Lights, Camera, Action: Helping your sermons come to life

In his book, The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching, (Abingdon, 1999), Paul Scott Wilson argues that preachers should envision their sermons as movie scenes in order to help bring their sermons to life.  Wilson's thesis reminded me of an interview I did with Richard Kannwischer, pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian in Newport Beach, California.  Dr. Kannwischer said that one of the books that had most influenced his sermon preparation was The Screenwriter's Bible.  Wilson doesn't directly reference any such work, but he does provide some basic suggestions for how to transform your sentences in ways that help the congregation to visualize what you are saying.

1. Avoid adjectives and and adverbs. Wilson argues that these descriptive words actually diminish description.   Notice the difference in the examples he provides.  The sentences without adjectives or adverbs are easier to visualize.

• "The beautiful road" vs. "The road ran alongside the beach"
• "She ran quickly" vs. "She scrambled" or "Her feet pounded down the trail"

2. Avoid cliches.

3. Concentrate on a few small details to set the scene.  Think about what details you would need to shoot the scripture text or the modern illustration as a movie.  What decisions would you need to make about gestures, clothing, the age of the character, etc.?  By just adding one or two of these details, the preacher can help a scene leap off the pages of the Bible and into a listener's imagination.  

• Clothing - By briefly mentioning a small detail about a person's clothing we can not only help the congregation visualize the scene, but we also are providing information about that person's economic situation, interest, age, profession, etc.  
• Gestures/Facial Expressions - Emotions are difficult to visualize.  Gestures or facial expressions are not.  Instead of saying, "the boy was bored," one could say, "The boy slumped in his chair with boredom."
• Age - A few quick words about the color of one's hair or the state of one's skin can give a wealth of information about a person's age.

4. Stay out of characters' heads - Wilson argues that if we want people to visualize a scene, we must "stay out of the minds of the characters."  The best movies don't narrate a character's thoughts, they show you a character's actions and let you eavesdrop on their conversations.  This leaves many thoughts hidden, but that is what creates interest in the story. The listener or viewer is drawn into into the movie (or sermon) because they want to figure out what a character is thinking.  He notes that the Bible also rarely gives us a person's thoughts, but instead focuses upon their actions and a few brief quotations of dialogue.  To this day we can read, say, the story of Adam and Eve and wonder at motive as we ponder their actions.  The Bible doesn't give us thoughts, but action and dialogue.

5. Keep the camera on people and actions - Wilson doesn't want a sermon devoid of doctrine.  In fact, his  book is an attempt to get preachers to preach more doctrine in their sermons.  But, he argues, this is done best by focusing upon God as the primary actor in the story.  Instead of preaching on the caring nature of God, we ought to preach on God reaching out to those in trouble.  The action keeps us interested and informs us about doctrine.  Just saying "God is caring" is not as interesting, even if it is as accurate.

What can preachers learn from poets?

Gary Charles briefly explains how reading helps preaching. I especially like his reasoning for reading poetry. "Most good poets," he explains, "are forced to make something that is fairly mundane, imaginative, and do it in few words. And most preachers would really benefit to learn how to say what they say in fewer words."

Amen.

Thanks again to the folks over at www.workingpreacher.org for these videos. Keep them coming.

What are your favorite books on preaching?

I try to read at least a couple of preaching books a year.  Thanks to doctoral studies, I've read more than that in this past year.  While not every book on preaching is helpful towards the task, several have proved immensely rewarding.  I'm currently reading Fred Craddock's now classic work Preaching.  In the first chapter he advocates the reading or rereading of older books on preaching:

"Let us not be uncritically enamored of the new.  Some older volumes on preaching could profitably be reissued, not as a sentimental return to old paths but as confession that part of the malaise in the discipline is due not to a stubborn refusal to move beyond tradition but to a thoughtless failure to listen carefully to that tradition.  One becomes a concert pianist not by abandoning the scales but by mastering and repeating that most basic exercise. Who could say, after all the centuries, that reading Aristotle's Rhetoric or Poetics or Augustine's instructions on preaching is no longer of benefit to the preacher?"

So the question of the week is this: What are your favorite books on preaching?  These of course, don't have to be books about preaching.  Some books my be very influential on one's preaching even if they are only indirectly about the topic.

Here are some of mine:

Favorite how-to on preaching: Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages by Haddon Robinson.  This basic text isn't glamorous, but it reminds me of the "scales of preaching" quite well.  The updated addition (2001) includes a greater emphasis upon different forms of preaching than the first (1980) plus more gender inclusive language.  It's a text I'd recommend to anyone wanting to learn to preach or to review their "scales." 

Most inspirational book on preaching: This is usually whatever book I happen to currently be reading.  But a lasting favorite is Barbara Brown Taylor's Preaching Life.  Not only does she paint a beautiful portrait of the preaching task as only she can do, a third of the book includes sample sermons which are themselves worth the price of the book.

Favorite collection of sermons: OK, this is cheating a little, but I'm going with 20 Centuries of Great Preaching, a thirteen volume set edited by Clyde Fant and William Pinson.  I inherited this from a mentor and have found it a true delight.  I freely admit that I have not read the entire thirteen volumes.  But I do occasionally pull a volume down and read through the sermons by a famous preacher.  All the heavyweights are there, but so are many that I have never heard of before.  Not every sermon is great, but many are.   

Favorite non-preaching book that has influenced my preaching:  Again, this one changes frequently. Most recently it has been Marilyn Chandler McEntyre's Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies.  This isn't a book about preaching, but a book about loving words, both written and spoken.  I don't reread many books, but this is one I can envision picking up and reading again and again.

Question of the week: Words that dance - how do you make your sermons more descriptive?

I once picked up Frank G. Honeycutt's book Preaching for Adult Conversion and Commitment from CBD's bargain section.  I didn't know what to expect from a book that only cost $3 but I was pleasantly surprised.  Honeycutt's book turned out to be a great look at preaching for transformation, something I hope all of us aim for.

As a side benefit, each chapter contains a sermon of Honeycutt's.  Each sermon reads like a three-dimensional movie with vivid descriptions that bring the biblical text into the reader's lap.  Take this section of a sermon in which Honeycut brings to life Luke 4:1-11.  The sermon is set up by a retelling of a scene from Joseph Heller's God Knows in which God utters to Moses the line, "Whoever said I was going to make sense? Show me where it says I have to make sense. I never promised sense. . . I'll give milk, I'll give honey.  Not sense."  Honeycutt moves from that line to discuss the gospel reading:

"Jesus has been invited to the home of a prominent religious leader, a successful clergyman who has a couple published books and pastors a successful congregation downtown.  This is a nice sit-down meal with the town's upper crust.  The kind of meal where you have about six more gleaming eating utensils than you really need when a single fork would do.  The sort of meal where you probably got an invitation in the mail including the white doily that falls out with the rectangular RSVP card.  The sort of gathering where someone stands at the door and makes sure you're on 'the list.'  I can't imagine that Jesus had an extensive wardrobe, but let's say he dressed up for the affair and rang the doorbell wearing nice slacks, Rockport loafers, and a navy blue sport coat.

"Jesus has hardly gotten in the door and air-kissed the hostess when he starts to deliver odious one-liners that have about the same effect as a loud fart at a funeral.  It says in the Bible that members of the church council were watching Jesus 'closely,' and to tell you the truth I can sure see why.  Into that gathering of the town's blue-blood elite, Jesus injects advice that would make Martha Stewart shiver.  It doesn't make sense, this upside-down etiquette.  'Whoever said I was going to make sense?' we can almost hear Jesus say. 'Show me where it says I have to make sense.'"

The rest of this sermon follows in this pattern as Honeycutt brings to life the healing of the man with dropsy, Jesus teaching about taking the lowest seat, and Jesus advice to invite the least of these to the next banquet.

At least in written form, the sermon's language does an excellent job of rescuing the text from the Oh-I've-heard-this-one-before syndrome.  For some preachers, such description comes naturally.  My guess is, that most of us have to work at it.  I know I do.  While we may not all be comfortable using the word "fart" in a sermon, spending time on how we describe things, finding the right word instead of simply the adequate word, can be the difference between evoking the listeners' imagination or lulling them to sleep.

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre explains in her book, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, that what we ought to be after is precision in our language.  "Precise language," she explains, "surprises like a dancer's extra second of stillness in mid-air: word and experience come together in an irreproducible moment of epiphanic delight."  That is, the precise word, well employed facilitate epiphanies, encounters with the divine.  in other words, how we say it matters.

So I wonder, how much time do you spend on how you are going to say whatever it is you are going to say?  How have you learned to say it better?

More tips on improving your sermon from Jim Martin

Over at A Place for the God Hungry, Jim Martin completes his list of ten ways to improve your preaching. The last five tips include:

1. Talk to people as if they are intelligent (they are) but resist the urge to prepare a sermon for a seminary professor.

2. Note the importance of ethos.

3. Present the opposing view as if very intelligent, good people believe this.

4. If you want people to take you seriously, then do nothing that might give them reason not to.

5. Take your preaching seriously and yourself less seriously.

Read his excellent explanations about each tip here.

Five quick suggestions for making this week's sermon better

Jim Martin over at God Hungry blog gives five suggestions for better preaching. They're good. Check them out here.

Question of the week: What preachers do you like to listen to?

Last week we talked about listening to one's own sermons for the purpose of self-evaluation. Today, we're visiting about listening to other people's sermons for personal and professional edification. I've made it a practice to listen to other people's sermons for a while, now. It helps with my own creativity. It keeps me thinking of ways to improve my own sermons. Perhaps most importantly, it feeds my soul.

Here are three preachers I've listened to recently - who do you like to listen to?

Adam Hamilton - Dr. Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.

You can stream or download both audio and video at his church's website and on Itunes.

The sermon below is a sermon he preached a few weeks ago that combines a first person monologue (something we've discussed recently) with a normal sermon. I don't know what I think about combining the two, but it gives you an idea of what we were talking about previously.



Richard Kannwischer is the Senior Pastor at St.Andrews Presbyterian Church in New Port, Beach, CA. I visited with Dr. Kannwischer a few months ago for a D.Min. project. He was gracious and kind and had a wealth of wisdom for the task of preaching. I benefited greatly from that conversation and from listening to his sermons.

The video below is the only one I could find in a video format, but audio of his sermons can be streamed/downloaded from both his church's website and on Itunes.

Easter Sermon 04/04/10 St. Andrews Presbyterian Church from sapres on Vimeo.

Julie Pennington-Russell is the senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA. Julie was my pastor in Waco, TX when I was in seminary.

The sermon below is one she gave to the students and faculty of Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Audio of her weekly sermons can be streamed and downloaded at her church's website.

Seminary Chapel September 24, 2009 from Logsdon Seminary on Vimeo.

Using a blog to organize sermon illustrations

Back in seminary I inherited my childhood pastor's illustration file. This involved several file cabinets of illustrations, upwards of 4,000 illustrations of all types collected over decades of ministry. My pastor was a man of immense organization. The illustrations were filed away simply in the order they were collected, each labeled with a number. Then, in a small box, were hundreds of index cards each with a heading: marriage, sacrificial love, missions, etc. On these cards were written numbers that corresponded to various illustrations. This system had several advantages to simply filing the illustrations themselves according to subject. Most illustrations can be used for more than one topic. Unless one wants to make multiple copies of an illustration, you risk missing a good illustration because it's in one file and not another. With Dr. Land's system, that problem is solved. You simply write that illustrations number on all the subject cards it fits.

In many ways, Dr. Land's system anticipates what happens when I file my illustrations on a blog. I simply type the illustration once, then tag (or label) it with all of the subject headings I think fit that particular illustration. Then I can search the entire system by simply searching that tag word. The advantages of the blog, are that I don't have to retype things if I find them in electronic form. I can simply type a brief summary that will jog my memory and then link to the original article.

I've been keeping my illustration file this way for about five years. I keep this particular blog private because most things on there are copyrighted. With it being for my eyes only I avoid any trouble on that front. When I use an illustration I simply write in a comment noting the date and setting in which I used it. That way, a few years from now (or even months the way my memory is going!) I don't have to go by my memory alone to determine if I've used that illustration before.

This works for me. What works for you?

- The Short Preacher