Helpful Hacks for Preaching from a Manuscript

In my last article, the Frankenstein Sermon, I said that one reason why some pastors seem to lack passion in their preaching is because they preach from a full manuscript. The problem is not inherent in manuscript preaching, but in the less-than-skillful use of the manuscript.

I’m not going to argue for or against preaching from a manuscript. I’m just going to assume that you’re reading this because you are either a) already using a manuscript, or b) considering it.

The aim of manuscript preaching is to make it look like you’re not preaching from a manuscript, which isn’t easy. I’ve had my fair share of fumbles along the way. But those fumbles have taught me some things.

1. Edit

Your sermon is probably too long. There, I said it. I know it hurts to hear, but please don’t shoot the messenger. Don’t feel bad; it’s not just you. Most writers need to learn how to do a better job of editing. Their sentences have too many words. Their paragraphs have too many sentences. They repeat themselves.

If you’re like most preachers, your sermon could be trimmed by a quarter to a third. If you can train yourself to write shorter, punchier sermons, you’ll find it easier to commit more of your manuscript to memory, which helps delivery.

So write yourself clear, and then edit, edit, edit for even greater clarity.

A great resource to help you be a better editor of your own material is Roy Peter Clark’s Murder Your Darlings. Buy a copy and read it twice. Do what it says.

2. Preview

I usually preview a sermon out loud at least twice before preaching it on a Sunday morning—once with a fellow church member (they always make it better) and once by myself.

This is not practicing a performance; this is allowing myself to hear what I’ve written outside of my own head a couple of times before preaching it. Sometimes the words I’ve written don’t come out the way I thought they would. Hearing myself say them out loud is usually revealing.

As helpful as this practice is for sermon writing in general, I’ve found that an added benefit of previews is that they help me commit more of the manuscript to memory. As I said in hack #1, the more you can memorize a sermon, the better. The more you memorize, the less you have to look down. The less you have to look down, the more you can meaningfully engage with the congregation while you preach.

3. Find Pockets of Freedom

I once saw a young preacher read his gospel presentation from his notes verbatim. Friend, if you need to be glued to your manuscript while preaching the gospel (which I assume you do in one way or another every week!), you might be in the wrong profession. Any experienced preacher will tell you that whether you’re using flash cards, a bullet-point outline, or a full manuscript, there will be times in your preaching when you should feel free to disengage with what you’ve written and just riff. Go to town. Be free!

Another example of this kind of freedom might include your sermon introduction. It makes sense that you would need to look at your manuscript more closely when making a complex theological argument, but the story about your family’s beach trip that you’ve turned into a sermon intro? Probably not. Look up and get away from your notes.

A final example of when you should feel free to look away from your manuscript would be when you’re doing a riff that you’ve done a thousand times before. You know what I mean. That illustration that you’ve been using since seminary. Or that cross reference you know like the back of your hand. That stuff is deep down in you. Trust yourself to look away from the manuscript when you’re preaching your A-game material.

4. Know When to Press in

Sometimes your preaching will be helped by looking more closely at your manuscript. Reading slowly, carefully, and deliberately can create a sense of gravity. You might even say something like, “This is really important, so I want to make sure I get this right,” as you lean over the pulpit and read directly from your manuscript. You should feel free to lean into your manuscript when you’re saying something that requires extreme precision, using lists and bullet points, or when you’re reading a direct quote.

5. Bold, Underline, Highlight

When preaching from a manuscript, the preacher’s goal should be to look down at his notes, find his thought thread, and then look back up and express it clearly and forcefully. One of the best ways to do this is to use features like bold, underline, and highlight to make your key words stand out on the page. When you get good at this, you’ll find that you can look down, latch onto a word, and reengage with your people as seamlessly as if you were using a teleprompter.

6. Use Your Hand

One of the biggest ways people flub up when using a manuscript is when they get lost in their notes. It happens to the best of us. Don’t be afraid to use your finger or hand on the page to keep track of where you are in your notes so that when you look away from your manuscript for a significant length of time, you can come back to it with a general sense of where you left off.

7. Be Breezy

Don’t be afraid to admit when you get lost in your notes. Like I said, it happens to everyone, even the pros! When it does, don’t get anxious. Instead, just smile, chuckle, and say something like, “Wow, I got so carried away in the point I was making that I lost my place. Give me a second and I’ll be back to preaching your socks off!” People love humility and self-deprecation. Admissions of minor mistakes in preaching are often endearing to the congregation. So when you mess up or get lost in your manuscript, don’t freak out! Be breezy.

8. Solicit Feedback

Ask some of the more thoughtful church members who listen to your sermons week-in and week-out to give you feedback on when you seem to be most glued to your manuscript. I bet they’ll have something insightful to share with you. If you hear the same feedback more than once, make it a point to work on that weakness. “Okay, I always seem to get bogged down here, so maybe I need to go bullet point this stuff or review this section a few more times than the rest of the manuscript.”

9. Prioritize Earnestness

I’m not saying you need to be more earnest than accurate in your preaching. Zeal without knowledge is a real problem (Prov. 19:2, Rom. 10:1–3). But I am saying that sometimes preachers can focus so much on communicating the finer details of their arguments that they sacrifice one of the things that gives their preaching power: blood-earnestness.

If you have to choose between 100 percent adherence to your manuscript with eyes glued to your notes, or 95 percent adherence combined with engaging your people with greater consistency and passion, I’d choose the latter.

Hope This Helps

At the end of the day, maybe you shouldn’t preach from a manuscript. But if you do, hopefully these hacks will help you do so in such a way that your preaching feels more natural, free, passionate, and powerful.