Archive September | Old Paths Paved

Sep 8 2010

Preaching Without Notes (2)

Further to yesterday’s post on preaching without notes (or with less notes), here’s the method I follow to decrease reliance on paper in the pulpit:

1. Saturation

You must be saturated in your material. This is one of the benefits of preparing nearer the time of sermon delivery. The longer the time period between preparation and preaching, the more you will have to rely on your notes. I also find that praying over my sermon, applying each point to myself really helps to embed the sermon in the heart as well as in the head.

2. Scriptural

If your text is just a pretext for some topical sermon with little connection to your text, then you will be much more reliant on notes. But if your sermon points and material flow naturally out of Scripture, then you immediately have a huge help to reducing your reliance on notes. If you blank, as we all do, then you should be able to just look at your text for prompts to get you back on track.

3. Structure

You must have a clear structure for your sermon material. It is much easier to remember five bullet points than a five line paragraph. Use the outlining/indenting feature of your Word processor and use the same lettering/spacing standard each time to train your mind to step through the process.

4. Summarize

Try to summarize your points and sub-points, cutting the words down more and more until your main points and sub-points are no more than 3-5 words, and your explanatory sentences are no more than one line long. I would recommend that you end up with no more than one page of a summary. I’ve attached a sample below from one of my sermons.

5. Stress

Once you have a one page summary, stress or highlight both your structure and the main word in each point and sentence. Use a highlight marker to color the main points and sub-points. This will help “photograph” the structure into your mind.

Then, using a dark pen, underline the key word in each point, sub-point and line. This word should be one which “triggers” memory of the whole point/line. Write the first letter of each trigger word in the left hand margin. You will then have a series of letters running up and down the left side of your page. Try to memorize one main-point letter and the sub-point letters. Then see if you can recall the word and phrase or sentence related to each letter. The letter should trigger a word which triggers the point (see sample below).

6. Study

This method does not advocate memorizing the sermon word for word. Instead you are remembering the key points, sub-points and “trigger” words (the skeleton). But you will need to stock your mind with a wide vocabulary so that the “trigger” word will pull in suitable other words to speak. If you don’t you will tend to start sounding “samey.” You should read widely and constantly to build up a ready vocabulary. Read outside theological books and magazines. Read a reputable newspaper or contemporary biographies. This will keep your vocabulary fresh, contemporary, and less cliched.

7. Start

The hardest step here is simply to start. It is like learning to swim for the first time without a flotation device, or learning to ride a bike without stabilizers. It is a large psychological barrier. So, let me give you some helps to starting.

First, start small. Instead of launching out with a full sermon in your head, choose a small section which you are committed to preaching without notes and follow the procedure outlined above. Next time, do a larger section or two sections, and so on. Your mind will get into a groove and you will become gradually more confident in the method.

Second, have a back-up plan. Even though you are intending to preach a section or two extemporaneously, take your paper with you anyway so that if you do “blank,” you have your paper to fall back on. The great temptation here though is that your mind will take the easiest path and so will you. If you know there is going to be no lifebelt, you will prepare much better for the jump!

Third, don’t try to memorize Scripture references or quotations. Have these written down on a small paper so that you can read from them. That will save you a lot of mental work. Also, quotations tend to carry more authority if read rather than repeated from memory.

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Sep 7 2010

Preaching without notes (1)

My friend Dr. David Murray has graciously permitted me to reproduce part (1) of his post on extemporaneous preaching from Head, Heart, Hand. You can read the original post here.

John Broadus was a pastor and professor of preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1800′s. Charles Spurgeon regarded Broadus as “the greatest of living preachers.” According to Wikipedia, the Church historian Albert Henry Newman said that Broadus was “perhaps the greatest man the Baptists have produced.” Brodus’s classic Homiletics textbook On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons remains a must-read for all seminary students.

Broadus identified four basic methods of sermon delivery:

Reading: The preacher takes his manuscript into the pulpit and reads from it.
Reciting: The speaker repeats from memory what has been written and learned.
Extemporizing: The plan of the discourse is drawn out on paper and all the principal points are stated or suggested, but the language is extemporaneous.
Freely delivering: After thorough preparation, the preacher goes into the pulpit without notes or manuscript and without conscious effort to memorize the sermon..

The method chosen will determine how much paper is brought into the pulpit. I do not want to set down rules on how much we should read or rely upon notes. Much will depend on the speaker and the hearers. However, if there is a danger in our days it is probably too much reliance upon notes. We are all horrified at the idea of someone going into a pulpit unprepared and just rambling around for a time. However, the Reformed Church is perhaps in danger of going to the other extreme, of having such over-prepared sermons that the amount of paper required to preach them is increasing more and more – as is reliance on the manuscript.

This is happening at the same time as the people, especially younger people, are going in the opposite direction. People want to be spoken to personally, directly, and relationally. President Obama understood that before he was President, although since inauguration he has resorted mainly to the autocue, diminishing his appeal. In the UK, the present Prime Minister, David Cameron, burst on to the scene at a Conservative Party Conference when he spoke passionately about his vision for the future of the UK, and what caught everyone’s imagination was that he did it without notes. After the Blair/Brown years of polished marketing and spin, it seemed much more authentic.

We should always remember that while our pulpit paper may contain what we want to communicate, it can also become one of the greatest barriers to communication. Often the preacher’s eyes are more on this than on their congregation. Pastor Al Martin commented on this:

The issue is not how much written composition is done in the study or how much written material is brought into the pulpit. The issue is how much dependence upon and preoccupation with written material is manifested in the act of preaching. To state the matter another way, the issue is how much mental and physical attachment is there to one’s paper. At the end of the day we are not so much concerned with issues of paper and print, but with the issues of eyes and brains.

And listen to these strong words from Dabney:

Reading a manuscript to the people can never, with any justice, be termed preaching…. In the delivery of the sermon there can be no exception in favor of the mere reader. How can he whose eyes are fixed upon the paper before him, who performs the mechanical task of reciting the very words inscribed upon it, have the inflections, the emphasis, the look, the gesture, the flexibility, the fire, or oratorical actions? Mere reading, then, should be sternly banished from the pulpit, except in those rare cases in which the didactic purpose supersedes the rhetorical, and exact verbal accuracy is more essential than eloquence.

Shedd argued that young preachers should from the very beginning of their ministries preach at least one extemporaneous sermon every week. By this he did not mean preaching without study or preparation – quite the opposite. Extemporaneous sermons require more preparation in many ways. What he meant was reducing your sermon to a one-page of skeleton outline, and becoming so familiar with it, that referring to it during the act of preaching is minimized. Then, throughout your ministry, try to reduce the size of the skeleton, and dependence on it, more and more. Let the ideas be pre-arranged but leave exact expression of them to the moment of preaching.

Shedd gives these requirements for extemporaneous preaching:

A heart glowing and beating with evangelical affections
A methodical intellect – to organize the sermon material into a clear and logical structure
The power of amplification – or the ability to expand upon a theme
A precise and accurate mode of expression
Patient and persevering practice

To these we might add, prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit for each and all of these requirements.

Tomorrow, I’ll pass on six steps I’ve followed to help decrease reliance on paper in the pulpit.

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Sep 3 2010

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt Thou forgive the sin where I begun

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

And do run still though still I do deplore?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin by which I’ve won

Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun,

A year or two, but wallowed in a score?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son

shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;

and having done that, Thou hast done;

I fear no more.

John Donne (1572-1631)

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Sep 2 2010

A Lifting Up For the Downcast

by William Bridge

You will say, then, but what is the difference between these? A man is to be humbled, and not discouraged; not discouraged and yet to be humbled! What is the difference between these two, being humbled and being discouraged?

It is a profitable question, and worth our time. By way of answer, therefore, thus: When a man is humbled, truly humbled, the object of his grief or sorrow or trouble is sin itself, as a dishonour done unto God. The object of discouragement is a man’s own condition, or sin producing that condition, the ultimate object of discouragement being a man’s own condition. When a man is discouraged, you will always find that his trouble is all about his own condition. Oh, says a discouraged person, I have sinned; I have thus and thus sinned, and therefore my condition is bad, and if my condition be bad now, it will never be better; Lord, what will become of my soul? His trouble is always about a his own condition. But when a man is grieved and truly humbled for sin, his trouble is about sin itself, as a dishonour done unto God. To clear this by Scripture: you know Cain was discouraged, but Cain was not humbled. How may that ap pear? Cain was troubled about his condition. Ah, says he, my punishment is greater than I can bear. On the other side, the poor prodigal was humbled, but not discouraged. How may that appear? His trouble was about his sin, and not about his condition: “I will return unto my Father (says he), and I will say unto him, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.” David was sometimes both dis couraged and humbled, and then you find his repentance and humiliation to be very brackish; but if you look into the 51s t Psalm, you will find David humbled but not discouraged, for it is a penitential Psalm. He was humbled but not discouraged, for still he did keep his assurance; verse 14, “Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation.” Bu t what was his repentance, his trouble, about? It was about his sin, and not about his condition. Read verses 2 and 3, and so on: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: …behold, I was shape n in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” All the time, you see, his eye is upon his sin, and not upon his condition only. So that I say, when a man is truly humbled and grieved for sin, the object of his grief is sin, as a dishonour don e unto God: when a man is discouraged and not humbled, then his trouble is all about his condition, and what will become of him.

True humiliation, it is no enemy, but a real friend unto spiritual joy, to our rejoicing in God. The more a man is humbled for sin committed, the more he will rejoice in God, and rejoice that he can grieve for sin. He grieves, and rejoices that he can grieve for sin. Therefore humiliation, is said by our Saviour Christ to be an effect of the work of the Comforter: “I will send the Comforter, and he will convince the world of sin.” Because comfort always goes along with true humiliation, it is not an enemy but a friend to our spiritual rejoicing; but discouragement is an enemy to spiritual joy. A man that is discour aged is grieved, and his grief makes him sad. If you tell him that he must rejoice in God, and call upon him to rejoice in God, Oh no, says he, it is not for me to rejoice; I am a man of another disposition; joy does not belong to me, or to one in my condition. But, when a man is truly humbled, the more he is humbled for sin, the more he can rejoice in God; but the more a man is discouraged, the less he rejoices in God.

The more a man is humbled, truly humbled for sin, the more he is found in duty; the more a man is discouraged, the more his hands are weakened for duty. As it is with water; if the water continues in its true stream, it does not overflow the banks, it does not break down the dam. Sometimes you have a great fall of water, a great and mighty flood, and then the river overflows the banks, and the water breaks down the dam. So here, duty is the bank of sorrow and grief and humiliation for sin. I say, your duties are the banks of all your godly sorrow; and when a man’s sorrow or grief rises to such a height that it swells over duty, and a man says, I will pray no more, for it is to no purpose; and I will hear no more, for there is no hope for my soul; and I will examine my own heart no more — when thus sorrow swells over duty, and breaks down the dam of duty, then it is discouragement and not humiliation. Be not mistaken; this is not humiliation, this is a plain disc ouragement. There is a great difference then, between discouragement and humiliation. Many people indeed think their discouragements to be humiliation. But the Lord knows, there is not a drop of humiliation in a flood of discouragement.

Would you therefore be humbled? Oh, then, be not discouraged; for the more you are discouraged, the less you will be humbled; and the more humbled you are, the less discouraged you will be.

But you reply, if there be such a great difference between these, and if it be our duty, to be humbled for sin, but not to be discouraged, what should a man do to bear up his heart to the work of humiliation, and yet bear up against all discourag ement? How shall I be so humbled without being discouraged? Or what shall a man do that he may be humbled, and yet not be discouraged in his humiliation?

Let Christians carry this rule always up and down with them, namely, That a man is to be humbled for his sin, although it be never so small, but he is not to be discouraged for his sin, though it be never so great. Both these parts are true. A m an is not to be discouraged under his sin, though it be never so great, because discouragement itself is a sin, and that c annot help against sin. Sin cannot help against sin. A man is to be humbled for his sin, though it be never so small, for it is a dishonour to God, and little sins make way to great sins. So, then, if you would be humbled, and not discouraged, ca rry this rule up and down with you, and remember it upon all occasions: It is my duty, and I have reason to be humbled f or my sin, although it be never so small; but I have no reason to be discouraged under my sin, though it be never so great.

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