The sermon is an oral event. It is what Marshall McLuhan called a hot medium of communication. I would argue that you should not write out a sermon, and then try to memorize it, trying to translate from writing, a cool medium, to the heat.
After I had read my text aloud many times, some before a mirror, and worded my points, I was ready to compose my sermon. I would literally go outside and walk, rain, snow, or shine. As I walked I would preach over everything that came to mind about each point. Several times over the years I had deacons or leadership kid me about this practice. But they admitted they liked the results. As far as I know, others in the church didn't know about it. In fact, I think people thought my sermons just came to me out of the blue, and they were made uncomfortable, when I talked about the process.
Although I was doing this long before I had heard about Prayer-Walking, what I did was similar. One big difference came when I saw people. In Prayer-Walking I would walk toward people praying for them as I drew near. In walking my sermons I usually prayed briefly for people I saw. But I would walk the other direction. God has called some of you to large enough cities that avoiding people is impossible. But there, they will ignore you, if you are not too loud or acrobatic.
As I walked, I would preach everything that came into my mind on each point. I would sometimes preach up to an hour on a point, although it usually didn't take so long to preach a single point. You might think that would make my sermons too long. But it had the opposite effect. I would automatically know what fit the sermon, and what did not. I held the conviction that if I could say the same thing in less time, I had said it better. Brevity is force.
Preaching everything that came to mind also seemed to add a depth to what I preached. It settled a broader understanding in my mind.
After I had preached the entire sermon over, I would usually know how to frame my introduction in a way that would grip the attention of my people, and lead into the rest of the sermon. My introduction usually came from something I knew connected with the entire sermon. And at least for my Sunday morning sermon, I would preach the shortened version over at least one more time.
But what about notes? First, notes are a cooling factor in your sermon. Worse, if you stumble, it is often over your notes. I would mark scriptures in my Bible that I would rather read than quote. And on rare occasions I would take quotations into the pulpit. With this method you only need to go into the pulpit with your introduction and points in mind. Your illustrations and applications will simply come as ways of making each point.
Some of you, possibly very few of you these days, may know that I regularly published sermon material in PROCLAIM and other magazines over the years. But I did not write out sermons, or even illustrations, until I had preached them to my people. In this way I hoped to keep the fire of the sermon as I translated into print.
So, will this method work for you? I am convinced that it will. But you will not know if you can do this until you have tried. If you have difficulty, you can contact me, daveswatch@gmail.com. I will check this account at least once a week. If you wish to talk to me, I will give you contact information.
However you do it, Preach The Word!
http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/
http://theanchorofthesoul.blogspot.com/
http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/
http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/
Website
http://daveswatch.com/
YouTube
https://goo.gl/PyzU
I don't know if this is a disagreement or an agreement with a proviso. I do walk/drive while preaching/"practicing" the sermon. But my painful, frustrating, and even embarrassing experience is that I have to write it out. Some of it is one or two word "clues" from which I automatically know what to say but some of it is very detailed/exact wording. I enter the text of all the scriptures into my written sermon also, unless the text is too long, because I cannot readily make out the smaller font in my large print Bible unless I stick it right up to my face (which is a bit distracting to many in a service) and, even then, floaters will obscure some of those tiny little words. I am working on doing it with less and less wording, even using just my printed copy of the ppt with notes, but I'm not there just yet.
ReplyDeleteCathy will point out that I have a habit of chasing rabbits. If I stick to my notes/written sermon, I am largely able to avoid that. I absolutely and enthusiastically agree about preaching it out loud numerous times, including a final "run through" on Sunday morning before the service. As Dr. Briggs used to say, "It's okay to chase rabbits as long as you end up shooting them." It's during those pre Sunday "practices" that I shoot them. By the way, if my car is not in Heaven when I arrive, I will be stunned, but it will have no excuse because it has heard each sermon with the gospel presentation several times before the congregation gets to endure it! The same usually goes for the streets around the church building and our house (although I'm less insistent when the weather is foul).
Also, probably because of my inexperience and single focus mind, I only have one point for any sermon. I will have multiple explanations, etc., and multiple steps in the application, but just one point. I believe the saying, "Simple sermons for simple people" and the acronym, "K.I.S.S." apply much more to me than the folks listening to me. And it seems to be getting "worse" as the years pass.