This is the on preaching podcast with H.B. Charles Jr.

The podcast dedicated to helping you preach faithfully, clearly, and better.

Good day, friends.

Welcome to this brief episode of the On Preaching Podcast.

This is H.B. Charles Jr.

And I wanted to answer a question that I get pretty regularly.

What do you take to the pulpit when you go to the pulpit to preach?

Over the years of my pastoral ministry, which now spans more than three decades, I would describe myself as a manuscript preacher who cheats. I write out a complete sermon manuscript most

weeks, which is pretty much word for word, of what I intend to say. And then over the years,

I have internalized that message enough that I was able to just go to the pulpit with just my Bible.

That happens very, very rarely these days.

More often, I'm taking a little card like this, pardon me, an index card, where I've written enough notes to get on maybe both sides of this card, and I can stick it in my Bible, and it serves as a roadmap for me along the way so that kind of know what section of the sermon I am at next,

and it's not enough on here for me to just be flat out reading it.

But then there are other times when I am tired, I'll be honest,

or when I don't feel like I have internalized the message as much as I would like, or there are things that I want to be careful to say just the way I wrote it.

And there are those times where I take the full manuscript to the pulpit. My manuscripts are typically somewhere about 2,500 words,

about five to six pages and color-coded so that when I look down,

I kind of can tell what section of the sermon I'm in.

My main points are in red.

My sub points are in blue.

Illustrations are in purple.

Scripture quotations are italicized.

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