Video Transcript: Session 31 Presentation of Material

This is session 31 out of 36 in this class on making and preaching sermons, and we've been talking about for several weeks now, several times now, the idea of  presentation, how do you make your presentation I, I set up a principle a couple  

of sessions ago, that presentation will trump information. In other words, you  can have the best information possible, you may have done your sermon  preparation, and you've got all kinds of great information. But if it is not  presented in a compelling way, with gestures, or visual aids or voice modulation, that sort of thing. It the information won't get through to the people. So we've  been talking about how you make a presentation effective. Now today, you'll  notice the title of this one notes, question mark manuscripts, question mark, no  notes, question mark. In other words, what do you bring into the presentation,  immediate presentation in order to help you remember what you're saying?  What what do you need to do in that regard? Now, just want to reflect for just a  moment on some of these popular presenters in English in the United States, at  least. Tony Evans, incredibly effective preacher, Andy Stanley's in the middle  here, and Rick Warren, down on the lower left, and Francis Chan. Now, each of  them is known for incredibly effective presentation of messages. People  remember them, that's why they're invited to speak. That's why people buy their  books. That's why, why these people are sought after is because they've  become known for being able to take information from the scriptures, and  present it in such a way that people are saying, Yes, I get it. And it means  something for me. But it's interesting to note that they all have different styles as far as what they bring into the preaching event with them. Andy Stanley has a  cheat sheet. In other words, he has a Bible in which he puts his printed  scripture, but he takes in through his computer, he pastes in notes that he can  quick glance at while he's speaking. And he speaks sitting at a table. So you can glance down at what he's going to say, you know, Francis Chan tends to be a no notes kind of person, it'll just be a flowing thing. And he will have studies and  he's presenting it to to you, but he's got the Bible in, that's all. So different styles  can work. That's all my point here. But you've got to pay attention to the styles.  I've just found this cartoon, it's only semi relevant. So pastor saying to the  musician, just because I'm preaching without notes, doesn't mean you should  sing without them. Now, the only point here is that it takes different strokes for  different folks. So how do you present your message? What do you take into the preaching event? To help you remember, there are a bunch of different options,  here are some of them, you can take a full manuscript and read it, you're gonna  have your full manuscripts that you will have written in your study a full  manuscript, and then you memorize it. Or you can have a full manuscript  converted to an outline. And the outline is what you take into the presentation.  Or you can do an extended outline that you take into the presentation. Or you  can do a very bare bones outline that just as the major points, maybe sub  points, or you can extemporize have no notes at all, we're going to look at each 

of those for a few moments today, just to give you an idea of the options that you have, and what might fit your style. Well. So first one is a full manuscript, you  take a full manuscript, and you read it. In other words, you go through the  discipline of writing out a manuscript, and then you get up and you read it to  people. Now, there are some advantages, as you'll note here, first of all, it  ensures that you're going to prepare, when you go to the discipline of writing out a manuscript, you have had to study, you have had to go through the process of  figuring out what words are going to resonate with your people and precision of  expression. This kind of approach is usually used by two different kinds of  people, one kind of person wants to get the wording Exactly. And I've met  people, I've listened to people who preach that way that they want their wording  is so precise that we looked a while back about the importance of the words that you choose. While some people will want to use a full manuscript and read it will do so because they want, they want desperately to just put it down the way that  they had it. There's another kind of group of people, though, who will read their  manuscript, and that's people who are terrified, they're going to forget  something. And that may be you too. So you might want to consider doing a full  manuscript and reading and now there are advantages to that, as you can see,  but there are disadvantages as well. Here are some of them. Eye contact is  limited. You just can't connect with everybody if you're reading, and in fact,  people who read their manuscripts will tend to have very little contact eye  contact with their audience at all, because they're so concerned about getting  the words, right. And so it limits eye contact, which is very important. As far as  people connecting to you, we'll look in a couple of sessions about building  bridges to people. And limits freedom of expression, when you're reading a  manuscript, you're going to be less likely to all of a sudden go off on a tangent. If that tangent's from the Holy Spirit, you might miss an opportunity. And I've had it  happen in my preaching not often enough, I don't think but every once in a  while, I will find in my preaching, that I'm starting to see things I had never  planned to say. And I'm very precise at what I say in their sermon at any given  time. But all of a sudden, I will be going off on a tangent somehow. And I learned to recognize as I've listened to people who've heard these tangents, that that's a time when the Holy Spirit is speaking to someone in a way that I hadn't planned. Maybe I didn't prepare correctly, I don't know. But all of a sudden, I can become  spontaneous responding to what I feel the Spirit is saying, or responding to what I feel the audience's is giving me as far as feedback goes. So if I'm reading my  manuscript, I'm not able to do that now. A word about that spontaneity that this  can be dangerous. And I've told you before that one of the things I love to do in  a gathering of pastors to simply ask, what's the funniest thing that's ever  happened to you in ministry? And I know one of my seminary professors, this  man was a very distinguished looking man, you have this beautiful mane of gray hair. He was just known as a gentleman, right? And I encountered him I had 

been out of seminary for five or six years. So I hadn't talked to him since but we  ended up both being at the Luzon Congress for world evangelization in the  Philippines, in Manila. And we were sitting in this big conference center having a bag lunch, and I have to run into him. So I sat down and I said, Tell me Rich, his  name was, so what is the funniest thing that's ever happened to you in, in  preaching, or in in your ministry? And he said, Well, he said, You know, I'm not a great preacher. He said, I always have a full manuscript, and I read it. So I just,  I'm afraid I'm gonna forget some stuff. So that's how I preach. But he said one  time, he said, I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying something to me, as an image  came to mind. I said I was preaching about sin. And our sin that you're always  starts small in our life. But then it grows, and it grows and grows and grows, kind of like that. Crouching lion, we talked about a while back. So he sort of grows  and grows this and I was preaching, I was reading my manuscript, and all of a  sudden, this image came of somebody being consumed by an octopus of the  octopus reaches out and grabs him with one arm, tentacle, and then he reaches out with the other. And gradually, all eight of them are pulling into you into  destruction. He says, I went away from my manuscript decided I was going to be spontaneous. And he said, What I said was, if seen as kind of like an octopus, it  reaches out and grabs you with his testicles. That's a funny moment. And it  happened because of spontaneity. And so you've got to be aware that if you're  going to read manuscripts, at least spontaneous, you got to be careful to how it  comes across. But even then, you know, I mean, it's a great moment of  providing the laugh for the congregation, and actually built. He didn't preach  regularly in a given church, but preached in many different ones. With that  congregation, he is loved. And because of that mistake, so spontaneity is  limited. And it requires extensive preparation, because you've got to discipline  yourself to read a write a manuscript that is readable. So option number two,  you can do a full manuscript and write it out. But you can take an outline into the message. Now, there are some advantages to this, obviously, first of all, you've  got the same main advantages and before our excuse me, this is full manuscript memorize. There are advantages to that, first of all, you've got the same  precision of expression. And but now you can do eye contact, but there are  disadvantages. First of all, it's tough to memorize that much. Now, some people  have a gift. In fact, they have a gift to be able to memorize things in such a way  that it's easy for them. I'm part of a prayer group in the area in which I live, a  pastor's and we get together and pray for each other, but there was one who's  has now moved away. So this man would memorize whole books of the Bible.  And he would do a presentation of them and it's powerful to hear somebody just  get up and talk through a whole book of the Bible. Hosea or I John, or I think the biggest one he ever did was Romans, that, you know, he'll do speaking but he  he was gifted in that it may be you are. And so you could take a manuscript, and you can memorize it. Now the disadvantages of it is it's tough. And it can lead to 

some woodenness of expression. In other words, someone is so concerned  about getting the words right, that you're memorizing that you're thinking about  that instead of connecting with your audience. That can happen. Or you could  just forget. I mentored through our denomination, a young man as a program  where he would be put in our church for a year to work with an experienced  pastor, and I was to help him develop his skills, and then he would be launched  into ministry. And so this young man was looking at what he was going to do as  far as presentation goes. And he decided that this was going to be something he would try to write out a manuscript and he memorized it. But unfortunately, he  was going along and his message, and all of a sudden, he forgot what he was  going to say next, just a mind blip, but he forgot what he's going to say. And so  he's sitting there kind of like, with his mouth half open, he wasn't skilled enough  at that point to cover that by just keeping talking. And so it was just  uncomfortable moment until he went back. And he always had his manuscript up there. And so began paging through it until he found his point, and then he can  go on again. So notice there are a dangerous here. And again, there's extensive preparation time, well, let's look at a full manuscript. And then you bring an  outline into the preaching events, this happens to be my favorite, because it's  one that I do, there are advantages, you've got complete preparation of thought,  because you've written down a manuscript, my manuscript tends to be pretty  rough. In other words, I don't play details unless I was putting it out republishing, which happened a few times. And then then you go through, and you clean it all  up and make sure everything's good, but, but I would use a rather complete  manuscript. And, and I did that for a couple of reasons. One, early on, when I  was learning to preach, I realized that that helped me put my thoughts together.  I'm not a wordsmith. Some people who are gifted at that I admire greatly, but I  would write out the manuscript so that I could remember it. What what  happened is that the first summer assignment, I had a ministry and I had to  preach every week in this church in Tucson, Arizona. And every week, I would  come back and I would file my my sermon outline. And it was just an outline at  that point. And then, when I got back to school, the next year, the seminary  sends people who have been through that experience of learning to preach how  to preach elsewhere, I would get out these outlines, and I would say, example of old man, what old man couldn't remember the story. And so I began writing out  these rather complete manuscripts. But what I took into the pulpit for years, was  just an outline, that helped me maintain, maintain eye contact with people, it  helped me maintain spontaneity, that I could be listening to the Spirit, even as I  listened to the congregation. But the disadvantage, primary disadvantage is that  that takes a lot of preparation and a lot of work as well. But that may be what  you would choose as well. Now, there's another choice, you could take an  extensive outline into the pulpit with you. In other words, and that's the way you  prepare your message. Now, in that case, more is better, you know, more of the 

outline written, and more of it being practices, we'll talk about in a moment. The  disadvantages that can be to wooden unless you practiced it pretty well. A  young man that was on staff with me in the last church I served with through the  process of becoming ordained, and in that process was learning to preach. And  so we talked about, how are you going to? How are you going to present your  message? What are you going to take into the pulpit with you or we don't have a pulpit, but what are you going to take that you put on the stand, when you're  going to preach when you take, and he decided that he was going to do this  extensive outline, but he did it in such a way that he put memory colors in there.  So he would highlight certain colors, the main points were in colors, and the sub  points are in a different color. And other ones were not colored at all, and he  didn't have to pay attention so he could flip a page on the outline as he was  going through it and he could immediately pick out well, this is the main point of  what I'm saying that sort of thing. A disadvantage, if you don't practice as well. It  can come off as very wooden. And again, very similar to the reading your  manuscript, bare bones outline advantages. You've got a spontaneous  expression, you got eye contact you rapid preparation, a disadvantage of just  doing that pre preparation is you're going to forget it, but also to encourage ill  prepared thought that you'll you'll have only thought through things well and this  time is to be a lazy a person's approach can be done effectively, it leads to  brevity or length. If you're not paying attention, you know, you'll be too short as  you'll be too long, because you really don't know how long it is. First time I  preached in my home church, I was a seminarian. And I was at that point, as I  said, just doing some kind of bare bones outlines. And I remember preaching in  the church, I grew up in the pastor preached an average about 45 minutes. And  so they have stripped the evening service in particular of everything else, you  sang a song or two, he preached and then you prayed, and you're done. Okay,  so I come with my message that night, I preached for 17 minutes. By six o'clock  service, it was, that's when it started, we were done by 6:35. And I remember  one woman coming out and saying, you'll be a good preacher, when you learn to preach longer. But it was partly the bare bones outline, I didn't know really how  long it took to preach that. And then there are those who say you should take no notes into the preaching event. And this allows for immediacy of communication. It may be that you've not just memorized it, we're going to talk about a moment  about internalizing the message. But you're you're ready to talk, you're ready to  communicate with these people who are raised here, gives you eye contact  allows you to think about body language as we reflected on. But there are  disadvantages, and that this takes a lot of preparation, and the disadvantage of  forgetfulness. While you preach. Now, there are some in my area who are  known as excellent, excellent preachers, and they are, who use no notes at all. I have great admiration for them. And if you can do this, it's going to be powerful  you in fact, one of the people who was impressive to me in this regard is Lloyd 

John Ogilvy. And he was longtime As quoted him before longtime pastor at  Hollywood Presbyterian Church and became a chaplain of the Senate for the  United States. I was in a small seminar with him that he was one of the guest  speakers in the seminar. So there's about 25 of us guys sitting in a room. And he came and talked to us about his preaching in particular. And he talked about  how he determined that he was going to get rid of everything, all notes. Now he  had a good memory. So he memorized poems, he memorized, you know, Song  words, those kinds of things that he was going to use said, but it gave me a  chance to really connect with people. Since he was in this church, I had a big  pulpit, of course, he said, and I found that when I was, there was almost like,  there was a block between me and the congregation, that this pulpit, they got  only see from here up on me. And so he's decided to come out from behind the  pulpit and talk with people. And in fact, I watched the tape of him later video.  And, you know, he even in a small crowd came down and sat in the first few  seats of the sanctuary because they weren't populated with people. And it gave  him such an immediacy of connection. So he talks about, you know, I try to not  just memorize the sermon, that's not what he does memorize his parts of it. But  I'm trying to be immediate with my, with my connection with people. So he called it internalizing the message. And here are some clues to how to do that. One,  memorize movements within the message. In other words, you know, keep in  mind your main points, find a way of setting those aside in your memory,  memorize the illustrations, if you're going to tell a story, or tell it well, if you're  going to do poems, I always read poems, I used to memorize them years ago,  but My memory isn't as good as it used to be. But if you can memorize it, good,  but otherwise, just read it, Word, Word songs, get familiar with the small parts,  and that build in some crutches. Now for Andy Stanley, he's the one who will put  little notes he'll take our clip in his Bible, the Scripture reading, and then you  have little notes that he puts in the sideline that he's brought into his computer  program. And so people think he's just preaching out of the Bible, but he's got  some crutches in there. Some main points that will give him a place to go back  to, I tend to use PowerPoint as a crutch. I put pictures in PowerPoint, much as I  do for these lectures, as a way of building in a crutch. Just given me something,  they'll get me back to, oh, yes, that's the point I'm making at this point. And then  practice, practice, practice. I preach through a sermon that I'm going to preach  at least three times fully before I get up and preach it before an audience,  sometimes four, because I want to get the flow, right. And I want to get so that  my memory is connecting and putting the pieces together. And then of course,  you know, I do that with what's going to be on the screen at that time. And so,  whatever you choose to do, my counsel to you is learn to do it well. Practice  whatever you need to do whatever style you need to have, practice it so that it's  you talking to a group of people communicating to them you not just giving them information, but giving them yourself as well and giving a message that you've 

internalized to some degree so that it becomes immediate communication to  them. And you'll find that your preaching becomes more effective. The more you  practice, the more you put these principles or whatever style you choose into  practice effectively. So blessings as you decide what's best for you, as a  communicator of God's Word. We'll see you next time.