Preaching To Mend Broken Lives: An Interview With T.D. Jakes
Preaching: How do you go about preparing a message?
Jakes: It can vary for me, after twenty-seven years of ministry in the gospel. Sometimes it begins with the text and I have to find the subject and the outline. Often it begins with the subject and I have to find the text that helps me to describe the subject. Many times the story of the text becomes a metaphor that points to the issues and the lives of a person. I think that sometimes when we get so engrossed in the text that we lose sight of the congregation we've lost the point, because the text is only a backdrop to help me reach the lives of the congregation. If I am so consumed in talking about Esther that I forget about Ruth or that I forget about Mary who is sitting on the third row or Elizabeth who's sitting on the fifth row then I've lost the point. Esther is only used as a tool to help me enhance Elizabeth's life or Sister Sally's life who is sitting out there in the congregation.
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I go through the Word of God looking for illustrations from a biblical perspective that will enhance the congregant's experience. I have a recipe for preaching that I have used for 27 years — it's not original, I read it somewhere. I can't remember where but it stayed with me. It is a four step process.
The first one is to study yourself full. Gather as much information as possible on the subject that you are going to speak. The second one — which I think is perhaps even more critical than the first — is to think yourself clear. If you study yourself full but don't think yourself clear, when you get up to speak you give a lot of facts but the facts have no continuity. I call it theological indigestion — you're just sputtering up information that's not put into a palatable format. The first one is study your self full the second one think yourself clear.
The third one is pray yourself hot. If you don't have a real passion about it you can't preach effectively. If it's not hot to you, it won't be hot to them. The fourth one, which is critical, it is let yourself go. Don't be inhibited in the pulpit. You're just an instrument. Don't be so self-conscious that you're not God-conscious. If you will let yourself go on stage and you are relaxed, then that relaxes the congregation. If the pastor is tight the congregation is tight. Then the whole hour, or whatever it is, is laborious because nobody is comfortable. It is like riding with somebody — if you've ever gotten into a car with a driver who is nervous, their nervousness is contagious. You can feel them holding the wheel and shaking, and you're sitting up there thinking something is wrong. That's what happens when somebody mans the pulpit who will not let themselves go. If you study yourself full, think yourself clear, pray yourself hot, and let yourself go you have a great experience.