As many of you have noticed, I am often (not always) preaching without a script on Sundays. I thought this newsletter column would be a good way to answer some of your questions about this style of preaching.

I started experimenting with this different style of preaching early last year. After more than 10 years of preaching, I was finding it hard to sit at my computer to write out a full sermon anymore. So first I experimented with what’s called “unscripted” preaching, meaning that the sermon isn’t written down, but has been practiced out loud multiple times to prepare for Sunday morning. Especially when preaching for two Sunday worship times, it was important that the sermon be planned enough that each service was hearing the same points.

Then I started experimenting with what’s called “extemporaneous” preaching. Preparing for this kind of sermon means doing plenty of reading and reflection about different ideas I might want to include in a sermon, but not creating a full outline and practicing every part of it out loud. This way of preaching means being in the moment and letting myself be open to what I feel needs to be said. For this kind of sermon, I might sit down when it’s over and realize and remember there were a couple of other ideas or thoughts I had. But I feel at peace that those ideas must not have needed to be said since I didn’t remember or feel inspired to include them in the sermon while preaching.

And then there have been some Sundays when I am not just preaching extemporaneously but having a conversation with the congregation in real time and working through some questions and reflections together. I would call this extemporaneous preaching with conversation. In a world where you can pull up brilliant 20-minute TED talks on almost any topic any time, our ability to converse together as part of the sermon experience seems like one of the particular gifts of being in religious community.

And of course, I haven’t abandoned written sermons. I am finding as I become more confident in these different ways of preaching that the best way of presenting the sermon topic reveals itself through my preparation. There are times that I think I’m preparing for an unscripted sermon, and then I realize Saturday afternoon that I really want to write it all down because there are particular things I want to say in a particular way. There have been other times that I thought I was writing a sermon and I realized what I really wanted was to ask you what you were thinking. Each topic has its own creative process, and I don’t know what form the sermon will take until Saturday evening, when I am done preparing.

I have always thought of sermon writing as a creative process, and now that I have these choices about how to present the sermon, I feel that the creativity of sermon preparation is more alive for me than it has ever been.

It is undoubtedly a sign of what is changing for me that I am writing this column by using the dictation feature of the computer. At any rate, I am grateful for the positive response I have gotten from you. It has felt risky to be out on the tightrope without a net below, but feeling the love and support of Chalice congregants has given me the courage to take these risks.

Bright blessings,
Sharon