Malcolm Cox

Introduction Do you ever wonder if your teaching is effective? Do you sometimes sense your preaching might not have the impact you had hoped? If so, you are like 99% of the speakers I know. The other 1% are deluded.  “At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.” (Acts 14:1 NIV11) Point of clarification I vividly remember my wife telling me after church one day, “I don’t like it when you shout”. At the time I argued the point claiming that I was not shouting, simply excited. On reflection (and listening to the tape - yes, it was that long ago), I had to agree with her. What in my ears was ‘enthusiasm’ was in her ears shouting. I was confusing volume with enthusiasm. The two are not the same. There is a place for shouting — “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you, I whom you have delivered.” (Psalm 71:23 NIV11) — but it is rarely in preaching. Public speaking is a conversation more than