Many ministers get into the pulpit and begin to spout sermonic material. Then they get out and it is over. But real preaching grows out of the counselling session, the parish call, the casual encounter in a restaurant or shop. It speaks of and to what the minister has learned the gospel to human situations and works back and forth between them like a weaver's shuttle. Preaching that does not do this is not true preaching. It has not understood the nature of the gospel. The gospel cannot be defined by rubrics and doctrines. It is elusive. It takes different shapes in different situations. The gospel addresses and assumes the forms of real people's lives or it does not exist at all. It is not theoretical or academic, it is blood and bone, gut and marrow. It speaks to human hurts and hopes, to specific needs and possibilities, or it does not speak at all.