Part 9 (1/2)
WE.
Like you, I love to wrap up a message with an emotionally charged story that punctuates the main point in a way that leaves the audience gasping for breath and reaching for their Kleenex. And every once in a while G.o.d graces us with those closing ill.u.s.trations. But for the other fifty-one weeks of the year we need something else. That's where WE comes in.
This final component of the message is an opportunity for you to rejoin your audience as you did in the beginning of the message when you circled up around your shared frailty, questions, misgivings or temptations. WE is really about vision casting. It is a moment of inspiration. It is the point in the message when you paint a verbal picture of what could be and should be. In this closing moment you call upon your audience to imagine what the church, the community, families, maybe even the world would be like if Christians everywhere embraced your one idea.
Imagine a church where ”love one another” was the theme rather than a memory verse for children. Imagine a community dotted with homes where husbands really loved their wives like Christ loved the church. Imagine what would happen in culture if thousands of teenagers abandoned the lie that purity was optional and basically irrelevant. Imagine what could happen in one week if everybody here treated everybody they came into contact with like someone for whom Christ died. Imagine what would happen if for three months we all managed our money as if everything really belongs to G.o.d.
This is where you come out from behind whatever it is you preach from and stand off to the side of the stage, as close as you can get to the lip of the stage and dream out loud. Dream on behalf of your church families, singles, kids, churches, the kingdom. This is when you remind your audience that the Scriptures were given not just as a means of making our individual lives better. They were given so that as a body, corporately, we could s.h.i.+ne like a beacon of hope in our communities, our neighborhoods, and in the marketplace.
Imagine what WE could do together.
GETTING STARTED.
Okay, that's it. But that's a lot. And I imagine that is very different from the way you are currently outlining, so let me close with a couple of suggestions.
Take your last message, or even one you are working on now, and write these five words in the margin where they apply in your current way of outlining. For example, if you typically start your messages by diving right into the text, write G.o.d out to the side of that section or sections. Write YOU out beside your application. When you are finished, take a shot at rearranging your material around this approach. Use your current numbering system. But just rearrange the parts so that they follow the ME-WE-G.o.d-YOU-WE paradigm. Now go back and add the ones you are missing.
Once you have done that, turn your paper over and see if you can think through your message one section at a time. I bet you can. People ask me all the time how I preach without looking at notes.
Now you know.
But don't tell anybody.
a An outline built around your relations.h.i.+p with the audience, rather than the content, best matches the way they naturally process information.
a ME-WE-G.o.d-YOU-WE.
a Begin writing these five words in the margin where they apply in your current way of outlining. Add the sections you are missing.
14.
INTERNALIZE THE MESSAGE.
What's your story?
Every communicator has notes. But there's no reason anybody has to know you have notes. Odds are, you want to become more conversational in your communication style. To do that, you can't be tied to your notes. The only people who converse with notes are people auditioning for a part in a play. But even the most amateur actors would never dream of walking out on stage with their script. Why? Because a good actor doesn't want to be caught acting. They want their audience to believe that they really are who they are pretending to be; that they really feel what they are pretending to feel; that the words they say come from their heart not a script. And we do, too!
There is a scene in The Patriot when Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, is saying goodbye to his five-year-old daughter, Susan, who hasn't spoken since her mom died. Throughout the movie, Martin has tried to cajole Susan into speaking. But to no avail.
Towards the end of the movie, Susan is standing next to her aunt Charlotte as Martin and his son Gabriel are preparing to ride off to do battle with the red coats. Just before mounting his horse Martin motions to Susan but she doesn't move. Then he kneels down and gently hugs her and says, ”Just a little goodbye? One word? That's all I want to hear.”
Susan remains silent, arms to her sides, unresponsive. Martin lets go and she just stares at him. But as Martin and Gabriel mount their horses and start to ride away, Susan, with tears streaming down her face, runs towards her father and cries out, ”Papa! Papa, don't go, I'll say anything. Please, Papa, I'll say anything you want!”
Martin turns in his saddle and sees Susan running towards him. He yanks his horse around and begins galloping towards his little angel as she continues calling out. Grabbing her up into his arms, Martin holds her close as he fights back tears. ”I'll talk to you,” she cries, ”I'll say anything you want, just tell me what you want me to say, I'll say anything, I promise, please, Papa just stay.”
I saw The Patriot with a couple of friends that you may know, Reggie Joiner and Lanny Donoho. In the middle of that scene I glanced over at my buddies and they had tears running down their cheeks. Bunch of sissies. What's that about? It's a movie for heaven's sake. And it's Mel Gibson. And that's not even his actual daughter. They were crying as if they were witnessing a real miracle. And so did I. All six times I watched it. But how effective would that scene have been if little Susan kept glancing down at her notes as she read, ”I'll talk to you. I'll say anything you want.” Not very.
Now I realize acting and preaching are a bit different. But they are not as different as you might imagine. If you are on a stage with a microphone attached to you, you better be ready to perform. Like a good actor, you've got to be believable. After all, you actually believe! People are expecting you to engage them on multiple levels. And in light of what's at stake, you should be both engaging and convincing. If an actor is willing to memorize and internalize a script in order to convince you that he or she is someone other than who they really are, how motivated should we be to internalize our messages in order to convince our audience that we really are who we claim to be?
OWN IT.
Before we stand (or in my case, sit) to deliver a message we must own it.
By own it I mean that you, the communicator, should be able to sit down at a table and communicate your message to an audience of two in a way that is both conversational and authentic. The message must in some way become a personal story you could tell as if drawing from personal experience. When you can ”tell” your sermon rather than ”preach” it, you are ready to communicate. But that won't happen until you have internalized it to the point where you could do a five-minute version from memory.
If that sounds unrealistic at this juncture it is probably because you are in the habit of squeezing too much information and too many verses and not enough life into your sermons. Information is difficult to memorize. Five pa.s.sages from five different books of the Bible are hard to remember. Life on the other hand is neither difficult to memorize or hard to remember. By life I'm not talking just about personal ill.u.s.trations, though I'm including those. I am talking about experiences that are common to people.
I find something very disingenuous about the speaker who says, ”This is very, very important,” and then reads something from his notes. Constantly referring to notes communicates, ”I have not internalized this message. I want everybody else to internalize it, but I haven't.” Consequently, I think every effective communicator must figure out how to internalize all of and memorize the majority of his or her message. No, not word-for-word, not a ma.n.u.script, not an outline, not verbatim. But somehow they need to be able to get up and deliver their message as a story.
Think about it, the only time anybody reads a story is when it isn't their story. You've never heard anybody who was nearly killed or seriously injured in a traffic accident pull out a ma.n.u.script and say, ”Let me tell you what happened yesterday.” You've never heard anybody open up a three-ring binder and say, ”Let me tell you about my kids.” n.o.body recounts their son or daughter's champions.h.i.+p soccer game with an outline in front of them. When people tell a personal story it's internalized. It flows like water from a stream. Sometimes it gushes like a river through a canyon. Either way, it comes from inside. The same should be true for those of us who claim to have the most important story in the world to tell. The story has changed us, and therefore the story has become part of our story. Somehow, it must be internalized. But that's not always easy. Especially when communicating is your weekly responsibility.
POINTLESS STORIES.
Later in this chapter I'm going to give you several tips on how to use notes on the sly, but the two things that will help you most in this regard are things we have already talked about: One point messages and the ME-WE-G.o.d-YOU-WE approach to outlining. Creating one point messages makes internalizing a message much easier. Remembering one point is much easier than memorizing a bunch of points. Having one idea that everything else supports makes it easy to internalize a talk. When you have one strong point, the goal is to make your point, not cover everything in your notes. If you forget some supporting material but succeed in communicating your big idea, congratulations, you accomplished what you came to do. And let's face it, we are the only ones on the planet that know what we forgot to say. And if you are like most preachers, you probably have too much content to begin with. It is probably good that you left out some stuff. Besides, if you do multiple services, you will get another shot at it anyway.
THE BIG PIECES.
When it comes to internalizing a message your outline is either your friend or your enemy; it either facilitates the internalization process or hampers it. One reason so many communicators don't think they can preach without notes is that their outline (or ma.n.u.script) overwhelms them. This is compounded by the fear of leaving something out or losing their place. But all of that can be resolved by adopting the approach to outlining we talked about in the previous chapter.
The secret is to reduce your entire message down to five or six pieces. Not points, pieces or sections or chunks of information. If you can remember the big pieces and the order in which they come, you are ready to go.
The big pieces serve as mental mile markers that allow you to keep moving and flag what's coming up next. When you run out of things to say about ME, you just move right on to WE. You may end up leaving some stuff out, but again, n.o.body will know but you. Remember, the goal is not to cover everything in your notes. It is to take your audience with you on a journey; to move them from mile marker to mile marker until you reach your destination.
When I'm coaching communicators, I'll often say, ”What are the big pieces? Tell me the big pieces. Give me your introduction in one statement. What's next? What text are you using? Summarize the application. Give me your closing thought.” When you can quickly review the five or six major pieces of the message in your head, chances are you are ready to communicate without being dependent on your notes.
The big pieces may vary in nature from message to message. You may want to organize the big pieces using the ME-WE-G.o.d-YOU-WE format. Or you may want to be more specific. Here are some examples: Opening storya”Questiona”Texta”Applicationa”Challenge Opening questiona”Ill.u.s.trationa”Texta”Challengea”Applicationa”Closing Story.
Introductiona”Tensiona”Texta”Visuala”Applicationa”Conclusion Texta”Questiona”Storya”Texta”Application When preaching on the temptations of Christ, I opened the sermon by reading Matthew 4:1a”2 where Matthew tells us that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. How odd. I made a few comments on how strange that was, especially in light of the fact that Jesus specifically prayed, ”lead us not into temptation.” Then I talked about my struggle with temptation (ME) and how common it is for all of us (WE) then went back to the text to look at Jesus' response (G.o.d). I think it is great to begin with the text if there is something so odd or unbelievable that it immediately grabs people's attention. I do the same thing when I preach on the prodigal son. The opening statement in that trilogy of parables is that tax gatherers and sinners congregated to hear Him speak. How unusual. People who were nothing like Jesus, liked Jesus.
The point here is to identify the big pieces of your message and practice thinking through them. If you know the big pieces, the mile markers, you won't get lost. You will always know what's coming up next. When you run out of things to say about one, you just move on to the next one, knowing that you probably left something out. But again, you are the only one who knows.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE.
As I mentioned earlier, there are ways to use notes without anyone knowing you are using notes. You don't need to memorize everything. With the ME-WE-G.o.d-YOU-WE approach, there are really only three big pieces you will need to commit to memory, and they are the easiest to remember anyway: ME, WE, and WE. These are the personal sections and these are probably the shortest sections. Best of all, these are the sections where if you accidentally leave something out it probably won't matter. But these are the sections I practice most. These are the sections I rehea.r.s.e over and over in my head. After all, ME and WE is where we connect and engage the audience. WE is where we inspire them to do something with what they've heard. But between those two parts, there are plenty of opportunities to catch a stealth glimpse of our notes.
My guess is that you have already developed a system for writing comments and points into the margins of your Bible. And I imagine you have developed a skill for reading the text while glancing at what you have scribbled in the margins. A few years ago I abandoned the scribbling part and started cutting and pasting the text I am going to use out of a Bible program into a word processing doc.u.ment. That way I can actually print, rather than scribble, what I want to remember right into the text. Then I trim the pages so they fit into my Bible.
There are several advantages to this. To begin with, I am not limited to the s.p.a.ce afforded me by my Bible margins. I can include more notes. That way I'm not bouncing back and forth from my Bible to my notes. It is seamless. Less distracting. And far easier for me.
At the end of my final text I print out a reminder of where I'm going from there. I may print a summary statement for the text I have read like we talked about in the last chapter. Or I may print something along the lines of, ”There are three places where this applies.” Or, ”Here's what I think we should do with Jesus' words.” Or if I'm moving from the text to a visual aid, I write ”GO TO VISUAL.”
The other advantage of printing the text is that on those rare occasions where I'm referencing more than one text, I don't have to find it in my Bible, it is already printed out. Then, when I'm finished I can file the printed text with my outline for future reference. I don't have to use the same Bible or rewrite all my notes in a different Bible if I want to repreach that message.
Another thing I do quite often is write out my main point on a three-by-five card and lay it beside my Bible. The reason I do is that my point is a statement I've spent some time crafting. I want to make sure I state it correctly. In the course of communicating a message it is not always easy for me to pull my statement from memory exactly as I have crafted it. Writing it out in big letters and setting it beside my Bible gives me a chance to glance down at it before I deliver it. Burying it in my notes or even in the text is too confusing. I like having it right there where I can't miss it.