Lesson Goal
In this lesson I hope to teach you how to preach extemporaneously, without notes.
Lesson Intro
Reading through Acts 2 we get the idea that Peter preached off the cuff. Okay, it's time to crank the ratchet up yet another notch. You have seen me allude to this before, but now it's time for you to actually do it, if you haven't already, preach without notes. And if you have preached contemporaneously, I hope that some of these comments will help you improve.
Lesson Plan
This chapter proposes to teach you how to preach extemporaneously, without notes. It goes beyond using the text for your notes, explaining that we must be filled with our material, prepare thoroughly, but leave our notes at home, how to avoid certain pitfalls of extemporaneous preaching, the use of eye contact and ends with an example of extemporaneous preaching that we will all want to copy.
Lesson Body
1. Extemporaneous or Impromptu?
I will define extemporaneous preaching as preaching without notes, but not without preparation. This is generally different to impromptu preaching, which is preaching without either notes or preparation. Naturally, there are limits to these definitions as no impromptu is ever totally without preparation. Life's experiences are also preparation. There is also some crossover between the two, as short preparation could be both extemporaneous and impromptu. We will discuss impromptu more thoroughly in an advanced lesson.
2. Let the Text be Your Notes
This is not really a new point. It was mentioned in earlier lessons. It works well for a straight exegetical sermon. However, now we want to move this idea up a notch. There are sermons where you are using more than an exegesis of a particular verse, where your points are right there in front of you, in the text. Now you want to add other details. You have historical data, facts and figures, biographical information or other material that is outside the scope of scripture alone. How in the world can you remember all that stuff without notes? You can.
3. Be Filled with the Material
Preaching extemporaneously is not a short-cut Saturday night special sermon. Preaching without notes actually requires additional effort. It is also not for the bombastic novice who may end up making a big scene and embarrass both himself and his audience with offensive comments or other awkward moments.
Let's be filled with the Holy Spirit, making the things of the Spirit a priority in our lives, but let's also allow the Holy Spirit to fill us during our preparation time as much as during our delivery time. That means that we will be immersed in regular prayer and thoroughly researching the material for our sermon. Granted, we may end up changing the sermon completely on the day, as sometimes happens, but the spiritual preparation will not be wasted. There is nothing as wonderful as listening to someone who is so filled with his subject that he is pumped, excited, and eager to share it.
An old maxim goes that you study about ten times more material than you can possibly deliver. If your research is thorough and the topic is interesting enough, you will remember enough material to easily fill a sermon, maybe more. It's not like learning a script for a play. It's more like carrying on a conversation after you have just read a very interesting book or seen a memorable movie.
4. Write the Sermon Out
The purpose of writing the sermon out is not to memorize it as if it was a script for a soap opera. Writing the sermon out, even though you are going to leave your notes at home, helps organize your mind logically. It helps you see where there are weaknesses that need improvement. Don't make the mistake of doing a totally impromptu sermon at this point. There are rules that impromptu sermons follow, even without preparation and if you don't have at least some of them memorized, you will blow it. We'll discuss impromptus later, but for now, don't do it. Don't be the yelling, screaming, pacing preacher constantly requesting an Amen, desperately trying to cover up his total lack of content. Oh sure, the usual schmoozers will come up to you afterwards and pat you on the back saying what a wonderful job you did, but the hungry will go away complaining that they weren't fed again. You won't hear them. They most likely won't even talk to you about it. Ignore the toady flatterers. Listen to Jesus. He said, feed my sheep!
5. Leave Your Notes at Home
This is the most frustrating thing, especially when you so dearly wanted to mention a certain point, or get an illustration out in a certain way. Because you left your notes at home, you totally forgot to even mention certain ideas in your sermon. However, remember a couple of things. 1) Maybe God wanted you to forget those points for now, and/or 2) if they really were such good points, there will be other opportunities.
You may miss a point or two, but so what? Something even greater has been added. The fact that you are speaking extemporaneously has added something amazing to your sermons that they never had before. Maybe you won't see it at first. Maybe you will. However, your audience will notice it right away. There will be life in your speaking that never existed before. It will flow better. You will be more natural, more conversational and less didactic, less professorial, less boring. You are becoming a dynamic preacher.
6. Avoid Pitfalls
One of the dangers of preaching without notes is that you will think of things that ought NOT to be said. You will suddenly realize a juicy point that could just nail that problem that Franco or Fiona has on the head, but as subtle as you may think you are, they will know immediately that they are being targeted. We preachers get the blame for targeting enough people by sheer coincidence, without actually being so foolish as to deliberately do it. Or, you could recall an example of something that you saw on TV last night, but may cause some people to lose respect for you and think you are shallow if you mention it. Or, worse yet, you could recall a spicy example of "someone, sometime, somewhere" (that you just happened to council with the past year) who would really appreciate it if you could just keep your mouth shut and prove that you can be trusted to keep a confidentiality.
A remedy to all this is of course, using notes. However, now your crutch is gone. What do you do? You may just have the most disciplined tongue on the planet, but I doubt it. Most of us don't. There is another remedy, preparation. The less preparation you have given your sermon, the greater the danger of saying something stupid. The converse is also true. The more preparation, the more time you have immersed yourself in researching the sermon material, meditated on applications ahead of time, prayed about it all week long, written out a complete set of notes even though you purposefully left them at home, the greater the chance of not burning people with the wrong kind of fire from your tongue (James 3:5-8).
7. Eye Contact
Now that you have left your notes, perhaps you may want to move a bit more around the stage. That'll shock the socks off of some of the folks and maybe even wake some of the sleepy ones up. More importantly, you can make eye contact with people. Avoid the stare. That's really aggressive and confronting. Do smile and be vulnerable enough to show that you really care. Now that you are looking at the congregation, and the fog of shyness is beginning to lift, notice where they are at. Are they with you, or thinking of the game they are missing on TV? Are you reaching them, or are they puzzled or worse, bored? Reading the audience is now a new kind of feedback. At first it may seem threatening, but as you begin to master this, you will see how to improve your ability to teach and preach the most imperative ideas on the planet.
Example Sermon
The example of preaching without notes is the life and teachings of Jesus. If you are not yet convinced that this style of preaching is important or even your cup of tea, perhaps the greatest argument for it is that it was a method Jesus used extensively. His sermons were often impromptu as well, but perhaps that is not as correct as saying they were extemporaneous, because sometimes a life is preparation, and Jesus as the Word had a life of preparation with God the Father going backwards into an eternity that we cannot even comprehend.
Suggested Assignment
If this is your first attempt to preach without notes, choose a lesson you found easy and use it. If you have preached extemporaneously before, then challenge yourself by choosing a lesson you found hard to do without notes, and this time do it completely without any notes, except of course a Bible.
Lesson Outro
This chapter proposed to teach you how to preach extemporaneously, without notes. It went beyond using the text for your notes, explaining that we must be filled with our material, write the sermon out, but leave our notes at home, and how to avoid certain pitfalls of extemporaneous preaching. This has been an important step forward in freedom. If you can make this leap, you have truly stepped into the realm of becoming a great preacher.
