Lectures to my students - Charles Spurgeon - X - Chapter 9 (Attention)

Required reading
Lectures to my students by Charles Spurgeon (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 9 (Attention).

My summary
Today Spurgeon gives us advice on how to keep the attention of our hearers.

Firstly Spurgeon teaches us that some people do not give their attention to the preacher because of:
(i) the place and atmosphere;
(ii) the manners of the people.

Secondly Spurgeon advises that in order to gain attention you should:
(i) always say something worth hearing;
(ii) let the good matter which you give them be very clearly arranged;
(iii) speak plainly;
(iv) attend to your manner of address;
(v) not extemporize in the emphatic sense;
(vi) not make the introduction too long;
(vii) not repeat yourself;
(viii) avoid being too long;
(ix) be conscious of the need of the Holy Spirit;
(x) be interested yourself;
(xi) include a goodly number of illustrations;
(xii) cultivate surprises;
(xiii) pause;
(xiv) make people feel that they have an interest in what you are saying;
(xv) prevent attendants traversing the aisles;
(xvi) remedy late attendance;
(xvii) be clothed with the Spirit of God.

What grabbed me
A great chapter.

I particularly appreciated the reminder to preach on what you are interested in yourself: 'If you need another direction for winning attention, I should say, be interested yourself, and you will interest others. There is more in those words than there seems to be, and so I will follow a custom which I just now condemned, and repeat the sentence, — be interested yourself, and you will interest other people. Your subject must weigh so much upon your own mind that you dedicate all your faculties at their best to the deliverance of your soul concerning it; and then when your hearers see that the topic has engrossed you, it will by degrees engross them.'

If you like what you are saying, others probably will too.

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 10 (The faculty of impromptu speech).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.