach to allow full liberty for action and animation.
Actively seek the judicious evaluation of discerning people with reference to your physical action in preaching, especially from an intelligent wife.
Seek continually to expose yourself to different models of preaching to avoid unconscious imitation of a single style and to absorb diverse approaches.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 88 paragraphs, roughly 37 minutes.
Machine transcription
Guidelines for the Naturally Animated Preacher: Herald, Not Pantomime
Now I'm going to give specific guidelines for the more naturally animated. These were general guidelines that apply to all of us. Now specific guidelines for the more naturally animated. Some of us, by temperament, are more intense.
We are more volatile, explosive, and hence more expressive. And how do we know this? Well, in our natural conversation, long before we ever thought of the ministry, we talked with our hands, with our feet, with our elbows, with our eyebrows. We talked with all of our faculties.
Now it would be utterly incongruous to think that such a person, because he's regenerate and set apart by God to minister the word, should suddenly become a totally different person. God does not war with nature, only with sin.
So some of you, and you need to know yourself, Romans 12, and if you're not sure where you fit, ask some people who love you enough to be truthful and know you enough to be accurate. Make sure you get those two things together. Know you well enough to be accurate and love you enough to be truthful. One without the other won't work.
But if you fit this category, let me give you some specific counsels. And I'll give you four. Number one, remember that your primary function is that of a herald and a proclaimer and not that of a pantomime artist. Number two, remember that your primary function is that of a herald and a proclaimer and not that of a pantomime artist.
It's interesting how much of the emphasis in Scripture falls upon the voice. That's why we said among all of the physical elements of preaching, the voice has primacy. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet. Declare unto my people their sins.
Isaiah, I believe it's the beginning of chapter 58. Behold of thy voice. A voice crying in the wilderness. Isaiah 40.
John chapter 7. The last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and he cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. So remember, you who are more naturally animated, that your primary function is that of a herald and a proclaimer and not a pantomime artist. And you may have to drain, some of your natural acquired expressions at the physical level, lest they be excessive and thereby distracting.
The Principle of Restraint and Self-Control
Secondly, remember the principle of restraint and self-control as applied to the emotions.
Remember the principle of restraint and self-control as applied to the emotions. People should always sense that we are in control, that we always have more thought, more voice, and more action than we are giving them at any given point of the sermon. People should always sense we are in control, that there is more thought, more voice, more action than we are giving them at any point in the sermon except, except those temporary peaks when everything, when everything is let out for a brief period of time. The human mind and the human soul and human ears are so constituted that they cannot take an effective public speaker letting out the full range of his thought, his voice, and his action for too long a period of time. They simply can't sustain it. So apart from those unusual places where, as it were, the dam simply bursts for effect, where, as it were, the dam simply bursts for effect, where, as it were, the dam simply bursts for effect, where, as it were, the dam simply bursts for effect, where, as it were, the dam simply bursts for effect,
and those can be very moving periods in a man's ministry. People should always sense that you are holding a rein, that there is more thought than you are expressing, more voice than you are letting out, and more action than you are presently undergoing. Here Spurgeon speaks very wisely on page 283.
283. It is very easy to overdo physical action so as to make yourself appear ridiculous. Perhaps it was a keen perception of this danger which led Dr. Johnson to forbid action altogether and to commend Dr. Watts very highly because, and now he quotes his commendation, he did not endeavor to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations. For as no corporal actions have any correspondence with theological truth, he did not see how they could enforce it, end quote. The great lexicographer's remark is nonsense. But if it should be thought weighty enough to reduce a preacher to absolute inaction, it would be better than overwrought posturing.
When Nathan addressed David, I suppose he delivered his parable very quietly, and that when the time came to say, Thou art the man, he gave the king a deeply earnest look, but younger ministers obeyed. Imagine the prophet strode into the middle of the room, and setting his right foot forward, pointed his finger like a pistol between the royal eyes, and giving a loud stamp of the foot, shouted, Thou art the man. Had it been so done, it is to be feared that the royal culprit would have had his thoughts turned from himself to the insane prophet, and would have called for his guard to clear the hall. Nathan was too solemnly in earnest to be indignant.
Decently violent, and as a general rule, we may here note that it is the tendency of deep feeling rather to subdue the manner than to render it too energetic. He who beats the air and balls and raves and stamps means nothing, and the more a man really means what he says, the less of vulgar vehemence there will be. You see, he's talking about that matter of general restraint, in the midst of our preaching of the word of God. We cannot express so much by action as by language, but one may express a few things with even greater force.
Indignantly to open a door and to point to it is quite as emphatic as the words, Leave the room. To refuse the hand when another offers his own is a very marked declaration of ill will. Lifted eyebrows express surprise in a forcible style, and every part of the face has its own eloquence of pleasure and of grief. What volumes can be condensed into a shrug of the shoulders, and what mournful mischief that same shrug has wrought?
And then he goes on to demonstrate how these things used with restraint can be effective. So you who are more naturally animated, remember you're a proclaimer, not a pantomime artist. Remember the principle of restraint. Restraint and self-control.
Avoid Actions Undermining Audibility or Decorum
Thirdly, don't get carried away or involved in any physical action which undermines your ability to be heard distinctly. Don't get carried away or involved in physical action which undermines your ability to be heard distinctly.
If you're in a situation where audibility, if you're dependent on the microphone, you must not allow yourself the liberty in getting involved in the message where you've got two characters, you can't afford the luxury of getting this character over here, and this one over here, and getting out of contact with what may be a very limited directional microphone. So you're going to have to put your one character here and your other character there so that your voice is still projecting into the microphone. That's what I'm talking about. Or don't get so lost in the message where, you aren't thinking, you are, you're absorbed in the message and in perhaps a situation where you're using sanctified imagination and wholly descriptive faculties.
And if you have someone whispering to another, don't have them whisper here so as to cut off your voice from the mic in the people, but put your hand here. Those are little things. But remember, if the gestures don't serve the truth spoken, they have ceased to have their appropriate place. Don't turn your back.
Don't engage in whispers that make you inaudible. Don't get carried away or involved in any physical action which undermines your ability to be heard distinctly. And then fourthly, don't get carried away into indecorous, second pronunciation, indecorous, either are correct, though indecorous is listed as the first, indecorous, d-e-c-o-r-o-u-s.
Don't get carried away into indecorous or ludicrous physical activity.
Now, it's only the more animated that ever have this as a temptation. Now, God called the prophets at times to do some indecorous or indecorous and ludicrous things, but they did them by special revelation. Even when Ezekiel in Ezekiel 6.11 was told to clap his hands and stamp his foot, he did so by direct revelation.
And you find out later on in the prophecy why God had him do this. There are times when those of us who are more naturally animated have to restrain ourselves from things that would be as natural to us as breathing. God alone knows how many times I've deliberately restrained myself from jumping in the midst of preaching. There are times when all that I've said and with all the energy in my being, it's still so pent up, I've wanted to literally jump, but it would be indecorous for me to be a jumper in a pulpit here in the northwest segment of our country and probably most anywhere in the world.
I've yet to find a place where when I felt a holy jump coming on, I've indulged it.
That's what I'm talking about. And I can speak, I think, out of experience of having to restrain. And there are times when, when you may feel such an overwhelming passion and yearning for people in your sense of frustration that they don't just get on their knees and start crying out to God for mercy in the middle of your preaching. You just want to beat the pulpit with both hands or just stand and beat your breasts.
But to do so would be judged indecorous and ludicrous and therefore you must restrain yourself. Remember our message has an inherent majesty, an inherent dignity, and loftiness which must never be violated by the paralinguistics, that is, by the physical action.
Guidelines for the Less Naturally Animated Preacher: Cultivating Physical Activity
So for you who are more naturally animated, keep those principles in mind. Now what about those of you who are less naturally animated? I want to give some specific guidelines for the less naturally animated among you. Some of you, as evidenced in class discussion, conversation, are quite unexpressive by temperament.
It would be amazing the things I see when I just look at you in my peripheral vision when you're standing a little grief, drinking coffee and all the rest. Now I hope you don't get nervous and wonder, what's Pastor Noda? It's just part of the nature of the beast when you're working with people all your life and you seek to be observant and you do certain things without even thinking. But it's interesting to note that in certain situations some of you never talk without your hands being out and free.
Others of you, you almost invariably have one of the hands in your pocket and the other one holding on to your next shot of caffeine. I was going to say nicotine. Your next shot of caffeine. I haven't seen any of you dipping snuff or chewing tobacco.
But some of you are less naturally animated than others. Well, let me give you some guidelines that I hope you will seek to employ. And here's the first.
Become convinced that you are not naturally animated. Become convinced of the necessity of cultivating more physical activity in your speaking. Become convinced of the necessity of some more physical activity in your speaking. Few men have had such power as to draw and hold the popular mind without some physical action or animation in preaching.
Now that's just a fact of church history.
If you expect to preach acceptably to the popular mind and to hold people as a preacher, it's doubtful you do it without a modicum of physical animation.
It takes an unusually brilliant man with an unusual facility of framing words and often coupled with an unusual faculty of speech to hold people. It takes an unusually brilliant man to hold popular audiences over the long haul if he simply stands with his hands at his side and speaks. There have been such exceptions. I don't think we have a room full of them here today.
So, if you are less naturally animated, become convinced to the point where you begin to say to the Lord, Lord, whatever it is that got started in my mother's womb with the gene pool, in my training, my upbringing, in false theories of preaching, in bad models, whatever it is that has made me excessively moderate in my physical action, Lord, free me up. I believe I must become not another person other than what you've made me, but that I must cultivate those aspects of my humanity that will result in more natural physical action. Without that conviction, the rest that I have to say will never be heeded. Then secondly, take specific steps to cultivate natural physical action in speaking. You see, you've got to be convinced of its necessity. When you are, then you'll be willing to take specific steps to cultivate natural physical action in speaking.
Pray for Liberation and Yield Your Humanity to God
Now, how can this be done without violating the rule forget yourself and be yourself? Well, let me give you four suggestions. Number one,
earnestly pray for the more complete liberation of your life. of your entire redeemed humanity.
Earnestly pray for the more complete liberation of your entire redeemed humanity. Sin has brought bondage and excesses in all areas of our humanity. Christ has come to set us free. John 8, 36 Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
And just as we saw that sin has left some with a false soul, a false view of the emotions which cripples and binds them in preaching, so others are left with a false view of physical action which will leave them crippled and inhibited in their preaching. So earnestly pray for a more complete liberation of your entire redeemed humanity. It's amazing what grace does to the communicating faculties. For example, we had someone over for an interview a couple of weeks ago.
My wife has known this individual for over ten years. And before I even had a chance to tell her about the interview, she said to me, because the person came ten minutes earlier and she had opportunity to interact with this individual, she said, Honey, he's a different man. Instead of looking at the ground, looking around, she looked me straight in the eye for the first time in my life. Followed me into the family room.
Wanted to just talk, open, free. She's a different man. At the level of his ability just to communicate freely and directly, grace has liberated the man. Well, in the same way, grace goes on in the process of sanctification to liberate our entire redeemed humanity.
And for some of you that are a bit too tied up and stiff, plead with God to lose you. Then secondly,
consciously yield your entire redeemed humanity to the Lord as the vehicle of conveying His truth. Consciously yield your entire redeemed humanity to the Lord as the vehicle of conveying His truth. Romans 6.13 Neither present ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto God, but present yourselves unto God and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
We sing, Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. And one of the most sacred moments that I can remember of all my interaction with my dear black brother in England, Ashiel Blaze, and Pastor Christman remembers this very vividly. He's commented about it. When we were praying together one time before our brother was to preach, remember him praying something along this line that I won't seek to imitate his voice.
He said, O Lord, I give you my mind, I give you my heart, I give you my eyes, I give you my lips, I give you... And he went right down his body, all of his faculties.
He said, Lord, I present them to you that you might make them the instrument of conveying your truth to men. That's what I'm talking about. That we consciously yield our entire redeemed humanity to the Lord as the vehicle of expressing his truth. Ryle has an interesting comment on page 274 of Christian Leaders and he says, speaking here of Henry Venn.
He said this,
I never heard a minister like him. This is what someone commenting on Henry Venn's ministry. He was most powerful in unfolding the terrors of the law. When doing so, he had a stern look that would make you tremble.
Then he would turn off to the offers of grace and begin to smile and go on entreating. Until his eyes filled with tears. You see what the man is saying? The man's countenance, the look of his eyes and his tear ducts, as well as the muscles that created a frown were all under the service of God to enforce the truth that he was proclaiming.
That's what I'm talking about. Present to God. Say, Lord, if it please you, open up my tear ducts that they might let out their moisture when it's appropriate. Lord, so take hold of me that where there is felt compassion in my heart, it will be kindled in the look in my eye.
And it's amazing how much is just in the face. I did this with someone, I think, yesterday. I was thinking about giving this lecture today. I said, you know, immediately when I look at you, I know who it was now.
It's come back to me. You deal with so many people and telephone calls and pastoral visits, it all becomes one big blur. But sitting here this morning, and this is the kind of thing you see a tape can't capture. If I look at you this way, what registers?
Indifference. I'm not engaging you anyway. If I look at you this way, what am I registering?
What am I registering?
You say, at least you're engaging me. Your eyes are engaging me. If I look this way,
anger, sternness. You see all of that just in the eye. Just in the eye. How do you, well, feel those things and pray that God will so possess you that the appropriate emotion that is precipitated by the truth handled will accurately register upon the countenance.
Pray for Felt Earnestness in Preaching
Thirdly, pray for more felt earnestness in preaching.
Remember the axiom of Alexander? Don't tell a man who's not animated be more animated. Tell him, heal more. That's the issue.
Pray for more felt earnestness in preaching. As with the use of the voice, the natural and primary regulator is the felt earnestness of the speaker. You don't need to tell a mother pleading for the life of her child, use your hands in such a way as to convince the pleader that you're in earnest. It's the engagement of her heart with the well-being of her child that causes her to wring her hands, to stretch them out in ploring, no one needs to teach her the art of the use of the hands in pleading for the life of your child.
Let her feel enough of genuine desire for the life of her child and her hands will take care of themselves. And so it is in preaching, brethren. The real reason for the lack of animated preaching in our day is the cursed lack of true spirit-wrought earnestness in the hearts of preachers. Preaching has become a business and there is the absence of that earnestness which alone can give birth to true physical eloquence if we may use that term.
McElvain, on page 88, with his usual incisiveness, writes, here's his major axioms, they're all printed in dark print and then he has his breakdown of them. He says, earnestness purges the delivery from the expression of irrelevant thoughts and feelings and gives to the signs employed, that's physical action, their characteristic excellence.
It gives to the signs employed, whether oral or visible, their characteristic excellence. And then he goes on to enlarge upon this matter, summarizing in these words, it is the earnestness of the speaker which is the most important thing which in the words of our greatest American orator comes, quote, beaming from the eye, speaking on the tongue, informing every feature and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object. That's the issue. We need more felt earnestness in preaching and there will be more animation.
Cultivate Animation in Non-Preaching Situations
And then fourth counsel to the less animated is this, work, at developing animation and proper physical action, work at developing animation and proper physical action in congenial, non-preaching situations. In congenial, non-ministering situations.
If you're a married man with children, you have a constant,
congenial, non-preaching, non-critical, non-critical, non-critical audience, that's your children. Learn to throw yourselves into the children's stories. I've sat with some fathers while they've read stories to their children in a dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee. I marvel the kid kept awake.
Every opportunity to throw themselves into the story. And young Sam, Samuel went back to sleep. While he was sleeping, the Lord said, Samuel, Samuel, you become the angel. You become old Eli.
You become young. Just throw yourself. Forget it. Your kids aren't going to look up and say, Daddy, I think you pronounced that wrong, or I think that...
No, no. They're so accepting. So work at developing animation and proper physical action. Telling stories to your children.
You who do not have children, there's all kinds of kids around here that you want an audience to say, Hey, I got a story to tell you. Even if you make it up as you go along, throw yourself into it, and they'll follow you like you was Uncle Remus, man. They'll think you're great. They'll just...
The story may have no beginning, no middle, no end, but throw yourself into it, and they'll enjoy every part of the story because they respond so naturally, because they see their counterpart in you. You see, that's the way they react, and that's the way they throw themselves in. So I would urge, I urge you to do that in conversation with one another. If you have a habit of talking with your hands in your pockets, get them out.
And if you've got to have your wife sew up everything but one pocket to keep your wallet and your handkerchief, don't get in that habit. If you get in it now, you'll probably never get out of it. And the only way some men is actually to have their pockets sewed up on the inside, doesn't show on the outside, but sewed up on the inside, or they just end up in the pulpit that way. And that whole posture, you see, just sinks the chest down instead of getting the bellows out, where it belongs.
Concluding Guidelines: Surroundings, Evaluation, and Models
So work at those matters in non-preaching situations. And the opportunities, as we've indicated last week with the voice, can also be found in terms of physical animation as well. By having sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of physical action in preaching, the diversity and variety of the same, and having laid out some regulative principles concerning physical action in preaching, let me just give you some concluding guidelines for the attainment of physical action which serves the ends of preaching.
And those ends, as you know from our previous studies, are the glory of God in the edification and salvation of men. So in the light of that, three very simple concluding counsels to you. Number one, whenever possible,
whenever possible, it's not always so, but whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, whenever possible, seek to arrange the physical surroundings in which you preach to allow full liberty for action and animation as you preach. Whenever possible, seek to arrange the physical surroundings in which you preach to allow full liberty for action and animation as you preach.
Lloyd-Jones has an interesting incident Lloyd-Jones has an interesting incident he records in his book Preaching and Preachers about the place he went and the first thing one of the deacons came or the preacher came and measured his height and they were going to adjust the pulpit accordingly so that he'd be unimpeded in his own physical action. I have preached in situations where the only place he could keep a glass of water was at a place where during the whole sermon I was constantly reminded if I'm not careful I'm going to knock the pulpit out. I'm going to knock the water over and more than once I've watered flowers on the communion table.
It's not something you want to do again but there was nothing I could do about it and so sometimes right in the middle of the thing I've taken my own handkerchief and set it on something behind me and had to walk two or three steps but just knowing that if I got caught up in the message I'd forget about that glass I didn't want my mind distracted with that. So wherever possible look over the preaching situation ahead of time and try if possible to allow full liberty for action and animation not knowing how much there might be in any given sermon but knowing what your normal range of animation is try to arrange the circumstances accordingly. Alright? Secondly,
actively seek the judicious evaluation of discerning people with reference to your physical action in preaching. Actively seek the judicious evaluation of discerning people in evaluating your physical action.
Try to do this while you're still flexible.
Spurgeon, page 294 of Lectures to My Students has a very helpful suggestion along these lines and Broadus similarly I'll give you Broadus' quote briefly, page 508 Do not repress nature though it must be governed and do not force nature. Amen. That positive improvement in action but negative the correction of faults as they appear. Look out for such faults.
Now and then ask some true and judicious friend to apprise you of such as may have struck him and no one can in this respect be so helpful as an intelligent wife. So, there are many benefits of having a godly and an intelligent wife. One of them is she'll tell you I might as well tell you now most of you heard by way of the grapevine of the classic gesture from which I got cured with the help of my wife. I used to have a habit of constantly buttoning and unbuttoning my jacket while preaching.
Well, one day in the midst of preaching when I was quite worked up I apparently what I did is this. And I was totally absorbed in the message and I was looking down and I caught my wife's eye and she's sitting there going and I got back behind the pulpit kept blethering something I don't know what I said I felt to see if my belt I felt my fly it was like what is going on and then I looked down and I saw well I tell you that cured me. That cured me. She didn't all she needed to do was laugh and that fixed me.
And from then on I've not had a habit of buttoning and unbuttoning my jacket. So, actively seek the evaluation of discerning people with reference to physical action. Again, you may have certain mannerisms that you've picked up that you're not even aware of that are distracting. Ask people to help you to see yourself through their eyes.
Now, from that standpoint it might not hurt occasionally perhaps without you knowing it would be the best way to have one of your sermons videotaped. But the moment you know it if you're not used to being in front of it it can make you unnatural. So that's why I'm very reluctant to advise that. It's better to have real live critics who are sitting there because again just as there are certain uses of the voice that when detached from the situation in which the voice actually operated may sound excessive.
I've listened to certain things on tape that I've actually heard when I sat there and heard them. I did not think the use of the voice was excessive. But when I've taken that tape out of the context in which it was preached and all of the chemistry of the state of the congregation as they rose with the preacher as a group it did seem excessive. My reaction was totally different sitting there or driving along in my car than it was being in the congregation.
Well the same is true with physical action. So that's why I have some reservations but certain bad mannerisms and the rest would be picked up more objectively by a videotape but living critics are better. So actively seek the judicious evaluation and then thirdly seek continually to expose yourself to different models of preaching.
And this you're forced to do while you're in this place but in the future. One of the reasons you do want to make time to get away from your busy schedule to go to places where men who have some competence in preaching are preaching is to constantly expose yourself to different models for two very basic reasons. Number one there is an element of unconscious absorption and imitation in preaching which makes this essential.
And as your heart feels the warm and the passionate thoughts of a preacher there is something of an unconscious imitative element that is programmed into you. Well if you don't have more than one model you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find that you may find yourself beginning to express yourself in ways that are really not native to you. Now some of us are more susceptible to this than others. I can't sit under any man who is a good preacher for two or three days at a conference without having to unprogram myself for two or three weeks with a mannerism that's not mine.
I'll find my hand going a certain way and say what are you doing there? You know and I just and as I ask I wasn't consciously imitating that but when you just give yourself to preaching so much of that is just unconsciously programmed in that you want if at all possible to expose yourself to different models.
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