Preaching Boot Camp
Last week I went to Villanova for the Preaching Excellence Program, a conference on preaching for Episcopal seminarians. One of the best parts of the conference was getting to meet seminarians from all over the country and hear about their experiences. The other best part was the keynoter, Bill Brosend, who is the preaching professor now at Sewanee. He was amazing, as good a preacher as he was a presenter. I loved that he modeled in his preaching what he talked about in his teaching.
Some of the other presentations were a little disappointing, and so was some of the preaching, especially from the faculty. I guess I went with really high expectations and thought I would hear sermons on an equal level with Bishop Charleston's at my graduation and Bishop Sean Rowe's at my ordination. Bill Brosend met my expectations, but some of the others did not.
I found myself wondering if I am simply hyper critical, since many of my fellow conference attendees were really impressed with the sermons. What I think was going on is that about 90% of the sermons I heard last week were geared to the cognitive - those of you who've had John Dally for preaching will know what I mean. At Seabury we've been taught about how you can address three areas with a sermon - cognitive, emotive, and intuitive. I'm a strong intuitive. In order for me to understand a cognitive sermon, I need to see it written down and read the words. I don't seem to follow just by listening. So I think part of my problem was that I am an intuitive and mostly what I heard was cognitive. The sermons appealed to the intellect and didn't engage me on an emotional or intuitive level.
Intellectual sermons also come across to me as less passionate than other kinds. And that's one of the things I think is missing in a lot of Episcopal preaching: passion. Bill Brosend knew how to use his voice as well as pauses and eye contact. His sermons came across as passionate. I want to learn to do what he did.
posted by Merely Human @ 5:55 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
"I found myself wondering if I am simply hyper critical"
You have very high standards. Is that the same as hyper critical? Depends on how one looks at it. You know how good people can be, and you want them to be that good. You also know a lot of technical things about public presentations (a not inconsiderable legacy of your time in various branches of theatree), and you know that it's not rocket science, and you probably wonder why people don't seem to know what you do.
Does passion scare a lot of Episcopalians? I can think of reasons it might, but don't have much empirical basis to speculate. The only services I've been to in recent years have been the ones where toddlers are welcome, and that experiences is, well, a different one.
What do you think about the Big O from this standpoint? He's great with vowels and pauses, just a pleasure to listen to. Structure is good, though I haven't paid too close attention to be certain what I think. He's also a fine (or is that fiine, held just a little bit longer for emphasis?) writer, though his first book is faar (not faahr, mind you) better than his second.
What's the difference, in the Seabury scheme, between emotive and intuitive?
I haven't listened a lot to Obama, though I have found myself wondering if it's really so bad to wish for a president who excels at public speaking. I know a president should have other qualities as well, but I'd actually want to tune in to listen to him rather than turn him off. His first book has finally come to the top of the pile, so I'm hoping to read it soon.
It's possible that passion scares some (or even a lot) of Episcopalians, but in my experience people are hungry for it. I think one of the reasons the mainlines struggle is because they're boring. My two rules about preaching are:
Be loud enough.
Don't be boring.
For me, preaching without passion is boring, and I simply stop listening and go back to that very insistent to-do list that constantly churns in my head. And boring for me can be related to either content of the sermon or presentation.
At Seabury we have a team of professors, one of whom is a professional actress, who work with us on authentic presentation. We did a lot of exercises that I did at Sewanee in acting class - vocal exercises, physical exercises, etc., to help us get to our natural voices and free up our bodies.
The cognitive, emotive, intuitive distinctions come from Henry Mitchell's book, Celebration and Experience in Preaching. We had a little trouble distinguishing between the emotive and intuitive and even had to do an exercise where we wrote a paragraph in each form. The way I understood it, intuitive moments in preaching caused the listener to have an "ah ha," a gut reaction of "I know what that is" or "me too." When people nod with you, then you're speaking out of intuition. Emotive is about being emotionally present and figuring out what you want people to feel.
I do have high standards, and a lot of it comes from my time in theatre. So it just seems natural to me that people should learn some technical skills to make their speaking better. But more than that I want people to be passionate about the Gospel. Episcopalians tend to live in their heads, and there's nothing wrong with that except that it doesn't engage our whole selves. We can hear a lovely theological exegesis of a scripture passage, and have nice discussions of it or simply think about it in our heads, but it doesn't motivate us to DO anything or infect anyone with our passion or love for following Jesus.
Time to go pack some more.
"if it's really so bad to wish for a president who excels at public speaking"
Not in the least! It's a bully pulpit, after all. As near as I can tell he's got other good qualities too, not least of which are strategic sense and management.
People keep saying "inexperienced," but here's something from Hilzoy, back in October 2006:
"But I do follow legislation, at least on some issues, and I have been surprised by how often Senator Obama turns up, sponsoring or co-sponsoring really good legislation on some topic that isn't wildly sexy, but does matter. His bills tend to have the following features: they are good and thoughtful bills that try to solve real problems; they are in general not terribly flashy; and they tend to focus on achieving solutions acceptable to all concerned, not by compromising on principle, but by genuinely trying to craft a solution that everyone can get behind. ...
"I can't remember another freshman Senator who so routinely pops up when I'm doing research on some non-sexy but important topic, and pops up because he has proposed something genuinely good. Since I think that American politics doesn't do nearly enough to reward people who take a patient, craftsmanlike attitude towards legislation, caring as much about fixing the parts that no one will notice until they go wrong as about the flashy parts, I wanted to say this."
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html
I like your two rules! And tend to agree with your diagnosis of struggle.
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