Preaching this Weekend
It’s my turn again. I teach every couple months, and I enjoy it. The process of preparation for me is not so enjoyable. I feel an incredible amount of pressure to do a great job since I only do it every so often. And of course we talk about relying on God and being a vessel – I just want to be a prepared vessel, and I want to be able to stand on my own two feet and allow God to kick some bootie from there on.
So for me the process looks something like this:
- I get an idea in my head of a direction, some scripture or illustration
- I begin brainstorming, reading through the scripture & coming up with illustrations
- I search the web for others who have taught the particular scripture or subject
- Start writing/typing out an outline
- Get halfway and start banging my head against the wall
- Pray and ask God to help me finish
- Feel better
- In a frantic rush try and type as fast as my heart is speaking to my brain
- Stop, re-read and fix up things here and there
- Make sure I have some clear points & breakdowns (intro, text, teaching, application, closing)
- Retype it all out, do a bulletin insert, and a powerpoint
- Read it over, and over, and over, and over, until I (hopefully) don’t rely on my notes.
And that’s where I am right now. Tomorrow we head down to Chula Vista to hang out with some family all day, so I should be nice and relaxed for Sunday. Pray for me if you are reading this!
Here’s the text version of what I am planning on preaching if you are interested. And if you want a laugh, check out the farting preacher.
hey .. you left out “take a break and blog about it” … haha!
Praying for you – what time is your service?
Yeah, I always feel that same pressure to go really, really good. I always feel like I shouls be one of the best at everything for some reason. Same way with sports.
But why do we expect to be so great when we only do it once in awhile? I don’t expect someone would become a really “great” Worship leader doing it only once every 2 or 3 months either. The more you get to do it, the better you typically are, eh?
So relax and have a great time being used by God this weekend. At least for me, I know God always does good stuff in those mornings and each time I learn a lot to make it even better next time!
9 & 10:45 (that’s PST there Fred…)
Bobby, I’m not a great worship leader either, ha ha! Thanks for the encouragement though!
Well? How’d it go? I’ll bet when it came down to brass tacks you preached an anointed message. I am always amazed at how God pulls through right on time. I am even more amazed at how Paul and the leaders in the church of Acts didn’t have a Bible. They had only the Holy Spirit on whom to rely. Anyway, I appreciate where you are coming from; as artists, we always aspire to do our best for God.
hey is that a pic of Tootin’ Tilton? Ha ha!
Greg, see worship confessional 14
James, why yes, it is!
Amazing blogsite! Really I appreciated your short bit on sermon prep- Thought it was gonna be some really together thing about memorisation, rehearsal, deductive/inductive, and found a really together and encouraging piece about a real bro going through about the same steps as I do (except the powerpoint part, anyway!)!
Peace, abounding!
Robert