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As a child, he found the courage to be a nonconformist. As an adult, to trust the Holy Spirit.
Stuart Briscoe preached his first sermon at 17.
He didn’t know much about the topic assigned him by an elder. But he researched the church of Ephesus until he had a pile of notes and three points, as seemed proper for a sermon. Then he stood before the Brethren in a British Gospel Hall and preached.
And preached. And preached.
He kept going until he used up more than his allotted time just to reach the end of the first point and still kept going, until finally he looked up from his notes and made a confession.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how to stop.”
Briscoe recalled in his memoir that a man from the back shouted out, “Just shut up and sit down.”
That might have been the end of his preaching career. But he was invited to preach again the next week. Then he was put on a Methodist preaching circuit, riding his bike to small village churches where a few faithful evangelicals would gather to worship and encourage the fumbling young preacher with exclamations of “Amen” and “That’s right lad.”
In the process Briscoe became a better preacher, discovered he had a gift, and was encouraged to develop it. He ultimately preached in more than 100 countries around the world and to a growing and multiplying church in America.
When Briscoe died on August 3 at the age of 91, he was known as a great preacher who spoke with clarity, loved the people he preached to, and a had deep trust in the work of the Holy Spirit.
“My primary concern in preaching is to glorify God through his Son,” he once wrote for CT. “I’ve worked hard to preach effectively. But I’ve also learned to trust as well. Farmers plow their lands, plant their ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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