screaming preachers

There is the story about the student preacher who complained that his audience was sleeping through his sermon.
"What can I do?" He asked the professor.

"You put them to sleep. You best wake them up."

There is a place for voice modulation in preaching, and sometimes a louder voice is in order. Keep in mind, however, the other admonition in homiletics class; "Argument weak. Pound pulpit and shout."

I prefer a well toned sermon with content, and leave the constant shouting to the televangelists who take you nowhere and leave you there.

Cheers,

Jim

 

My pastor is a teacher. No screaming. I don't think I'd get much from it.

 

I can't stand preachers who shout; they generate the impression that God and their congregation are hard of hearing.

It's unnecessary: if you don't talk like that all the time, why put on a shouty voice in the pulpit? If you do talk like that all the time, OTOH, you're a weirdo...

 

I have never seen people go to sleep when a person speaking is passionate about what he is teaching.

A mist in the pulpit does create a fog in the pew.
Charles R. Swindoll

A preacher is one who leads men from what they want to what they need.
Ralph Washington Sockman

A prepared messenger is more important than a prepared message.
Robert Boyd Munger

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

If spiritual pastors are to refrain from saying anything that might ever, by any possibility, be misunderstood by anybody, they will end-as in fact many of them do-by never saying anything worth hearing.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957)

If the man in the pew was trained to think for himself, very soon the man in the pulpit would have to give him something better to think about.
Oswald Chambers

The average person's idea of a good sermon is one that goes over his head-and hits one of his neighbors.
Journeyman Barber

If I had only three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying and preparing.
-- Donald Grey Barnhouse

 

Yeah, but there's a difference between passion and ranting; you can speak quite quietly with passion in your voice...

 

I like a good mixture. I can be fed either way I suppose. Now I hate when a pastor will smooth talk the whole time and not once give a scripture (Joel Osteen) or when they hoot and haw and snort and spit and not once give a scripture (some pentacostal preachers I've heard). When I hear preaching I like to hear scriptures! That's why I couldn't last in a pennycostal church! They think rolling around a jobbering is more important "getting drunk on the Spirit" and rolling on the floor and running around the pews and screaming out and things are more important than anything else! That doesn't spiritually feed ME personally. I like to hear a good Biblical message with scriptures, and a BALANCED delivery. Maybe too perfectionist? I dunno, but that's how I get spiritually fed.

 

My pastor isn't a screamer. I don't mind a preacher getting loud once in a while, but I don't want a steady diet of a screaming preacher. I get nothing out of a screamer other than thinking he's a raving lunatic.

A few years ago, we had a week of evangelism and a preacher that screamed during every sermon that week. I don't know how he kept it up. I remember that my ears hurt that week.

We also had a guest preacher a couple of years ago who screamed, and he actually climbed up on top of the pulpit at one point during the sermon. He very nearly tipped over, pulpit and all. I think he's a lunatic and I praise God that I'm not a member of his church.

 

I had a pastor when I was a kid who was a periodic (every 10 minutes or so) yeller. I think he did do it to wake people up. Since then I think they've all kept yelling to a minimum.

 

My 14 month old screams occasionally. I don't expect that from a grown man.

 

it's a turn-off for me, and I don't do it.

 

I don't scream through my messages. Preachers who scream to me are trying to cover up the fact that they do not have much to say and figure if it is loud people will not notice.

Passion has nothing to do with screaming. I have heard pastors who basically teach from the pulpit but do so with clear passion.

 

I think part of it is cultural as well. I agree with the mixture. Teach and then emphasize what needs to be emphasized.

Teaching the Bible is not teaching history like the old school gym coaches used to do. Teaching the Bible is teaching the Living Word of God, which should be exciting!

By the way I love the Oswald Chamber quote. I believe I will pass that one along.

 

Personally, I don't lke being screamed at from the pulpit. I don't like the pounding (continually) on the pulpit either.

 

In aging congregations that might actually be half true.

 

I don't know....I think there may be a time for shouting during a semon either the preacher has a passionate moment or gets excited and I don't see (or hear) anything wrong with it. But I don't think I would sit in a pennycostal church where the preacher is spitting and snortin all over the place all the time either. (referring to Dustin's post on the first page) I have even seen a pastor cry, or get excited enough to speak in a rather loud tone but I though it was because his compassion he was feeling for the congragation or what he was preaching on.

 

I dont like screaming preachers either. The ones I have heard are those extemporaneous preachers who dont have a text and who just rant and rave over a topic.

 

Then he should have a bit more self-control; it is one of the fruits of the Spirit after all...

 

Screaming___ no, I don't care for that at all. Loud and excited sometimes is O.K.

But you know what really gets under my skin is when the preacher says "turn to the person next to you and say---------------", And they do it every few minutes!

I don't want to talk to the person next to me, if I did, I would go to their house and we would discuss something.

When I go to church and the preaching starts, I want to concentrate on the sermon, not participate in some awkward moment when I have to talk to the person beside me. I can do that later!!

Peace,

Tam