Periodically I come across people who think it is wrong to study preaching, or to prepare in any specific way for a sermon. Perhaps there are more, but they don’t make themselves known to me – quite possible. I like this succinct paragraph from Wayne McDill’s 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching (p219):
Some preachers are lazy. Others do not know what to do. Some rationalize their poor preparation with pious talk about “inspiration” and “just letting the Spirit speak.” The fact is that God has decided to use preachers. Our laziness does not help the Holy Spirit; it hinders him. There is nothing particularly spiritual about poor sermon preparation.
McDill goes on to challenge the reader to work at their sermon preparation in direct proportion to their estimate of the value of preaching. I like that. While it may be possible to over-professionalize preaching, leave the Spirit out of our study and lean wholly on our own understanding, there is also real danger in the opposite extreme. Preparation is not automatically spiritual, neither is it automatically unspiritual. So let’s be careful to pursue our preparation both diligently and spiritually – all to the glory of God.
Biblical Preaching 
IF we do not prepare we will surely fail. I am a school teacher and a public speaker. If I do not prepare my talks in advance and think them through I do fail and the audience loses interest. Any preacher is really a public speaker at the core and they need to keep their finger on the pulse of good public speaking and brain based learning so that they can effectively teach the people they are charged with caring about. It is sad but so many leave seminary and just go and give boring talks about subjects that bare little interest to the flock. Howard Gardner should be required reading in all seminaries so that preachers can reach out to people in more ways and not follow the failing of teachers who just lecture and bore people to death. Use of video, Power Point, charts, graphs, humor, and stories are -powerful tools for reaching peoples hearts and minds for Christ. Wake up if you are just sitting and developing speeches for a congregation. Try something new and watch how they come alive and get involved. Learn to read your audience. Take an acting class or four to make your presentation come alive.
hi there, I’m new-ish to this whole blogging thing! I’ve just written a blog on my attempt to help me improve the effectiveness of my sermon preparation time and general resource collecting. I’d really value your comments over at theologising.info