Trailer #4: Dr. F. Bruce Williams Teaches On Sermon Preparation

[Music] you so how do you prepare your sermons it begins with the text always so I like reading it in different translations to get a feel for the text my I anticipate that my intent is actually to get a feel for the text so once once I've determined what the text is I try to commit it to memory as best I can because I believe that your subconscious is working on the text even if you're not aware of it so if you have it it's always with you and thoughts will come or illustrations will come or incidents will come and it'll come back to your mind Holy Spirit bring into your mind and I tell people not to trust your memory if something comes to you put it in your Viper phone I have a seedbed put it in your phone or write it down somewhere don't trust your memory you'll forget it so I'll try to become familiar I read all kinds of you know different translations and then you do you know what you see that similar and what's different what stands out but you know those type of things after that I try to find out after I do word studies and things like that to me before I even try to get to commentaries ideally I like to write down what I think what I think I see and so I just write down what I think I see but anything that comes upon the ideas principles truths and then I do you know those commentaries and even do some more background to see if I'm correct or if the truth I think I see is really consistent with the cultural context or literary context or the word itself or whatever then after I bring all of that to bear to inform me about it so I've already wrote down everything I think I see then I do the background research about it in the light and then once I do that I just start writing I just and oftentimes the text itself has its own structure so you'll have to come up something sometimes it'll come to me that the outline will come to me and so then I'll use that line sometimes the outline comes to me while I'm writing it but I just follow the flow of the text or the flow of the story or the flow of the thought I want to make and then you know set it aside and then go back and polish or exclude because you know if you like to study for sermons like I do you have to resist the temptation of trying to tell them everything you and file because you it's all exciting to you and so you take out for time and for focus and for clarity you check transitions and illustrations or if you're not using illustrations the illustrative language that helps people get a sense of what you're talking about because in for me you the the sermon is just to be heard is to be experienced so you you when I'm researching for it and writing it I'm not just going to the text I'm stepping in the text and looking around asking questions and using all my five senses to ask the questions and then when I put it together and you bring the scholarship the text the the information the imagination that you bring creativity that you bring to the text and then you write it out and then I used to be strictly a manuscript preacher I would not go to the God couldn't get me to go to the pulpit without a manuscript and now I don't use it I may be using magic a couple times a year I still try to write it out when I can write it all out but now I prefer the freedom once I internalize the sermon the freedom of preaching it without a management can't and so I think the sermon isn't finished until you preach it and so some people say I'm finished with my sermon but I don't think it's finished till you preach it and then once you preach it then it's finished because there's two ways of looking at you know the art of it and everything and that is you produce it for this there's the sermon now you're finished and so in that sense you are but the goal of the sermon preparation is not simply to have a sermon the goal of it is to have an impact so you really not finished giving the purpose of the sermon until it's preached so do you bring anything to bring any notes or do you bring anything to the pulpit I don't bring anything now what I do use either I'll use a outline or but again I try to do that that's the exception now and then just the back story about that it because to me whether you do that or not to that own self be true but the back story is the only reason I do that is the Lord use that to teach me about faith because I always you know I'm teaching faith but I ain't exercising any when it comes to that manuscript and so I had this whole list of reasons why I wasn't going to not do without a manuscript and gotta check them all out and until there was one last one and I and the last one was checked out in a conversation I was having with a friend of mine we were eating lunch and I was talking about and I said well man I'm not I can't do what if I forget something and he he didn't even stop eating he was just eating and when I said that he said well you know part of the ministry of the holy spirit is to bring back to your remembrance the things you've been taught he just kept talking I want to smack him because he had checked off my last excuse and so but no I usually don't bring anything you know the text you know read the text but I don't you don't bring anything [Music]

Channel: Frank Thomas

Views: 5,164

Rating: 4.9565215 out of 5

Keywords: Frank A. Thomas, Preaching Interviews, F. Bruce Williams, Bates Memorial Baptist Church, Black Preaching, African American Preaching, Christian Theological Seminary, PhD Program African American Preaching, PhD Program Black Preaching, Sermon Preparation

Id: cppJ_EQKCc4

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 04 2018