In Conclusion

Don't you know how hard it is for some people to get out of a room after their visit is really over? They want to be off, and you want to have them off, but they don't know how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your parlor or study, and were waiting to be launched.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1891, p. 17)

Mark's note: Some sermons are like that. I recently told a young preacher in training: "You should have only ONE "in conclusion" -- not two or three. If you don't know how to land the plane, it's much better to turn off the engine and crash land, than just circle until you run out of gas."

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:10 PM

    Amen!!

    I have listened to a few of those sermons, where we just keep wondering in the wilderness hoping to find the promised land.

    Sometimes the best thing you can say about a sermon is "At least it was short" :)

    Jonathan Wilson

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:27 PM

    That's why I try not to use those words. When I came to our current church, they were glad they had a preacher who knew how to land the plane. Dale

    ReplyDelete

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