Adventures in Preaching

"Preach it, brotha!"

So New Philly offered a preaching class recently and Shelli and I had the privilege of taking part in it with about 60 other leaders of our church. It involved listening to a bunch of podcasts, plenty of time in prayer, and putting together a manuscript for a 12 minute sermon to be given on the last day of the class, the practicum. Luckily with so many of us, we were split into 3 groups, although the practicum still lasted about 6 hours! ha

What I've learned the most from this was actually prepping the sermon. This past summer I was able to preach at the Light of Christ Congregation (about 35 members at the time) and had a lot of fun - but I was really nervous! I had no idea how to prepare a sermon, much less give one! But it went really well and many of the church members approached me afterwards and really thanked me for the Word I shared. But it took a lot out of me, probably because I didn't know what I was doing. This time around, I felt much more relaxed... even though I was being judged by PC and P. Marcus!

Now I don't see myself as a preacher, although I'm open to that door if God wants it. Rather I feel that I have a calling to use my voice in some other, unique way. And I was really affirmed in this after I gave my sermon because a lot of the feedback I received was right along those lines. One comment I received was that I have a voice that should be used for commercials (not the first time I've been recommended for voice-talent)! Another person said that they felt like they were listening to a TedTalk (super-encouraging to me!). True, these aren't the type of comments you probably want to receive at a preaching practicum, but I think God was definitely telling me something!

Shelli preached too and from what I heard, hers went really well. Maybe once we get the file of hers we can share it with you all. In the meantime though, I was able to snag my sermon from P. Marcus' computer (not too difficult since I was the one recording them all!).

Click here to listen to my 12-minute sermon, Humble Beginnings.