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Image, Embodiment, and Delivery
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Image,
Embodiment, & delivery in
PReaching
Telling Our Stories
Telling Our Stories
Who gets nervous about public speaking?
Tell your story
Tell a brief story about a moment from your time in seminary
Processing
Is it easy or difficult to recall your stories? Why?
Processing
How do you internalize your stories?
What kind of structure do your stories have?
A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Baby Shower
It's raining Cats and DOgs!
Thinking it Over
What made these harder or Easier for you?
A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Why do emojis work for communication?
What does this mean for a sermon?
Time is money!
The Birds and the Bees
A Bird in the Hand is worth Two in the Bush
Father
Son
No Use Crying over Spilled Milk
And Holy Ghost
Nothing new Under the Sun
Don't Look
It was the best of Times, it was the worst of Times
A Gift Horse
in the Mouth
Image - Embodiment - Delivery
Hieroglyphics
Greek: "hieros" = holy or sacred
"gluphe"= carving or mark
Egyptian: mdw ntr (pronounced 'medew netcher)
roughly translated as "Divine Speech"
Image - Embodiment - Delivery
The Concept of Divine Speech
- speech is a gift from the Creator
- speech is linked to creation
- speech manifests a given reality
What does this mean for preaching?
thought -> word -> deed
How do we translate our thoughts into communicable ideas that our listeners can experience, internalize, and put into action?
Preaching constitutes a rhetorical performance whose gendered nature plays a critical role in the reinforcement of the hearers’ beliefs, and to analyze such performances requires acknowledging the body as both an expressive instrument and an object of meaning itself. One speaks through the body, but the body itself speaks and signifies, conveying thought and meaning beyond words. What a given person says is situated in specific rhetorical spaces.
Roxanne Mountford, The Gendered Pulpit, pg. 4-6
What does all of that mean for preaching?
- Your body is both a communicative instrument *and* a symbol when we preach
- Spaces exert power over human behavior and perspective
- The pulpit space has traditionally reinforced male authority and physical segregation of ministers and congregants
- the role of the preacher derives power and authority from physical space
A Preaching Case Study
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
A Preaching Case Study
Location: Marquand Chapel, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT
Setting: Weekday Service of the Word
Questions for Reflection
1. Describe the setting for this sermon. What sort of impact do you think it has on the sermon? How does (or has) setting shape(d) your sermons? Give examples.
2. What do you notice about the delivery and presentation of the sermon? What details stand out or prompt questions?
Questions for Reflection
3. In one sentence, describe the central idea/purpose/focus of this sermon.
4. How does the preacher take advantage of image, embodiment, and gesture in the sermon delivery?
Questions for Reflection
5. How does the preacher engage the scriptural content/grounds for the sermon? Do you think this is effective or not? Give examples.
6. The preacher gives this sermon without notes. What difference does that make?
What are Our Habits for Sermon preparation?
Sermon writing: Best practices
1. Time Management
My template: 1 page, single spaced = about 5 minutes of talking
(your results may vary)
Strategies
2. Write for the ear, not the page
Write your sermon the way you talk, not the way you write an essay.
i don't talk in paragraphs; I speak in phrases.
Like this.
We read in sentences and paragraphs.
But we speak in shorter units.
Try it in your sermon.
3. Focus, Function, and Movement
Write out your focus and function first;
- the sermon should develop your focus
- the sermon should lead to your function
Analogy: golf versus track
Golf: a game of starts and stops
Track: a sport of continuous motion
The BIG IDEA
Your sermon should have a continual flow, not a series of starts and stops
4. Meditation and Prayer in preparation
The sermon is a consequence of
1. divine inspiration - (external influence)
2. daily orientation - (internal life)
3. diligent preparation - (applied practices)
What do you give the spirit to work with?
5. Avoiding Supercessionism and Anti-semitism
1. Avoid the "bad Judaism" vs "good Jesus" trap
2. Avoid the "OT God" vs "NT God"
3. Jesus is a notable Jew, *not* a Christian
4. Our social location does not wholly define interpretation/meaning.
6. inclusive language
Our language for describing God should move beyond exclusively male language
7. Using Scripture beyond your primary text
1. Needs to have relevance to your sermon focus
2. Needs to aid the development of your sermon focus
8. Exegesis is Essential
Let yourself ask questions; this is how you get to places with the text that you didn’t anticipate or couldn’t imagine
9. We have all inherited a preaching pedagogy
We all have embedded notions about what makes for "good preaching" and how we should aim to practice it. Always challenge your assumptions and inheritances.