Randy Wray’s Blog

News of the 6 minute sermon or the consistent 8 to 10 minute sermon must have spread like wildfire across south Texas.  Suddenly I found myself with more opportunities to fill in at surrounding churches when the local preacher was out of town.  Sure the six million dollar man was an engineering marvel, but how much greater marvel than a six minute preacher?

The great thing about being a visiting preacher is you can take your best sermon with you and be "spectacular" in many places.  The great preachers are those who have the discipline to be "spectacular" in the same place year after year.  The bad thing about being a visiting preacher is you start to believing that you are spectacular.

I even got to fill in a time or two at our home church where my dad was the preacher.  This presented two unique challenges.  First, my dad was (is) a good preacher.  Second, up to this point I was still preaching his sermons.  You see the difficulty?

Pressed to come up with my own material, at our home church, I once delivered a sermon (that still embarrasses me when I think about it) how the worship service can go as long as it needs to because 1 hour just may not cut it.  I said something like "the bulletin says what time the assembly begins not what time it ends."  It wasn’t that I was saying anything wrong (the reason for my retrospective embarrassment) it’s just not the place to waste time with such nonsense.  It’s the first taste I had of preaching issues or agendas instead of Christ.  Not to mention, how do you transition to an invitation after a sermon like that?

I had passion and conviction as a young man but it was greatly misdirected.  I had (have) three qualities that lend themselves to being a great orator:  First, I can read rather quickly and retain an immense amount of information.  Second, I’m quick on my feet and can improv / adlib as necessary.  Third, I have an enormous amount of confidence and stage presence in front of people.  The problem was (is) that no one likes to listen to an arrogant, self-righteous twerp.  I had (have) three qualities that lend themselves to being a horrible messenger of God.  First, I had to be right.  Second, I had to be affirmed / approved.  Third, I had to be the best. 

I understand that we are the product of our church environment and our churches positioned themselves on quite a few three-legged stools.  I probably wasn’t much fun to be around.  Surrounded by like people of like mind and practice probably obscured those negative qualities in me.  We tend to confuse arrogance with passion, self-righteous behavior with conviction.  I thought the Bible was a weapon to be used for winning arguments not an instrument to be used to win people. 

Preaching was (and in some places, is) more about getting people to tow the line rather than inviting people to walk with Christ.  I preached a lot of sermons at a young age.  It would not be until some time later that I quit preaching sermons and began to deliver messages. 

My next stop was Abilene Christian University and a myriad of preaching opportunities.

We moved back to the United States, from Central America, the summer before my freshman year in High School.  I recognize now that those next few years represented quite a bit of change and adjustment.  The typical "normal" adjustments of high school and growing up plus learning to live in the United States.  We had moved to Central America when I was five years old.  These formative experiences spill over and directly influence my preaching in Spanish, which will be a later post in this series.  I bring this all up to say I don’t remember much about any official delivery of sermons in English until my senior year in High School. 

We lived in Victoria, Texas (located in South Texas) and a small country church in Fordtran (22 miles from Victoria) was looking for people to come and preach and so I was presented with my first official preaching gig.  I would drive once a month to this church and preach a sermon that my dad would help me write.

I remember, vividly, the first sermon I delivered.  I consider it my first "official" sermon because it was my first trip to to Fordtran and probably, although I don’t remember, was the gauge by which they would consider offering me an extended invitation to preach.  I don’t actually remember delivering the sermon.  I do remember working with my dad on writing the sermon.  I can still see us sitting in his office and him showing me how to make an outline, how to establish an introduction, the three points, and a conclusion.  I still have that sermon (in a file somewhere) and still remember the theme and the three main points.  Fitting that my first sermon would be centered on the cross of Christ. 

I have two memories seared into my brain from my time in Fordtran:

First, I was running a bit late one Sunday and was in the process of driving the 22 miles trying to get there on time.  I knew they would start the service, at the appointed hour, and if the preacher wasn’t there by the time of the sermon then somebody else would get up and speak.  I was running late and there was a car in front of me that didn’t understand that 55 on a rural Texas road was more of a guideline than a hard fast rule.  So I "patiently" waited drove behind them as long as I could stand it and blew right by them.  I pulled into the parking lot and as I hurried to get my stuff and get out of the car that same car pulled into the parking lot right behind me.  Embarrassed?   Yep!  Good thing I was not preaching on obeying the law of the land that Sunday!

Second, I actually had hair back in those days and my hair was, according to the style of the day, (it was the 80’s after all) a bit long like those fine young men of the Beatles.  One Sunday morning as I’m standing in the back shaking hands, as we all know the preacher is supposed to do, one elderly lady walked right up to me and without saying a word produced a bobby pin and pinned my hair back.  I was paralyzed in horror!  I had no idea what to do next.  I stood there for what seemed like an eternity until the woman’s daughter ran up, pulled out the bobby pin and began to profusely apologize.

Bobbie pins aside, the people in Fordtran were very gracious and allowed me to learn and grow and develop as a speaker.  It’s one thing to write and practice but combining writing and practice with a successful live delivery is the equivalent of hitting for the cycle.  (It’s a baseball term)  I’m convinced they keep having me back because in my youthful, inexperience I felt not compulsion to ramble on or fill time.  I’d get up, preach through my text and 8 to 10 minutes later sit down.  They loved me!  I do remember the message I delivered on Psalm 23 lasting a total of 6 minutes. 

I’m pretty sure I saw tears of joy.
 

(I plan to resume my series on preaching tomorrow)

Even though it’s been six years the images were still disturbing as we watched a portion of the television coverage. It’s nothing short of miraculous that more people were not killed. I’m not surprised, at all, by the feelings of sorrow and sympathy that surfaced today for those who suffered. I am surprised, however, at the bitter feelings that exist in my heart towards those who planned and carried out this act of terror. Last year I wrote about what it was like for us on that day in Arlington.

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.

This cartoon says it all!

We were waiting outside the ball field last night for Madison’s practice to begin.  A car pulled up behind us.  A girl got out of the car holding a juvenile cat.  She walked inside the gate, dropped the cat off ran back to the car and the car sped away.  The cat was obviously scared now and was headed towards the busy street.

Now, I hate cats just as much as the next guy but was not going to let this one get hit by a car in full view of the children.  We scooped up the cat and began to weigh our options.  There was a garage door open right across from the ball field, I walked over there to see if they recognized the cat.  The funny thing was they didn’t recognize the cat but they recognized me.  Yes, they were church members! 

They loaned us a carrier and we took the boy home.  He’s in the office with me right now.  We’re trying to find someone to take him so he doesn’t have to cash in one of his lives at the shelter.

Anyone who has participated in home remodeling or construction understands the two most important variables that are difficulty to predict:  Time and Money.  In fact the poetic, mathematical equation looks something like this

TIME > THAN EXPECTED + AVAILABLE MONEY < THAN REQUIRED = FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS REMODEL

With $2K (I am not exaggerating about that figure) worth of Architectural drawings and Engineer drawings we head to the county to pull our permits to satisfy the red tape of our fair city.

I missed being at Faith Quest this year.  I’ve already heard, as I would have expected, that the time was great.  We had a little bit of faith quest of our own here this Sunday.  We may a big push to provide a special service on a typical low attended Sunday.  I received a lot of positive feedback from our service this Sunday, even with a period of silence included.  Of course, I hardly ever hear the negative feedback first hand. 

Two Sunday’s ago we received an anonymous attendance card.  A disgruntled person wrote "How can you call yourself a Church of Christ!!  You are a disgrace."  This positive and encouraging statement was included with a reference to Matthew 15:8-9.   I feel sorry for whoever wrote that note.  I feel sorry that in this life, this side of heaven, this person may never experience the joy and freedom found in a church that is filled with the grace of Christ.  And, if God chooses to speed their departure towards heaven, well so be it!  God moves in mysterious ways!

Maybe the reason we’ve done such a pathetic job at loving those who do not yet know Christ is that we keep doing such a pathetic job of loving those who do know Christ.  If the way we treat those in "the brotherhood" is any indication of the way we treat the lost, it’s a scary indication that the lost will remain lost.