I’ve had the chance to preach three times this summer at The Macrina Community, which Sarah and I have been leading throughout the summer. It’s been an interesting experience, preaching to such an intimate and small community (the first time I preached, there were 2 people; this last time there were 4). When I was writing the first sermon, I sat down and took care of it the good ‘ole Princeton way - manuscript style: thought through what I wanted to say, typed it up, had my manuscript with me and preached from it. To two people.
So, that was probably more my fault than Princeton’s (using a manuscript while preaching to two people) - but I’m not the first to think that perhaps taking preaching courses at Princeton Seminary messed up my ability to preach. It’s not like I was the world’s best preacher before going to Princeton, but I felt very comfortable in front of a church, working off an outline, engaging in a more conversational style of preaching. After just one year of preaching at Princeton, I felt like I was 100% stuck to the manuscript. I’d type it up, and then try to preach a more conversational sermon, and it just didn’t work.
So, like others I’m sure, after a preaching course and post-seminary, I think I’m (re)learning how to preach and perhaps figuring out what style works well for me right now. The past two times I’ve preached at Macrina - it’s gone very well. What I’ve been doing is to start out by sitting down with the text, thinking about where I want to go with it, and then begin by typing out a stream-of-consciousness style of manuscript. It’s normally about 4 pages single-spaced.
Then I sit with that for a day or two - make edits to it - read it through a few times. The day before I’m going to preach, I’ll sit down with the manuscript and make a rough outline based off of the manuscript. Then by the time I’m actually preaching, I find that I’m not even really reading the outline, but I have it there as a “safety” in case I get stuck or need to remember the direction I wanted to go. I’m sure this is nothing life-changing for any of you who have been preaching for years(!), but it’s simply what I’ve been doing recently and find that it’s working very well for me.
What is your process for preaching? And did anyone else have to (re)learn preaching after graduating from seminary?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I didn’t go to seminary, at least not yet, but I did take a preaching class or two in undergrad. For a year or so after I graduated, and maybe for a little while during my senior year, I taught a high school Sunday School class. For some of it, I alternated teaching with a friend who also was getting a religion degree, and for some of it we taught together. At the time, we were working together as church custodians, and we spent a lot of time talking about theology and the church and the Bible, and so on.
In any case, we (re)learned preaching a bit during this time by going into the class with a theme (not necessarily a topic, but a theme) or a scripture, and talking from it. We would sometimes bring in books and discuss things in the books, and sometimes teach with nothing at all, and sometimes dialogue with each other, but it was very freeing for us to spend time teaching without any notes or outlines. We found it easier, at times, to hear from what Jesus might be saying to us when we had less of an idea of what we were going to say ahead of time.
With high schoolers, I think this fit well because if we didn’t bring in things that seemed like random rabbit trails, they would bring in their own random rabbit trails, and with ours we could ensure that they were relevant to the theme. It seemed to encourage them to dialogue and ask us questions, more than I would have expected at times.
You’re totally on to something here. I’ve listened to four or five Princeton students preach in chapel this summer, and they sound like robotic manuscript clones. In a stepford wives sort of way, too. It’s downright creepy. Pleeeeeaaaassseeee don’t let me get cloned!!!!!! (I have to take Speech Com this fall).
That’s not bad practice, Adam.
The only key is “Does it communicate the Gospel in a way people can resonate with?” I have been relearning how to preach extemporaneously lately, but I am thankful that I was taught to manuscript preach because my call required it.
I can totally resonate, Adam. It was somewhat similar at Denver Seminary. If I were to hold a conversation with someone the way I was taught to preach they’d tune me out quickly as I tried to wow them with a dramatic opening illustration and then by the end talk slowly and quietly as if I’m whispering sweet nothings in their ear to win their emotions.
(…now I’m thinking of Dwight from The Office… actually Jim gave Dwight some good advice for his speech)
I preach about once a month now and it looks something like this…
About a week prior I create little thought bubbles and I’ll start stringing together some stories from those. A day or so later i’ll create a rough manuscript and let that ferment for a day or two. Then I’ll manuscript it all out and the day before or the day of i’ll narrow it down to bullet points on the front and back of a 3×5 notecard which I typically end up looking at 2 or 3 times as i’m talking.
Lately, I’ve tried to see sermons as a means to shape a culture over a period time as opposed to trying to make each individual sermon great so that somebody’s life is radically changed on a given Sunday morning.
It’s a journey… and it’s good to hear from someone else who is healing from the seminary experience.
Seminary doesn’t teach preaching. Preaching teaching preaching.
As the pastor of a bitty lil’ church, I had the experience of preaching to a group of less than a dozen on a few occasions a few years back. When the group is less than a half dozen, I ditch the manuscript, because, well, it feels wrong. We’re larger now, but I’ve had to get into the discipline of preaching pretty much every Sunday.
My congregation is tolerant of my exploring the art, so over the last four years I’ve played around with an array of different approaches. I started out preaching from full manuscripts. I then moved to outlines, briefly, and then to alternating between Keynote and Powerpoint and working from a full manuscript labeled to key in both slides and transitions. Though my congregation liked it, it proved too busy and too much of a distraction for me, so for about six months I used only Keynote. That was fine, but I found that not writing and not capturing my thoughts felt…odd.
From there, I went back to full manuscripts for a bit, and then…as an experiment in gutting it out…went utterly sans anything for one whole summer’s worth of Sundays. No text. No outline. No presentation. I’d only permit myself to do mental preparation. It was a good exercise, and has almost entirely cured me of the “dear Lord Jesus I’ve forgotten my sermon text” fear. I’ve come back to full manuscripts again, although they serve primarily as an outline through which I skip and dip as need be.
I think we’ve all got to play around a bit to find our voice…and that seminarians should do more preaching.
I have not preached much since seminary, but this is my process now that I am more mature with my faith and with people: study my ass off in the text until a line “pops” in my head. Then I let it simmer for a night before I sit down and punch the entire thing out in a sitting. It’s the same process I use when prepping for a course lecture, conference presentation, etc. They teach you how to do exegesis for preaching at seminary, but experience can only really teach you the art.
It’s like playing the blues. Until you have had ‘em, you can’t really do it right.
As a fellow PTS grad, I hear you about the traditional method of preaching messing with the ability to preach. I think there are some strong pros and cons to what I took from the very traditional preaching method that I received at PTS (and it sounds similar in other seminaries)
Pros:
- Strong focus on exegetical process - getting in deep with the text. Examining the text critically, contextually, historically, and linguistically. When I preached prior to seminary, I did very little of that.
- Conciseness - The method I received at PTS helped me keep my message concise, clear, and to the point. I still remember Dr LaRue asking several of the student in our class (thankfully never me) - “Um…are you finished yet?”
- Importance of “the preaching moment” - the focus on how this is a process that must beentered into with a certain gravitas. We are talking about God’s Word, after all.
Cons:
- Stepford-ization of preachers - one method does not fit all
- How do we integrate visual or other forms of media beyond just the spoken word? Nothing offered (at least when I was there 9 years ago)
- Manuscript - I am much more myself when I preach from an outline or from memory. It may not be as “smooth”, but it is more real and more from my heart.
Ultimately, I think that the earlier comment about how we learn to preach by preaching is dead on. I learned to preach after I left seminary as I discovered my own method of preparation, etc which includes storyboarding a message, talking it out over several hours in my living room, and trying to find the emotional resonance of the message for God’s people.
This is something that quite a few of my buddies are using:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
It is strange to me but seems to work extremely well for creative types like yourself.
Check out Anna Carter FLorence’s book “Preaching as Testimony” - great stuff and a very helpful process.
Adam,
If you are doing it right, you will be relearning the practice again and again and again. I’ve been preaching for seven years and the little nuances in my preparation, notes, etc are what keep me fresh and growing.
It’s just a part of the life. Embrace it.
I study hard, not looking for obscure translation issues but looking at how the text applies to the lives of my congregations. (I serve three very small congregations in rural Nebraska. I make notes but never write a manuscript. When I have written manuscripts the sermon is always bad, if not poor word choices–more essay less conversation, then certainly poorly given. Also I KNOW when I am one word off from the manuscript at which point I begin to “freeze.” I use a few notes but generally leave them at the pulpit when I walk away.
There are many times I wish I had written what I said but rarely, if ever, have I written something I wish I’d said.
Oh, for the record, M.Div at CBTS and M.S. at KSU.
NTP
Interesting… at Gordon Conwell they teach that you should preach noteless… not even an outline in the pulpit. I find in practice I vary between noteless, outline, and manuscripts, depending on the series/tone/message.
I developed this style from necessity. When I speak from a manuscript it is simply awful. The rare times I write a manuscript I leave it in the office. Some colleagues preach from manuscripts to protect themselves from being misquoted, defensive preaching.
I have done this for so long I now wonder if a written document can “be” a sermon or is merely an oral essay.
Recently (same time as Adam) Princeton trained preacher here. Princeton teaches “tall steeple” preaching - and everyone knows it. The only problem is “tall steeple” Presbyterian churches are going nowhere last I looked.
I was blessed with a great mentor in my field ed placement. I was contracted to preach twice per semester, but ended up preaching a minimum of 6 per semester. Two days before my first sermon the Pastor called me and forbid me to use a manuscript. His words, “Last I knew in Princeton they still teach using a manuscript - and you don’t know how to do that effectively yet. You’ll be tied to it. Instead make some notes, get out of the pulpit and breath in the spirit - it will be better.” I did and it was. Got a lot better over time too.
2 out of four of the calls I recieved mentioned how much they liked me not using a manuscript. The others didn’t mentioning NOT liking it but offered calls.
Here is what I think - if you have been gifted with the ability to preach the Word, use it. Churches with younger congregations specifically DON’T want to see a plastic preacher. Chances are the highly intellectual styles and movements possible with manuscript preaching are not a good communication style in these churches anyway. BUT it does not mean you don’t have to prepare. In my case I spend more time prepping.
Here is what I do - on Monday morning I look at texts - usually the lectionary, but sometimes others. All day Monday I think on them as I interact in the church and community. Tuesday I amke my big choice - which text to use. Mostly I use the lectionary, but I try to vary it between the Gospel, Epistle and OT. In making this choice I have considered what is going on in life around the church and also have an idea of how I want to structure the message. Tuesday night is my biggest trial - I have to pick hymns and a sermon title. This is the biggest leap of faith.
Wednesday is another thought or “marinating” day while I do visitations and usually have a church function that evening. Friday is an off day. On Saturday I draw up an outline in the morning and then think of examples I might want to use. Sometimes these examples lead me into different paths. By Saturday dinnertime I have the outline down - but usually 2X the stuff I have time to effectively talk about.
Sunday early is another run through in my head while showering and then final edits to the outline. The actual sermon I find needs me to look at the notes less than 3 times - and that is usually if I have a specific quote or bible verse I want to emphasize.
Sunday night is decompression!
I have to admit that I’m getting uncomfortable with a conversation that’s veering toward “manuscripts bad, outlines/extemporaneous good,” as if all churches were the same and expected the same things out of their pastors and preachers.
At PTS, I learned discipline. I learned how to make sure that I was preaching the text, and not my own agenda - the process taught me to give the text a deep look and not a shallow look. And as far as sermon-writing itself, I appreciated learning the “four-page” model - again, because it keeps me in check. It makes sure that I’ve identified God’s work in the text and God’s work in our context.
After PTS, I spent a year at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and took two preaching classes that reflected two different theories of preaching. I learned about manuscript-less preaching and storytelling-as-preaching, and I learned to keep my preaching in check by looking for law/gospel in the text, and then making sure that I preached both law and gospel in our current context.
I generally prefer to speak from a manuscript, because it ensures that I don’t ramble on or get sidetracked or lose my point. I am sure that there are congregations that prefer things either way - with or without a manuscript - and so I’d be cautious in trying to posit one style as better or more worthwhile or more relevant than the other.
Really, at the end of the day, it’s the quality of the preaching that is the most important. Has the gospel been proclaimed? Has the preacher connected the Biblical text to the current world? Did the preacher speak clearly and faithfully? Is the content of the message appropriate for the context? These are the more important sorts of questions.
I think that everyone has to find their own style and voice, whether it be with a manuscript or without, whether it be a traditional sermon or a guided discussion, whether it be a storytelling sermon or a teaching sermon. I think that each of us as preachers needs to find the style(s) of preaching in which we best share the gospel message.
I do not disagree with that point. I don’t considering manuscript preaching “bad” although many bad sermons are manuscripted (is that a word?) and many are not. There are times when I wish I could speak from a manuscript, alas I simply cannot.
Not using a manuscript is no excuse for rambling or not knowing when to stop. Although I have gotten a little sloppy lately I nearly always know how long I have spoken and usually stop within a minute or two of my goal.
Good speaking requires discipline whether from notes, a manuscript or “with out a net.”
Melissa,
You have a very valid point. It does matter what serves you best. As a seminarian I loved hearing the high intellectual sermons and deep exegetical work of many pastors. I still do.
I have chosen to serve smaller rural congregations - and these for the most in the PC(USA) have missed the boat on the young people. Those that go to church tend toward the charismatic or evangelical churchs and hang with the other young families. By the same token, you couldn’t just change to contemporary worship in most rural churches without having a mass exodus of the old guard - if you got it past the Session and if they hadn’t run you out of town first. What I have found, and this is just me in mt situation, is that to deformalize the worship experiance starts to break down the rigidness - and also to attract younger folk. It is still our job to allows faitfully proclaim the gospel.
I am sure if I tried what I have done in Nassau Pres or 5th Ave. Pres it wouldn’t be well recieved.
I do want to empasize my point of the need for renewal in the mainline churches. Regardless of thought if we keep doing what we have always done we go away. And maybe that is in the cards. We pray for the spirit to be in our churches, but we need to respond as individuals to this call.
God Bless
Tim