From: Mark Goodge <>
Newsgroups: uk.religion.christian
Date: Saturday, 13 March 1999 5:38
Subject: Re: A question for the preachers among us


On Fri, 12 Mar 1999 10:41:36 +1030, "Rowland Croucher"
<> wrote:

>Mark Goodge wrote in message <>...
>>Just out of interest, what's your usual procedure for preparing a
>>sermon?
>>
>>Do you preach from outline notes, or do you script it fully
>>beforehand?
>
>The classical homiletical wisdom is that younger preachers at least, and
>ideally all of us, should have a full manuscript, whether we preach from it
>or not...

Why is that?

Personally, I find it *much* harder to deliver a prepared script
(whether a sermon or any other kind of public speaking) than to work
from notes. Writing and reading a script requires two very difficult
skill sets; firstly to be able to write as you would speak, and
secondly to be able to read as if you are saying the words for the
first time.

Interestingly, the main op-ed article in Tbe Times this morning was a
piece by Simon Jenkins decrying the lost art of speech-making. Some
snippets:

  Now oratory is an old-fashioned word, and rhetorical
  is a term of abuse. Few people distinguish between a
  speech and the reading of text. Few people can write
  text that reads well in public. Even fewer can read it.

  ... rhetoric's first law, that speech is not spoken
  text, a law broken by almost every speaker today.
  Spontaneous oratory - the art of knowing what you
  want to say but not how you intend to say it - is
  almost confined to broaddcasting.

  Most speeches in my experience are read, in the words
  of the giver, "because I can't do it any other way".
  In which case, don't speak. The implication is that
  the audience has come merely for the pleasure of
  gazing on the speaker's face, as he reads what it
  could read far faster on it's own.

I happen to agree with Jenkins. Certainly, a well-prepared and
well-read script can be wonderful, and I have heard some excellent
sermons that were clearly fully scripted. But I have also heard a lot
of duds, and it seems to me that reading a script is far more likely
to produce a dud than using notes.

I would reverse the "classical homiletical wisdom", and suggest that a
full script should only be employed by those who are capable of using
it well. Otherwise, a well-prepared set of notes, with the emphasis on
content rather than verbiage, will generally produce better results.

Mark
--
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