How Does Alistair Begg Prepare to Preach
A group of us from First Family attended the Pastor's Conference at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago last week, and I do not think I would be alone in my opinion that Alistair Begg was one of the highlights of the week. His messages from 1 Samuel 17 spoke to the deep sense in all of us that we are many times wholly inadequate for the task that in front of us.I am always curious how gifted speakers like Alistair Begg go about preparing their messages. I found this video from Billy Graham's The Cove on YouTube in which Alistair describes his preparation process. Here, in summary, are his steps:
Pray hard. Pray, pray, pray, and then pray some more.
Think myself empty. A complete brain dump. Anything and everything that is on his mind at that moment gets written down on a piece of paper. Scribbled. Sometimes it is extraneous quotes, thoughts, notes, poems, stories, whatever is on his mind. Some of the thoughts may see the light of day in the final message, but many won't. Sometimes during this process, he may begin to see some structure or form begin to take shape. This may stay through to the completion of the message, which makes the process easier, but this is not usually the case.
Read myself full. This does not imply that he will read commentaries in relationship to the text. This is where he turns to his filing system and begins reading what others have written and said about not only the text, but the themes and topics that may be found in the text.
Write myself clear. The writing process for Alistair is the key to clarity and to the ability to speak affectively and with fluidity and fluency. He notes, "as you read through what you have written, you can begin to tell if the syntax is there, and if you are connecting thoughts properly in a short amount of space. If you don't write it to read it, and you assume you can process the information between your mind and your mouth, you won't be 100 percent successful." Spurgeon said to write your sermons out for the first five years. Alistair started to do this, but decided not to stop because he realized the task never got to be any easier. He admits that because he has preached for so many years now, he could operate off the back of an envelope with a simple three point outline, but that is not is approach. He continues to write out his sermons as part of his preparation. Too often, he gets the sense that pastors are working out their sermons off the cuff while they are speaking rather than doing so during their preparation.
Be yourself and forget yourself. This is crucial, not as a sense of posture, but as a reality. This is significant because God has determined that through the lips of mere men, He will speak. If God can speak from Balaam's donkey, then He can certainly is not in need of you. The fact that God gives us the privilege and opportunity to speak is indeed a very humbling thing.
How is your sermon preparation process different or similar? What steps have you found to be helpful in your preparation to preach?