Yesterday, I delivered a sermon at my church. My hats off to anyone who has to do this week in, week out. I've been writing since I was in second grade, and that was easily the second most grueling thing I've ever written. I can't imagine trying to do this every week. Though I think the sermon went well, God willing, it'll be my last.
Okay, I'll amend that last statement... if I do another sermon, it really will be a Sing-A-Long sermon.
I chose to write a sermon about the various journey's we all take in life and how God likes to throw obstacles in our path so that he can challenge us, but also so that we make tighter bonds with one another and also with God. It began with a brief overview of various family vacations before it went on to discuss the various aspects of a journey - the call, the preparation, the departure, the setbacks, the arrival, and the aftermath. As I spoke about the various steps of the journey and how they've affected my own sojourn through life, I used illustrations from the Exodus to make my point. So, for instance, in the call, I talked about how God called Moses to free his people from Pharoah, and then I explained how God called me to join the Navy. In Preparations, I noted how God used the plagues to not only punish the Egyptians but also to prepare the Israelites to leave. Then I deftly explained how the 1983 Youth Group of Lakeside used their preparation for the trip to Alamosa Colorado to get to know one another better. So on, and so forth... In the arrival section, I used an illustration to explain timing - how the Israelites rejected the Promised Land at first and had to go back out into the desert for 40 more years of seasoning - and then noted how I'd also been sent back out into the wilderness for some twenty years before I was allowed to finally go to Film School.
Some of the comments I received afterwards were rather nice - one woman telling me how she felt touched at a particular section as it illuminated a similar section of her own life. Many were especially moved by my concluding section, which explained how I'd been called to go to Kenya (as already related here at ICON a month ago). I never once was able to practice that section without feeling the Spirit flow through me and I felt it again as I read it in church. Since it deals with hearing the call of God in your own life, I was rather hoping that it did move other people to listen to God's call. If I had any part of that, God used my sermon for His purposes.
Ironically, after nearly four weeks of preparation, thought, and writing, I think the thing that I liked the most was the last thing I conceived that morning - my very simple prayer that opened my sermon. Lord, not my words, but your words; not my thoughts, but your thoughts. May the people hear you in all that I say here. Amen.
Amen, indeed.
2 comments:
Awesome. Good stuff.
Now where's the sermon? ;-)
Congrats.
We've been going through a series of sermons at church about the process of hearing God and the barriers to that. Specifically, hearing God is/should be something we actively seek and the further our journey of discipleship, the greater our sensitivity to His voice. It's truly a marvelous feedback loop.
As for doing the sermon thing every week, I think it takes a lot of time spent in the Word. What amazes me is that pastors have the ability to do it in the face of all the other things which compete for their time, i.e. congregational needs and wants, church administration, et al. How they break away from the daily distractions is truly amazing to me.
Cheers.
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