Without Notes

The fundamental aspect of the memory system is to connect the thing you want to remember to your brain in a solid fashion. Tony Buzan, in his book Use Your Perfect Memory cites 2 fundamental principles that will aid you in your memory work. In our next post, we will look at the features. All of this is in anticipation of applying it to the problem of preaching without notes.

Imagination in Memory

To remember something we need to connect the thing we want to remember to our brain. There are two fundamental principles to doing that. The first is to use imagination. Perhaps the biggest problem with many who seek to remember things is that they do not make use of their imagination.

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Remember those infomercials about "MEGA-MEMORY?" Kevin Trudeau wrote spoke about learning some techniques to strengthen one's memory. After seeing the thing for years, I finally purchased the system off of ebay for a big reduction in cost.

After working through the system, I realized that while Trudeau's claims were extravagant at times, his system did actually work to improve your memory. I then researched and saw that these memory techniques were used by the ancients to memorize even long speeches. In addition, I saw that the techniques that Trudeau spoke of in cheap book form by other authors. One that I particularly like is by Tony Buzan. In the next couple of weeks we will look at these memory techniques specifically applying them to preaching in general and preaching without notes in particular.

You might want to purchase a memory book like Use Your Perfect Memory or even the book form of Kevin Trudeu's system that introduced me to memory techniques.

The Talking the Walk Blog has an interesting post that seeks to derive help for preachers from an interview with Denzel Washington.

Denzel answers why he did a particular hand movement in a movie by saying:

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Richard S. Storrs second lecture in the book entitled Preaching Without Notes: A Series of Lectures describes some specific conditions for success in preaching without notes. These are as follows:

1. Physical vigor kept at its highest attainable point. - The preacher must be as healthy as possible if one is to preach effectively without notes.

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Richard S. Storrs wrote a book entitled Preaching Without Notes: A Series of Lectures. The book is made up of three lectures on this subject. Storrs presents some general suggestions in the first lecture.

1. Never begin to preach without notes with any idea of saving yourselves work by it. - In this Storrs emphasizes that the amount of work is not less, although it is different. The preacher works on his or her sermon all day long. The job is to completely master the subject the preacher seeks to present.

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The Exiled Preacher has a post up on George Whitefield and Expository Preaching. Guy Davis, the author, writes about how difficult it can be to use a manuscript effectively. Certainly many of us have left our manuscript for a second to "riff" on a theme or go down a different direction. However upon attempting to come back to our manuscript we find it difficult to find the correct place.

An Evangelical Lutheran Blog run by a Father Eckardt has a post up on Extemporaneous Preaching.

In the post there is first some discussion of the Eckardt's theology and understanding of Preaching. What was of particular interest to me however was his methodology.

Peter Mead over at Biblical Preaching has a series going on Preaching without notes that I referred to in this post. In his first post he described why preaching without notes is a valuable method.

In the second post which can be found here, Mead emphasizes the HOW. Mead's method can be summed up in one word, "internalization."

What You will say not How You will say it

Well sometimes I feel like I am beating a dead horse. But this time, I am quoting someone else. Peter Mead over at Biblical Preaching is beginning a discussion of why he doesn't use notes.

Mead echoes just about everyone else who talks about this subject when he begins the post by saying that whether you use notes or not is less important than other concerns, namely is it Biblical, does it have a clear idea and purpose, and is it relevant. I would definitely agree with all of these points.

Barry Davis provides hints on how to preach with a manuscript. Davis provides examples and rules for creating a manuscript that will make your people think that you are preaching without notes.

This is a very good article on a subject that very little people write on. Namely, how do you format a manuscript for preaching.