Preacher: Pursue the Spirit's Power

C. H. Spurgeon gives a "diamond rule" for gaining and holding hearers' attention:

I will now give you a diamond rule, and conclude. Be yourself clothed with the Spirit of God, and then no question about attention or non-attention will arise. Come fresh from the closet and from communion with God, to speak to men for God will all your heart and soul. . . . When God speaks men must listen; and though he may speak through a poor feeble man like themselves, the majesty of the truth will compel them to regard his voice. Supernatural power must be your reliance. . . . If you do not touch the heart you will soon weary the ear. Clothe yourself, then, with the power of the Spirit of God, and preach to men as those who must soon give an account, and who desire that their account may not be painful to their people and grievous to themselves, but that it may be to the glory of God. 

—“Attention,” in Lectures to My Students, Book I, 149-150.