It's taken a bit of courage to attempt this; if you've tried checking for my sermon notes lately they've been spotty... not because I haven't prepared, but because I've been simply trying to be more spontaneous. So far its been good, but one thing it really drives home for me, is the emphasis on the development of personal spirituality first, academic study second. Using the roughest of outlines, and a list of passages from a concordance, I've delivered some of the most surprisingly successful sermons, whereas the quotes, and dramatic erudition of principles seems to fall on if not deaf, at least slightly bored ears.
I've found the most useful exercise in visualization. Take the concept and the text and illustrate it in my mind; meditate on that illustration, then draw that picture on Sunday morning. It is incredibly freeing to not have so and so's six principles for sermonizing, or thesis, synthesis etc... floating in my mind, although not having a written sermon on Saturday night, can make for fitful sleep- but that's where trial and error, practice, and confidence take over.
There are plenty of you who think I'm nuts, but I was nuts when I took this job, and nuts before that...
I've found the most useful exercise in visualization. Take the concept and the text and illustrate it in my mind; meditate on that illustration, then draw that picture on Sunday morning. It is incredibly freeing to not have so and so's six principles for sermonizing, or thesis, synthesis etc... floating in my mind, although not having a written sermon on Saturday night, can make for fitful sleep- but that's where trial and error, practice, and confidence take over.
There are plenty of you who think I'm nuts, but I was nuts when I took this job, and nuts before that...
