Internalize Don't Memorize

I wanted to take a bit of a pause from the terrible news of the fires in Ventura County, and now the entire Los Angeles region, to reflect on something more mundane, but perhaps helpful.

After preaching last week at Burlingame Pres. a member came up afterward and asked me how it was possible for me to offer a 25-30 minute Sunday message without notes.  I explained to my friend that it was not really as hard to do as it may seem.  Here are my ideas about how to deliver a long talk without notes.  So, this blogpost is for anyone who does public speaking, preaching, or other forms of declamation in a classroom or a work-room or boardroom.

*  It is always easier to recite your own material from memory, rather than someone else's.  If I had to memorize Shakespeare rather than my own self-generated material ("Et tu Brute?") it would be much harder.

*  The great preacher Mark Labberton, President of Fuller, and also someone who speaks regularly without notes once told me to see a message as a "quiver full of arrows", rather than a fixed set of ideas that had to be communicated in a certain order.  A good speaker comes to the platform with a bunch of arrows.  Not all of them have to be shot in one message.  They don't have to come out of the quiver in any particular order.

*  A good message should be a conversation.  Each week I try to have a conversation with the congregation that I am speaking with.  Just as I don't worry about what to say when I am having a conversation with my 5 year old, Sheena, or my 9 year old, Haley, I don't worry about just having a conversation with a congregation of 600+.

*  I always write my outline out, with one word that would remind me of my point, if I forgot it, on a tiny little envelope sized piece of paper at the back of my Bible.  The goal is to have one word that jogs your memory, if you need a memory jogger.

*  The more you speak, the easier it is.  The best stand-up comedians do monologues in night clubs every single night of the week.  You can only gain a real sense of fluidity when speaking when you do it  A LOT.

*  The best advice I can give is the title of this blogpost:

Internalize Don't Memorize

Memorization occurs at a surface level, and comes and goes almost as quickly as it enters our brains. I knew friends who were good at cramming for an exam in college who could quickly memorize reams of material, and then dispense it into the called for exam, and then forget all of that material by lunchtime.  Internalization occurs at a much deeper level.  When you internalize something it finds a way into the recesses of your heart and soul.  When something is placed in that space of our consciousness, it is ours for the keeping, and for using in any public setting.

All For Now,

GB