I'm sure every preacher has had the experience where a sermon that the preacher expects to be life-changing falls flat. I'm sure every preacher has had to deal with crickets when they intentionally left a pause for the laughter to subside. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard "nice sermon" after a tough, prophetic message. And I'm sure other preachers have written "the worst sermon ever" before. I have even had the experience where I have had a sermon all ready to go and God told me to preach something else (very rarely!). But something that has happened several times happened this week.
I wrote the worst sermon ever.
It was hard to write. I had a tough time concentrating on the text at hand. I had a hard time concentrating at all, to tell the truth. Sunday morning came around, and I wondered if God would suddenly give me an alternate text so I could bail on the sermon I had written. But God was "strangely" silent. So I delivered the sermon as written.
And it was just what the people needed.
Why should I be surprised? That's the way God seems to work - making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland, as He revealed in Isaiah 43:18-21 (which "just happened" to be the text I was preaching from). Why would God do this? To humble me, reminding me that it's not my words that inspire or change lives; it's His Word. Always.
4 comments:
As a pastor's daughter, I can relate to this post so well. I've heard my daddy say so many times to his congregation, "I'm laying my notes aside, God has placed something else on my heart for today." I'm glad you are in tune as my daddy is!
oh and the joke about the 47 yr. old pastor in your next post is hilarious! I had never heard it!
I love this post - I'm not a pastor - I am a member of a church helping to start their blog (http://www.jsbtlm.blogspot.com/), but I can relate. I've had to give a Word to youth held in detention centers and haven't always felt confident. Please come visit us at our blog, I hope we can encourage each other :)
Thank you for sharing your "Worst Sermon Ever" adventure. Reminds me of something similar that happened with me many years ago at a little church in the California desert. The only variant was that this sermon came from one of those "Pulpit Helps" magazines that clutter our offices.
Preach on, brother! You are an inspiration... and you are a blessing!
What I find interesting is that I serve two church's and preach the exact same sermon at both places every Sunday. At one church, no one ever laughs at my jokes and at the other they seem to get it.
Post a Comment