David Hansen, writing in The Art of Pastoring - Ministry Without All the Answers" recounts his struggle with the meaning of hell and finally, the potency the resolution of his struggle had on his preaching and ministry.

With hell kicked back into my theology, something unexpected happened. It was to be expected that my evangelistic preaching would get hotter. What I hadn't anticipated was that my preaching and teaching on social issues and concerns got hotter too. After all, Jesus himself taught us to care for the poor and oppressed. Yet his teaching on the subject, like that of the prophets, was based squarely on the fact that those who refuse to care for the needy will be judged. He presented the issue unequivocally when he described the fate of those who had refused to care for the needy:

"Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?" He will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25: 44-46)

What an irony: many social-activist Christians have rejected the doctrine of eternal punishment because they think it detracts from social concern. But if Jesus' words are taught straight from the Gospels, social concern will become central to every Christian, since our eternal destiny hangs in the balance.

I scorched some eyebrows when I preached that racial prejudice and anti-Semitism could send a person to hell. the congregation knew I meant it. And they took it, because I was preaching the Word of God from a prophetic position of declaring God's judgement against sin. (Page 89 / emphasis the author's)

Interesting.