Increase in Sermon Intensity not Yelling

In my post discussing Jasper William's Whooping System, I wrote about the whooping Curve. This is an increase in intensity that subsides slightly as you enter the whoop and then grows again to the final climax.

Now often preachers hear of an increase in intensity and think of increased volume. Here the preacher yells and yells and his or her voice can give out as the wear and tear becomes greater and greater.

Your Voice Can Give Out

The other day I heard a preacher who was yelling. When the preacher got to his climax his voice totally gave out. While he was shaking hands at the door he could not even greet anyone, his voice had totally given out.

In addition, I can see preachers who have a raspiness to their voice. They have scraped their throat during years of wear and tear. All of this is due to the belief that the only way to increase intensity is by increasing the volume of your voice.

Do Much More Without Straining

However, Rev. Jasper Williams emphasizes that you can do so much more with your voice when you are not straining. He argues that your whoop should be comfortable. One should be in a "groove." And one should be able to increase and decrease the volume of ones voice as the intensity of the sermon increases.

Rev. Martha Simmons agrees and stated that many African American Preachers use too much volume in their preaching. She notes that many great Black Preachers learn to increase intensity in other ways as they grow older.

Other Ways To Increase Intensity

So the increase in intensity is not necessarily an increase in volume. One can increase ones intensity by increasing the speed one preaches. One can increase it by appealing to certain fundamentals of the black church or black experience. One might call this appealing to cliche." Paradoxically, one can increase intensity sometimes by even lowering the volume of ones voice.

Don't yell unless you really have to. Always have an overdrive. And always begin your final celebration at a lower intensity to give you somewhere to go.