http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/summer/10.30.html?paging=off
Leadership’s Top 40: #12
Our Daunting Hope: Can preaching really change anyone?
Preaching is never helped when, as preacher, I think that what God wants to achieve my preaching can accomplish. Instead, biblical wisdom teaches that the transformation for which we preach is far higher, deeper, and wider than our preaching could ever express, let alone accomplish. This doesn’t sound like good news, but it is essential truth that every preacher must learn.
This means not mere mental agreement with a preacher but an inward change that alters our public lives. Fruit is not born on the inside of a plant but on the outside; it’s meant to be seen, tasted, touched, experienced.