"So, how did it go??" - My First Sermon

In a word?

Good.

Actually, I think it went quite well - better than I thought, and as good as I had hoped.

For those of you just turning your first pages of the Betanarrative, I gave my first public sermon at my church yesterday. Holla! I had given one for my preaching class at the end of last quarter, for my fellow seminarians. But this was in front of the church, my church family.

As I told them, I was excited and terrified. I had no fear of the people because (a) I'm probably too comfortable in front of large groups; in fact, I'm normally as comfortable in front of a hundred people as I am three or four. So, that was no problem. And (b) there were so many people in attendance who genuinely love, care about and support me as a person and minister. It was like a kid showing a magic trick to his grandparents - even if the rabbit ended up dead, they'd still love it.* My fear stemmed from rightly handling the words written in what I believe to be the greatest story ever told.

The text was the Temptation of Christ (Lk 4:1-13). Jesus is in the desert after he's baptized. Satan tempts him three times with different things. Jesus doesn't give in. Satan leaves him alone. That's pretty much the story. (I don't want to go into the actual sermon, but if you want it, message me and I can send you a manuscript, or you can wait a few weeks and download it.)

The preparation process was painful. It was reading the text, asking questions, praying about it, having conversations, outlining, dialogging, reading, asking, praying, etc., until it finally, the day before-hand, was complete.

Saturday night was terrible. I tried to practice delivering it alone in my room, but I need a live person to bounce off, so that didn't work. I stopped.

The next morning I actually delivered the whole thing in my car on the way to church. But honestly, delivering it to the congregation was the best part. The story came alive. I came alive. The humor I imagined played out, the examples I had dreamed up connected, and the point I was trying to make for 6 weeks finally made sense: Knowing our identity is so much more powerful than memorizing scripture. (A huge thanks to my roommate for that bit of insight, saying what I was thinking but couldn't quite articulate.)

I received many words of affirmation, and along with, "Good job," different people shared with me specific words that connected with them, and the array was astounding. I was blessed to hear it.

I really enjoyed the process, but it is tiring. I can't imagine doing it every week. Every 6-8 weeks or so would be good, I think. I certainly gained a whole new respect for the role of preacher, and I have a lot more grace for when a sermon falls flat. It's a lot of hard work.

Thanks for all your prayers, well-wishes and follow-up. Maybe the video will end up on YouTube.

Probably not.

*Not my finest analogy, I'll admit.