I have a desire to change how I preach at least every 12 months.
A fundamental switch to grow, change and force myself to rethink how I speak.
The past 12 months I have been handwriting all my messages onto a notepad.
It has given me such a sense of freedom, risk. As I have said to a number of people lately, based on all the good teaching I have received and sought, I should be able to preach from the heart a good message on the spot. That doesnt mean I do! I take the task too seriously to do that. The fundamental question I ask myself now in preparation is not….how can I preach a good message. Thats a fine question. But it is not the best question. The best question to ask is….God what do you want me to say this week.
Being a local church pastor has its challenges. One of the main ones being that you speak probably 40 times a year to the same church. This can become monotonous for everyone! So unless God is in it, I am just relying on my limited skills.
One bonus of hand written messages is that I never need to worry about printing or power. As I head off on a mission trip shortly, I have about 12 months of useable material I can draw upon, at the turn of a page.
Yeah this is good Mark.
I still use paper notes although I’ve experimented with tablets. I think the key as you indicate above is to know the core message so well that whatever you say and however you say it this is what people hear.
I find if I can’t say it clearly to Danelle in a sentence or two then it isn’t clear enough yet for me