At Eastside, we have undertaken a massive project to begin transcribing my preached sermons. I have asked for a team of people to help with this.
It is proving to be quite the task. The task of taking a handwritten outline of sorts that I take into the pulpit, to the preaching of that outline, to the hearing of the sermon, to the printing of that preached sermon.
The early work has begun and it may prove to be a monumental project.
Step one is to load the audio version of the sermon into a software program to get the first printed draft of the transcript.
At first that sounds impressive, and I still think it is. One can, with the click of a button enter a spoken sermon into, what I’ll call, the transcription machine and within a few magical moments it spits out a printed transcript of sorts.
The next step is where the real work begins.
I have a team of people transcribing my sermons from the preaching series in Philippians. They have a very hard job. Have you ever heard me preach?
Wow, not WOW! But more like oh my. I repeat words, phrases, stutter, stammer, and slaughter the English language. About the only thing I don’t do in the spoken word is misspell words (I save that for my blog posts.)
The transcription machine (not really a machine) has a hard time understanding me often, so the kind team of editors have the task of taking what the transcription machine spits out and then putting it all back together for biblical accuracy for the eyes to read.
Here are a few of the interesting things the transcription machine has returned after “listening” to my sermons.
- Now it’s in acts chapter 16, verse one that Paul came also to the to the town of Derby and to Listerine and the disciple a disciple was there by the name of Timothy.
- Understanding of imperfections, we get infections. We we. Have infections we have things that we hold dear, things that we cherish.
So, you can see, the editing team has a lot of work to do. The transcription machine spits out more gibberish than I do sometimes.
Maybe if the early church had treated all of their infections with Listerine they would have been healthier. However, I don’t think this would stand the test of peer review for sound theology though. I’m thankful to God for the labor behind the editors from my church who endured my preaching through Philippians a few years ago and are now working on putting them into written form.
I’ve been in dialog with a pastor in India for over a year. This friendship has brought about the reason for this kind of work. It is related to his request for my sermons in print form as he is wanting to put these preached sermons into the hands of pastors without formal training but are in places where people want to know about God.
Pray for us as we undertake this task. May God bless the labor of the editors and the preaching of the preachers who will receive these sermons and them in turn preach them to their congregations. For the glory of God.
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