Word count

I did a word count on my last four sermons. I'd never done this before, and it was pretty dern easy since I write my sermons out in Microsoft Word, so I just have to click a button and it does everything for me. The reason I did this is because son Isaac asked me a couple weeks ago how many words they were. Not sure why, but I'm guessing it's because he has to be aware for his movie-reviewing gig.

At any rate, here are the details for my average sermon (based on my last four):

• Pages (double-spaced, 14-font) - 8.5
  
• Words - 2,207
• Characters (no spaces) - 9,600
• Characters (with spaces) - 11,806
• Paragraphs - 39
• Lines - 175

I will say, there have been times when my first draft is up to 20 pages. It's not quite so bad now. After 8+ years of doing this I'm getting a little better. However the hardest part is still trying to decide what gets cut out. But I would be much too boring to listen to for an hour like some people. Usually I preach 20-30 minutes. It varies mostly depending on how many times I go "off the page" (go on rants that aren't in my manuscript). And I try not to just read directly from the manuscript, but I do stick to it pretty closely.