For the last few months I’ve been rereading Spurgeon’s classic work Lectures to My Students. I know of no book on pastoral ministry filled with such wisdom, truth, humor, and usefulness as this one.

One of my favorite lectures is the one entitled “Attention!” Spurgeon introduces the lectures by saying,

Our subject is one which I find scarcely ever noticed in any books upon homiletics . . . How TO OBTAIN AND RETAIN THE ATTENTION OF OUR HEARERS. Their attention must be gained, or nothing can be done with them: and it must be retained, or we may go on word-spinning, but no good will come of it.

After he puts forth a few preliminary thoughts, he goes on to offer sixteen exhortations or rules on how to grab the congregation’s attention in preaching. Here are the first 8 exhortations (I’ll give the other 8 tomorrow), along with some relevant and requisite pithiness from the Prince.

8 TIPS FOR ATTENTION-GRABBING PREACHING

1. In order to get attention, the first golden rule is, always say something worth hearing. Give your hearers something which they can treasure up and remember; something likely to be useful to them, the best matter from the best of places, solid doctrine from the divine Word. Give them manna fresh from the skies; not the same thing over and over again, in the same form ad nauseam, like workhouse bread cut into the same shape all the year round. Give them something striking, something that a man might get up in the middle of the night to hear, and which is worth his walking fifty miles to listen to. You are quite capable of doing that. Do it, brethren. Do it continually, and you will have all the attention you can desire.
2. Let the good matter which you give them be very clearly arranged. Put the truth before men in a logical, orderly manner, so that they can easily remember it, and they will the more readily receive it.
3. Be sure, moreover, to speak plainly.Our Lord and Master was the King of preachers, and yet He never was above anybody’s comprehension, except so far as the grandeur and glory of His matter were concerned; His words and utterances were such that He spake like “the holy child Jesus.” Let your hearts indite a good matter, clearly arranged and plainly put, and you are pretty sure to gain the ear, and so the heart.
4. Attend also to your manner of address. Aim in that at the promotion of attention. And here I should say, as a rule do not read your sermons. It is better to do without the manuscript, even if you are driven to recite. It is best of all if you need neither to recite nor to read. If you must read, mind that you do it to perfection. Be the very best of readers, and you had need to be if you would secure attention.
5. If you be listened to, do not extemporise in the emphatic sense. Do not go into the pulpit and say the first thing that comes to hand, for the uppermost thing with most men is mere froth. Your people need discourses which have been prayed over and laboriously prepared. The best method is, in my judgment, that in which the man does not extemporise the matter, but extemporises the words.
6. Make your manner as pleasing as it can possibly be. Vary your voice continually. Vary your speed as well–dash as rapidly as a lightning flash, and anon, travel forward in quiet majesty. Shift your accent, move your emphasis, and avoid sing-song. Vary the tone; use the bass sometimes, and let the thunders roll within; at other times speak as you ought to do generally–from the lips, and let your speech be conversational. Anything for a change. Human nature craves for variety, and God grants it in nature, providence and grace; let us have it in sermons also.
7. As a rule, do no make the introduction too long. It is always a pity to build a great porch to a little house.
8. In preaching, do not repeat yourselves. Do not repeat the same idea over and over again in other words. Let there be something fresh in each sentence. Be not for ever hammering away at the same nail: yours is a large Bible; permit the people to enjoy its length and breadth.