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I saw a chorister lead a few hymns.
And then another one…
And the difference was striking…
The energy from the congregation was much different between the two.
The difference between the presentation of the two was simply…
Energy…
One looked like he was enjoying singing and enjoying interacting with the congregation…
The other, you really didn’t…
I was reminded of an email I received from one of the email readers,
“I don’t yell or whoop, how can make my sermon more engaging?”
You know what you can do…
The same thing that a great choirster does…
Be happy to be there…
Sing with energy….
Some preachers are so monotone and lifeless that they appear to be sleeping in the pulpit.
Then some folks are bouncing off the walls and yelling their voice out in an attempt to wake the sleeping congregation…
Ok..how do you bring the energy?
Let me start by saying what I don’t suggest.
I don’t suggest copying other preachers who seem to be animated. I don’t suggest forcing yourself to yell or scream. I don’t suggest whooping when you don’t whoop.
I suggest being genuine to your own emotions. Now if your emotions cause you to yell, shout, cry, or even whoop, then go ahead and do it, but the key is being true to both YOU and the MESSAGE…
OK..sounds good, but you got anything else to say?
Glas you ask…Yep…
Let’s take a step back….
Now a big problem some preachers have is that they don’t tell the Bible story. They dissect the Bible story.
They pull out the truths in the Bible story.
But they don’t TELL the Bible story…
But the Black preacher is supposed to “Tells the story.”
You need to get into a position of telling the story…
Now to tell the story of the text, you are gonna have to know the text. Do all the exegesis you have always done, but then also do what I call “Emotional Exegesis.”
Take a stroll in the text and tell me what you see. Tell me what you hear. Tell me what you feel. Tell me what you smell. Tell me what you taste. Yeah, all senses.
You ain’t ready to preach about the demoniacs until you smell the stench of years of not bathing. You feel the fear of getting to close to them thinking they may grab you and rip you apart. You ain’t ready till you hear that deep guttural voice coming from them…
Now once you have internalized that, you are gonna preach a different sermon than if you just have an intellectual knowledge of it. Once you have internalized that, you are gonna feel a different kind of surge once healing comes to the demoniac…
You are gonna feel it…and when you feel it, you will be ready to tell your people about a God who can take you from anywhere and put you anywhere…Ahh..now that is preaching there…
The key is you will give natural emotions as you preach it. Let the content to the shouting and you will be allright…
So how do you bring energy to the sermon?
Feel and know the sermon in all your senses…
And then truly enjoy the process of being there and leading your people into a deeper understanding of the text…
Yeah…Be like the great Chorister…
This “emotional exegesis” is wave four of the Four waves of Biblical exegesis system. Go check it out if it is of interest to you…https://gumroad.com/products/okfy
I hope this is helpful…
God Bless and Keep on Preaching
Sherman Cox
SoulPreaching.Com
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