New beginnings

Dumped again - "Simon since you're off work you can do the talk at the Tuesday communion service".

That was Sunday.

Scratched for ideas (our church does not follow the lectionary). Prayed like I should have done before. Instantly inspired! "Behold I make all things new" follwoed by Simeon and Anna in Luke 2 - a new revelation of the Christ gives them a new beginning (preaching the news) in their old age. (NB average age of this congregation is 75+) Encouraged them to seek a fresh revelation of the Christ and a fresh comission.

Justification sermon

My justification sermon went well today.

My Vicar did his usual thing, making me change large swathes of it half an hour before I'm due to start. "Make sure you mention father's day. Don't get too academic. It's got to be a gospel message" etc. All good points, but better made much earlier.

So my final message was a much cut down version but with additional illustrations. So although I hate the way he makes me change things at the last minute, he does actually change it for the better.

I had three or four people after each service expressing appreciation.

How to judge the quality of your sermon based on feedback:

Number of favourable comments...Quality of sermon
.....-5......................................................Either you or the congregation have serious issues!
.....0........................................................Flunked
.....3........................................................OK
.....5+......................................................Truly you are a prophet

(OK don't take that too seriously)

James Ch 5

I spoke last night at our Bible Study - which always comprises a 1 hour in-depth exegetical sermon.

It semed to go OK generally, with a few comments from the floor. At one point it started to get out of hand with a subsidiary discussion over whethre Job did or did not lack faith, but I managed to drag it back to James.

I annoyed some people by teaching that the oil is the medical treatment of the day, not necessarily a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and that it's the prayer of faith, not the oil, the heals. We don't do magic with lotions and potions.

But I had a great time with "The prayer of a righteous man is poweful and effective" - holding up a can of RAID insecticide "Kills bugs dead" to emphasise power and effectiveness, and also emphasising that being righteous is our status as forgiven sinners, not something that we attain by efforts of holiness, and so therefore all of us (in that particular congregation) are righteous and therefore all of us are powerful and effective in our prayers. So we got quite excited!

I also showed that the NIV - the 'normally incorrect version' - misrepresents Elijah's prayer as 'earnest', when really the Greek says he prayed a prayer - a normal human prayer. The emphasis is on the power of a simple prayer, and certainly not that the more energy we put into our prayers the better they are; becasue that's what the priests of Baal thought!

There are subtle hints in James that it may be possible to lose salvation, and this is a topic of intense debate at our church at present with some clergy saying once saved always saved you can't be un-born-again, and others saying that salvation is by faith in the present continuous tense and that you have to persevere to the end to be saved. So we are likely to have a special session on the topic in the next month or so and I decided to refer to that session rather than trying to answer all those questions now. Personally, I do believe in 'assurance'. Tom Wright is good on this subject, showing that in the present we are justified by faith and this is an accurate prediction of our future judgement by works thanks to the Holy Spirit producing good works in us. Something like that anyway.

Dumped into it again II

My sermon has not been coming together. You can't easily summarise a book as dense as Tom Wright's "Justification" in a way that does justice to the theology and yet is simple enough for a congregation that is 30% "people with learning difficulties". Yesterday I was getting completely bogged down.

So I set my alarm for 5:30 and went for a quiet walk through the town and into the local countryside. (Except it wasn't so quiet in town, with people still coming out of the clubs at that time!)

I tried speaking out what I would say as I walked - which I found to be agood technique - but I kept getting bogged down.

The spirit directed me to turn aside among the long grass and lie down. Looking up I could only see blurred grass and blue sky, and feel adn hear the wind and watch the grass sway in its influence. "Go in among them," He said, "let me do the talking".

So does he want me to have a quiet time of contemplation and no sermon at all? May be. But I didn't feel comfortable with that proposition. But when I got up and continued my walk, and had another go at the sermon, I found the words flowed more easily, and the content of the talk was much more simple and therefore less inclined to get bogged down. (Ironically I was walking through a muddy patch as I thought this! - but just stay out of the muddy bits and you're fine.)

And for the first time I got to the end of the talk.

Time to go home - where am I? --ONLY 3 MILES FROM HOME!

Dumped into it again

The Vicar feels the call of God again - to have a day off. This means he has asked me to take over Sunday night's sermon.

This will be the first Sunday of the month and so will be our 'fresh expressions' evening, but the natives are getting restless and want more 'word', (Isn't it terrible when the congregation wants to hear from God?) so he wants me to do a sermon. But in a fresh expressions way. Contradiction or what?

I have been given a blank canvass.

I'm still not quite Anglican enough to have a lectionary to hand as a starting point, but I think I shall convey some of what I have been learning from Tom Wright's 'Justification'.

Sunday sermon (Nehemiah ch4) - chaos and confusion

I had thought I was on the rota to preach next Sunday, but it was actually this Sunday. Fortunately someone phoned me on Friday and I realised my mistake. Being therefore a week behind on my preparation, I didn’t have a wonderfully enjoyable Saturday, catching up. But it got me out of my domestic chores!

I had to give the sermon at both morning services. This meant going early to photocopy the question sheet I had to write for the midweek home groups – normally the secretary’s Friday job, and the thing she phoned about. At least I had the sermon ready, but as the first hymn started I realised I had not downloaded my PowerPoint slides onto the memory stick or given them to the projectionist. I sneaked out to my laptop, and downloaded it easily enough, but how to get it to the projectionist, who was busy with the songs and liturgies? I asked someone to give it to her as I went to the lectern –she would find it easily enough. Or at least someone technically minded would – the first slide appeared about 5 minutes after I really wanted it and from the pulpit I could tell she was highly stressed and thinking unchristian thoughts about me. With good reason!

Apart from that the sermon itself went reasonably OK, and quite a few people commented positively afterwards. But not the gushing enthusiasm I received last time. I suppose you can’t do your ‘best ever’ every week. Even in my own rating I would have given it a B- rather than an A.

For the second service, the PowerPoint problems were resolved, and I spoke more confidently (though my wife could still spot that I was nerve-wracked by everything). But the second time round I made more mistakes in terms of leaving bits out that I meant to say. And my overall delivery in both services was rather too deadpan.

For the sermon, I was given the title “Facing the Enemy” and the second half of Nehemiah Ch 4. Clearly every significant scholar/minister/theologian has written a book on Nehemiah, and since it is such a densely packed book they all come up with different things. My sermon was therefore based on what struck ME as I read the passage, thus:

If we do God’s work on earth the Devil will oppose it. We therefore have to face up to him, thus:

• Faith and Action together (v14)
• Allocate resources (Various verses)
• Unity (Various verses).

The (scared) Oracle of God

Normally after I preach I get a good number of people saying nice things about my sermon. Mostly they are trying to be encouraging, some are simply being polite, and one or two do actually mean it.

This Sunday I had to preach at both our morning services. I have done the 9:30 before, but this was my first time speaking at the 11:00.

I didn’t feel I had prepared very well. I have not had a ‘spiritual’ week. The allocated passage didn’t lend itself to theological exegesis; it was a more practical thing, so I just had some pictures on a power point presentation and talked around the pictures. When I stood up to speak in the 9:30 my mind went completely blank, and I struggled to recover.

But afterwards, a whole stream of people came to me, not with the usual platitudes, but with a genuine sense of having been touched in the heart and convicted by the Holy Spirit. I was left with a strong sense that somehow I had actually spoken the word of God to these people.

For the second service, I knew before I said a word that it would not be so good, because it was clear by now that the message had been for the first service. So afterwards there were some people who had attended both services that said I was better the second time round. Technically, perhaps so. But I did not get the same stream of people who had been touched, just the usual numbers of encouraging/polite. Same sermon, delivered better, yet less impact.

To be honest, I am comfortable in a church where we go through the motions and have our nice ceremonies in a conventional way. But when God himself shows up, it really makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It literally scares me. I know that ‘my sermon’ was not very good in itself, but I also know that God himself somehow inhabited those words and had his way and communicated HIS message.

That is scary.

But….even more so….if people start to treat me as the oracle of God, and then I say something that is wrong and leads people into sin…then I really am in trouble.

Postscript….when I was young, I found people usually ignored me. So I started colouring my stories to make them interesting, and they became increasingly wild. Then people became interested and started to believe me…something new which I didn’t know how to handle. And it was also embarrassing because now I had to admit that I had exaggerated, so I ended up with even less credibility than I started with.

Tight schedule

This Sunday - lead 9:30 service (Technically 'Lead worship', which we rightly take to mean the whole service, but I omit the word 'worship' to avoid you thinking I am running a singalong, as some peolpe seem to think worship is limited to)

Next Sunday - lead intercessions at 9:30 service.

Following Sunday - lead 9:30 service, distribute comunion at 11:00 service, preach at 6:30 service.

Have I done enough preparation? No

The sermon is on Phillipians 4 v 1-9.....ie think of something original to say about Euodia and Syntyche for the regulars, while covering the basics for new people, and while not getting too focused on the famous bits of the passage since there is other stuff there too. Plus, make it lively enough for the youth targeted by the service without losing the older people who come.

Sermon went well.

Well, people seemed to appreciate my sermon on Sunday. There was quite a lot of positive feedback afterwards, and the Vicar and Curate both said that it was my best so far.

So what is a good sermon? I can’t think that I did either more or less preparation than previous times, or that I did it either more or less spiritually. If I could put my finger on it, then I can do it again next time.

Of course, there was at least one person who took issue with the content. (It was the camel and the eye of the needle – he took the view that it refers to the gates of Jerusalem, and whereas I explained that view and its merits, I expressed the opinion that really it’s Jesus’ sense of humour wrapped around a punchy message. It just fits the text so much better.) the only other criticism – constructive – was that I talk too fast for the elderly. (I was cramming my 16.5 minute talk into the 15 minute slot).

The people that praised me went on to tell my wife that I had done well too, when she arrived for the next service. (Her illness prevents her getting to the first one). They meant this kindly, but of course it emphasises the gulf between my success and her failure.

And even though it was only her second time back at church since the miscarriage, no-one talked to her about it.

We went to Pizza Hut for number 2’s 15th birthday, got totally stuffed and out of routine, I then forgot to do my warden duty at the evening service, and stayed at home to help put the little one’s to bed since I owe the family some attention after weeks of sermon preparation. So if I was popular at church in the morning, I’m probably not popular anymore!

Obedience

Well, I preached my sermon on Obedience. Any sermon with this topic is destined to result in hypocrisy, and I really should start paying attention to the traffic speed limit before I lecture other people about obeying Christ. However, the actual sermon seemed to go down well. I was panicking at the last minute because when the Vicar vetted my sermon beforehand (I voluntarily gave him this opportunity - it is his parish after all) he said it was nicely interwoven but he wanted me to leave out one potentially sensitive paragraph. If my sermons were modular in their structure it would be easy to miss a bit out, but my sermons are, well, nicely intewoven, and so if you take a bit out it wrecks the whole thing. It was really hard to re-do it during Sunday afternoon without the offending paragraph but still nicely interwoven. But we have a gracious God who rescued me and it all came together in the end. In the morning service they announced that I would be preaching in the evening, so it's nice that the congregation tripled in size with extras coming to hear me. (That means there was twelve instead of the normal 4)

Tomorrow's evensong is my last offical attendance at the Church, and then I will be back to normal in my own church.

On Thursday the Vicar is coming round to develop a 'Working agreement', required by the diocese for all readers, to make sure that there is a good balance between domestic and church duties. Please pray that suitable functions will be identified for me, and that these will also uplift my family rather then just making them put up with ME being in the limelight.