Visual sermons

I'm thinking about adapting some of my talks to a visual medium, like powerpoint, for storing afterwards.

Currently, I post the texts of my sermons on a blog, mainly as an archive for my own benefit, although there has (believe it or not) been occasion for someone to request a copy of a sermon they heard. In that case, it's helpful to have a searchable archive that I can't lose in a computer crash. From the perspective of someone encountering one of those sermons/homilies outside the context of its delivery, however, the written version is not primary - it's way, way secondary. 

A sermon is written to be spoken and heard, not read.

You've got to be able to hear the inflections in the speaker's voice, wait during the pauses to wonder what will follow and try to imagine ahead, otherwise, how can you be surprised when what's said is different than you predicted, or how can you feel affirmed if it's the same?

You can create tension and anticipation and suprise in a written text intended for reading, but the techniques are different. 

Writing techniques, when translated to speech, sound 'bookish' and stiff. Similarly, words intended for speech, when written down, can look simplistic and like there is a lot missing, so a text-based format is not the best medium, in my opinion.

A visual medium like powerpoint, which allows for words to appear and disappear, seems like it might somewhat re-create this aspect of the timing of the words. It also allows for focus on single ideas at a time and then come to some new understanding of them in the way the following ideas are linked to the previous ones. 

A sermon, written to be delivered, is put together with a clear structure, strong imagery, and repetition of key ideas and phrases to allow people to hold the words and ideas in their minds, because they can't read what you're saying to remind themselves of something they missed or forgot. They have to hold onto it only by hearing. 

This is very different than a text written to be read. Texts written for reading can make use of complex grammar, long sentences, subtle imagery and unclear structures, because the reader can read back and forth within the text, go back and re-read something from the beginning when it has been enlightened by a later comment. They can go back and reread something they forgot or didn't pay attention to the first time, which becomes important later. 

I think a sermon is more like an event than a text, and there are different ways of hearing it. Each person in a single congregation does, in fact, hear the same sermon differently, so it shares some similarities in this respect with the idea of "adversarial readings" of texts.

From these thoughts, it seems to me that a visual medium like powerpoint, which can visually indicate emphasis through color and other means and which can present material sequentially in small chunks, especially when combined with timings and images, may "translate" an oral sermon into a visual text more accurately or effectively.

This summer, when I have some more time, I'm going to try adapting my Good Friday meditations to this format and see how it does. They are short texts which very intentionally make use of visual elements and timing.