Mark 14:33-34 has recently hit me again about how Jesus wanted His three closest friends to be with Him in order to share His experience.

In secular times one of the most desperate needs is authenticity. False prophets swamp the market place with false options, and people want to know what that you are real, that you are genuinely an ambassador who lives out the greatest message in the world -- a living "visual aid" of application. Linked with authenticity is the word experiential. The culture move from "I think therefore I am" to "I feel therefore I am" has heightened the role of emotion, of so-called right brain intuition and imagination. Christian preachers are in a particularly influential place if they are authentic and sensitive to the experiential.

Never has it been more important to be honest, vulnerable, and transparently authentic. I was taught to be reserved about myself and very rarely to tell personal stories (unless it was against myself). I have discovered increasingly more the significance of sharing personal stories. In 1987 I contracted a neurological disease and was told I would never work publicly again. This lead to a long and wonderful story of prayer and botulinum toxin injections which I have rarely told. Just recently I was preaching on Jesus' ministry in Mark 1, and it seemed appropriate to be personal. The extraordinary range of comments afterwards made it plain that this ministered.

Said one Gen Xer: "Do you often tell your story?" "No," I said. "You must," he urged. "It really gives the Lord glory."

Of course, there are dangers of overdoing the personal story, but today there is a greater danger of under doing the personal. Today, more than ever, people want to know that you are being real with them. H. Beecher Hicks says: "Authentic preaching is always the product of pain."

4) Be courageous.

In Acts 20:27 Paul says "I have not hesitated to proclaim the whole will of God."

Many qualities are needed for effective application, but the supreme quality is courage. Brian Chapell writes that the most difficult part of application is found in what he calls the "breaking point." At this point expository preaching turns to affect the congregation. People may be able to switch off during the teaching, but when an application hits home they should feel its impact.

Haddon Robinson tells the story of the frontier town preacher in a community where lumber was their business. The preacher was well received when he first arrived, and they built a fine church for him. But he happened to see some of his parishioners dragging logs which had been floated downstream from another village. To his horror he saw his parishioners were sawing off the ends where another owner's stamp was and were making their own mark. The next Sunday he preached with passion: "Thou shalt not steal." "Wonderful sermon pastor" they said. The next Sunday he preached it again but this time he gave an application: "Thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbor's logs." And they ran him out of town.