“Study to shew thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth.” 2 Timothy
2:15, KJV
This
Sunday Refuge will be worshiping with the folks at Hispanic Wesleyan
Church (HWC) in Rice Lake. In an earlier post (St. Patrick's Day South-of-the-Border-style) I shared of the
sequence of events that led to us celebrating St. Patrick's Day
south-of-the-border style with our new Spanish-speaking friends.
Having come to our “house” to worship with us they returned the
favor and invited us to join them some time and we agreed that Cinco
de Mayo would be as good a day as any. So, we're going and since Dr.
Ahling preached at our gathering they have asked me to preach at
theirs.
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| Everyone is excited to hear him again |
On
Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Ahling called me on my cell and asked if I had
the text and name of my message as yet and would I be bringing a
power point with me to use. At that particular moment I happened to
be driving a disabled lady to our local grocery store, having picked
her up from the chiropractor just a few moments before. “Ah, no.
I'm sorry, I don't,” I said. He was very gracious and told me not
to worry about it. But that brief conversation stirred up a memory or
two from foggy bottom about preaching and what good preaching is.
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| The man can PREACH |
In
Bible college, I aspired to be a great preacher. Our homiletics
professor was Rev. Harry Schmidt, an outstanding pulpiteer in his own
right. He is the kind of guy who can make all his points alliterated
(e.g., 3 G's, 5 T's, etc.) without forcing the matter and who would
regularly astound us with his ability to pull out meaningful messages
from obscure texts. It's been 31 years since my freshman year of
Bible college but I can still remember his text that he used in
chapel the first time I heard “Brother Schmidt” (as we knew him
then) preach - “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth
year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was
among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were
opened, and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel
1:1.) I would be hard-pressed to remember my main text from a message
I gave a month ago and yet I can remember the premise of his message
as if he gave it last Sunday. That's impressive. In those days I
looked askance at anyone who I thought “winged” it too much, who
clearly hadn't done their homework and was light on substance and
heavy on theatrics. As I would sit in our school library, from time
to time I would thumb through the collections of sermons by Wesley,
Spurgeon and other men of great renown wondering if some day in the
future I would be able to compose stuff so good someone would want to
collect and put into book form.
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| He was a preaching machine |
When I
finally became a pastor, and began preaching regularly my goal was to
write out my messages and read them much as Edwards or Wesley read
theirs. That probably would have been acceptable in say, a Lutheran
or Methodist church but I was now the pastor of a Pentecostal
fellowship and Pentecostals – or, at least the Pentecostals that
made up our church back then – didn't go in for guys who read their
sermons. They wanted “anointed” messages not “yesterday's
manna” as one of the sainted ladies back then once compared my
sermons to (ouch!) At 29 years of age, I didn't have a plethora of
life experiences to draw upon nor a lot of humorous anecdotes about
my children (Christine was 3 and Charlie, 1). So, I often would quote
a lot of sources and admittedly they were long quotes at that. Most
of the time I was frustrated with the final result and I don't have a
lot of memories of people gushing over anything I said. It wasn't
steak. It was mostly mac-and-cheese. I would spend a good part of
Friday starting to work on the text and finish up Sunday morning with
a very thorough outline (which was never alliterated) that ran 6 or 7
pages and would take about 45 minutes to deliver. Every now and
again, we would have a guest pastor or missionary share on Sunday
morning and it felt like everyone would get a reminder – myself
included – of just what we were all missing out on. But when there
is no back-up quarterback you have no alternative than to keep
playing the one you got and so I kept practicing Sunday after Sunday
aspiring to one day to reach an acceptable level of “anointing.”
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| He looks "anointed" |
Admittedly,
over the years my preaching style has changed. Oh, I still put
together an outline every week but I am known to segue off course if
so inspired and now 21 ½ years later have a lot more anecdotes and
life experiences to draw upon that require no written notes to tell.
But the thing that probably has had the greatest influence on my
preaching style becoming more “free-er” is becoming a volunteer
chaplain at the Justice Center. Since Day 1 I have “shot” from
the hip, simply sharing what was “on my heart” at that particular
moment. In an hour's time, I have to lead worship, pray and preach to
a truly captive audience who rarely give me any body language
whatsoever to know whether I'm hitting anything or not. But blaze
away I do knowing that I'm going to hit something simply because the
law of averages is on my side. (The regular doses of feedback I do
receive either from follow-up 1-on-1's, letters from prison or simply
guys stopping me at Wal-Mart or Kwik Trip tell me that I'm hitting
more than I'm missing.) Frankly, it's a lot of fun. While now I have
a partner in Troy at the JC, during all those years I was by myself
I'd try and pray during the 20-minute drive to Barron but if the
Packer game was on or I had something else on my mind, that usually
would took precedence. But as soon as I'd strap on my guitar and
strum a chord or two, a message would start percolating in my heart
and I'd go with that. I've had experiences of “hearing” an
angelic chorus or “seeing” a gold cloud hovering over the guys.
On occasion I have spoke a prophetic word or two over an inmate.Like the old Virginia Slim commercial on TV, "I've come a long way, baby."
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| Not really my style |
There's
an old preaching joke about a Presbyterian, a Baptist and a
Pentecostal who one day over coffee were conversing about
sermon-ating. The Presbyterian shared that he developed all his
sermon outlines a year in advance. The Baptist was impressed with
that seeing that he only worked six months ahead. The Pentecostal
silently marveled at the skill of both men and then
tentatively asked, “So..., what do you guys do during the song
service?” The long and short of it is that all these years later I
have come to this conclusion: You know the guy I used to look down on
who didn't use any notes when he preached or who moved about like a
caged lion pacing nervously in his pen? Yeah, now I'm that guy. I
don't pace but I have been known to move around and become a bit
animated if the moment calls for it. Some of the folks here may in
fun accuse me of quoting Tolkien and Seuss as much as Jesus but there
it is – the Word of God has become “flesh” through my
individual and imperfect psyche and personality and God has spoken
through me in spite of myself.
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| I think he got it right |
Chuck
Westerman was a pastor and frequent contributor to the satirical
Christian magazine, The Wittenburg Door.
He wrote a book entitled, Pastor Karl's Rookie Year:
Twelve Unexpected Truths About Church Life
that I read in my personal early years of ministry here. On
this matter of sermons being great works of literature he wrote
something that I took to heart the first time I read it:
Sermons
are not – and never have been – part of the “enduring literary
heritage of Western culture.” (If they end up being this, it's by
accident.) A sermon is not a coupon eternally redeemable for a True
Fact from God; it has an expiration date, and is only good at
participating outlets. A sermon is a perishable vessel for
precipitates of the Spirit – not Waterford crystal to be put in a
display case for the admiring ages, but a Dixie cup bearing living
water to a thirsty people. (p. 107)
I
needed to hear that and am grateful for his observation.
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| Except my mug is cooler |
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| I'm not there...yet |
I
have come to another conclusion: there are some guys who because of
their wiring and temperament are excellent “cooks” with the Word.
They excel at exegeses and if they gave medals out for that kind of
thing would rack up a shirt load worth. But most of us are
ham-and-egger guys: We do it because most Christian fellowships
expect their pastor to preach and teach on a fairly regular basis.
The “teaching pastor” title is only for those mega churches that
have the luxury to hire a guy who is an ace behind the pulpit. But if
you love and care for the people of the fellowship you are called to
serve, they will put up with your (sometimes) dry and windy sermons
because ultimately you are their pastor
– a job that involves
so much more than the 12 (Lutheran standard) – 45 minutes you talk
at them on a weekly basis.
It's late Friday afternoon and I still don't know what I'm going to share come Sunday morning. Tomorrow I'll be in Eau Claire all day at Emma's state solo ensemble performances. Tomorrow night is our last Alpha gathering at the Watson's home. So, what am I gonna share at the joint worship gathering of Refuge and HWC come this Sunday? I don't know yet. But I trust by the end of the song service I will.
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| Whatever I share hopefully I won't look like this |
3 comments:
Great place to be...that guy.
Wish I could be there to hear it! Miss you Pastor!
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