# Do you write and read your sermons?



## J. Dean (Mar 14, 2012)

The more I read older sermons by Luther, Calvin, Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, Nettleton, etc., the more I see that they wrote out every single word for their time in the pulpit.

Most preachers I know of today do not do this. They usually set up a general outline and proceed to speak off these points, so it's a sort of "rehearsed improvisation."

Which do you do?


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## Andres (Mar 14, 2012)

I don't write any sermons, but I know my pastor writes his out pretty much word for word.


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## Covenant Joel (Mar 14, 2012)

I'm hardly very experienced in this, but I've gone from a bare bones outline to a full manuscript to an extended outline. For now, I've decided on the extended outline where I can have key quotes or words or illustrations down, but where most of the wording is developed on the spot. I found that manuscript preaching was too rigid and forced for my taste. I think I was able to keep a decent amount of eye contact, but it didn't feel natural. I have found that as long as I put in the time (perhaps even writing out a manuscript to prepare off of), I am able to more naturally and forcefully preach without a manuscript.


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## N. Eshelman (Mar 14, 2012)

I write a full manuscript and "read" my sermons in the morning. My afternoon sermons are preached from an outline. 

Here is an example of a "read" sermon: 
High Kingly Prayer, Pt 1 - ReformedVoice.com

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For the record, I am able to maintain good eye contact and interact with the congregation. I do not think that IN MY CASE a full mss keeps me from these important aspects of preaching. For me a personal discipline thing that is helpful in thought development and focus. 

Here's a video to illustrate pulpit manners while using a full mss: 
True Repentance - Chapel @ The Master's College - YouTube


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## Curt (Mar 14, 2012)

I am very experienced at this. Although I am now retired, I was in pastoral ministry for 30 years. My practice was to create a VERY full outline and know it well before I entered the pulpit. I was never enslaved by the outline, but learned it well through the process of creating it and typing it. Strangely, when presenting lectures I have always used a complete manuscript. I do not know why, nor have I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out.


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## Romans922 (Mar 14, 2012)

Are we sure all these men wrote out their sermons?

I write an outline, then a manuscript, but I do not read my manuscript. It is there, but just for keeping me on point. My goal is not to use a manuscript at all, but I'm not there yet.


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## J. Dean (Mar 14, 2012)

Romans922 said:


> Are we sure all these men wrote out their sermons?


A fair question to concede, but I know Luther and Spurgeon did. While reading a biography on him (edit: Spurgeon), I learned that only once in his time in the pulpit did he ever "improv" a sermon.


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## E Nomine (Mar 14, 2012)

Didn't Calvin hire a secretary to transpose his sermons in church and isn't it these transpositions that we have in Calvin's collected commentaries?


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 14, 2012)

Regardless of whether or not you end up using it, I still think it is helpful to write out a full manuscript because it is a thought exercise in developing your points.

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## VictorBravo (Mar 14, 2012)

J. Dean said:


> Romans922 said:
> 
> 
> > Are we sure all these men wrote out their sermons?
> ...



This is the first time I've heard that Spurgeon wrote out his sermons *before* he preached. The Spurgeon lore is that he'd take a one page scrap of paper with handwritten notes into the pulpit. But later he would write it out, or at least edit the transcript of what he preached so that it could be wired to the United States and elsewhere to be published in newspapers.

My former pastor spent some time visiting Spurgeon's church and its archives. He said it had many of Spurgeon's sermon notes, and they indeed were one page notes with the barest of outlines.

Here is a page from the Spurgeon Archive that mentions one such case: Charles H. Spurgeon's Sermon Notes


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## py3ak (Mar 14, 2012)

J. Dean said:


> Romans922 said:
> 
> 
> > Are we sure all these men wrote out their sermons?
> ...



I think you may want to check the biography, or chuck it, if it says what you represented here.

Spurgeon himself, _Lectures to my Students_, Lecture 10


> I remember to have been tried rather sharply upon one occasion, and had I not been versed in impromptu address, I know not how it would have sped with me. I was expected to preach in a certain chapel, and there was a crowded congregation, but I was not in time, being delayed by some blockade upon the railroad; so another minister went on with the service, and when I reached the place, all breathless with running, he was already preaching a sermon. Seeing me
> appear at the front door and pass up the aisle, he stopped and said, “There he is,” and looking at me, he added, “I’ll make way for you; come up and finish the sermon.” I asked him what was the text and how far he had gone with it. He told me what the text, was, and said he had just passed through the first head; without hesitation I took up the discourse at that point and finished the sermon, and I should be ashamed of any man here who could not have done the same, the circumstances being such as to make the task a remarkably easy one. In the first place the minister was my grandfather, and, in the second place, the text was — “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” He must have been a more foolish animal than that which Balaam rode, if, at such a juncture, he had not found a tongue. “By grace are ye saved,” had been spoken of as indicating the source of salvation; who could not follow by describing the next clause — “through faith,” as the channel?



A little later:



> If you are happy enough to acquire the power of extemporary speech, pray recollect that you may very readily lose it. I have been struck with this in my own experience, and I refer to that because it is the best evidence that I can give you. If for two successive Sundays I make my notes a little longer and fuller than usual, I find on the third occasion that I require them longer still; and I also observe that if on occasions I lean a little more to my recollection of my thoughts, and am not so extemporaneous as I have been accustomed to be, there is a direct craving and even an increased necessity for pre-composition. If a man begins to walk with a stick merely for a whim, he will soon come to require a stick; if you indulge your eyes with spectacles they will speedily demand them as a permanent appendage; and if you were to walk with crutches for a month, at the end of the time they would be almost necessary to your movements, although naturally your limbs might be as sound and healthy as any man’s. Ill uses create an ill nature. You must continually practice extemporizing, and if to gain suitable opportunities you should frequently speak the word in cottages, in the school-rooms of our hamlets, or to two or three by the wayside, your profiting shall be known unto all men.



On writing:



> Very strongly do I warn all of you against reading your sermons, but I recommend, as a most healthful exercise, and as a great aid towards attaining extemporizing power, the frequent writing of them. Those of us who write a great deal in other forms, for the press, et cetera, may not so much require that exercise; but if you do not use the pen in other ways, you will be wise to write at least some of your sermons, and revise them with great care.


The attentive reader will note that Spurgeon himself did not find it necessary in his own case to write out most sermons.

On speaking extemporaneously:

Lecture 6


> Two or three incidents have occurred to me which may seem rather odd to you, but then I am an odd man. When I lived at Cambridge, I had, as usual, to preach in the evening at a neighboring village, to which I had to walk. After reading and meditating all day, I could not meet with the right text. Do what I would, no response came from the sacred oracle, no light flashed from the Urim and Thummim; I prayed, I meditated, I turned from one verse to another, but the mind would not take hold, or I was, as Bunyan would say, “much tumbled up and down in my thoughts.” Just then I walked to the window and looked out. On the other side of the narrow street in which I lived, I saw a poor solitary canary bird upon the slates, surrounded by a crowd of sparrows, who were all pecking at it as if they would tear it to pieces. At that moment the verse came to my mind — “Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.” I walked off with the greatest possible composure, considered the passage during my long and lonely walk, and preached upon the peculiar people, and the persecutions of their enemies, with freedom and ease to myself, and I believe with comfort to my rustic audience. The text was sent to me, and if the ravens did not bring it, certainly the sparrows did. At another time, while laboring at Waterbeach, I had preached on the Sunday morning, and gone home to dinner, as was my wont, with one of the congregation. Unfortunately, there were three services, and the afternoon sermon came so close upon the back of the morning, that it was difficult to prepare the soul, especially as the dinner is a necessary but serious inconvenience where a clear brain is required. Alas! for those afternoon services in our English villages, they are usually a doleful waste of effort. Roast beef and pudding lie heavy on the hearers’ souls, and the preacher himself is deadened in his mental processes while digestion claims the mastery of the hour. By a careful measuring of diet, I remained, on that occasion, in an earnest, lively condition, but to my dismay, I found that the pre-arranged line of thought was gone from me. I could not find the trail of my prepared sermon, and press my forehead as I might, the missing topic would not come. Time was brief, the hour was striking, and in some alarm I told the honest farmer that I could not for rite life of me recollect what I had intended to preach about. “Oh!” he said, “never mind; you will be sure to have a good word for us.” Just at that moment a blazing block of wood fell out of the fire upon the hearth at my feet, smoking into one’s eyes and nose at a great rate. “There,” said the farmer, “there’s a text for you sir — ‘Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’” No, I thought, it was not plucked out, for it fell out of itself. Here was a text, an illustration, and a leading thought as a nest egg for more. Further light came, and the sermon was certainly not worse than my more prepared effusions; it was better in the best sense, for one or two came forward declaring themselves to have been aroused and converted through that afternoon’s sermon. I have always considered that it was a happy circumstance that I had forgotten the text from which I had intended to preach. At New Park Street, I once passed through a very singular experience, of which witnesses are present in this room. I had passed happily through all the early parts of divine service in the evening of the Sabbath, and was giving out the hymn before sermon. I opened the Bible to find the text, which I had carefully studied as the topic of discourse, when on the opposite page another passage of Scripture sprang upon me like a lion from a thicket, with vastly more power than I had felt when considering the text which I had chosen. The people were singing and I was sighing. I was in a strait betwixt two, and my mind hung as in the balances. I was naturally desirous to run in the track which I had carefully planned, but the other text would take no refusal, and seemed to tug at my skirts, crying, “No, no, you must preach from me. God would have you follow me.” I deliberated within myself as to my duty, for I would neither be fanatical nor unbelieving, and at last I thought within myself, “Well, I should like to preach the sermon which I have prepared, and it is a great risk to run to strike out a new line of thought, but still as this text constrains me, it may be of the Lord, and therefore I will venture upon it, come what may.” I almost always announce my divisions very soon after the exordium, but on this occasion, contrary to my usual custom, I did not do so, for a reason which some of you may probably guess. I passed through the first head with considerable liberty, speaking perfectly extemporaneously both as to thought and word. The second point was dwelt upon with a consciousness of unusual quiet efficient power, but I had no idea what the third would or could be, for the text yielded no more matter just then, nor can I tell even now what I could have done had not an event occurred upon which I had never calculated. I had brought myself into great difficulty by obeying what I thought to be a divine impulse, and I felt comparatively easy about it, believing that God would help me, and knowing that I could at least close the service should there be nothing more to be said. I had no need to deliberate, for in one moment we were in total darkness — the gas had gone out, and as the aisles were choked with people, and the place everywhere crowded, it was a great peril, but a great blessing. What was I to do then? The people were a little frightened, but I quieted them instantly by telling them not to be at all alarmed, though the gas was out, for it would soon be re-lighted; and as for myself, having no manuscript, I could speak just as well in the dark as in the light, if they would be so good as to sit and listen. Had my discourse been ever so elaborate, it would have been absurd to have continued it, and so as my plight was, I was all the less embarrassed. I turned at once mentally to the well-known text which speaks of the child of light walking in darkness, and the child of darkness walking in the light, and found appropriate remarks and illustrations pouring in upon me, and when the lamps were again lit, I saw before me an audience as rapt and subdued as ever a man beheld in his life. The odd thing of all was, that some few church-meetings afterwards, two persons came forward to make confession of their faith, who professed to have been converted that evening; but the first owed her conversion to the former part of the discourse, which was on the new text that came to me and the other traced his awakening to the latter part, which was occasioned by the sudden darkness. Thus, you see, Providence befriended me. I cast myself upon God, and his arrangements quenched the light at the proper time for me. Some may ridicule, but I adore; others may even censure, but I rejoice.



Indeed, he gives it as an undoubted principle that preachers will sometimes have to extemporize.



> Under certain circumstances you will be absolutely compelled to cast away the well-studied discourse, and rely upon the present help of the Holy Spirit, using purely extempore speech.



And again from Lecture 10:


> The power of impromptu speech is invaluable, because it enables a man on the spur of the moment, in an emergency, to deliver himself with propriety. These emergencies will arise. Accidents will occur in the best regulated assemblies. Singular events may turn the premeditated current of your thoughts quite aside. You will see clearly that the subject selected would be inopportune, and you will as a wise man drift into something else without demur. When the old road is closed, and there is no help for it but to make a new way for the chariot, unless you are qualified to drive the horses over a ploughed field as well as along the macadamized road on which you hoped to travel, you will find yourself off the coach-box, and mischief will befall the company.

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## KMK (Mar 14, 2012)

I don't think Spurgeon should be considered 'normative' when it comes to preaching any more than Mozart when it comes to composing.

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## Shawn Mathis (Mar 14, 2012)

I use an extensive outline (Harvard style) usually three pages long.


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## chuckd (Mar 18, 2012)

I thought I remember reading somewhere that Calvin was against much preparation at all since it took away from the Spirit speaking in the pulpit. I'll try to dig it up.

edit: Here is something about Calvin liking to be extemporaneous: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/10-distinguishing-marks-john-calvins-preaching/

edit 2: I believe I read it in this book about Calvin preferring extemporaneous preaching because it allowed the Spirit to speak more freely. Can't remember though.


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## revnbev (Mar 20, 2012)

I began with short outlines, moved to expanded outlines, and now I read my handwritten manuscript adding commentary along the way. This allows me to bring substantial quotes in, make easy cross references to other scriptures, and keep a good consistency between the two worship services we host.


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## rookie (Mar 20, 2012)

When I preached from the pulpit (it was always only presenting the gospel), I would start about 4 weeks before my night of preaching (I only preached from time to time, on Sunday evenings, as the format of the Plymouth Brethren). And I have found that nothing would come to mind for a sermon until Saturday afternoon. But when finally God would reveal what the sermon would have as a theme.....I have seen myself write out a 30 minute sermon within about 10 minutes (helps when you type nearly 40 wpm). 

I seriously believe that God wouldn't let me write something out that far in advance, so not to take the glory for God's work.

When I did write it out, I would have a huge detailed word per word sermon. But, then, I would read it over, with a clock nearby to time myself to ensure I was within the time limit.

And shaved it down, more and more to the point of having just bullet form. I found that I lost my place too often when I had a word per word manuscript facing a congregation of anywhere between 25 - 150 people in front of me, and looking up to the crowd and back on my paper.

I also had stickies in my bible so I would be able to find my verses....nothing more embarrassing that not being able to find your verses, or reading the wrong ones by mistake under pressure...lol


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## Reepicheep (Mar 20, 2012)

No matter what you take in to the pulpit, for the love of the saints...please don't read your sermons. 

They can go to your blog if they want to read something you've written.


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