I was on a program with Robert Schuller once. He never knew it. He was, after all, one of the most prominent preachers in America. I was, after all, not prominent anywhere. One of the greatest differences between our sermons — other than the size of the honoraria we each received — was the microphones we were given. He was, of course, given a great state‑of‑the‑art lapel microphone, while I was given one that looked like a 1945 Army surplus walkie‑talkie. His was a "positive thinkers, be‑happy‑attitude" FM tuner. Mine was a whistling feed‑backer that shrieked into splitting eardrums, virtually defying the Holy Spirit to get involved in what I was saying.
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But I did learn something that baleful night. If you must follow a national celebrity, ask the sound technicians to give you the big man's mike as soon as he is through with it. This has been my policy ever since. Most technicians will know you are not the big deal and will struggle with your insistence on the matter. What works here — other than a full nelson and a body slam — is being tough. If you are not, you will find yourself wearing the '45 walkie‑talkie and thereby serve to make the pundit look wiser than you are by feed‑backing your squawky rhetoric into the ears of people who will agree with the sound crew that you are clearly not of any great importance or you would have gotten better equipment.
Tell the sound crew to keep your sound level midrange and not to play with the knobs while you are preaching. It is better to be bit loud or a tad soft than to be up and down throughout the sermon. Some of them will smile piteously at any suggestion that you make since all sound crews are Calvinist, even in Arminian churches, and feel they are predestined to do what they want. But try anyway because there have been a few isolated cases of sound crews actually behaving in a Christian manner. When they do, it is a wonderful gift to those who listen and those who preach.
The only other observation is to watch out for floor cords. They can trip you up literally. If you have the good fortune to preach after the Olivet Octet, there will usually be a full eight mikes and cords for you to negotiate as you try to remember what you want to say, keeping your eye contact with the audience while you study the zigzagging wires that coil like anorexic anacondas about your feet. One false move and you could stumble into a seven‑ton amplifier and electrocute yourself.
Of all the axioms this one is the very hardest to eliminate for it requires dividing your brain into two parts, one of which is delivering your sermon and the other of which is monitoring the delivery. Almost every preacher (at the beginning of ministry) has some affectation in delivery that prevents the sermon from arriving in a crisp, intelligent, and forceful manner. The affectation may be as simple as a vocalized pause or a nervous pacing during the delivery that keeps the sermon from being understood, or at least bars the preacher from ease of comprehension.