Rush Limbaugh is no fan of prepared remarks or teleprompters either. In his recent CPAC speech he said:
… for those of you in the Drive-By Media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I’ve said. [Applause] And nor do any of us need a teleprompter, because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances. Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology. Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don’t have to make notes about what we believe. We don’t have to write down, ‘oh do I believe it, do I believe that.’ We can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads, and we can do it with passion and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively.
Conor Friedersdorf, over at The American Scene, wonders if prepared remarks indicate insincerity, a lack of depth or integrity. He writes:
A couple years ago, I served as best man at the wedding of one of my best friends, Mike, who I’ve known since we were 13 years old. He is someone who commands my loyalty, respect, and admiration, so it may not surprise you that I labored mightily over the remarks I made at his wedding reception. I sought words that did the occasion justice, communicating something special about the bride and groom that grandparents, peers, and little cousins could all appreciate. I’d never given a more important speech, so intense forethought and preparation struck me as the obvious approach, one that signified my respect for the occasion.
He adds that George W. Bush and Sarah Palin were terrible at speaking off the cuff. So maybe a manuscript is better. And maybe a sermon manuscript is the tribute that weak preachers pay to the seriousness of worship.
Old Life 
I untie the other half of my brain for sermon preparation and delivery.
It actually takes more work to prepare a careful outline of sermon to be delivered with an outline and not a MS. The MS was a crutch. It was easy. With the MS I didn’t have to work at learning the text and the sermon.
Preaching from a reasonable outline, while looking at the congregation entrusted to me, is a lot more difficult than staring a at piece of paper for 30 minutes.
There’s nothing wrong with reading an academic paper. I do it regularly but preaching a sermon is not reading an academic paper. Just as the scholar needs to respect the conventions of the academic conference so the preacher needs to respect the conventions and nature of a congregational homily. An academic conference is a fairly homogenous group. One may safely make a lot of assumptions about shared knowledge (except perhaps at ETS) and assumptions about the nature of the academy and what is taking place. It is a place for shorthand and precision.
A congregation is probably anything but homogenous (we can hope). A sermon must account for small children (whom, we trust have not been sent to the Baptistic hinterlands of “children’s church”), it must account for teen-agers who may not want to be there, for middle-aged parents, and seniors. A sermon is not an academic discourse, but the careful exposition of God’s Word to the whole congregation. It is the announcement of bad and good news (carefully distinguished) and appropriate application of the same to that congregation.
I contend that young preachers just beginning their ministries are weakening their ability to communicate with all those people by burying their face in a MS. I heard a terrific sem student sermon again very recently. The content was good but the nervous bobbing of the head from MS to congregation and back to MS was a distraction from the excellent sermon. He didn’t really want to look at us but he felt me must but he feared he might miss some gem in the MS so down the head went again.
As a point of fairness, In my original post, I didn’t argue that no one should ever use a MS. Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with preparing a MS before preaching it. The MS becomes a sort of rough draft. I’ve done that and it is good discipline.
I argued that young preachers need to learn how to communicate without being dependent upon a MS in the pulpit. There are more mature preachers who are capable of reading a sermon MS without losing contact with the congregation.
rsc
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Hey DG,
Tell you what, I trade MS for instruments. If you’ll give up your new school musical instruments, I’ll concede the manuscript? Could you be straining at new measure gnats while swallowing revivalist camels?
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I’ve heard of playing the saw, Scott, but not the teleprompter.
I agree with most of your qualifications. But your original post can go in odd ways, either toward a Lloyd-Jones let the Spirit fly, or toward encouraging the laity to want telegenic pastors who win friends and influence people.
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Well, just having published a book critiquing MLJ at some length for the very things about which you’re concerned, I assumed those criticisms and cautions.
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