10 Sep 07 Preaching I

We dodged a furry bullet!  Much to the dismay of the children, we were able to find a home for the cat.  A family from Reese’s city league soccer team agreed to take the cat.  We gently placed the cat into their care and ran!

We attended a 60th wedding anniversary celebration of one of our church members last night. They lived in Spur, Texas prior to making the trek Westward.  I remembered preaching one time in Spur, Texas when I was in college.  This memory triggered a retrospective, reminiscing look at my preaching career.  So, I thought I’d spend a few posts sharing some of my memories and thoughts about preaching.

Besides being a baseball player, I can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else but preach.  I know, for certain, this was due to watching my dad and having a front-row seat to his work.  I do not ever remember him pushing me in the direction of ministry.  And as it turns out, I think I would discourage my children from pursuing a career in preaching / pulpit ministry. The good thing about knowing what you want to do is you are able to focus early and not "waste" too much time getting there.  The bad thing about knowing what you want to do (or at least thinking you know what you want to do) is you become one-dimensional and can feel stuck at times.

My first official sermon was delivered in Spanish when I was a young lad.  We lived in Central America at the time and I was of junior high age.  I don’t remember what I spoke about, I just remember being very nervous and worried about the timing up zipping up my bible at the right time.  Bible covers with zippers were quite popular at that time and there was an art to zipping up the bible at just the right time. 

Too soon and people stopped listening and starting turning in their songbooks for the invitation song.  Too late and the sermon was an unfinished craft project.

The States side equivalent was when the preacher said, "in conclusion" or started working through "the plan" of salvation.   Leadership Magazine carried a cartoon once that depicted a frumpy, grumpy man carving notches in the back of a church pew.  The caption depicted his wife saying something like "would you stop making a mark every time he says ‘in conclusion’".

There’s a certain cadence - a rhythm - most of us know when the preacher is winding it down and for many it’s a beautiful thing.