The way my mind works
One of the things I love most about being a “Tech Pastor” is the “Pastor” part. I’m glad I get to do more than figure out why the sound board is buzzing, or how to light kid’s church. I get to do premarital counseling with couples, pray with people in tough times, and several times a year I get the privilege of speaking at our worship services. It helps me hone my public speaking skills, and it gives our lead pastor a little bit of a break, and chance for him to get ahead on his messages.
I have a series of posts lined up for this blog, breaking down the different elements of a “sermon”. I put it in quotes, because my posts will probably vary somewhat from traditional homiletics.
Tomorrow we’re starting a new series called “That’s What She Said”, and we’ll be doing character studies of women in the Bible. I’m speaking the first message of the series, and I thought I’d give you a little insight in how I prepare for a message.
I prepare my message with mind-mapping software. I know there are great tools out there for sermon preparation, but I find I work REALLY well with mind-maps. It gives me the freedom to let my thoughts fork in a thousand different directions while I’m brainstorming ideas. Then it also gives me the flexibility to completely rearrange those thoughts in to a specific structure. I normally put together my outline, then I present it to a small group, consisting of the other pastors and creative leaders at Shoreline, and I get their inspired feedback. I then rework the message, including input from the group, and add several layers of detail. Lastly I transcribe it to ’shorthand’ slides in Keynote for me to look at when I’m actually speaking on stage. The more times I can transcribe it, the easier it is for me to internalize the message, and then I just need cryptic one or two sentence phrases in my notes to trigger the correct train of thought while I’m speaking.
I highly recommend FreeMind, an open source mind-mapping program. I used it for years, it’s free, and it’s available for Windows, OS X, and every variety of *nix imaginable. I now use ConceptDraw’s MindMap Pro in OS X.
So here is a PDF of the mind map for my sermon on Ruth, and an rich text doc of the exact same thing in outline form. Also, here is the video bumper for the series.
I am glad you showed me this because it is different to how I prepare.
One way I brainstorm for messages is lay down close my eyes and think about one point. Ever once and a while writing things down. I find that if I do that there is less pressure to come up with something. I allow myself to meditate on the bible and the main thoughts that go with it.
I also spend at least one hour writing random thoughts down in no special order.
The key to a good message for me is my transitional statements. They link all the random thoughts in something that can be understood. If a thought doesn’t transition I usually throw it out for another day.
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