{"id":4502,"date":"2026-04-17T17:07:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/?page_id=4502"},"modified":"2026-04-27T11:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T09:38:04","slug":"called-to-preach","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/called-to-preach\/","title":{"rendered":"CALLED TO PREACH"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you called to preach, you will enjoy these quotes, stories and exhortations that I have found in my different reading. Enjoy!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c If elephants can be trained to dance, lions to play, and leopards to hunt, surely preachers can be taught to preach.\u201d<\/em> <\/em>Erasmus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOral communication unites people in groups. Writing and reading are solitary activities that throw the psyche back on itself\u2026when a speaker is addressing an audience, the members of the audience normally become a unit, with themselves and with the speaker. If the speaker asks the audience to read a handout provided for them, as each reader enters his or her own private reading world, the unity of the audience is shattered, to be re-established only when oral speech begins again. Writing and print isolate.\u201d <\/em>Walter Ong<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catherine Booth:  Born in 1930 to a puritan family, she had read the bible eight times before the age of twelve.  She excelled in studies after several severe illnesses thought she could be the most useful to God by being a minister\u2019s wife. Catherine Booth was eloquent and compelling in speech, articulate and devastatingly logical in writing and for over twenty years defended the right of women to preach the gospel on the same terms as men. At first, Catherine and her husband William had shared a ministry as traveling evangelists, but then she came into great demand as a preacher in her own right, especially among the well-to-do. She died at 61 having had a great influence in missions through the Salvation Army that they had pioneered and encouraging single and married women in ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as I began to preach, a man came straight forward, and presented a gun at my face; swearing that he would blow my brains out, if I spoke another word. However, I continued speaking, and he continued swearing, sometimes putting the gun to my mouth, sometimes against my ear. While we were singing the last hymn, he got behind me, fired the gun, and burned off part of my hair.\u201d<\/em>John Furz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTruth through personality.\u201d <\/em> <\/em>Phillips Brooks \u2018definition of great preaching<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201c I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday; rose again from the dead today; and is coming back to earth tomorrow.\u201d <\/em>Martin Luther<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026Well, if it cannot be otherwise, if we must endure suffering and martyrdom, we will not hesitate to return. My reason for saying this is, that, like a burnt child, I dread the fire, and my superior has received orders to keep a watchful eye over all my words and actions, and especially my correspondence, which he has already shown his readiness to do. But this shall not alter my determination to preach the doctrine of the cross.\u201d <\/em>Martin Luther<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c What’s critical to understand is that the first moments of your presentation will have an effect on that distance – on that barrier. Either you will lessen the space between yourself and your audience, or you will increase it. You’ll either break down the barrier between you or add a few more layers.\u201d <\/em>T. D. Jakes<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you are called to preach the Gospel, don\u2019t stoop to be a king.\u201d <\/em>Philippe Dodridge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will have more conversions when we have more convictions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.\u201d<\/em> <\/em>John Wesley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cChrist sent me to preach the Gospel and he will look after results.\u201d <\/em>Mary Slessor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe preacher is a chef, not a server in a lunch line. He must learn and grow in his own unique approach to sermon preparation.\u201d <\/em>Fred R. Lybrand<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhenever the Gospel is preached, it is as if God came into the midst of us.\u201d <\/em>John Calvin<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery sermon must be interesting. It is a sin to be boring. The Gospel is never dull, only teachers and preachers are. When a sermon is biblical, present tense and interesting, it passes the essential tests.\u201d <\/em>J. Daniel Bauman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI commend cheerfulness to all who would win souls; not levity and frothiness, but a genial, happy spirit. There are more flies caught with honey that with vinegar, and there will be more souls led to heaven by a man who wears heaven on his face than by one who bears Tartacus in his looks.\u201d <\/em>C. H Spurgeon, Lectures to my students.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you called to preach, you will enjoy these quotes, stories and exhortations that I have found in my different reading. Enjoy!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4502","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4529,"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4502\/revisions\/4529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timotheepaton.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}