Very interesting article on preaching. Includes thoughts from Doug Pagitt, Tim Keel, Rudy Carrasco, Karen Ward, Chris Seay, Fred Craddock, Charles Bugg, and George Mason. Very thought provoking regarding preaching styles.
I like the comparison of preaching to jazz improv. I played the trumpet in high school and college in jazz bands and greatly enjoyed the creativity and freedom of improv. Yet to be a good improv player you really had to know music. You had to know the piece you were playing, you had to know the instrument.
Preaching is like this as well. I try to preach the same sermon twice each week, once at each of my churches. Yet I am often amazed, as is my wife who listens to my sermons at both churches (she's a saint and a glutton for punishment!) how differently the sermons turn out. I think this is because of the community I am preaching to at each church is so different. In the exegesis of my audience I realize that different parts of the sermon will need to be emphasized. Actually, I probably don't know this, but God does!
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What I've found is that I can prepare a sermon and even have a word-for-word script in front of me, but when I deliver the sermon it's not ever the same as when I first wrote it out. Partly it's having the people there, but I think mostly it's the Holy Spirit working through me to clarify the things I had mucked up in the original. Perhaps it's because it's easier for God to prod me to do something than to explain to me what it's all about.
I've always wondered if anyone in the congregation notices the expression on my face when it dawns on me that the last paragraph I spoke wasn't in the original sermon! I know that mentally there's always an inner sense of "Wow, Lord! That's really good!" Certainly too good to have come from me!
Thanks Rev-
I agree that it's partly the people and mostly the Holy Spirit! In seminary I manuscripted my sermons but it just doesn't work for me. Then I tried outlining and that didn't work either. Then I discovered mindmapping and a great piece of software called MindManager. I have posted a few on the blog and I think I'll post a few more.
I have found that for me, this way of writing my sermon allows for organization and spontanaiety.
Speaking of sermons...how's yours coming together for this week!
Grace and peace,
Steve
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