NY Times Article on Gardner Taylor

This is the new book mentioned in the NYT
article. It contains sermons and a CD. Find
more at www.faithinthefire.com

At 93, Gardner Taylor has been one of the leading preachers in America now for many decades. He is one of the twelve preachers Baylor highlighted in their 1996 list of the most effective preachers in the English speaking world.

Yesterday, the NY Times, highlighted his training of younger preachers in the article, "A Lion of the Pulpit, Aging Now, Has a Message for New Generation." One of my favorite parts of the article is when Dr. Gardner is instructing a younger minister by making him write sermons and then practice delivering them. Dr. Gardner doesn't hesitate to offer suggestions and critiques. "Go deeper there."  Haven't we all needed to hear that critique?  Dr. Reginald High, the young minister receiving these instructions, treasures his time with the aging Dr. Taylor. What preacher wouldn't?

I have always thought the African American preaching tradition does an excellent job of having older ministers mentor younger ministers.  This is especially when it comes to preaching. Has anyone ever had an experience in which a mentor has worked with you on your preaching? What was that like for you?  Do you think it helped your preaching?

Warp speed exegesis

Last week I attending the Preaching Practicum at Wilshire Baptist Church. The featured speaker was Dr. Anna Carter Florence, the Peter Marshall Associate Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. I was not familiar with Dr. Carter Florence other than having viewed one or two of her video clips at Workingpreacher.org. She was excellent.

One thing she taught us was what she called "Warp Speed Exegesis."  Her point wasn't how to fast-forward through exegesis. Instead, the purpose was to help the preacher dig into the text on his or her own without turning too quickly to commentaries. The practice was simple. Take the biblical text and work through it verse by verse paying particular attention to the verbs. Who is doing what? And what are they doing? What isn't happening? One also pays particular attention to where things might have gone differently in the text. What could have happened instead? 

We did this with a dificult passage, the rape of Tamar, found in 2 Samuel 13:1-22. I was surprised at how helpful this method proved to be. Part of the effectiveness was no doubt in part because we did this as a group, which was also one of the main points of the practicum. Doing this activity with lay people can add a whole other dimension to sermon preparation. The other reason this method was effective was because it help move you through the passage helping you pick up the key moments when something could have gone differently - Amnon could have confessed his troubles to a better chosen friend than Jonadab (a crafty man). David could have taken off his sin-induced blinders and kept from sending his daughter into a dangerous situation. The servants could have spoken up (though at a high cost). Before the exercise I thought to myself, how would I ever preach this passage. After the exercise, I had at least five legitimate ways I could preach this text.

Since then, I've tried this method on a few passages - Ps. 46, 1 Thess 3:6-13, and Rev 5:11-14. The results have not been as dramatic as they were for the purely narrative text in 2 Samuel. One reason might be that this works best for narratives. Another reason could easily be that I was working on my own and not with a group. Nevertheless, I have benefited from employing this method in each case and I'm grateful for Dr. Carter Florence's time with us.

Below is one of her videos from WorkingPreacher.org. In it she talks about how to involve the church in this process. Enjoy.

Learning through imitation: A comment worthy of a post

Yesterday, my friend, Eric, left this comment on my post about listening to other preachers. It reminded me of something Augustine wrote, "The fact is, given a bright and eager disposition, eloquence will come more readily to those who read and listen to eloquent speakers than to those who pore over the rules of eloquence." I liked Eric's comment so much I wanted to give it its own post so that it might get the attention it deserves. I'm going to give this a try very soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

"Research a friend of mine has done shows that repetitive listening to good sermons can enhance the listener's ability to understand and imitate vocal inflection and delivery pace, among other things. He requires his seminary students to choose a sermon (from a provided list) and listen to it over a period of three weeks. Week 1: 3 times consecutively three days in a row. Week 2: 2 times consecutively three days in a row. Week 3: 1 time three days in a row. This is based on the Suzuki music method."

Do you listen to your own sermons?

Part of my Monday morning routine involves converting yesterday's sermon into an mp3 file in order to post it to our website. For the longest time I would only listen to the first and last bits of the sermon as I clipped the rest of the service off of the file. For the last month or so, I've started listening to the entire sermon. I do other things while I listen - like writing notes to church members or sorting through some mail - but simply hearing myself speak has helped me catch some things that I'd like to change about my speaking style that I would not have noticed otherwise.

Most recently, I've noticed some verbal tics that I'd fallen into without realizing it. My wife had pointed one of these out previously (that's an issue for another post - spousal critiques!), but hearing it for myself helped me realize how irritating it was. Fixing the problem hasn't been easy, but I have been working on it.

Admittedly, the process of listening to one's own sermon is somewhat excruciating, every verbal slip up or stumble causes me to cringe, but I do think the process is helping me to become a better speaker.

So, do you listen to your own sermons? How often? What is the experience like for you? When you notice something you'd like to change about your own speaking style, how do you go about it?

- The Short Preacher