Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Would you say there's a. Would you say preaching is an art?
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: There's an art to preaching.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Yep. I believe.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Is it a performance?
No, but it's an art.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: It's an art, yes.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And so, as an artist, and I know Dr. Taylor, that was one thing he was known for. He was, I think, many times referred to as a wordsmith.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Talk about how he prepared his sermons. Talk about and how that's impacted you. What did you take? What did you leave? Is it exactly the same in terms of.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: But he used to say that. He used to use a quote from Mark Twain when Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Yeah.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Between lightning and a lightning bug, yes. Okay.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: So I want to make sure I have as much as possible the right words, the right phrasing.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Well, you know, one time when I was chaplain at St. David's School, Episcopal School there in Raleigh, you know, and I had a lot of great speakers, preachers come in, and I'll never forget, and I think I told you, like I tell everyone, I'm like, you know, you got about 10 to 12 minutes, and I'll never forget, man, you came in this dominating presence, and you got up in that pulpit, elevated pulpit, and I remember you. I think your message was five and a half or six, six minutes.
You could hear a pin drop.
And I heard not only from kids, students, but I heard from parents.
They said, who was this guy you had in there? Our kids told us that's the best sermon they've ever heard.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: They did.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: And they. And I said, well, it's interesting that you say that. It was probably the shortest sermon they had heard, too. No, no, no. But. But it was. But I think that has to do with your preparation.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: So how many hours a week?
So you start on Tuesday.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: So between Tuesday and Sunday, how many hours a week would you say? You.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Between 10 and 15 hours a week.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: 15. 10, 15 hours a week. And you wrote it out one time, typically, and then changed the words and all that. And then how many times would you actually maybe preach it before the pulpit?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Probably in my head, I would preach it two or three times. Maybe out loud once or twice. Twice to see how it sounded. Yes.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Okay.
What is.
From your recollection, what was the most impactful or influential sermon that you have preached?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: That's tough, because there have been sermons that I have felt were not that impactful, that when folks talked to me about it ended up being Very impactful for them. Yeah. Right, right.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yes. And then there's ones you thought you. Man, this was awesome. Home run, man. I had it. You didn't hear anything.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Which tells us we should not go off of the reaction.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: It tells me that, you know, we prepare the best we can and we deliver the best we can.
But, you know, between the words leaving our mouth and reaching the listener's ear.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Sometimes the Lord does something with that in between.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: That we're not aware of.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: That's right. He can even take our mistakes.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: I've sped it up at times.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: That was great. I was like, what?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: I'm like, what did I say? Were you listening to me?
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Well, I think it's the power of the. Of the spoken word.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: I do. I believe that of God's, you know.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: The Holy Spirit working.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: And I think preparing the hearts of the people to hear, too.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: And then back to prayer. Praying for the. Those to receive. Talk about the sermon about the masks that Taylor preached. I love about people wearing masks. That people wear masks. And then there's another one about the candy.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: He said that folks. He said that we all wear masks and.
Oh, it was.
No, he was talking about, yeah, we all wear masks. And he was relating it to the religious high priest at the time when Jesus was crucified, Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate, the government.
And he said that we all wear masks and want to give this perception to the people of how we want them to perceive us.
He said. And they had on masks, both the religious high priest and the politician, you know, the government.
He said, but what Jesus did during that Passion Week was he unmasked both of them and showed them for who they really were.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Right?
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And he said that when we come to God, he said, at the foot of the cross, if we really kneel at the foot of the cross and see our sins, us for who we really are, our sins for what they really are. And the price that was paid for our sins, it unmasks us for it unmasked. So that we can really see ourselves.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And how God sees us.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: And how God sees us. Yes.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: And he said. And after that, he said, and whenever.
Whenever politics or government gets together with religion, Jesus Christ gets crucified every time.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Wow. Say that again.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: He said, whenever politics or government comes together with religion, Jesus Christ gets crucified every time.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: And that's why you're saying we need to separate the two. Not that one doesn't inform.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: But there's a time and a place. Right? But ultimately God has to be number one, right?
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And so. And so with the preaching today, we don't have to call names.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: You can if you want to, but.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Not since it's been recorded. No, no.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: But with this candy, with these sound by.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. He had visited that church. It was a prominen church in Texas that he visited.
And he said they had a lot of things going on. Had a cafe, bookstore.
Not bookstores bad, but it was like almost a carnival in the lobby before you actually went into the church.
And then the message, she said there was nothing said.
Jesus name was not even spoken.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Nothing said about, you know, the gospel, sin or anything. It's all about, you know, the people's lives and how to live better lives and do you know for themselves.
And he said. He said it was like being in a candy store. Yeah. He said, but the problem with candy is if you give your child only candy, he said after a while they're going to have a sour stomach.
He said if you keep giving them only candy, eventually you have no child.
One thing, Dr. Taylor, I keep going back to Dr. Taylor. One thing he said that always stays with me, especially on Sunday morning. He said, when the preacher has finished his sermon and sat down, you do not want the people saying what a great preacher he or she was.
You want the people saying what a great God we serve.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Amen.
