Preaching is a deep passion of mine. I love digging into the word of God and extracting information, principles, and truths; then creatively presenting them to an audience in order to inspire spiritual transformation. That is the passion, but before you can display the passion of preaching you find yourself as a unique persona and voice that is honing their craft. There was a day when preaching simply meant to stand behind a podium or pulpit, rattle off information, narrowed down to 3 points, and pound on that pulpit and exercise your right to orate with red-face, condemning eyes, and angry voice. I'm glad that preaching has taken some turns since then. I remember in High School not thinking of preaching as a career simply because I didn't want to have to be able to display my gift of memorization of every scripture known on a particular topic. Today is different. Maybe it has been different for a long time and it was just my experience of churches that made me think that preaching had to be a particular way. The craft of preaching allows us to not simply be complacent with what information we know and can regurgitate, but also how we can creatively and passionately reveal God, Jesus, and Spirit that are currently at work in the world and living in us. I believe that I have the best job in all the world.
Creating a sermon takes time. The message has to take into consideration the content to be studied, the person of the preacher that is in relationship with that content, the way in which it will be presented, the hearers (audience) that will receive that presentation, and then the compelling actions of the hearers as they leave and begin a new week. There is much of that, that I can control and some that I cannot. My job as the preacher is to take my part of what I can control and to give God glory with how I do that. So a sermon takes time to create. For every minute of talking time, there is probably 30 minutes to an hour of prep involved. So a it may be grueling to an adhd, insta-everything culture to sit through a 25 minute message at church. I guess I could say be glad you don't have to sit with me while I work on that presentation. In fact, the shorter sermons actually take more careful attention as any writer or presenter will tell you, editing is difficult.
Preaching is a craft. One that I love and that I love to work on and continually try to perfect. Any sermon I have ever written has never been perfect and never been finished. Of course in all reality (and I say this with all seriousness and the least amount of pretentious dramatics) God does the perfecting as it turns from thoughts, to words, to ear-tickling, to transformed hearts, to cruciformed actions. I take what I do seriously and I pray that God works miracles with my weaknesses and imperfections and that He is glorified.
Creating a sermon takes time. The message has to take into consideration the content to be studied, the person of the preacher that is in relationship with that content, the way in which it will be presented, the hearers (audience) that will receive that presentation, and then the compelling actions of the hearers as they leave and begin a new week. There is much of that, that I can control and some that I cannot. My job as the preacher is to take my part of what I can control and to give God glory with how I do that. So a sermon takes time to create. For every minute of talking time, there is probably 30 minutes to an hour of prep involved. So a it may be grueling to an adhd, insta-everything culture to sit through a 25 minute message at church. I guess I could say be glad you don't have to sit with me while I work on that presentation. In fact, the shorter sermons actually take more careful attention as any writer or presenter will tell you, editing is difficult.
Preaching is a craft. One that I love and that I love to work on and continually try to perfect. Any sermon I have ever written has never been perfect and never been finished. Of course in all reality (and I say this with all seriousness and the least amount of pretentious dramatics) God does the perfecting as it turns from thoughts, to words, to ear-tickling, to transformed hearts, to cruciformed actions. I take what I do seriously and I pray that God works miracles with my weaknesses and imperfections and that He is glorified.
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