Dull and boring preaching kills. Preaching needs to be moved by the truth of the bible not only in our understanding but in our affections. That is why I believe that a preacher should fill themselves up with the word and then preach extemporanously because the Love the God and his truth found in the Bible. One cannot be animated while tied to notes very well. The following quotes from Gospel Driven Church also resonate with my heart on this issue as well.
Preaching as Exultation: “The cure for dull preaching is not simply better information or more creative themes/props, but a sense of exultation in and over the biblical text. What we need are preachers and teachers as animated and moved by what the Bible says as they are by their own points — moreso, even.
This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.
Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.
My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.
From Ray Ortlund’s When God Comes to Church:
It is so hard not to be dull. C.S. Lewis wrote that ‘when the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring, and . . . what we take for the didactic is often the enchanted.’ As I write, I am not merely teaching. I am adoring. Please do not take the enchanted as merely the didactic.