# "Scree" style preaching



## BobVigneault (Jul 28, 2008)

I ask this question now and then on the board and haven't found an answer yet but with so many Scotts on the board now perhaps someone knows.

I was down in Tennessee a few years ago and listening to some AM radio and caught a 'church' service. During the preaching time, the man (or woman) preacher would do this style of preaching that I've been told is called 'Scree'.

He or she would start out soft and slow and then establish a cadence that increased in volume, speed and intensity until it would hit a crescendo and then stop for a moment, then it would start in again and just keep following this cyclical pattern.

I'm curious to know how, when and where this style of preaching came about. Thanks.


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## greenbaggins (Jul 28, 2008)

I don't know where it originated. However, I use a more long-term version of this in my own preaching based on my understanding of the shape of musical phrasing, as well as the shape of plot in novels that builds to a climax and has a denoument.


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## BobVigneault (Jul 28, 2008)

Pastor Lane, I don't think these folks had much in common. To them, 'denouement' is what you shake out of the box when you finished gumming on 'da old mint'.


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## greenbaggins (Jul 28, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> Pastor Lane, I don't think these folks had much in common. To them, 'denouement' is what you shake out of the box when you finished gumming on 'da old mint'.



I'm sure you're right in terms of culture.  However, most forms of music (even folk) will have musical phrases that have a steady increase in tension throughout the line. They have an up and a down to them. This, by the way, is why I personally dislike popular music: there is often very little shape to the song as a whole or to the phrases in particular.


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## BobVigneault (Jul 28, 2008)

These guys just keep cycling over and over in this style, there's not much content but a lot of excitement. I can't imagine how anyone could think that Jesus and the apostles would have preached this way. Then again I don't see how folks would think they could act like Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley.


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## Poimen (Jul 28, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> Pastor Lane, I don't think these folks had much in common. To them, 'denouement' is what you shake out of the box when you finished gumming on 'da old mint'.


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## py3ak (Jul 28, 2008)

That's the way Zubin Mehta conducts, or at least the way he did when the Israeli Philharmonic toured in Mexico.


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## panta dokimazete (Jul 28, 2008)

You can shape an entire worship service in this way, also. It is very effective, in the proper context, to focus the worshipers' entire being on the matter at hand, instead of plugging in activities to "check the box" of the order of worship, willy-nilly.(or since this *is *the PB, "will thee, nil thee")


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