Leadership Journal

Pastors talk about preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit. Bill Hybels, who preaches to about 20,000 people most weekends, says he senses the Lord's presence when he's in the pulpit, but even more so in the study (or on the boat) when he's preparing the message.

Bill Hybels: For me, being moved by the Holy Spirit in preaching is often more dramatic when I'm preparing a sermon than when I'm in the pulpit delivering it.

I can think of a time recently when I was anchored out on a boat and I had been praying and studying a text, and the ideas began to flow. I grabbed pen and paper, and I wrote as fast as my hand would allow me to write for probably an hour and a half.

In one setting I put an entire message together, got down on my knees on the deck of the boat, and said, The greatest miracle of this sermon has already taken place. This was a gift I didn't deserve—the spiritual gift of preaching and teaching deposited in my life—and the Holy Spirit energized that gift that afternoon. That it worked as mysteriously and supernaturally as it did still overwhelms me.

Thoughts come into my mind that I know were deposited there by a power other than my own. Sometimes I'll be reading a text, and I'll be prompted by the Holy Spirit: Hang with this text, Bill. Read it again. Read it slower. And while I'm ruminating on it, reading and rereading it, it's like something comes off the page or drops from heaven and intersects in my mind. A thought comes that I quickly try to put on paper, and then that leads to a next thought and a next.

When additional thoughts begin to flow, I know that's not just the work of the flesh. I'm not that good. That's a supernatural thing.

One way to know you have the preaching and teaching gift is that this supernatural dynamic occurs, and you learn how to go with the flow. You learn how to prepare your heart for that flow to occur and to capture it when it does.

A lot of men and women can read a text, formulate a few thoughts, and speak sort of off the top of their heads, but in 30 years I've never been able to do that. Certainly I've had to unlearn the idea that preparation is always going to be easy, as though you're going to sit down and God's going to appear and it's always going to flow and be mysterious.

Yes. Probably the reason that came to mind as vividly as it did is because of how unusual that is. Usually I have to invest a lot more in research and preparation of my spirit. I make progress in 30-minute increments. My administrative assistant would assure you that my study sounds more like a dentist's office than some great artistic revelation happening.

Most certainly. My average weekly preparation is taxing and requires more discipline ...