Pastoral preaching is not revivalist preaching, though the preaching style may be demonstrative.
Pastoral preaching is not a Bible study, though the preaching will impart knowledge of the Bible.
Pastoral preaching is not entertainment, though the preaching may grab your attention.
Pastoral preaching is not evangelistic preaching, though an invitation to faith in Jesus should be in every sermon.
Pastoral preaching is not a certain delivery style, it's about making disciples and stirring hearers to action and can take any style.
Pastoral preaching is, in my view, a message to the gathered church God has placed within the care of the pastor in order to disciple, equip, stir, build up, cast vision, lead, minister to, challenge, comfort, grow, and call to repentance the people in the pastor's care. Pastoral preaching is more concerned with the longterm health of the congregation than the immediate jolt of emotionalism.
Does that mean pastoral preaching is unemotional or that pastoral preaching does not elicit an emotional response from the hearer? In no way. It means that pastoral preaching doesn't find its value in emotional response but in lifestyle faithfulness. Pastoral preaching is emotional. Pastors take joy seeing God work in emotional ways. But the intent of pastoral preaching isn't to get you to merely shout loud in the altar but to walk holy when you're done.
Pastoral preaching is firstly a message to the local assembly for the local assembly - empowered by the Spirit, doctrinally sound, biblically formed, prophetically delivered, Christ-exalting, discipleship focused, rooted in faith, hope, and love. Pastoral preaching has the whole local congregation in mind. It isn't a sermon for sermon's sake. It is a message for the "church at...". And the congregation should want to know what God wants to say to the local church every week. And the pastor should pray, think, and listen so that the pastor can communicate that message to the people. Does that pastor have a special line of communication to God? No. But the pastor has a unique calling, function, and role in the local church, and part of that (if not the most important part) is to deliver the sermon he or she believes God has placed in their spirit to deliver. And a role of the congregation is to (I'm going to say it here even if it makes me uncomfortable) submit to the spiritual leadership God has placed in the church and to listen and receive so that the church is unified in Kingdom mission and mindset. Learning together. Growing together. Loving together. Worshipping together. Working together.
Pastoral preaching is intended to get us to row the boat together. But for pastoral preaching to fulfill its purpose, everyone needs to be in the same boat, hearing the same call. Pastoral preaching isn't revival meetings for a dead, dry church. Pastoral preaching is a steady diet of nutrition to keep the church growing in faith, hope, and love. And a church growing in faith, hope, and love, is never dead or dry.
Pastoral preaching is pastoral discipleship from the pulpit to the gathered church. It requires prayer, discernment, study, application, knowledge of the word and the people and the culture. It should be a word to the people God has placed within the care of the pastor. It's why I take the Sunday Sermon so seriously, and spend hours preparing and praying and planning. The Sunday Sermon, in my view, is a word for the church, the whole church, for that moment and season of that church. It's discipleship, it's prophetic, it's doctrinal, it's applicable. It's not just knowledge, it's a message.
May God always keep me in obedience to preach the word and love the local assembly.