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One of the books that I picked up recently is The Work of the Pastor by William Still. On the subject of preaching and teaching Still offers this advice to pastors:
It is to feed the sheep on such truth that men are called to churches and congregations, whatever they may think they are called to do. If you think that you are called to keep a largely worldly organisation, miscalled a church, going, with infinitesimal does of innocuous sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only hope I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the ministry and go and be a street scavenger; a far healthier and more godly job, keeping the streets tidy, than cluttering the church with a lot of worldly claptrap in the delusion that you are doing a good job for God. The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do no want to be fed He is certainly not to become an entertainer of goats. Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it out in goatland. You will certainly not turn goats in to sheep by pandering to their goatishness. Do we really believe that the Word of God, by His Spirit, changes, as well as maddens men? If we do, to be evangelists and pastors, feeders of the sheep, we must be men of the Word of God. (p, 23, underlining mine)
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