Tempo, meter and rhythm in preaching

I was discussing this with some of the Uni Fellowship, how a poor preacher will speak with one steady rhythm and speed. It's doesn't grab you and carry you. Such preachers often have to rely on colourful illustrations, gritty application, simplistic (and sometimes gimmicky) structure and brevity to hold the congregation.

I encourage preachers to think carefully about how human communication works, and to master a variety of meters and speeds (and volume and gestures etc), so both engage and persuade people.

And then a few days later, I was watching 'The Hip-Hop Evolution' documentary on Netflix and I heard Rakim talk about how he was influenced by John Coltrane to vary his rapping in a similar way. Here's another video (not from the Netflix doco) where he says similar *language warning*

Prior to Rakim's era, hip-hop often had a very staccato, rhyme at the end of every line regularity. After his era there was much more of the variety that we recognise in hip-hop today.

Listen to some of the preachers you most appreciate, and you'll notice that they vary sentence structure, length and emphatic rhythm. You might even notice that they have a few favourite rhythmic patterns that they use :-)



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