HITTING YOUR CREATIVE PEAK
Ken Shigematsu
Several years ago, I was visiting my former professor of preaching, Dr Haddon Robinson, and asked, “Have you had any new insights about preaching recently?” He replied, “I’ve discovered that our brain works on a ten-day creative cycle. So, if a person wants to prepare their best sermons, they need to begin their preparation at least ten days in advance. This will ensure a person will hit their creative peak somewhere in that cycle.” That simple, yet powerful idea revolutionized my approach to sermon preparation. Up until that time, I had typically prepared my entire sermon on the Thursday before the Sunday that I was to preach.
I felt an enormous amount of pressure to come up with something creative on Thursdays, and I dreaded that day. Thursdays were the most stressful part of my week. With all of the anxiety, I experienced regular “sermon block.”
Haddon Robinson’s insight changed my approach to sermon preparation. Instead of preparing my Sunday sermon on the Thursday before, I began to prepare it two Thursdays before, so that I would have a ten-day runway. I began working on it every other day, for part of the morning. Spreading out the work significantly reduced the pressure and my anxiety. The longer runway also gave more time for my creative ideas to emerge and I found that — for the first time — I began to enjoy the sermon preparation process, and that it felt more prayerful. People even commented that my sermons had improved.
These days, I’ll typically be working on two messages on any given week, putting 10 to 15 hours a week into a sermon. The longer runway actually gives more time for creative ideas to percolate, and helps me to better see how one sermon will work in relationship to another in the series.
I also discovered that I was more creative and fruitful in my preparation work if I studied and wrote at approximately the same time. We tend to assume that artistic types are unstructured and spontaneous, and rely on pure inspiration. But Mason Currey’s study of 161 painters, writers, composers, filmmakers, philosophers, and other exceptional thinkers demonstrates that the greatest artists had very precise routines, and engaged in their creative work at the same time every day. Currey’s book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, demonstrates how “a solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies, and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.”
In my experience, I have found that walking helps to foster my creative process. I typically read, outline ideas, and write while walking. I hold a sheet of paper in my hand and do my initial outlining and sketching of ideas by hand. I later discovered that handwriting my initial ideas fosters more creativity because you are accessing a different part of your brain as you manipulate your thoughts with a pen and paper, parts that you may not be not tapping into as you type — no pun intended!
As we walk (or run, or swim), we are using both the left and the right sides of our bodies, and this helps to engage both hemispheres of our brain. Walking helps increase the endorphins that help foster creative ideas.
Years ago, one of my predecessors at my church in Vancouver would have lunch at home with his family after the Sunday service. His children, who were in their teenage and young adult years then, would refer to this as “having the preacher for lunch.” They would point out the flaws and shortcomings of his sermon. When I heard that story, I mused that it would have been so much more helpful if the preacher had heard those comments before preaching his sermon — so he could have made some adjustments. Thus was born “feed-forward.” I started vetting my Sunday sermon past a group of colleagues and lay people on the Wednesday afternoon before I was slated to preach.
I always want at least one woman, and one thoughtful lay-person who is a gifted communicator, in my “feed-forward” group. They will then let me know what was helpful about the sermon and more importantly, and constructive for me, what could have been clearer or stronger.
Of course, having a runway to prepare your sermon and incorporating practices, like walking and feed-forward, to cultivate creativity are no substitutes for the Holy Spirit. However, like spiritual disciplines at their best, these practices can become portals for us to experience more of Christ’s grace in the creative process.
Contrary to popular myth, being unprepared to preach doesn’t necessarily mean a person is more dependent on the Spirit either. If we are woefully underprepared, we tend to experience greater anxiety while speaking and end up using an excessive amount of mental energy simply to construct something meaningful to say in the moment. Conversely, if we are well-prepared, we will be more relaxed and attentive to the movements of the Holy Spirit in our actual preaching moment and we can omit something we had prepared or say something we hadn’t scripted. If we engage in a wise and healthy preparation process, we will find ourselves more centered, creative, and truly open to the guidance of Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
—
Ken Shigematsu is the Senior Pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, BC, one of the largest and most diverse city-center churches in Canada. He is the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal awarded to Canadians in recognition for their outstanding contribution to the country. He will be conducting a Masterclass for preachers at EPPI 2020. Learn more at www.eagles.org.sg/eppi2020
MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS
Learn for the Present and Future
In this time of our government’s prudent measures to stop gatherings, we are actively producing courses that will help people enhance their life and leadership skills through our mobile microlearning platform NEXLeaders.com.
For 2020, we have added 9 new courses to our existing suite. Learn relevant skills especially in this time of global health and economic crisis ranging from personal effectiveness, crisis management, developing resilience, career transition to practical and wise parenting principles. You have the time now and it’s time to prepare now for the future.
UP NEXT – A MUST FOR ALL
PREACHERS AND TEACHERS
EPPI Conference 2020
PROCLAMATION IN TODAY’S DIGITAL AGE
Fri – Sat, Jul 31 – Aug 1, 2020 at Faith Methodist Church Singapore
Speakers: Ken Shigematsu, Paul McGee, Raymond Fong, Philip Lyn, Scott Lindsey, Joseph Chean, Ho Boon Tiong, Edric Sng
EPPI Conference is equipping, enabling, encouraging and empowering preachers and Bible teachers to commmunicate more effectively.
Paul McGee is Capstone’s bestselling author of all-time. He is an international keynote speaker and performance coach, combining his background in psychology with large doses of humor and practical insights. He is managing director of his own training and education company and proud creator of SUMO. He has spread the word about SUMO in over 30 countries and expanded the brand into the public, private and education sectors. Paul has a diploma in Performance Coaching and counselling and is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Learn from him about “Captivating and Sustaining Attention” and “Maximizing the Power of Speech” at EPPI Conference 2020.
Register at www.eagles.org.sg/eppi2020
HITTING YOUR CREATIVE PEAK
Ken Shigematsu
Several years ago, I was visiting my former professor of preaching, Dr Haddon Robinson, and asked, “Have you had any new insights about preaching recently?” He replied, “I’ve discovered that our brain works on a ten-day creative cycle. So, if a person wants to prepare their best sermons, they need to begin their preparation at least ten days in advance. This will ensure a person will hit their creative peak somewhere in that cycle.” That simple, yet powerful idea revolutionized my approach to sermon preparation. Up until that time, I had typically prepared my entire sermon on the Thursday before the Sunday that I was to preach.
I felt an enormous amount of pressure to come up with something creative on Thursdays, and I dreaded that day. Thursdays were the most stressful part of my week. With all of the anxiety, I experienced regular “sermon block.”
Haddon Robinson’s insight changed my approach to sermon preparation. Instead of preparing my Sunday sermon on the Thursday before, I began to prepare it two Thursdays before, so that I would have a ten-day runway. I began working on it every other day, for part of the morning. Spreading out the work significantly reduced the pressure and my anxiety. The longer runway also gave more time for my creative ideas to emerge and I found that — for the first time — I began to enjoy the sermon preparation process, and that it felt more prayerful. People even commented that my sermons had improved.
These days, I’ll typically be working on two messages on any given week, putting 10 to 15 hours a week into a sermon. The longer runway actually gives more time for creative ideas to percolate, and helps me to better see how one sermon will work in relationship to another in the series.
I also discovered that I was more creative and fruitful in my preparation work if I studied and wrote at approximately the same time. We tend to assume that artistic types are unstructured and spontaneous, and rely on pure inspiration. But Mason Currey’s study of 161 painters, writers, composers, filmmakers, philosophers, and other exceptional thinkers demonstrates that the greatest artists had very precise routines, and engaged in their creative work at the same time every day. Currey’s book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, demonstrates how “a solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies, and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.”
In my experience, I have found that walking helps to foster my creative process. I typically read, outline ideas, and write while walking. I hold a sheet of paper in my hand and do my initial outlining and sketching of ideas by hand. I later discovered that handwriting my initial ideas fosters more creativity because you are accessing a different part of your brain as you manipulate your thoughts with a pen and paper, parts that you may not be not tapping into as you type — no pun intended!
As we walk (or run, or swim), we are using both the left and the right sides of our bodies, and this helps to engage both hemispheres of our brain. Walking helps increase the endorphins that help foster creative ideas.
Years ago, one of my predecessors at my church in Vancouver would have lunch at home with his family after the Sunday service. His children, who were in their teenage and young adult years then, would refer to this as “having the preacher for lunch.” They would point out the flaws and shortcomings of his sermon. When I heard that story, I mused that it would have been so much more helpful if the preacher had heard those comments before preaching his sermon — so he could have made some adjustments. Thus was born “feed-forward.” I started vetting my Sunday sermon past a group of colleagues and lay people on the Wednesday afternoon before I was slated to preach.
I always want at least one woman, and one thoughtful lay-person who is a gifted communicator, in my “feed-forward” group. They will then let me know what was helpful about the sermon and more importantly, and constructive for me, what could have been clearer or stronger.
Of course, having a runway to prepare your sermon and incorporating practices, like walking and feed-forward, to cultivate creativity are no substitutes for the Holy Spirit. However, like spiritual disciplines at their best, these practices can become portals for us to experience more of Christ’s grace in the creative process.
Contrary to popular myth, being unprepared to preach doesn’t necessarily mean a person is more dependent on the Spirit either. If we are woefully underprepared, we tend to experience greater anxiety while speaking and end up using an excessive amount of mental energy simply to construct something meaningful to say in the moment. Conversely, if we are well-prepared, we will be more relaxed and attentive to the movements of the Holy Spirit in our actual preaching moment and we can omit something we had prepared or say something we hadn’t scripted. If we engage in a wise and healthy preparation process, we will find ourselves more centered, creative, and truly open to the guidance of Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
—
Ken Shigematsu is the Senior Pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, BC, one of the largest and most diverse city-center churches in Canada. He is the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal awarded to Canadians in recognition for their outstanding contribution to the country. He will be conducting a Masterclass for preachers at EPPI 2020. Learn more at www.eagles.org.sg/eppi2020
MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS
Learn for the Present and Future
In this time of our government’s prudent measures to stop gatherings, we are actively producing courses that will help people enhance their life and leadership skills through our mobile microlearning platform NEXLeaders.com.
For 2020, we have added 9 new courses to our existing suite. Learn relevant skills especially in this time of global health and economic crisis ranging from personal effectiveness, crisis management, developing resilience, career transition to practical and wise parenting principles. You have the time now and it’s time to prepare now for the future.
UP NEXT – A MUST FOR ALL
PREACHERS AND TEACHERS
EPPI Conference 2020
PROCLAMATION IN TODAY’S DIGITAL AGE
Fri – Sat, Jul 31 – Aug 1, 2020 at Faith Methodist Church Singapore
Speakers: Ken Shigematsu, Paul McGee, Raymond Fong, Philip Lyn, Scott Lindsey, Joseph Chean, Ho Boon Tiong, Edric Sng
EPPI Conference is equipping, enabling, encouraging and empowering preachers and Bible teachers to commmunicate more effectively.
Paul McGee is Capstone’s bestselling author of all-time. He is an international keynote speaker and performance coach, combining his background in psychology with large doses of humor and practical insights. He is managing director of his own training and education company and proud creator of SUMO. He has spread the word about SUMO in over 30 countries and expanded the brand into the public, private and education sectors. Paul has a diploma in Performance Coaching and counselling and is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Learn from him about “Captivating and Sustaining Attention” and “Maximizing the Power of Speech” at EPPI Conference 2020.
Register at www.eagles.org.sg/eppi2020