Another thing to consider is to know those among whom you labour. You have to get to know your brethren, where are they in the Lord? What are their struggles? What are their needs? Pray for them, and allow the Lord to show you what they need. Look for confirmation in your conversations and interactions with them. Ask them if you have to.
Get a feel for where the assembly is at and where the Lord wants it to go, and what small part you can play in helping them get to that next goal.
For example, folks may have entered the doldrums, seeming to have no sense of mission or direction. So they need to be taught the local assembly has a mission, and EACH has a part to play in accomplishing that mission. Be prepared to teach and exhort on the BODY as a BODY with a PURPOSE.
Perhaps people need understanding and enouragement to pray. Teach on prayer. Perhaps they need to see how by getting their prayer life more lined up with the biblical Way they can begin working more in concert with one another as a UNITY, so the congregation can accomplish its God given task.
Perhaps many need to learn how to allow the Spirit to use them in the meeting, or even outside the meeting. The body is after all more than just a meeting once or twice or three times a week! Give them a goal - show them the Scripture and how God sets before them something they can attain to, then show from Scripture how to do it.
Whatever it is, whatever doctrine needs to be taught, whatever Scripture needs to be explained, whatever understanding needs to be had, there must be a practical application. Theology and doctrine without application and practical use is pretty much ... useless.
If you cannot find a practical application for any doctrine of the Bible, then you need to go back to study and prayer! Every message should be an exhortation to BELIEVE and then OBEY the Word. If you are teaching on the Oneness of God and Christ, it is not enough to fill people's minds with theoretical philosophical ideas, and leave it at that. Show them how Christ is God manifest in the flesh, and that as our example He is a picture of what God wants to do IN and THROUGH US. If you are teaching on repentance, give concrete examples of what to repent from and how to do it. Hunt out the things people hide behind, their excuses. Get direct and personal if you have to but always in the Spirit of love and with the assurance that you are in this together with them. Speak TO THE PEOPLE YOU ARE SPEAKING TO. Don't talk about vague unknown anonymous "people out there" but "You and me, right here and now." Don't talk about sin in vague general terms but name it and declare it. And don't talk about faith in vague and general terms either but name it and give concrete examples of faith in real life action.
Don't be afraid to go over the basics. "I don't want to hear about
Acts 2:38 again. We need some meat of the Word." You know, ask any skilled person, no matter the art or science, and they will tell you - the advanced stuff is just mastery of the basics. It is good to go back to the milk every now and then. You will be surprised how many people you think ought to be master theologians by now but who have gaps in their knowledge of simple basic doctrines. We are all adults but we all like a good glass of milk every now and then, right? I have suddenly been impressed to spend some time on a super basic fundamental issue that my natural mind would say "No way, that's baby food, they are all way past that" only to have someone thank me later for spending time to explain that basic thing. "I never really understood until I heard it for that tenth time and then it just clicked!"
Expect to repeat yourself over time. I have generally found that about 80% of the ideas that you present in a single message will generally seem to be gone into the aethyr. You will get frustrated if you think everyone is going to absorb 100 percent of what you present each time you present it. People generally require repetition over time. They need to hear something not once in their life but again and again, perhaps from new and varied angles but still the same solid truths. Then it sinks in and becomes part of their understanding.
Which leads to me my next point: Do not flit from topic to topic and subject to subject from one sharing to the next. I have known a wonderful preacher, a GOOD preacher, who can deliver a wonderful message. but I watched as one week he preached something on marriage. then the next week something on prophecy. then the next week something on baptism. then the next week something on managing your time wisely. Then the next week something on deeper prayer. Then the next week something on the fate of the lost. Then the next week something on current events. Each message was good. Each message was solid. But there was no "flow" from one week to the next, so that people started coming just to hear a "good message" rather than actually learning to grow and develop from day to day and week to week. There was no maturing progress over time among many of the saints. Now this wasn't wholly his fault - each saint is responsible for growing and learning in the Lord for themselves - but he was shooting himself in the foot so to say. He was short circuiting his own efforts. So build from one sharing to the next if at all possible. Bring up what was taught last meeting (whether it was taught by you or someone else) and tie it in to today's meeting.
God teaches His people day to day and week to week as a process of growth. In a sense, church is a theological SCHOOL OF MINISTRY, whereby the saints are enrolled in God's classroom to learn how to more effectively manifest His nature in and through their life. No class flies from one subject to the next randomly day after day. If it did nobody could really learn anything. That's not effectively teaching, that's more like flexing oratorical muscle and "crafting sermons" for the sake of crafting neat sermons. At least, that is often the effect it will have.
So discern what God wants the brethren to learn, and what role you play in that, and follow God week to week and month to month and so on. There should be a steady growth and development in both doctrine and practice in the church from one meeting to the next. We have meetings not only to worship God together, but to strenghthen and encourage one another in our journey together on this ship of Zion. We're all fellows on the same ship, that's why it's called "fellowship."
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