Preaching in Relationship to the Congregation, Part 1

Introduction: The Preacher's Relationship to the Congregation

0:03 Now we take up once again our concern with the essential elements of effective pastoral preaching, particularly with reference to the act of preaching, and we've thus far covered the act of preaching in terms of the preacher's present relationship to God, the act of preaching in terms of the preacher's relationship to himself, and under that we had four subheadings, his physical appearance and bearing, his emotional constitution and activity, his vocal powers, and his physical action. Now what we do today is to take up the third major category that comes within the orbit of the act of preaching, namely the act of preaching as it touches relationship of the preacher with God. The congregation. We've considered the preacher and his present relationship to God in the act of preaching, his relationship to himself in these four categories, and now we take up the preacher's relationship to the congregation or to his hearers in the act of preaching.

1:28 Now you must understand that in all that I say today, I am assuming the principles articulated in the previous section of the pastoral theology lectures under the heading of the man himself I quoted then and frequently have re-quoted Stalker's words in his book, The Preacher and His Models, page 167. We are so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect on how we are disposed towards him who speaks. The regular hearers of a minister gradually form in their minds, almost unaware, never have an idea of what we say. So from дав cunningham we can say that an encounter for Dr. Stalker with prayer vows the following. The repul Makes it clear that God's juicy gift and иться that me measure in the things he says, saying is that when we stand to preach, we have a relationship to the people that is not simply

2:47 immediate and involving what we're going to call the empathetic relationship between congregation and people, but each of these people who form the gathered church when we stand to preach, we have previous interaction with them which has either enhanced their respect of us, their confidence of us, so that when they are brought together as the gathered congregation, they bring with them all of that store of their assessment of who we are, as well as we bring in our hearts our knowledge and assessment of who and what they are, and that materially influences what actually goes on in the interaction between the preacher and the congregation in his preaching. And so...

3:41 So, everything we say today assumes this larger context of the preacher's previous relationship to his people, which accompanies him at every given situation in which he actually faces them for a specific exercise of proclamation and instruction in the Word of God. So I'm assuming that larger dimension, though I'm not addressing it specifically at this point. So, I'm assuming that larger dimension, though I'm not addressing it specifically at this point. So, I'm assuming that larger dimension, though I'm not addressing it specifically at this point.

The Fact and Importance of Mutual Empathetic Involvement

4:12 So, I'm assuming that larger dimension, though I'm not addressing it specifically at this point. Now, as we take up the subject, the act of preaching, the preacher's relationship to the congregation, we're going to do so under two major headings. Heading number one, the fact and importance mutual...

4:34 The fact and importance of mutual empathetic... E-M-P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C.

4:43 Empathetic involvement between the preacher and his hearers. We're going to consider the fact and importance of mutual empathetic involvement between the preacher and his hearers. And then secondly, some practical directives. And I'll give you that heading when we come to it more carefully.

5:05 Some practical directives for the attaining and maintaining of profitable mutual empathetic involvement. All right, let's take up heading number one then. The fact and importance of mutual empathetic involvement between the preacher and his congregation.

Defining Mutual Empathetic Involvement

5:34 We need to start with defining what do I mean by mutual empathetic involvement. Well, the word empathy is defined as follows. It is the ability to share in another's emotions or feelings. That's what empathy is.

5:53 Empathy is the ability to share in another's emotions or feelings.

6:05 Describe it in terms that I hope will convey. It is the ability to get under another person's skin so that I feel what he feels. To get behind his eyeballs so that I see what he sees. Ability to share in another's emotions or feelings.

6:34 It is the essence of empathy. So when I address myself to the subject of mutual empathetic involvement, I'm addressing myself to the matter of the felt awareness the preacher has of his congregation. Felt awareness which the congregation has of the...

7:00 Now anyone who knows anything concerning real preaching and has addressed the subject has understood this. The importance of this two-way flow of mind, of thought, motion, feeling, electric alternating current between the speaker and the congregation and the congregation and the preacher. And I think perhaps that's the best analogy I know is to call it the alternating current. It's passing both ways. It's not direct current. It's not DC, only coming. From the preacher to the people.

7:52 But it's alternating current. Something's going out from him to the people. Something's coming back from the people to him. And this is constantly going on in the act of preaching.

Historical Witnesses to Empathetic Involvement: Stalker and Mackleville

8:05 Now I'm going to do a lot more quoting at this point than I normally do because this is a very elusive thing. And yet I want to demonstrate that the masters of the subject of preaching have all recognized this phenomena or this...

8:21 this phenomenon and have also underscored how crucial it is to the whole subject of effective preaching. Right on the front end of his treatment on the preparation of sermons, on page two, after he gets through introductory means, he says that the great appointed end of spreading the good tidings of salvation through Christ is spoken. Whether to the people or to the people of the world. Whether to the people of the world.

8:56 Whether to the people of the world. Whether to the people of the world. Whether to the people of the world. Whether to the people of the world.

8:56 Whether to the individual or to the assembly. And this nothing can supersede. And then he goes on to speak of the benefit of one-to-one pastoral work, the benefit of the printed page. But he says, printing may never take the place of the living word.

9:15 When a man who is apt in teaching, whose soul is on fire with the truth which he trusts has saved him and hopes will save others, speaks to his fellow men. Face-to-face, eye-to-eye, now listen to this terminology, and electric sympathies flash to and fro between him and his hearers, they lift each other up. There's mutual influence, you see. The preacher and his hearers, affecting one another higher and higher into the intensest thought and the most impassioned emotion.

9:56 Higher and yet higher. Higher and yet higher. Higher and yet higher. Higher still, till they are born as on chariots of fire, excuse me, above the world, there is a power to move men, to influence character, life, destiny, such as no printed page can ever possess.

10:15 Now the printed page has qualities that the living preacher does not possess, and we're all committed to that. However, for all this is saying, the reason why preaching has been uniquely or ordained of God, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, is that in this peculiar chemistry of the living preacher and the living congregation, there are dynamics that enter that relationship, utterly unique to that relationship, and for which there is absolutely no substitute. And he describes it as nothing less than electric sympathies flashing to and fro between him and his hearers. Now listen to Mackleville.

10:58 Mackleville, who speaks with unusual perception, with reference to this whole subject of mutual empathetic involvement, as I am calling it, on page 97, he writes, I have the right quote here on page 97, all right, here we are.

11:39 Here's his major axiom, and then he has his sub-point. Speaking directly to the audience brings the speaker into the true, vital relations to them. By which he is enabled to grasp them with his mind, and to exert a direct mental influence upon them. Isn't that a strange term?

12:00 The speaker grasps the people with his mind, and then he has a sub-heading in which he likens it to the influence of a great musical artist, and then his second paragraph, in these relations, the speaker grasps his audience with his mind, and exerts that direct mental influence upon them. And then he has a sub-heading in which he likens it to the influence of a great musical artist, and then he has a sub-heading in which he likens it to the influence of a great musical artist, and then he has a sub-heading in which he likens it to the influence of a great musical artist, and then he has a sub-heading in which he likens it to the influence upon them, which is the magnetism of eloquence. Speaking directly to the audience implies, of course, a strong consciousness of their presence, and of the thoughts or sentiments as addressed to them. It implies, moreover, that the speaker thinks of them as people, that is, as persons clothed with all the attributes of human beings, in a word, as men and women. He grasps them thus with his mind, and holds them steadily in his mental grasp. This enables him to gain their attention and sympathy, and to bring all his personal power as a man to bear upon them as men and women of like passions with himself. Thus he pours his thoughts and feelings into them through the open, ever-mysterious channels of sympathy.

13:20 He pours his thoughts and feelings into them through the open, ever-mysterious channels of the sympathetic affections.

13:40 Then McElvain goes on to write on page 103,

13:47 In fact, this relationship between speaker and people is such that good delivery and even eloquence itself may be properly regarded as a joint product of the mental operations of the speaker and his hearers. It can hardly be overestimated where the speaker is called frequently to address the same or nearly the same audience as in the case of a pastor of a Christian congregation. The influence of the speaker upon the audience is exemplified in the case of a pastor who is dull and feeble in his delivery, for the tendency of his spiritless harangues is to render the audience habitually inattentive. But if the pastor be an animated and interesting speaker, the tendency of his ministrations will be to develop habits of attention and sympathy in his people, to sharpen their minds, to quicken their sensibilities, and to render them more and more appreciative of effective preaching. The influence of the audience upon the speaker is such that an attentive and sympathizing congregation can hold the audience to a certain degree. The influence of the audience upon the speaker is such that an attentive and sympathizing congregation can hold the audience to a certain degree. The influence of the audience upon the speaker is such that an attentive and sympathizing congregation can hold the audience to a certain degree.

15:00 He can hardly fail to develop speaking talents and powers of eloquence in their pastor, of which in other circumstances he might never have become conscious nor given any manifestation, whilst an inattentive, unsympathizing, and stupid people will exert a strong influence to dwarf the faculties, put out the intellectual light of their minister, who might otherwise have attained to no inconsiderable excellence as a preacher of the word of God. So he says a good speaker creates good listeners, good listeners creates good speakers. And he has a paragraph devoted to each. Why? He recognized this phenomenon of mutual empathetic involvement. Something is flowing from the preacher to the people, from the people to the preacher, which has a profound effect upon both of them. And he goes on to amplify this.

Historical Witnesses to Empathetic Involvement: Dabney, Spring, Lloyd-Jones, and Bridges

16:25 Understand its cause or what he may have said to excite it. You're in the midst of a situation where you're conscious of this current and suddenly you sense it's broken and you stop and you may ask the people, did I say something? What did I say? You wonder, you just sense something has cut that current and you're at a loss to know what it is.

16:43 And you suddenly go fumbling for what the answer might be. Whether you popped a button or whether you had a slip of the tongue in which your mind told you you were saying one thing, but your tongue said something else and it was so incongruous and out of place that the people were just suddenly conscious and you are conscious that that flow has been greatly impeded, if not actually broken.

17:10 He goes on to talk further about how the influence of an audience upon the preacher, sometimes this influence will seem almost to lift him off his feet. He will seem to tread on air. He may speak in a kind of ecstasy or rapture. However long he may be engaged, he is unconscious of fatigue or effort.

17:29 All seems to pass in a moment of time and the audience also becomes unconscious of time. You see, these men understood this. You won't find modern books on homiletics touching this kind of stuff because we don't have preachers. That's the problem.

17:44 We've got Bible talkers. But these men understood that in the mystery of one man addressing a group of people, particularly in the act of preaching with the presence of God and of his spirit in this unique way, in this unique means of grace, there is this reality of mutual empathetic involvement of which both congregation and preacher are intensely conscious if they are in any way aware of what God is doing. Well, Dabney recognized this.

18:17 And I want to quote from Dabney. All we're doing now is establishing the fact and the importance of this mutual empathetic involvement in preaching. And we find, and this quote on page 333, Eloquence is not the mere communication of a set of dry notions. It is a sympathy, spiritual infection, a communion of life and action between two souls, a projection of the speaker's thought, conviction, emotion, and will into the mind and heart of the audience.

18:58 Nothing, therefore, is true, preaching, which is not a life, a spiritual action, transacted in the utterance. From this position you can easily understand the advantages which are usually and correctly claimed in books of rhetoric for extempore speech, that is, preaching without a full manuscript. It constitutes a commerce of eye and countenance between the speaker and his hearers by which they mutually stimulate each other. The mind thus aroused, having the advantage of its previous premeditation and thorough knowledge of the subject, grasps it with more vigor than it ever had done in solitude.

19:43 Indeed, all the powers of the soul are now exalted, reasoning, memory, imagination, suggestion, sensibility. And you see, Dabney understood this, that there was something that when the man came into the pulpit impregnated with the word of God, conscious of what he was talking about, to say and why, and as he began to say it, engaged the eye and the mind and the soul and the feelings of his hearers, something happened in the very act of preaching that greatly elevated his own mental faculties, his own felt awareness of that truth, his enjoyment or his sense of being crushed and pressed by that truth. Dabney recognizes this and he addresses it. Gardner Spring, again, who understood preaching and was no mean preacher,

20:32 he writes, in his chapter on the living teacher, as follows,

20:38 What is of greater importance, the instructions of the living teacher are beyond measure more impressive and affecting than any other method of instruction. Nature demands the presence, the sympathy, the eye, the voice, the action, the expressive countenance of the living teacher. Thought and shape, deeds and emphasis of thought are thus expressed which must otherwise be concealed. Men are interested in what the speaker says by observing how he says it.

21:16 His vividness of voice and gesture often tells even more than his words.

21:25 His listeners note his sincerity and earnestness. They observe the emotions by which his own bosom is agitated. And even though unconvinced and unwon, they are not unmoved. The most powerful appeals ever made to the reason, the conscience, the interest, or the passions of men are not made from the press, but from the warm heart and the glowing lips of the living speaker.

21:48 And then he goes on to illustrate that from both secular and from religious history. Lloyd-Jones, coming down into the 20th century, the doctor who stood head and shoulders above his peers as a preacher in his own generation, writes on page 84 of Preaching and Preachers, Another element to which I attach importance is that the preacher, while speaking, should in a sense be deriving something from his congregation. Not just imparting to, but deriving from. There are those present in the congregation who are spiritually minded people and filled with the Spirit, and they make their contribution to the occasion. There is always an element of exchange in true preaching. That's another way of showing the vital distinction between an essay and a lecture on the one hand, and a preached sermon on the other. The man who reads his essay gets nothing from his audience.

22:50 He has it all there before him in what he's written. There is nothing new or creative taking place. There is no exchange. But the preacher, though he has prepared and prepared carefully, because of this element of spiritual freedom, is still able to receive, something from the congregation, and he does so.

23:09 There is an interplay, action, and response, and this often makes a very vital difference. Any preacher worth his salt can testify to this. Indeed, any man worthy to be called a speaker, even on secular matters, politics, and so on, knows something about this, and has often experienced that a meeting has been made by the responsiveness of the audience he has been addressing. Now, I hope you don't imbibe much of what Jesse Jackson has to say, but I hope you will imbibe something about the fact that he obviously understands what we're talking about.

23:52 You watch him play with his audience to see what they're ready to give him, and when they start giving him a lot, he just takes off and goes into orbit. And it's clichéism, it's, as far as political substance, I wouldn't give you a nickel for it, but in terms of understanding this principle, some of us ought to be willing to give a right arm to cultivate that sensitivity. So learn something from him when you see him in operation. Gore, everything about him is so plastic.

24:27 And Dukakis, he's Mr. Cool. But Jackson's a communicator. And one of the reasons is he's learned, as most black preachers do, they know this principle very well.

24:38 In fact, they ride it to death. They abuse it, many of them, but they understand it. They know what it is to let the congregation carry them. The congregation determines where they're going to go.

24:50 And then there's this constant interplay, and they understand something of this in a way that most of us Caucasians don't. So I would say there's a very contemporary example of the point that the doctor is making. Thank God this often occurs that when the preacher, poor fellow, is at his worst for various reasons, perhaps he's not had time to prepare as he should, or various physical factors have been operating to militate against the success of the occasion, the responsiveness and eagerness of the congregation lifts him up and enlivens him. But the preacher must be open to this.

25:25 If he is not, he's going to miss one of the most glorious experiences that ever comes to a preacher. So this element of freedom is tremendously important. And then he goes on to amplify that point. Well, let me bring in one other witness.

25:41 Let me bring in the Anglican. All right? We've had a Welsh Methodist. We've had the witness of an old Southern Presbyterian.

25:50 We've had the witness of a Northern Presbyterian. We've had the witness of a Congregationalist. Now let's listen to an Anglican. Bridges on page 286.

26:01 As a general rule, we must feel ourselves in order to excite others. And perhaps the passage from heart to heart is more direct and the sympathy more immediate with the natural flowings of the preacher's heart than with the communications through a written medium. The look, attitude, manner of address of the extemporary preacher is more direct, personal, and arresting. His habit is more ready to improve passing occasions and to introduce a striking hint to rouse his careless hearers.

26:41 The reality before his eyes at the moment of action inspires a warmth which, abstracted from the scene of the work, he could never impart. The sight of his people in the presence of God, the very countenances, their attention or their lack of attention, their feeding interest or apparent dislike suggest many points of animated address which never occurred to him in the study. It excites many visible impressions in his heart and stirs up a living energy of expression which awakens corresponding sympathy and interest in his congregation. This is a matter of no small moment.

27:21 Men are little influenced by argument, nor is conviction a matter of the intellect, but intimately connected with all the sympathies of the heart. Impressions made through this medium and diligently cherished are often of lasting...

Summary of Empathetic Involvement and Transition to Directives

27:38 So, brethren, it is recognized universally among men who understand what preaching is that there is this great reality of mutual empathetic involvement, the preacher feeling and sensing and receiving some current of heart and mind and thought, emotion, feeling from the people and the people receiving from the servant of God in the same way. So I've talked around it, I've given you quotes, we've not come up with any kind of scientific definition of it, but I hope you at least have some basic conception of what I mean as I continue to use the terminology mutual empathetic involvement. And no little part of your usefulness as a preacher will lie in the cultivation and regulation of this empathetic involvement between you and your congregation. All right? Having then established the fact and the importance of this mutual empathetic involvement, now we come secondly to what is the main burden time-wise of our lecture today, practical directives, practical directives

29:03 for the attaining and maintaining, for the attaining and maintaining of profitable, mutual empathetic involvement. Practical directives for the attaining and maintaining of profitable, mutual empathetic involvement. And I have four directives. Number one, seek to be master of the essential content, structure, and thrust every given sermon. Seek to be master of the essential content, structure, and thrust every given sermon. In other words, you must be certain concerning what you are to say, how you propose to say it, and why you're saying it.

Directive 1: Master the Sermon's Content, Structure, and Thrust

30:29 Content, what you're to say. Structure, how you're going to say it. Thrust, the purpose for which you're saying it. Now, if you don't have a firm grasp on these things, your mind, your spirit, the energies of the soul, and even your eyes will be so occupied with what McElvain calls the sub-processes of public speaking that you won't be able to lock in to this mutual empathetic involvement.

31:06 Now, let me illustrate what I mean. If you are so uncertain in reference to the essential content of your sermon that you must be glued to a manuscript, you cannot be taken up to that extent with the activity of the eye taking in words and registering on the brain, and then the mind having to make sure that it grasps what the eye sees, then seeking to articulate it, the sub-processes of speech, in that given set of factors, are so active that you can't be open to these dimensions of alternating current. You just can't be. Your mind and your soul and your spirit are so constituted that they cannot be under the impress of the sub-processes of reading and of thinking through logically because it's just not something you've mastered so that you can speak out of the fullness of conviction, and you have clearly indelibly impressed upon your mind what it is that you want to say, and you can be looking at people as you say it, and if your sense is a blank look, you can be inventing an illustration, an analogy, another way of saying it, a string of adjectives to help make it click. But you see,

32:32 if you're involved in the sub-processes because you don't have the content down firmly enough embedded in the file drawers of the mind, then you're going to be taken up with the sub-processes. Likewise with regard to the structure. If you're not sure how you're going to go from this thought to that thought, from this unit of concern to that, you'll be taken up with the sub-processes of thinking. Now, how can I get these two horses yoked together?

33:00 I know they both belong here, pulling along this card of truth, but how do I get them yoked? Well, people will be conscious that you're in the pulpit struggling in your own mind to get those horses yoked. And that's what they'll be conscious of. And you don't want that.

33:16 That's drawing the attention to a sub-process. And likewise with the purpose. If you don't know where you're going with all of this in terms of what you're out to accomplish, how can you give yourself to accomplishing it? If while you're preaching you're trying to find out what in the world is the whole end of this whole sermon.

33:34 And people will sense you're struggling to know what in the world you're trying to accomplish rather than feeling the pressure of being carried on by those horses that you've carried to the end that you know you want to see them taken to. So brethren, whatever else must go, and I say this as someone who sits haunted usually with like this year I've lived with anywhere from three to four dozen unanswered letters on my desk continually. But whatever must go, don't let go of those disciplines necessary to enable you week by week to be master of the essential content, structure and thrust of all sermonic exercises. Where this is not done it's generally due to laziness, poor planning or just a bad sermon. So if you're going to be open and learn how to cultivate these dynamics of mutual empathetic involvement as a general rule you must be a man who when he preaches has a grasp upon the essential content, structure and thrust of any given sermon. Alright, secondly, second practical directive.

Directive 2: Be Mastered by Biblical Truths and Their Implications

35:01 Seek to be mastered by the Biblical truths and their practical implications. Seek to be mastered by the Biblical truths and their practical implications which you preach to others. Seek to be mastered by the Biblical truths and practical implications which you propose to preach to others. In a real sense preaching can be likened to two wrestlers on the mat, each one holding the other in a firm grip and yet conscious of being held himself. Now if I could indulge one sport I would love to be able to work into my schedule to get over to watch the Montclair State wrestling team. There was a time there a few years ago when they were division three national champs. Had some tremendous wrestlers.

36:20 And I got fascinated watching college wrestling. I only saw what, three or four matches. But because it's in the evenings and evenings are the premium reasons. But time and time again I can remember seeing men in that very strange situation where each man was exerting equal pressure upon his opponent so that at that time he was conscious of two tremendous sources of energy being expended.

36:58 His own energy in seeking to maintain a hold that would lead to an advantage. He had him in a hold which he was seeking to bring to a place of advantage. And you know that situation doesn't obtain long. That if one or the other doesn't gain an advantage then the referee calls them to break and come to the middle of the ring or get into the position with one kneeling and one above the other.

37:38 And that's what you're going to do. You're going to get a masterful grasp upon the truth that you're going to give to others. You're not coming into the pulpit with that thing just sort of like a greased ball and you just kind of hope that you don't want to preach pastoral overtones. You have a handle upon it but at the same time you don't want to preach just feeling that you have as it were your arms around that truth and you have it in control. But you want to feel that that truth has its arms around you and has a framework in which mutual empathy is now possible because when you stand to speak truth which you have a hold on by the disciplines leading to your coming into the pulpit but which in turn has a hold upon you no sooner do you begin to convey

39:07 that truth to your inner audience that is a life experience and that truth has to come to you in your heart. And just as truly as attentive people will recognize that in the manner in which you start speaking you have something to say you have a that you have something that you are holding they will also be conscious the very way you express it that you have something that is holding you and they pick up those signals and it tells them immediately that the work is not done in simply understanding what you have a hold on that you are conveying to them but their work is not done until they themselves are held by the truth that is holding you and experience a sympathy of feeling of perspective with regard to that truth you yourself then are not only pouring words and concepts into

40:27 their minds but you are pouring an energy of the soul into their hearts I don't know what else to call it and that's what these old writers were referring to where the preacher has as it were a conduit into the very emotions and SOULS of his people and if that's going to be true then you must be mastered by the biblical truths and their practical implications before preaching them to others now listen to Spurgeon as he addresses himself to this issue on page 136 in his chapter on attention if you need another direction for winning attention I should say be interested yourself and you will improve your ability to get your work done then of course you will you will interest others. There is more in those words than there seems to be and so I will follow a custom which I have just now condemned and repeat the sentence. Be interested yourself and you will interest other people. Your subject must weigh so much upon your own mind that you dedicate all your faculties at their best to the deliverance of your soul concerning it. And then when your

41:44 hearers see that the topic has engrossed you, it will by degrees engross them. When they see, there's the empathetic involvement, that it has engrossed you, it will by degrees engross them. And he goes on to amplify that. I'll not read it. You can read it as well as I, but I commend that section to you. And then Gardner Spring as well in his chapter on the preacher's interest in his subject.

42:26 Speaking of Whitefield, he said, but intensity of feeling he had no equal. He enchained his audience by his intense interest in his subject. His being held by his subject formed a chain which bound his congregation to him. That's what Spring understood. He enchained his audience by his intense interest in his subject. That's what Spring understood. He enchained his audience by his interest in the subject. A ship carpenter once remarked that he could usually build in his mind a ship from stem to stern during the sermon.

43:02 But under Mr. Whitefield, he could not lay a single plank. It is of themselves ministers should frequently complain rather than of their hearers. It is they who are cold and inanimate.

43:16 A drowsy pulpit makes an inattentive and drowsy congregation. Let a strange preacher enter any pulpit in the land, and from the attentive or inattentive habits of the people, he will not fail to form some just conceptions of its settled ministry.

43:37 A preacher who feels an interest in his subject will always be listened to. His hearers may not believe his doctrine. They may be captious, critical, fastidious, but they will hear. He cannot possibly have an inattentive, audience. The thing is impossible. Few eyes will wonder. Few minds will be listless. Few hearts will be indifferent. Those to whom he preaches may complain. They may hear and hate, but they will hear. No preacher can sustain the attention of a people unless he feels his subject, nor can he long sustain their attention unless he feels it deeply.

44:20 And then Gardner Spring goes on, to amplify again on that same point. So, brethren, if we would be those who maximize this phenomenon of mutual empathetic involvement, heed this second exhortation, this practical directive, namely seek to be mastered by the biblical truths and their practical implications, so that being mastered by them, there will be that energy, of your own soul, attending your preaching, and hopefully creating this holy contagion, which in turn will rebound upon the preacher. And that's why one of the men I quoted spoke of them lifting each other higher and higher. There is this reciprocation. The preacher gives something and in turn receives something. What he receives, he gives back. What he gives comes back. And there

45:21 is this, as it were, antithonal impress of the mind and the soul between the preacher and his congregation. Thirdly, and this is probably the most difficult thing to express, so I'm going to say it and explain that I'm not a mystic when I say it, talk around it and under it and over it, but hopefully will, in the midst of all of that, give something that is intelligible. And let me just, well, maybe this is a good place to break. Yeah.