#2- The Gettysburg Principle: Make it only 279 Words.

Regarding my previous post - Here are my thoughts on Lincoln's address:

• It's short.
• It's inspiring.
• It does not meander.
• It is part of the larger narrative of American history ("Four score and seven years ago") and references itself within that narrative. ("Now we are engaged in a great civil war...")
• It exegetes a moment of history ("We have come to dedicate") and yet speaks beyond that moment ("that we here highly resolve ... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth").

So I get it.

In relation to Sermon Preparation, I now propose The Gettysburg Principle:

'Make your sermon only 279 Words ...(before you ruin it.)'

That is, don't write out your sermon hoping for 4000 words, beginning with a poorly conceived 'hook', and then meandering your way through the 2000 mark, while seeking to guess an ending.

Here is my plan to stop my own meandering. For my next sermon...

• I'm going to write out the entire sermon in 279 words. No more, and no less.
• I'm going to work hard choosing each of those 279 words.
• I will make sure these 279 words are the entire sermon and able to be delivered on their own. (They are not just 'the Big Idea'; or a 'main sentence'; or a goal; or a synopsis.)
• My 279 words will need to exegete the biblical text drawing from the grand narrative of the Christ story.
• I will then ask myself: Are these 279 words worth hearing? Do they take us to a new level? Do they give us a bigger vision of God? Do they propel us to new possibilities of faith for the Glory of God in the face of Christ? Do they challenge the complacent soul and give hope to the hungry heart?
• I will then deliver these 279 words to Dr. Laurel (my personal literature expert) for rigorous scrutiny.

• Then, and only then, will I add any more words or thoughts or ideas or illustrations or applications. And these extra words will be added only to explore and deepen and enhance those 279 words.

• So I may end up with a normal sermon length. Or maybe not. But only when I've gathered my 279 words will I be confident that I will neither meander, nor repeat myself.
  

Otherwise, our words may be lost like the 13,607 words belonging to Edward Everett. History has blown away Everett's 2 hour speech in favor of the wonder of Lincoln's 279 words.

I'll let you know how it goes.

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Pic on Flickr by Andertho.

#1- Gettysburg Address and Sermon Preparation...

I've certainly got old thoughts on Sermon Preparation, and you can read my MO for preaching here. But last weekend, I had a new thought that came while I was reading Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (as you do). It is not that profound, but still helpful to me. I won't tell you my thought until tomorrow or Thursday. In the meantime, you tell me:

What do you notice about the Gettysburg Address as a piece of communication?

Here it is:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Keen to hear your reflection.

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Pic on Flickr by stuck in customs.