The sermons are full of homely, practical illustrations, drawn from the experiences of everyday life.  Dr. Conwell announces his text and begins quite simply, sometimes with a little story to illustrate his thought.  If Bible characters take any part in it, he makes them real men and women.  He pictures them so graphically, the audience sees them, hears them talk, knows what they thought, how they lived.  In a word, each hearer feels as if he had met them personally.  Never again are they mere names.  They are living, breathing men and women.

Dr. Conwell makes his sermons human because he touches life, the life of the past, the life of the present, the lives of those in his audience.  He makes them interesting by his word pictures.  He holds attention by the dramatic interest he infuses into the theme.  He has been called the “Story-telling Preacher” because his sermons are so full of anecdote and illustrations.  But every story not only points a moral, but is full of the interest that fastens it on the hearer’s mind.  Children in their teens enjoy his sermons, so vivid are they, so full of human, every day interest.  Yet all this is but the framework on which is reared some helpful, inspiring Biblical truth which is the crown, the climax, and which because of its careful upbuilding by story and homely illustration is fixed on the hearer’s mind and heart in a way never to be forgotten.  It is held there by the simple things of life he sees about him every day, and which, every time he sees them, recall the truth he has heard preached.  Dr. Thomas May Pierce, speaking of Dr. Conwell’s method of preaching, says: 

“Spurgeon sought the masses and found them by preaching the gospel with homely illustrations; Russell H. Conwell comes to Philadelphia, he seeks out the masses, he finds them with his plain presentation of the old, old story.”

Occasionally he paints word pictures that hold the audience enthralled, or when some great wrong stirs him, rises to heights of impassioned oratory that bring his audience to tears.  He never writes out his sermons.  Indeed, often he has no time to give them any preparation whatever.  Sometimes he does not choose his text until he comes on the platform.  Nobody regrets more than Dr. Conwell this lack of preparation, but so many duties press, every minute has so many burdens of work, that it is impossible at times to crowd in a thought for the sermon.  It is left for the inspiration of the moment.  “I preach poor sermons that other men may preach good ones,” he remarked once, meaning that so much of his time was taken up with church work and lecturing that he has little to give his sermons, and almost all of the fees from his lectures are devoted to the education of men for the ministry.

His one purpose in his sermons is to bring Christ into the lives of his people, to bring them some message from the word of God that will do them good, make them better, lift them up spiritually to a higher plane.  His people know he comes to them with this strong desire in his heart and they attend the services feeling confident that even though he is poorly prepared, they will nevertheless get practical and spiritual help for the week.