Viewpoint: You Aren’t as Smart as You Think You Are . . . So Don’t Manuscript Your Sermons: A Friendly Response to Jason Dees

My good friend, Jason Dees, pastor of Valleydale Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama, wrote a short piece in an outstanding edition of the 9 Marks Journal (Expositional Preaching Spring 2015) entitled “You Aren’t as Smart as You Think You Are . . . So Manuscript Your Sermons”. I encourage you to read the entire thought provoking journal. I am responding to Jason’s piece because, after 10 years of teaching preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I see the issue from the opposite direction of my good friend. I think the person who can preach effectively from a manuscript is the rare gifted exception. Keep reading

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Expository Preaching Spring 2015

I personally believe that preachers should discover what works best for them. In my experience a preacher can preach effectively from a manuscript if he recognizes the difference between how we write and how we speak and writes a manuscript for speaking not reading and does not slavishly read his manuscript with his eyes on the page and not the congregation.