Sermon Prep

During my fourth semester of seminary, I took a course in homiletics (preaching, for those who are not fond of fancy words). In some seminaries, these courses include a component that requires students to analyze other people's sermons. Mine did not; but I often found myself listening to other people's preaching in order to determine what seemed engaging or helpful, what didn't connect, etc. I had some other kinds of public speaking experience; and in some ways this was helpful. I was comfortable talking to people; but preaching is a particular kind of speaking in which I am attempting to engage with a person's most vulnerable personal space--with or without their permission depending on the reason why they came to church. That is a story for another blog...

A student recently asked me how I went about preparing a sermon. This is a legitimate question. She wasn't asking about how a person does this in general, though the question could have been interpreted that way. She was asking about how I, as a person who is blind (and how she as a fellow person who is blind), would access and organize the information I needed to use in sermon preparation. This is, perhaps, one of the most frustrating aspects of what I do. Sighted people work through this process using a lot of skimming and scanning. I don't have the ability to do this; so I have to be wise in collecting, searching using keywords, and describing to someone else at times what I want. At times, when none of these strategies works and I just feel something is missing, I have to be persistent in seeking it--and sometimes "it" is some unknown thing that just nags at me until it is found. I always pray through the process; and when I get those hunches, the praying becomes a crucial thing.

Organizing information is a difficult thing to handle at times. I have the same problem regarding research for papers. I can't just store cards or files with tidbits or copies of things and pull them out when I need them. I've tried creating file folders on my computer and naming little files with tidbits. That works in some instances. Sometimes I just use a big file and insert a new page for a new tidbit. It just depends on what I am working with and how many tidbits I need to organize.