Page 139 - Homiletics I Student Textbook

2. Lack of Excitement about the topic.

Your attitude about life is infectious. Those around you will respond to
your enthusiasm about a cause and will even join with you to help. But a
person who has a discouraged and depressed attitude about life
discourages others around them. “They just want to eat worms and
die.”

How you approach a subject and your excitement to teach that
information to your congregation will transfer to them, creating a desire
for them to learn. But the opposite is also true. If you lack enthusiasm
and present the information as just that --- Bible stuff to learn --- then
the congregation will not only find the information boring but will even
resist learning or applying it.

The motivation for this lack of enthusiasm boils down to selfishness on the part of the preacher. Since
he is not excited about the subject, then no one else will be. That preacher is willing to let his
congregation suffer because he doesn’t care for the topic at hand. He has forgotten that he is a
SERVANT of the congregation and has lost his motivation to see them excel. Rather, he has become self-
focused.

So if you want to be a lousy pastor, treat your topic as boring. I guarantee your congregation will
respond in like manner.

3. Lack of good communication skills.

I used to have a math teacher who had a lot of
communication “ticks.” The one that drove the entire class
crazy was this: she would face the chalk board and teach
something, then say, “How many understand?” We would
raise our hands. But she never turned around from the
chalk board to see if any of us raised our hands to inform
her we understood. She did this several times a class
period over an entire year! After a while, students quit
raising their hands and started making funny faces at
her….but she never turned around to see.

This teacher has poor communication skills. If a preacher
does not work on improving his presentation to the
congregation, this normally is what will happen. A pastor is
a poor communicator when he does not properly illustrate
concepts and talk over the heads of his congregation,
leaving them not understanding the content. A preacher has poor communication skills when they use
the same teaching methods weekly (lecture) and never makes an effort to modify their presentations.
Their skills are poor when they wander off the subject matter and walk down rabbit trails. They
demonstrate poor skills when their presentation is monotone, and the congregation are bored out of
their minds. They reveal their poor skills by covering too much material at one time. This is called

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