How to Preach Without Notes & Nail It
It took me ten years in the pulpit before I tried preaching without a manuscript.
I wish I'd known then what I know now because I wouldn't have been nearly so anxious.
Why was I anxious? Bad assumptions:
- I thought I still had to have the sermon fully written ahead of time.
- I thought I had to have the entire manuscript memorized. Since memorization has always been hard for me, I was terrified of forgetting carefully crafted words and phrases.
- I didn't realize that as long as I had a map and knew where I was headed, I was ready to bring others along for the ride.
It turns out my assumptions were wrong. Preaching without notes was much simpler than I had realized.
How to Make Your Sermon Stick: 4 Tips for a Memorable Message
Want your sermon to be remembered beyond the end of the service? Check out these four tips you can implement this week to make your sermon stick.
Summer Preaching Reboot: How to take the stess, Tedium, & Procrastination out of your Preaching life
What if you knew you'd find new insights in the Scripture, even on your hundredth reading?
What if you knew what needed to be done each day to ensure your sermon was written by Friday?
What if you had a process and schedule you could count on every week to take the stress, tedium, and procrastination out of your sermon prep?
What if sermon prep became a joy—even a respite—rather than a weight hanging over your head all week?
An Easter Reflection for Preachers
Thank you, Preachers, for sharing the Good News of Easter.
From all of us at Backstory Preaching,
Micah, Cathie, Shaundra, Mary, Jessica, Taira, & Lisa
Pray Your Easter Sermon Into Being: A Sermon Prep Resource for Less Stress
Discerning a message and prepping a sermon amidst the other demands of preaching is a challenge.
That's why we're offering this free guide to a process that will transform your sermon prep from work to respite—all while helping you discern a transformative message for your listeners.
Last week, we introduced BsP's lectio divina sermon prep process in the post "What if You Never Had to Search for a Sermon Message Again?"
In this guide, we go deeper to help you implement each step of the 5-day process.
What if You Never Had to Look for a Sermon Message Again?
Even the most experienced preachers sometimes wonder how to pull another message out of too-familiar lessons.
Sermons driven by fear—or avoidance of embarrassment—may get the job done, but not pleasantly.
What if there were another way? A better way?
What if we never had to look for a sermon message again? And no, I don't mean looking to the internet to "borrow" someone else's sermon.
I mean, what if we didn't have to look for the message at all?
What Are You Asking of Your Listeners? A Good Sermon Counts the Cost
Why does it seem like a good sermon isn't enough to cause hearts to be changed?
If the Holy Spirit is really at work and the Gospel is preached with clarity and conviction, how come as soon as we hear the Good News we don't we embrace it and change course immediately?
How to Keep Sermon Listeners on the Edge of their Seats: Why You Should Build Tension into Every Sermon
Tension keeps us reading, watching, or listening.
Think about any book or movie that kept your attention.
- There's a need... a desire, wish, want, hope
- that's blocked... thwarted, redirected, obstructed, obscured
- which creates a question. If? Who? How? When?
- Questions create tension...suspense, anticipation, dissonance, uncertainty
- that we need resolved....settled, resolved, determined, answered
which keeps us on the edge of our seats
Ten Tips for Keeping Your Sermon Prep Out of Your Weekend
Don't want to do sermon prep on the weekends? You don't have to!
Here are ten ways to reclaim your weekends.
You spoke right to me! How did you know?
A relevant sermon connects our listeners to our message in a way that helps them find God in the midst of their lives. Lent, this season of remembrance and anticipation, is a prime time to address our listeners' challenges and questions directly.
To help listeners feel as though we're speaking right to them, we need to understand their context, their struggles, and their hopes that they'll be OK.