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Q & A with Fred Lybrand
Author of Preaching on Your Feet
 
For today’s preacher, pastor and author Fred Lybrand (DMin.) introduces a compelling thought: How would your ministry change if you could rise at a moment’s notice and give a commendable sermon straight from God’s Word and your heart?  In his new book, Preaching on Your Feet: Connecting God and the Audience in the Preachable Moment, he inspires preachers to recapture the energy, persuasiveness, and transparency that characterized the great extemporaneous speakers of the past, men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, George Whitefield, John Newton, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Q:  What audience were you thinking of when you wrote this book?
 
A:  I thought about a new preacher who is fresh out of seminary or who has recently received a call to ministry and has in his heart the hope of touching the world through the proclamation of the Word of God.  In this stage of excitement and dreams and ideals, this person has high goals for how explaining the Word of God with passion can catch fire in the souls of those who hear and sees preaching the Word of God as an awesome responsibility with eternal impact.
 
The second person in my mind is an older preacher, one who has been at the work long enough to know the realities of study, audiences, and what people will and won’t learn.  Though still hopeful and interested in the purpose of God, this second individual is like someone who is beginning to catch a virus; somewhere in his body he can tell something’s wrong.  There is a sense that things are not quite right.  He’s been to seminars, read books, and tried different things.  Even on occasion (perhaps often) he’s simply purchased and repeated a “proven” sermon from someone else who’s usually famous.
 
Q:  What does it mean to preach on your feet?
 
A:  Preaching on your feet is a way to make a real spirit-led connection to real people at a real moment in time.  This is something that rarely happens when you read your sermon from a prepared manuscript or are tied to your notes.  In layman’s terms, it involves being “in the moment,” not solely relying on prewritten notes (though they can still be very helpful), and staying open to what God might have in store during any given preaching appointment.  Preaching on your feet requires that you become a practiced thinker—not simply someone who gets up with a vague notion (or no notion at all) of what to say.  With excellent preparation, a personal walk with God, and practice in the art of extemporaneous speaking, preaching on your feet adds up to a heart-to-heart style of delivery that makes preaching a joy for both the orator and listener time and again.
 
Q:  Why don’t more people use the preaching on your feet method?
 
A:  The short answer is who knows?  It probably has to do with education and insecurity.  Our systems of higher education are not teaching students how to think on their feet, and most students want to emulate their professors.  Professors are speaking to motivated students and have clarity as their primary focus.  Clarity and precision are clearly achieved most effectively through detailed notes.  Of course, the flaw here is that the pulpit, though a classroom, is not a seminary classroom.
 
Insecurity about preaching on your feet comes from a number of sources but largely because the preacher has never tried it.  Simply put, preaching on your feet comes with age and maturity and work.  At issue is a decision to learn now. 
 
Q:  Are you more likely to say something foolish without notes?
 
A:  Yes.  You are more likely to do so.  In my experience, however, you are also more likely to say something incredibly noteworthy in the inspiration of the moment.  In many ways preaching on your feet is about a decision between control and impact.  With practice there are fewer mistakes, and often the “foolish thing” turns out to add to the ethos or credibility of the speaker.  The people suddenly realize that they are talking to someone who is also human and real, which goes a long way in authentically connecting with an audience.
 
Q:  What do you do when you misquote, misspeak, or forget a detail?
 
A:  First, it is noteworthy that this happens less often than you might imagine.  If you prepare faithfully, there is surprisingly little misspeaking while preaching.  Misquoting normally happens in the same way that misspelling does—you are guessing.  If you don’t know something for sure, you shouldn’t be saying it in a private conversation—much less from the pulpit.  Misspeaking or slipping on details is handled in much the same way as in a regular conversation over lunch.  We say things like, “Let me restate that,” or “Excuse me, I misspoke.”  Audiences certainly understand that.  What integrity to catch yourself and clarify it before the listeners.  In fact, it offers a great example: giving people the freedom to go ahead and speak without perfection because they have the opportunity to correct statements as they communicate.         
 
Q:  How does a preacher know when to stop preaching with notes and start preaching on his feet?  Is this an issue of maturity?
 
A:  Spurgeon observed that this comes with greater ease as a preacher ages because of his increased experience and knowledge.  In this book I have explained how to transition and how to decide.  In the final analysis the decision is what is at issue.  The decision to learn to preach on your feet allows you to begin organizing the way you study and communicate and prepare so that you will learn a little and then a little more.  Personally, it took me a period of about three years to learn how to preach on my feet and another two years to decide to make it my exclusive approach.
 
Q:  How dependent is this approach on the speaker’s personality type?
 
A:  The preacher’s personality can influence whether he is apt to preach on his feet.  The definition of preaching in this book, in fact, must necessarily involve personality.  My conviction is that there’s no such thing as a personality that comes alive when you read a manuscript.  All personalities can have a conversation with a large group of people.  Phillip Brooks seemed to think some people were made for this and others weren’t, but Spurgeon’s and Finney’s arguments are compelling—that in the course of time anyone can learn to be a practiced thinker.  Personality is entirely too individualized to make an absolute statement here.  The fact remains, you’ll never know until you try.                                               
 
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Preaching on Your Feet by Fred R. Lybrand
B&H Publishing Group   ISBN-13:978-080544686-9/softcover/182 pages/$14.99
 
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