The Pocketwatch Point

I have seen and heard preachers of all types.  I got to here a variety when I was a "preacher boy" at a North Carolina Baptist schoool, known for sending preachers to seminary.  The university was very good at making sure we had opportunities to preach.  I would typically preach somewhere one Sunday and then go see Momma the next.  (A man needs his drawers washed from time to time.)  On spring break we would have revival teams and travel.  I remember one week, in particular, we were ministering in central Florida.  I would sing one night, testify one night, and preach another night.   When I wasn't preaching, I was listening to the other guys.  One night one of our students got up to preach.  He wanted to be an evangelist and he wanted to look the part.  He walked up in a three-piece suit during a time when there were not many three-piece suits. Vests have come and went a couple of times since then.   He also had a big, shiny pocketwatch hooked to a chain that latched into a belt loop.  He looked fancy.  He looked like a young man trying to look a lot older.  He was an old school preacher, very loud, plain, and Gospel driven.  As if he had rehearsed it, he reached for his watch during the introduction of the sermon and attempted to unhook it from the chain and put it up on the pulpit.  He did it for two reasons:  He wanted to know the time and he wanted you to know how he knew what time it was.  He began to fiddle with the clasp as he preached.  He preached a little harder and worked a little harder on his clasp.   Before long it looked like he was scratching his belly as one hand dug into the watch, the other hand moved around to make his point (and to distract you from the struggle at the vest pocket).   He then became so tore up in the struggle that he began to repeat himself.  I am not sure what he said after that because I was watching the struggle.  As everyone in the crowd was doing, at first I thought "how cool"....then "get it loose, dude"...then I was quietly laughing within...then I became worried about it...then I wanted to help...then I began to struggle: do I go help, wave him off, or start praying for him.  Finally the clasp opened and he went through his train engineer act, put it on the pulpit, and preached on.  I really don't believe anybody ever got what he was trying to say.   We were just thankful that the watch came loose.
The purpose of preaching is not to impress.  Anytime one preaches with that intention, they will be a distraction and will be distracted, no matter how good they are.  Preaching is also not to win friends, coerce people,  or to convict them.  The purpose of preaching is to relay the message that God has given you to preach and then to leave it up to Him to do whatever else needs to be done.    It is our job to honor and glorify God, whether preaching or just in our walk with Him, by pointing people to Him, simply as a spiritual host.  We are not the attraction.  We are to point them the way to go to get to the attraction.   Paul did it right.  In Galatians 1: 24- And they glorified God because of me. (www.lifejournal.cc) Elaborate acts don't bring people to Jesus.  Pointing the way brings them to Jesus.