{"id":552,"date":"2015-05-14T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T05:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/?p=552"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:21:14","slug":"using-notes-when-preaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/14\/using-notes-when-preaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Notes When Preaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first six years or so of the church I would always walk up on stage with about 10 typed pages of notes. As I preached I would turn the stack of pages up there on the pulpit with me. I was quite tied to my notes. But about two years ago we started image magnification and the feedback I got from those producing the service was that all those pages on the pulpit didn’t look good on the screen. So I decided to get rid of them. I committed to walking up on stage with just my Bible, like many of the great communicators I look up to (Craig Groeschel, Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, etc). Here’s the steps I took to get there:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I began practicing\u00a0my message over and over and over and over (about 7x – sometimes more – before I ever preached it to first service).<\/li>\n
  2. When you practice the sermon that much by Sunday you really<\/em> know it, so each Sunday morning I type up an outline of the message with key words, scriptures or sentences that cue me to what I need to be talking about at that part of the message. I then print these notes out and slide them in my Bible. This frees me up to only have my Bible on stage with me and not all those papers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Here’s what I like about preaching from the notes in my Bible vs\u00a0ten pages of printed sermon:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • I think people have a greater confidence in me as a preacher only having my Bible on stage. It creates a feeling in people “This guy knows what he’s talking about.”<\/li>\n
    • It forces me to really get really<\/em> familiar with the message in a way I didn’t have to when I was preaching with every word of the sermon typed out in front of me.<\/li>\n
    • It helps me communicate better. When I had every word in front of me sometimes I accidentally made it the goal of the message to share every word on the paper, instead of having the goal of just communicating my point(s).<\/li>\n
    • It helps me be more spontaneous and funnier. When I just have a little something written down to cue me as to what point I need to make, I find myself spontaneously coming up with things I didn’t think about throughout the week that better explain the point I’m trying to make. And I’m definitely funnier! Not sure how to explain this – I just am! \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      I’m not against<\/em> notes. There are some great communicators that have forgotten more than I’ll ever know that totally use their typed out sermon to teach from. I just think there are some great benefits to not being so dependent upon them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      For the first six years or so of the church I would always walk up on stage with about 10 typed pages of notes. As I preached I would turn the stack of pages up there on the pulpit with me. I was quite tied to my notes. But about two years ago we started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-preaching","7":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Mike","author_link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/author\/mike\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}