Preaching Under Pressure

If ridiculous deadlines knot your gut and give you tunnel vision causing you to miss even basic errors, this is for you. But even if you're an adrenaline junkie, needing the pressure to perform, it'll help you, too, because it's all about process.
Clear, familiar processes are lifesavers when you're under pressure and not thinking straight. So, as pilots practice emergency drills until they're second nature, try to internalize the process below - print it, look at it daily, use it often - so that when you're under the pump you'll do it automatically.
Here's a summary of the first four steps of the process:
1.Objective: Clarify what you want to achieve. "Begin with the end in mind" (Stephen Covey).
2.Readers: Stand in their shoes. If you were them, what would interest you about this?
3.Dump: Do a brain dump. Quickly jot down your points as bullets, in any order.
4.Signpost: Next, highlight your major points and write snappy subheads above them.

MLJ on Revival

Lloyd-Jones, preaching on Mark 9:29 ('And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer"').

We must become utterly and absolutely convinced of our need.

We must cease to have so much confidence in ourselves, and in all our methods and organizations, and in all our slickness.

We have got to realize that we must be filled with God's Spirit. And we must be equally certain that God can fill us with his Spirit.

We have got to realise that however great 'this kind' is, the power of God is infinitely greater, that what we need is not more knowledge, more understanding, more apologetics . . . no, we need a power that can enter into the souls of men and break them and smash them and humble them and then make them anew.

And that is the power of the living God. And we must be confident that God has this power as much today as he had one hundred years ago, and two hundred years ago, and so we must begin to seek the power and to pray for it. We must begin to plead and yearn for it. 'This kind' needs prayer.

Aragorn on Beginnings

There are some things that are better to begin than refuse, though the end be dark.