Why I Decided to Preach Extemporaneously
“I always used a full manuscript for my delivery. And I had many good reasons…. a few weeks ago, I decided to break away from preaching with a manuscript. Instead, I shifted to noteless preaching, or what is better known as ‘extemporaneous preaching.’” - Ref21
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As someone who has never been in a ministry position in an official capacity, I may have had a couple hundred opportunities to preach in various churches in my years as a believer.
In recent years, I have really enjoyed preaching where I have the passage or passages that I am preaching on entirely on PowerPoint slides. Because I have had so much time to internalize the content of those messages, I have been able to preach these messages with minimal use of notes.
On other occasions, I have preached from very extensive notes that I have written out in great detail but not verbatim. I have enjoyed doing both approaches.
“I Have A Dream.” “The Gettysburg Address”. “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” Reagan’s “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate”. The vast majority of great speeches were either manuscripted or memorized.. A good speaker (and pastors should be good speakers) can make manuascript preaching not sound like a manuscript.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
Very true Ron. Churchill wrote out all his speeches and even included notes on inflection.
Whether a preacher uses notes or not, he must prepare carefully:
Ecclesiastes 12:9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. 10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
Such preparation includes the following:
1. The preacher must be wise
2. He must teach people knowledge
3. He must give good heed
4. He must seek out what is to be preached
5. He must set in order what is to be preached
6. He must seek to find out acceptable words
7. Whatever he preaches must be upright, even words of truth
Discussion