Always Strive to Improve Your Preaching

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone to the Unfiltered podcast. Lee Stephenson here. Your local church planter, overseer of Church Planting for Converge.

Danny Parmelee: I'm Danny Parmelee. I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And today we're going to talk about probably one of the hardest topics for any pastor, preacher, church planter. And it's how do we actually get better in our preaching? And the reality is, Danny, I don't know about for you, but I've never met a church planter that thought that they were an awful preacher. Meaning, I got this figured out. I can preach and man, people just come to Jesus. And I'm the next greatest thing when it comes to the preaching. But the reality is, we can all grow. We can all continue to be developed in our preaching.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, absolutely. And I would say that I'm still growing and learning, adapting and changing. And have changed even how I prepare and how I deliver. And notes versus memorization versus manuscript, all of those different things.

Lee Stephenson: So, why don't we just quickly explore like, where did you start when you began preaching? How do you prepare? And how do you actually deliver your message now?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. So, I'll start by saying that, you know, in seminary, my preaching professor was Bob Merritt, who is a great preacher.

Lee Stephenson: He's a pretty decent preacher.

Danny Parmelee: He's all right, yep. At Eagle Brook in Minnesota. So, I was thankful to have him. He taught straight manuscript. We had to manuscript. So, I'm thankful for the preparation, and that kind of learning how to do that. That was helpful for me. But that also is not my style or personality. So, I learned in manuscript, but when I planted the church, I did straight memorization in the sense that I would have, you know, one three by five card that would have maybe four or five, you know, points on it. Like intro, you know, your three points, and then you know, a closing type of thing. And I would work through memorization. I spent a majority of my time with sermon prep, actually studying the passage, knowing the passage, and then almost the memorization part was working through just how I would communicate it. So, I did that for a long time. And then it started to grow from a three by five card to well, hey, here's a quote, or here's a sentence. So, I might take that kind of more of what I would say, an outline approach. Where here's the point. I don't, you know, type out anything, but I'm going to type out, hey, here's a specific quote. Or here's a specific passage that I want to read and not say from memorization. Then once we went multisite, and we were doing video stuff, then I switch back to manuscripting because of how we did kind of our sermon prep stuff. Which was helpful for me. I think, like it helped, but it also then brought me back to a place where I wasn't as comfortable. Because again, it wasn't... You know, people are just made differently. And I think that's going to be a key point that I want to, you know, just hone down. And then where I'm at now is I'm kind of like a cross between manuscript and kind of an outline, slash some memorization. So, like I said, I am still figuring it out. And for me, preaching is still a wrestle. Like when people are like, hey, can you preach for us? Yes, I will. But I need to like wrestle through and figure out how I'm going to do this whole thing. So as far as process that's been kind of my journey, so to speak. So, love to hear from you and yours.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah. So, real quick question before I dive into kind of what I've learned. So, when you preach from a manuscript, are you literally bringing a manuscript up to a lectern?

Danny Parmelee: Yes.

Lee Stephenson: And kind of going through that page by page? Or you doing it on an iPad? Or?

Danny Parmelee: Oh, yeah, well, I hate iPad only because I've had it fail before. So, even if I do iPad, there's still a printed one in the back. Because once you get used to manuscript, which, again, you tend to not actually be reading from it. Because if you do manuscript properly, you've read it through a minimum of 10 times where it's like, you glance down, you almost have the full paragraph without looking at it anymore. And if you ever watch like, Rick Warren, or Bill Hybels, they're preaching, and they're flipping a page and their eyes have never, never even bounced down. You know, because their manuscripting but you can't kind of tell. But personality wise, I'll feel like oh, well, I want to say exactly how I have it written. So, then all sudden, I'd find myself maybe spending too much time because I wanted to read that sentence. So, the more that I have down, the more I feel tied to hitting it exactly like how I had it written. So, again, that's where I said my own personality. But yes. Manuscripting, writing it out every word. Bringing that actually up on stage, whether I'm looking at it the whole time or not.

Lee Stephenson: So, do you do you script out even the passages in your manuscript? Or do you keep that separate?

Danny Parmelee: One hundred percent. Everything. So, I hate to say it, but the Bible is a prop at that point. Besides sometimes going, you know what, I have this in my manuscript. But I'm gonna, you know, earmark it so that I can literally pick it up. And I say that not as being phony, but it's trying to communicate to people like, this is from the Bible. I'm saying, like, from non-believers' standpoint, or new person at church, like I'm reading from the Bible, you know?

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, yeah. For me, it's similar process. I started out preaching more outline based. And I would memorize my intro - have kind of my three or four points, and then maybe an outro. And so, it wouldn't be super detailed, but it had enough detail to kind of quickly kind of address. When I actually got to a point where I was church planting, I started slowly, morphing. Getting more detailed in the outline, to very quickly ended up doing a full manuscript. And for me, personally, I even today, I sit down, and I write out a full manuscript every single week. Which is difficult, being full time in one position, and donating the time to the local church setting. But what I've found for me is mentally, when the weekend gets there, I know I've done my preparation. And so, when I take the stage, when I'm ready to preach, I know I've done everything I can possibly do. Now it's time for the Holy Spirit to work and work through me in that process. And so, I then go from my manuscript down into a, what I would call a detailed outline, that I actually put it in my Bible. Just to kind of jog my memory. If I get going, really, you know, and like, feel the tangent. But I like creating a little bit of a freedom that if I'm in the middle of a point, and just feel like the Holy Spirit saying, "Hey, I want you to go another level in this," that I can do that.

Danny Parmelee: You kind of answered the question but let me just clarify that. Because you spent all the time on the manuscript. Why don't you bring that up? Why do you bring up the outline and not the manuscript?

Lee Stephenson: It's because I've worked to memorize as much as the manuscript as I possibly can. But I don't want to be so tied to making sure that I say each and every word exactly the way that I wrote it.

Danny Parmelee: And if you brought that up, you would do that is what you're saying.

Lee Stephenson: I think I would.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, yeah. And that's the same with me. If it's there, I'm all the sudden going to go to it.

Lee Stephenson: I get a little more tied to it than I want to be. I also purposely don't bring a lectern to the stage. And so that helps me. I literally just paperclip my outline, and then I have all the passages typed up, and just paperclip it into my Bible. And so that way, I'm not tied to a lectern and have the freedom to feel like there's nothing in between me and the audience. And I usually bring a stool up. And the stool for me... And this again, this is one of those things I've learned is I was very intense, in my preaching. To the point that I think it became difficult for people to sit through the entire message.

Danny Parmelee: That's what I heard. That's what I heard.

Lee Stephenson: Because of the intensity level. And I found out years ago, like it just helped lower the intensity when I had a stool on the stage. And I would just sit and make it a little bit more conversational in my style. It's like, how did we learn those things? Some of it is feel. It's doing it. I mean, I've heard statistically they say it takes 180 sermons before you actually find your voice and preach it. And I would 100% agree with that. Where you become comfortable with that. But there are two things that I think for me that helped figure some of that out was always having a sounding board of people that were communicating in my life. Kind of going, "Hey, how did that land? What do you think the main point was? What is one thing I could do to make that better this past Sunday?" And I found that I had to be very specific in those questions. Because most people don't have the courage to tell you exactly what they feel. Whereas like, hey, what do you think? Oh, it was great. It was your best sermon ever. Well, you said that last week. Yeah, it was. Well, this week was even better. And it's like, well, sometimes I have a dud and I need you to tell me that. No, that didn't land.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I think the pointed questions that will give people permission as well to are: Hey, if I had to take one of those points out? Or tell me which part was most confusing... Like, in other words, it forces them to say something negative. Instead of like, if you're like, hey, was it good? Yes, of course, it was good. Or was that okay? It might sound like it's open ended, but it's really not. But if you're like, which one of those points was too long? Which one was confusing? Or is there anything that didn't make sense? Or, you know, trying to get more specific to get that permission, I think is super helpful.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, I think that's a great perspective. The second thing for me is I literally listen or watch my sermons.

Danny Parmelee: Torture.

Lee Stephenson: Which I hate doing. Exactly. But it's a helpful habit to help you get better because you're going to be your worst critic. And being able to kind of go okay, next time, I don't want to do that.

Danny Parmelee: And I would say, if you can do video, do video. Because you're gonna see how much of even your body language type of thing is reflected in that. And like I said, it is torture. I hate listening or watching myself. But watching yourself on video, give a sermon will take your preaching to another level. Because you're even going to pick up some of your own mannerisms that you do that could be distracting. But then also even your vocal tics. Or yeah, the vocal tics that you say over and over. And so, a lot of people are, well, I never say, um. But like, for me, I will always say, "As a matter of fact." Or, you know, like, I'll have these things I just say over...

Lee Stephenson: "Truth is."

Danny Parmelee: "The truth is." And it's like, oh, man. And so, then the more that you're just aware of it, you actually do reduce it over time. And you know that part of it is kind of just a delivery type of thing. I know that we're covering a lot in here. One thing I want to say, too, is that we've been talking about some of the delivery part of it. But I don't want to skip over that the most important thing that you can do is to stay sharp on your exegesis. So, for us, for myself and our teaching team, we would do Simeon Trust, which is basically it's the prep part of teaching. And it's a conference. But it's not like, hey, here's how to go to conference and preach better. And you know, manuscript, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's how do you actually structure the sermon that is accurate to the text. And I think that when you don't pay attention to that, it's just so easy to focus so much on the delivery. You know, where people happy with it? Did they laugh? Did they cry? Was it you know, these types of things? But the more that we can stay accurate to the text and spend our time there, the delivery part of it, you know, kind of comes later. And it's just easy to have that drift. I feel it even in my own life now because I'm not, you know, the primary preacher in a church. That there can just be drift that just happens in your exegesis skills.

Lee Stephenson: I think that's a great point. You don't want to forget that. What have been some books for you, Danny, that have been helpful for you in your development of preaching? Or go to books that you even, you know, as a resource to young preachers or pastors that are out there?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I mean, for me the kind of classic the Haddon Robinson, I think it's called Biblical Preaching. And the reason why and that's sort of, you know, was the seminary textbook that started for me was, what is the main point? What's the authorial intent? So, start there and then work... Because I'm hearing more and more stuff now on sermons where I'm hearing the entire congregation "amening." And it's like, the text does not mean that at all. And it's cute and kitschy. Terms thrown around. But that was not the important point of the text. And then having it be where it's like, there is one main point because there's tons of all these stories and you walk out and you feel good, but you have no idea what it is. And I've come to the place where I believe that our preaching is actually our number one discipleship tool. Because what you're doing is you are inadvertently teaching people how to handle the Bible. And so, it's not just the message that you're giving. But you're teaching them this is how you read. This is how you interpret it. This is how you apply it. And if you are loosey goosey behind, you know behind the microphone, your people are going to be loosey goosey. And trust me it'll come back and bite you in the butt. Because then they'll start interpreting how to live their lives according to the way - you know come up with a cute catchy saying and make stuff up that has nothing to do with it. You know?

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, absolutely. I had a seasoned pastor that would coach me years ago, and it was really a helpful perspective that he said, "I want to preach in such a way that people on Wednesday could open up the same passage and look at the notes and realize, oh, this is where that came from." And they can connect the dots even a few days after the sermon was given. And I thought that's a helpful perspective. We're not helping them in their own personal discipleship if we ignore that aspect.

Danny Parmelee: What about you for a book?

Lee Stephenson: Two books that were helpful to me. One was Andy Stanley's Communicating for Change. And I thought that was, that was a good perspective on just, you know, how do you land the one point? The other one is an old-time book. And I can't remember the author of it. But I think it was written in like the 30s, or the 40s. And it was just Preaching Without Notes. And it was neat to kind of read from a different generation of pastors and preachers about how they prepared. And how they went through the art of actually delivering the Word. And specifically, this pastor's perspective of, you know, do all the prep ahead of time, but get up and allow the Holy Spirit to use the prep that you spent the week doing to actually communicate the message for the moment. And it was a great read.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, that's great. Awesome.

Lee Stephenson: Well, everyone, thanks for tuning in. Just fun conversation about preaching and how do we just continue to be on journey and grow as a preacher and commit to the journey. Thanks for tuning in to the Unfiltered podcast. Until next time, keep it real.