Preaching Without Notes through Improvisation
This past week I attended a workshop entitled: “Authentic Patience: Improvisation and Preaching.” The presentation was by Rev Mark T. Davis who is the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Boise Idaho. Rev. Davis has an interesting sermon methodology that relies on riffs and improvisation like a jazz musician.
Saturation in the Text
Basically, Davis becomes saturated in the text of the day. He reads the text with two “teams” beginning 6-10 weeks out. The text is read and people just talk about what comes to their minds and what jumps out from the text.
Davis pushes the preacher to listen to the “echo” in the text. This is attempting to hear how the text resonates with other parts of scripture. Davis simply bathes himself in reading and hearing the text.
Little Reference to Commentaries and Dictionaries
One thing that is interesting is that Davis believes that the preacher needs to have a solid background that comes from attending divinity school. The preacher also, according to Davis should be well read and growing in knowledge. However, Davis does not specifically read any dictionary or Bible commentary in sermon prep. He simply reads the text and draws from his inner bank of knowledge that comes from years of study.
Actually Preaching
Then in the sermonic moment Davis is truly improvising. He doesn’t know for sure where he is going to go. He interacts with the people and the spirit in the moment. He will grasp hold of an idea and look at the idea from different vantage points or even set it aside if it is not working.
In the workshop all of us who wanted to took a shot at preaching a 4 minute improvisational sermon. It was freeing and fearful at the same time. I definitely will integrate some aspects of the method in further preaching explorations, but I think that the preacher should have the sermonic purpose in mind and not leave it to the sermonic event. However, I think that being open to the spirit must ever be a part of every preachers presentation.
It was well worth the time and I will continue to experiment with these methods of preaching without notes. I will discuss the method further in future posts.
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I noticed a preacher who was using a manuscript but his delivery was great. If someone uses a manuscript but has great deleivery does that add or take away from his preaching?
There are some preachers who use the manuscript very effectively…however, many preachers do not. They simply read the manuscript and do not interact with the audience. I think we all should see if we can dispense of the manuscript…You are right…some preachers are simply great…But I do think it is interesting that in other avenues of public speaking they usually promote speaking with little dependence on notes…