How to Preach

H. I. Hastings

This article appeared in The Christian Conservator, the denominational magazine, in the early 1900s.

Make no apologies. If you have the Lord's message, declare it; if not, hold your peace. Say your best things first, and stop before you get prosy.

Leave self out of the pulpit and take Jesus in. Defend the Gospel and let the Lord defend you and your character. Do not grumble about your pay. If you want more money, go to work and earn it. Do not scold people. Do not abuse the people who come to meetings on rainy days, because others are too lazy to attend. Preach the best to the smallest assemblies. Jesus preached to one woman at the well and got all Sychar out to hear him next time.

Do not say, "As I said before." If you said it before, don't say it again. Do not end sentences, passages of Scripture, or quotations with "and so forth;" say what you mean, and stop. Leave out all words you cannot define.

Come down from your stilted ways and sacred tones. Tell stories; Jesus did, and the common people heard him gladly. Relate your experience; one fact that you have seen or felt is worth a bushel of moldy ideas dug out of moldier books. Look people in the face and live so that you are not afraid to do it.

Aim at a mark and hit it! Stop and look where the shot struck, then fire another broadside. If your talk is narrow and shallow, make it short. Do not abuse people for believing things you once believed yourself. Respect honest convictions. Judge no man.

Take long breaths. Fill your lungs and keep them full. Stop to breathe before the air is exhausted. Then you will not finish each sentence with a terrible graspah, as if you were dying for want of airah, as some good people doah, and so strain your lungsah and never find it outah, because their friends dare not tell themah.