Transcript

In this segment I want to share with you what I do immediately before I preach.

As with all of this masterclass, I’m sharing what I do myself –

These are patterns and practices I’ve refined over many years.

Let’s take a look at the whole process I’ve described in this masterclass

• you can see the symmetry!

We started by choosing an appropriate passage of the Bible, reading it and praying through it.

But now we’ve got a sermon virtually completed and we’re about to face an audience and preach it

So how should we read and pray at this moment?

Read through –

Before I preach I want to read through my material several times.

The whole practice of writing out a sermon in full (or nearly in full) is a real benefit spiritually as well as practically.

Preachers who are garrulous or have the gift of the gab, or just have a habit of ad-libbing can often obscure a weak message with clever words.

And, if you tend to ad lib a lot, you can become repetitive – not notice it. Your mind tends to go down the same sort of track each time so you don’t feel is if you’re being repetitive, but other people will notice. (and may be embarrassed to tell you)

• This much harder to get away with on paper (or in a text file!)

Read through several times over.

I often read through a couple of times the night before I preach and again first thing in the morning.

When I do this, I notice some things happening

the message ignites in my own soul

If it doesn’t fire up my heart, it’s unlikely to ignite in other people’s!

• I often find myself getting quite excited within about the message I’m soon to communicate

the words – especially the sequence of events for good story-telling – become more natural to me and

I find I can recall some sections almost without reference to my notes

• and this is a guard against being note-bound.

• On the occasions when I have found myself becoming dependent on my notes, I’ve noticed that those are often the times when I’ve skipped (or just skimmed) the reading through of the sermon.

I spot message-enhancing tweaks

I often tweak the way some sentences are expressed because I didn’t quite express clearly or passionately in the first write-up.

and sometimes the Lord gives me a new idea to include.

Isaiah voice behind you saying “This is the way,, walk in it”

• I hope I’m not stretching the meaning of the verse to apply this to this final stage of preparation – that quite voice of the Holy Spirit saying “take this route!” / dwell on this concept when you preach

• and often those are the moments people comment on afterwards as being the things God said to their souls.

Axe cliches and verbiage

At this point, because my writing marathon was a few day previously, I’m usually coming back to my sermon with a fresher mind.

• This helps me to spot those cliché’s that I tend to write in without thinking!

• Or stumble across errors in logic that would leave people confused (including me!)

Listen to the news

This may sound odd, but occasionally there will be a headline that a proportion of your congregation will be aware of, and you won’t want to ignore a crisis or a major event.

I remember preparing for a service involving lots of children.

• Lots of colour, kids songs,

• it was the culmination of a week of children’s activities and they and their parents were going to be there in droves.

• I was all ready to speak and to be bright, enthusiastic, hopefully funny and give a message of basic commitment to Jesus Christ.

• That was the morning Princess Diana died.

• It would have been crassly insensitive to have ignored it and I’m glad we listened to the news to hear that headline.

Tragedy like that doesn’t happen every day, but sometimes it does and being aware of breaking news about major events can enhance your communication with God’s people.

Praying

We prayed about the passage to begin with, so how might we pray now?

Let me share with you the traffic of my own soul as I prepare to preach to God’s people.

I often find myself thanking the Lord for what he’s given me.

• I believe that every sermon is a gift from Him – and that is what makes the slog worthwhile.

I pray that I personally will remain in the background and that His word will be the dominant message.

• I’m not in front of those people to draw attention to myself, but to divert attention to our heavenly Father and the message He has for that day.

I often thank him for the sheer privilege of being his mouthpiece. “His voice – my voice-box”

I ask him to inspire my words and ignite their message in people’s hearts

I pray through my big idea one last time before I preach. Offering it to him as a vehicle that, I trust, He will use for His purpose.

I believe preaching is a co-operative venture between me and my heavenly father.

• I believe he wants to get his message across and today he’s using me to do this. So I thank him that he will favour my words with his power and trust him to do just that.

There are no techniques that can guarantee God will speak, but my experience has been that trusting him to do it – in spite of my faltering words – provides him with a platform from which He can speak.