48b) Preacher & His Present Relationship to His Paper, #2

Maintaining Living Contact: When and How to Look at Notes

0:03 Alright brethren, let's seek to pick up where we left off in the previous hour, giving some general guidelines with respect, again, not to the matter of how much writing is done in the study or even how much paper is carried into the pulpit, but how we relate to that paper, however much it may or may not be, in the act of preaching. And I've given these first three lines of counsel. Never read a complete manuscript from the pulpit. Secondly, aim at reducing the sermon to a one-page skeleton to be carried into the pulpit. And thirdly, look at your paper only as frequently as is absolutely necessary.

0:44 And now, guideline number four. Look at your paper at those times which are least likely to break your living contact. With the congregation. Look at your paper at those times which are least likely to break your living contact with the congregation.

1:07 When there's a natural pause for reflection, suppose you have pressed a question upon the minds of your listeners. Well, as you're letting that question sink in, that may be a convenient time to look down at your notes. Because you have, as it were, turned the eyes of their mental faculties. The mental faculties inward upon themselves by that question that has forced them to self-reflection. That's a convenient time. When you've asked them to turn to a given passage, that's a very good time to glance at your notes.

1:40 Would you please turn with me to Jeremiah chapter four? And while they're turning, you already have it there. You glance at your notes, make sure you're on track, where your next steps are going. You're not breaking the living contact in the act of preaching itself.

1:55 There's a natural pause. There's a natural way that it's broken. And may I say by way of pause, that's why unless you're preaching through a passage, one passage where they have the Bible open on their lap, don't urge the people to flip up every page. Because when you do, you're constantly breaking the living contact because some are quicker than others at finding the passage. And while they're flipping for a passage, they're not fully engaged with you.

2:19 They may be picking up something, but much of that other dimension of preaching is being lost. So look at your paper in such times. And since eye contact is not naturally broken at such times, since eye contact is broken, you seize them with their eyes. You've got the passage. You've glanced at your notes. So by the time they've turned and looked up, you've already grabbed them with your eyes.

2:47 You're not there with them waiting for you. But you've glanced. The passage is there. You're now engaged.

Positioning Your Paper for Effective Communication

2:55 Waiting for them. And then you draw them back in again. And you take the initiative in that drawing of them back into that living contact. Then, counsel number five, place your paper in a position directly in line with the majority of the congregation.

3:14 Now, here again, this sounds so mundane. But obviously, a lot of men either never think of it, or if they think of it, they don't do anything about it. Or they can't get their beacons to do it. Or they can't get their beacons to do something about it.

3:27 It's vital that your face, the eyes, the mouth, not be constantly and unnaturally wrenched away from your people and fixed on your paper. Frankly, there is very little that is either aesthetically or rhetorically moving about your forehead, especially if you've got a receding hairline.

3:51 And there's nothing very moving or instructive about the top part. Or the frame of your glasses. So if when your notes, if they're down here in such a place that they line them up and read them, you're going to see the receding hairline. I mean, really, you're breaking much of what is critical in that living interaction.

4:10 Your eye. Your mouth. So thankful for my father as formerly an officer and then a bandmaster in the Salvation Army, insisting when we played an instrument that we always keep the bell of the instrument out. Never allowed it.

4:25 To go down that forced you to keep your elbows out and your head up. And that was a cardinal sin with my dad. If you allowed the bell of your instrument, whether it was the trombone or whether it was what you call the peck horn, which is an alto horn in the Salvation Army band that plays usually the syncopated beat. A musician here can appreciate that.

4:45 And they call it the peck horn. But if dad saw the bell dropping down, he got on your case. The sound was to project outward. And if you.

4:55 If you were reared with a mother hard of hearing as I was, she could only hear with normal tones if she could read the lips and have the voice projected directly. Keep the mouth out this way. And the eyes, since they are so much a part of this whole mysterious element of the truth coming through the sanctified humanity of the preacher, place your paper in a position directly in line with the bulk of the congregation. And if that means that you've got.

5:25 To make some alterations and have a retainer bar pushed up higher. You'll notice in our pulpit upstairs that there's an adjustable retainer bar. That's not the pulpit didn't just come that way. There's a certain preacher that insisted it be designed and made that way.

5:43 And when speakers come that are taller or shorter, whatever it is, we try to adjust that to be suitable to their size. And as I mentioned to some of the men, we've got to make even a further. Major adjustment to have the center part that holds the notes would be adjustable to come up higher. Having a tall man like the recent preacher here this past Lord's day, I felt bad that in a way we put him in physical circumstances that made this very principle impossible.

6:13 If his paper could have been up another six inches, then we would have seen more of his eyes and of his mouth when he had to look down at his notes. And in a sense, I sat there feeling guilty, knowing I was going to be. We're lecturing on this very thing. I just had the point made all the more forcibly to me.

6:30 So whatever you have to do in some churches, you may go in and you may find that the notes are so far down here. Well, if there's enough space, then ask around if there's something or take a book or something to just prop up your notes and get them up a bit more so that as you speak, there is as little disjuncture between the basic line of your eyes and your mouth and what you're doing. When you're looking at your notes. So seek to place your paper in a position directly in line with the bulk of the congregation.

7:04 Whoever saw a court scene where a lawyer before a jury, if he had any notes, buried his face in his notes rather than keep them here in a place where he could continually engage the eyes of the jury. And if he glanced at his notes, the eyes were very soon back in the jurors faces. His notes were there. But.

7:26 They weren't a distraction. They didn't break the living communication. Well, the sons of this world in their generation are wiser than the sons of light. Didn't change the content of the lawyers summing up at all.

7:41 But its effectiveness would be greatly hindered were he to bury his face in his paper.

7:51 Try to think in terms of preaching with one of those collars they put on you after a whiplash. You ever have one of those collars on? You can't reach down and lick your whiskers. I mean, the collar keeps the head like this.

8:07 Well, you don't want someone going like you've got a stiff neck. But if you can think in terms of preaching that I have very little forward mobility with my neck. Now, you may have great mobility. I hope you do.

8:16 I hope you do neck exercises. People who study must occasionally do something to keep the neck mobile or you're going to have neck problems. That's another whole issue. Don't get me sidetracked on that.

8:28 I'd better stick to my manuscript. All right. But try to think in terms of not allowing the neck to drop forward. And if you do look down at all, let a little bit of the whole body move forward.

Cultivating Extemporaneous Speech

8:40 But seek as much as possible to keep that direct line of communication with the congregation. And then council directive number six, labor continually to cultivate the skills of extemporaneous speech. Now, here. We need to do a little work in defining linguistically impromptu and extemporaneous are synonyms for unprepared, unrehearsed speech.

9:11 But in homiletics and in the dictionary, there is a practical and a real difference. Impromptu speech is off the cuff speech. For example, suppose I were to say in the next three minutes, I want each of you to. Compose without any paper in front of you a brief little statement on why I like the fall as my favorite time of the year.

9:41 All right. I'm just picking something out of the air. And then I would ask you one after another stand up, starting over here with our brother Greg. Three minute impromptu speech on why fall is your favorite time of the year.

9:55 No formal preparation, no specific preparation. That's impromptu speech. Extemporaneous speech and the way it's used by the homileticians is a speech, namely a sermon made with very specific, often meticulous preparation. Preparation beginning with exegesis, moving into form and structure of homiletics, taking the shape and form of a sermon, but one that is delivered without a manuscript or delivered without previously memorizing the entire contents of what one is to give in the act of preaching. As a sample, let me quote from Spurgeon with respect to this matter of cultivating the skills of extemporaneous speech. Every man who wishes to acquire this art must practice it. Now, he doesn't mean impromptu.

10:58 Spurgeon had no sympathy for impromptu preachers. And he abominates. He calls them windbags and other very unpleasant terms, all right? So every man who wishes to acquire this art of extemporaneous, that is, preaching without memorizing the sermon, preaching without reading a manuscript, preaching from serious, arduous, careful preparation, but allowing that preparation to clothe itself in the words and thought forms that the act of preaching itself dictates every man who wishes to acquire this art must practice it.

11:39 It was by slow degrees, as Burke says, that Charles Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. He attributed his success to the resolution that he formed when very young of speaking well or ill at least once every night. During five whole sessions, he used to say, I spoke every night but one, and I regret only that I did not speak on that night too. At first he may do so with no other auditory than the chairs and books of his study, imitating the example of a gentleman who, applying for admission to this college, assured me that he had for two years practiced himself in extempore preaching in his own room.

12:24 Students living together might be of great mutual assistance by alternately acting the part of audience and speaker with a little friendly criticism at the close of each attempt. Conversation, too, may be of essential service if it be a matter of principle to make it solid and edifying. Thought is to be linked with speech. That is the problem.

12:47 And it may assist a man in its solution if he endeavors in his private musings to think aloud. This is very helpful counsel. So has this become habitual to me, says Spurgeon, that I find it very helpful to be able, in private devotion, to pray with my voice. Reading aloud is more beneficial to me than the silent process, and when I am mentally working out a sermon, it is a relief to me to speak to myself as the thoughts flow forth.

13:21 Of course, this only masters half the difficulty, and you must practice in public, in order to overcome the trepidation occasioned by the sight of an audience. And I told you, we've got good company. But halfway is a great part of a journey. Good impromptu speech is just the utterance of a practiced thinker.

13:44 Listen to that again. Good impromptu speech is just the utterance of a practiced thinker. A man of information meditating on his legs. Not meditating with his legs as his subject, meditating, we would say, on his feet.

14:01 Meditating while on his legs, on his feet. Think aloud as much as you can when you are alone, and you will soon be on the high road to success in this matter. The discussion and debates in the classroom are of vital importance as a further step, and I would urge the more retiring brethren to take a part in them. The practice of calling upon you to speak upon a topic drawn at random from a bowl out of a wide selection has been introduced among you, and we must more frequently resort to it.

14:31 So apparently various subjects were put on a piece of paper, put in a bowl, and you went into the bowl and drew it out, and then, boom, you had to speak on it amidst your peers. What I condemned as a part of religious worship we may freely use as a scholastic exercise among ourselves. It is calculated to try a man's readiness and self-command, and those who fail in it probably as much benefit as those who succeed. For see...

14:58 Self-knowledge may be as useful to one as practice to another. It is the discovery that you are as yet a bungler in oratory should drive you to severer study and more resolute endeavors. It may be the true path to ultimate eminence. I love Spurgeon's down-to-earth sagacity.

Further Counsel on Extemporaneous Preaching

15:20 He's a Mr. Sagacity in so many points. So labor to cultivate extempore speech. Speaking, and I commend to you, and I re-read the chapters yesterday in preparation for the lecture today, the three chapters of Alexander on this matter of extempore preaching.

15:42 I think it's called extempore. Just read the three letters that he sends.

15:50 And, yes, extempore preaching. And he has some very, very helpful insights. He's writing to a young man, and he recognizes the...

16:00 the fears and the struggles, and he very wisely counsels him and gives very practical help. Begin at once. Not easily combined with reading. Pre-meditation essential.

16:11 Choose your topics wisely. Things that perplex the speakers, etc. Very, very helpful counsel. And I would urge you...

16:20 I don't think that's in part of your assigned reading, so I do commend it to you and trust that you will make some effort to read his counsel, and then to implement it. And then also, in Bridges on the Christian Ministry, there are some very helpful practical suggestions on page 290 and 291. And basically, what this section does is seeks to bring about a synthesis. He surveyed those who advocate preaching from a full manuscript, and those who advocate preaching without a scrap of paper in front of you, but your Bible.

16:58 And then he says, well, perhaps at the end of the day, the most helpful middle course is to seek to reduce what you are planning to preach to a brief outline. You have the outline there. There's a sense then that some of the fear, what do I do if my mind goes totally blank, that fear that can create fear, that in turn can produce the dry mouth and all the other things, that having at least the outline there takes away that fear. And yet, by having just a mere outline, we are...

17:30 We are kept from the almost inevitable erosion of true pulpit eloquence in the highest sense of that word by the trammeling influence of a full manuscript. So, in summarizing what Bridges says, I would urge upon you a consideration of his counsel. Now, let's come much more briefly to large letter B, practical counsels concerning the reading of quotations in your preaching. It's not the same.

Practical Counsels for Reading Quotations: Sparsity and Preparation

17:59 It's not the same thing that we've been wrestling with, but it seems that this is the best place to put it in the scheme of things, since it has to do with the whole subject of reading material in the act of preaching. And I would give you these five basic words of counsel with respect to use of quotations in preaching. Number one, be sparse in your use of quoting. You are being set apart to labor in the word and in doctrine, you are set apart because God's people have recognized in you that deposit of wisdom and grace and ability to speak the word unto edification, and they don't want just a rehashing of other men's brains. Now, what I do in these lectures is not preaching, and I have profuse quotations, and that for good and wise reasons. But to bring that over into the pulpit is not only to teach, it's not only going to undermine your people's confidence in your ability to do the study and to do the background work and to read the proper offerts and give them the fruit of it, but it's also going to greatly impede you, unless you memorize your quotes, from many of these principles we've been articulating about how much paper and how we are tied to our paper in our preaching. Because every time you read a quote, you're tied to your paper.

19:27 So be sparse in the use of quoting. You could give many other reasons, but those should suffice. Secondly, seek to have your quotations copied before bringing them into the pulpit. It can be very intimidating for someone to see the preacher come up into the pulpit, not only with a folder that has his notes, but with an armful of books, and they say, oh boy, we're going to get a long one this morning.

19:53 And they see all of these books, and no matter how much you may not even be thinking about trying to give these books, the impression of being learned, put yourself in the place of a visitor.

20:04 And they would have reason to wonder, is this guy trying to impress us with how widely he's read and how much he knows? Or is he going to read all of those books? I mean, they could think all kinds of things. So as a matter of, in all things, seeking to commend yourself in your ministry, by all means seeking to save some, in nothing giving offense, that the ministry be not blamed, be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, seek to have your quotations copied before bringing them into the pulpit.

20:34 Some of us sought to follow that injunction, even though it meant pushing our pen long and hard at times. It's a little bit easier now with a nice little Canon PC-3, one sheet at a time, copier sitting at my desk, and I've blessed God again and again for that lovely modern convenience. But then thirdly, and brethren, I can't emphasize this enough, and I hope in some little measure, I've illustrated this, even in the lectures, today, seek to master the contents of your quotations by frequent oral reading before using them in the pulpit. Don't assume that by reading them over a couple of times and comprehending them, that you are now prepared to read them out loud. Sometimes all kinds of things go on when you've read something that was very clear to you when you read it, but when you start to read it out loud, the manner of your reading, reflects the syntax and the various shading and coloring of the words that went on automatically in your mind while you read it silently. But now when you're going to convey that to others, they don't have the written text in front of them, and your reading of it will either convey the thought clearly or will get it all muddled up. And that's why it's vital to take those quotes and read them as often as some of these have been read as I've taught this course now for a long time.

22:00 This is the sixth time I try to go back with all of them and read them out loud afresh, familiarize myself with them, some of them with which I'm more familiar. I may just sort of mumble them very quickly, but I want to make sure that when I come to class and start to read them, I don't get halfway through the sentence and say, uh-oh, I've already spent the wrong part of emphasis, and there's no way to correct it but to go back and start all over again. Try to have your quotes mastered by frequent oral reading. If what you're going to quote is worth quoting, it's worth quoting well.

Practical Counsels for Reading Quotations: Ellipsis, Paraphrase, and Archaic Words

22:33 You're quoting it because you believe it's going to make a telling blow on people's minds more telling than your own words. Well, if so, read it in such a way that it accomplishes that rather than make people sit there and say, hmm, wonder why in the world he quoted that. They should be done and say, I'm so glad he quoted that and feel in debt that you took the time to cull out that gem to set before them. And then, fourthly, with regard to reading of quotations in your preaching, master the art of ellipsis and of paraphrase.

23:08 What is ellipsis? Ellipsis is where you drop out things that technically speaking are essential to the grammar and to the sense, but when you do, the sense is still clearly conveyed. That's ellipsis. And then paraphrase is giving the thought on my feet because I have re-read and hopefully mastered the content of that sentence.

23:31 Perfection out of bridges, I was able on my feet looking at the time and knowing the constraints to give you a paraphrase of what bridges was saying. So I presented them as bridges thoughts in paraphrased form. And so as you're preaching, you may find that, oh man, I expected at this point I'd still have 15 minutes of the normal time to preach, but I've got some enlargement on a given part. I miscalculated how long another part would take.

24:01 And this quote that I'm to read that's going to take three or four minutes, I really can't afford the luxury of that three or four minute quote. So you may want to just give your own synopsis of it, your own paraphrase of it, and work at this. And this is something, again, you can do in your general reading. If you're following through on the counsel to try to use your vocal apparatus at least 15 minutes a day, try doing this in some of your reading.

24:27 When you've read a paragraph out loud and sought to read it, giving the proper shading to the words, then go back and say, all right, now suppose I had to paraphrase that and reduce it to its essence in my own words. And seek to do that. Like any other skill, it can be cultivated and can be developed by practice. And then the fifth word of counsel, since often we are quoting from older writers, drop, or I could, but change archaic words.

25:03 In many of the quotes that I give to you, you don't know when I'm dropping and changing archaic words that would immediately raise a mental barrier. You'd say, what in the world does that word mean? Now, I generally look it up so that I know what it means, so that I can give a good synonym. And I had that experience even again yesterday.

25:22 Several words that I, for the life of me, didn't know what in the world they meant. And I found it helpful to look them up and then come up with them and add a good synonym. But here again, you see, the great concern is in seeking to communicate something that we feel is especially telling, you don't want to derail the minds of your listeners with a word that isn't in their working vocabulary. And the moment you use such a word in quoting, the mind stops.

25:53 Most people's minds would stop and say, well, what's that word? And you're going on and throwing out this gold dust and they ain't getting none of it. Because you did not use good judgment in terms of substituting that rather esoteric word with one that was more within the realm of the working vocabulary of the majority of your people. So, just those practical counsels with regard to the reading of quotations in your preaching and certainly the other principles apply as well.

26:24 Master it to the point where as you're reading it, there isn't a great disparity because you're reading it. There's a great disparity between your reading voice and your preaching voice. I try to work on these things to see if I can move into my quote so naturally that people don't know where I stopped speaking of myself and where I began quoting. In terms of the tone of my voice, in terms of how it's worked in, and it's amazing again how with a little practice you can do that.

26:53 So that I should be able in speaking to you now in my normal tone of voice to go right on and say without you knowing when I began to quote Spurgeon that the acquisition of another language affords a fine drilling for the practice of extempore speech. Now you see, there wasn't any great disparity between my natural voice and my quoting of Spurgeon. And you want to labor at doing that and that will in turn then pressure you to bring to your reading of quotes these other rhetorical principles that we've been dealing with today in terms of how we relate to our paper so that in a sense it may almost appear to your listeners as though you half-memorized what you're quoting to them because you've so mastered the substance of it and able to convey it with feeling, with understanding, and in some places with genuine pathos and earnestness. Well, I've completed what I wanted to say today and I want to just add a little P.S. from McElvain.

McElvain on Familiarity with the Manuscript

27:54 I omitted it at the time because I was fearful I wouldn't have time to include it. But now, now that I see I've got a couple of minutes let me add this little P.S. where he has a whole chapter on familiarity with the manuscript.

28:10 And here he's saying if you're going to use a manuscript in public speaking and of course in preaching then you ought to be thoroughly familiar with that manuscript and then he gives the reasons why.

28:24 And you'll hear both echoes of Dabney here and also echoes of some of the previous perspectives that McElvain has given. In order to speak well from manuscript it is indispensable that the mental operations of taking in the sense through the eye should be suppressed altogether. Consequently, much greater familiarity with the manuscript is required in this method of speaking than with the printed page or manuscript in reading. In fact, it must be such as to enable the speaker to carry on all these operations strictly as sub-processes and for the most part unconsciously. If they become at all prominent in the consciousness they cannot fail to manifest themselves in all the vices of elocution to which this method of speaking is liable. Hence, the speaker should never fail to make himself as familiar as possible by previous practices with the matter of his discourse including its structure, drift, and general arrangement so that the relations of the several part to each other and to the whole may be carried in his mind. Also, the first words of each general head, topic, paragraph, and sentence should be made so familiar

29:54 in its relation to what follows as to suggest its subject, object, and principal thoughts. By a single unconscious glance at the first words of any sentence the speaker should be able to possess himself of the whole of it as nearly as possible in the words in which it is written. In the degree in which the speaker neglects this previous study and his familiarity with his manuscript falls short of what is here required in any of these particulars will his delivery be enfeebled. And then he goes on.

30:31 To give additional benefits that come from this familiarity with the manuscript. And let me just highlight the second. It enables the other sources of power being fully released from the embarrassment of these sub-processes. You know what you feel like when the man who is preaching is struggling to get what he wrote on his notes.

30:56 You wonder if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he if he If you feel for him. Instead of experiencing something of God's truth impacting your own heart you feel pity for this poor fellow that's struggling to somehow get what's what's there clear clear enough in up here so he can give it to you. And you struggle with him. And if you have a heart at all you feel with him and for him.

31:31 And you say the poor fellow is lost. without a compass, and his hat's pulled down over his eyes at night's coming, and you say, how are we ever going to get him out of this mess? Well, McElvain recognized this, and he said, we must be delivered then from this embarrassment of the sub-processes so the speaker is enabled to throw all of his faculties into the proper work of delivery. With a momentary and unconscious reference to the manuscript, his eye and countenance are sufficiently free to exert their mysterious powers upon the audience and to secure their attention and sympathy, while in the full consciousness of speaking directly to them, he grasps them with his mind and holds them up to the object which he aims to accomplish. Thus, all the signs which he employs, both of voice and gesture, naturally take on their truancy. The true forms and the speaking is clothed with power. Well, again, I can only commend the thoughts and the insights of McElvain to your serious consideration.

32:44 Well, I'm done with what I had hoped to lay before you, and we have a few minutes left.