If you are a normal preacher then your goal is a spoken message (I know, your goal is really to please God, to see lives transformed, etc., but stay with me for now).  Your goal is probably not to publish your manuscript in a national newspaper, or to collate your manuscript into an anthology for publication, or to edit your manuscript for a preaching journal.  Normal preachers normally just preach the sermon.  (Actually, it is tempting to long for a team of secretaries, personal assistants and editors who will whisk a sermon away and process it into publishable form . . . anyone volunteering time and skill in this area is always welcome, by the way!) So, if normal preachers just preach the sermon, what does this mean?

For one thing, it means that we shouldn’t feel obligated to do all our preparation on paper or word processor.  While we are taught to write and outline and indent and manuscript, perhaps we would benefit from sometimes choosing to speak, record, dictate and map.  Some advocate for a full move over to oral sermon mapping – a move I am not opposed to and may explore more on here in the coming weeks.  But even without abandoning our pens and word processors, we can still benefit from recognizing the potential benefits of greater coherence between preparation and delivery.

There are times in my preparation when I get stuck.  Not confused stuck (although that happens too).  Not uncertain of homiletics stuck (although that also happens).  Stuck, as in, I’m not sure what to do next stuck, I feel like I have a log-jam in my mind stuck.  Maybe your preparations always flow easily and smoothly from beginning to end.  Mine don’t.

I find it very helpful when I do get stuck to step away from the computer (yes, apparently Spurgeon didn’t even have one!), clear my throat, and speak.  Sometimes something that makes sense on paper doesn’t work when spoken.  Equally there are times when things aren’t working on paper, but speaking them through seems to unstick the stuckness.  Sometimes I pray through a message or section of it.  Other times I pray and then preach through as if to human listeners.  Sometimes I will pick up the phone and talk through the logic of the message with someone.  Whether it is in prayer or with prayer, to an imaginary audience or with a responding human, talking seems to help unstick the stuck when preparing a talk.  Funny that.