A great quote from Mark Driscoll (source),
Junk your notes and go with the Ghost . . .
Some years ago I gave up trying to manuscript or outline my sermons. Now, I focus on knowing the Scriptures I am preaching, spending many hours in prayer, meditation, and repentance through the Scriptures, and being filled with the power of God the Ghost.
Then, I just get up and with a few scribbled notes in my margins I preach as God leads and trust that God will direct my words and He always does.
Sometimes I may use a brief outline, but I am not tied to any one way of being ready to preach and just do whatever seems like it will do the job best.
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2 Comments
9 May 2007 at 2:49 pm
That sounds great, but it could so easily boil down to a holier way of saying “I happen to be very good at extemporaneous speaking and can hold a congregation’s attention while following a line of argument”.
I am not for a moment suggesting that Driscoll knows this and knows that he knows it, and is just cloaking a boast in Christian jargon; what I am saying is that what works for the very most gifted of us, works because of the gifts, not the methods, and others trying to adopt those methods will find nine times out of ten that they don’t work.
And this is why I am increasingly wary of ALL books about church growth, whether the method leading to the growth is ostensibly worldly (e.g. Willow Creek, Saddleback) or Godly (Yoido). I am increasingly leaning towards the hypothesis that the reason Saddleback grew so quickly under Rick Warren’s seeker-sensitive approach is that Rick Warren is very good at seeker-sensitive — not that seeker-sensitive is in itself a successful strategy. I guess where this line of argument falls down is that I am not ready to attribute Yoido’s success to Cho’s being gifted in prayer — that church more than Saddleback seems to rely much more on many more people’s contributions: 50,000 people can all pray, but only half a dozen can lead a seeker-friendly service.
So in summary: good for Mark Driscoll; but I hope everyone else isn’t going to respond by throwing away their sermon notes.
Finally — I hope you read this, even though it’s on a several-days-old post. I only catch up on my blogs once every few days. Do you have an alerty thing that tells you when someone leaves a comment?
8 August 2008 at 2:10 pm
Just wanted to comment here. I love Mark Driscoll and I love his preaching. I would have to disagree on one level though, if by “go with the ghost” means to not prepare specifically for the sermon during the week (of which manuscript, or outlining could be an important aspect).
I like his take on just knowing the Bible well enough to be able to preach from sparse notes. I just think there is a logical fallacy that is growing in popularity that “going with the Ghost” or “just trusting in the Holy Spirit” only happens during the 30-90 minute block we call “preaching”.
It also happens during our preparation as well.
Thanks for the post!