Last week was a sermon week. There is a reason I don't enjoy preaching every week!
The good news is we have to have a short [under 200 words] piece ready each month which invariably falls to me & which just as invariably I have completely forgotten about until the reminder arrives & then it is Panic Stations! All Hands to the Pumps! We're Going DOWN....which stresses me no end. Not this month! I had my thought ready, prepared & all good to send immediately. My self satisfied smirk lasted a whole 5 minutes.
I suffer from procrastination. It's why I game. It's why I blog. It gives me something to do besides knuckle down to writing a sermon. Then I found this wonderful little article on why pastors procrastinate when it comes to the weekly sermon. I was amused. He likened it to having a baby. Ummm, I've had 5 babies & I can assure you, there's NO resemblance! Poor man. I guess he's never had to push 8lbs of immovable mass out of his body. It's not even that it's hard work ~ sermonising, not producing babies. Sometimes it's impossible but let's face it, to do this you are gifted to start with. The problem arises because self discipline does not come with the gift! *sigh*
Besides, I like research. I can research forever. Research means I can avoid people. I do understand people are the point but I am not always either reasonable or logical. Then I wander round vaguely with spiritual indigestion & an overload of information. Putting thoughts in order while in this state is a waking nightmare. However this chappie, one Brian Jones, said something I know all too well... because we’re good at preaching, we’ll do it at the last minute.
I can't tell you how much that barb hit home. Not that I'm the world's greatest preacher or anything like that but let's face it, I am lit trained. I can pull an essay together in my sleep. I focus best when I am running out of time. It concentrates the mind wonderfully! Besides, it's all there you know, sitting behind my eyelids in the dim, dark recesses of my mind & it just seems like so much wasted effort to put it down on paper even though I know perfectly well I have a mind like a sieve when it comes to numbers.
I've known for several weeks my next lot of sermons would be on the Holy Spirit. I was delighted. I love the Holy Spirit. I can rabbit on about Him forever & so... I left it & left it because I was so sure, you know...
Silly, silly me. Oh, I started with a bang ~ till I hit my first brick wall. It seems God & I did not have the same idea about where this was going at all. I huffed & I puffed & I blew my cheeks out. I procrastinated some more. Days in fact. Nothing like having more scriptures than you can possibly use but we were not moving forward.
Now I know ~ & you know ~ what I needed to do & I did eventually get around to asking the Holy Spirit where we were going with this ~ & yes, He told me because He's very good to me that way but I went happily rabbiting along the trail only to find I'd well & truly run out of steam with miles to go before I could sleep.
Bear in mind I am a Lit Major. My subject was The Holy Spirit ~ & HE gave me a salvation message! No wonder I was growing confused. Our congregation is small. We are all saved. Still there was the Park...
The Holy Spirit is brave: I am not. The hecklers come out & all my defences go up. In point of fact, I think, most of the mockery was aimed at the MOTH. And as I pointed out in retrospect, they did get a straightforward & simple explanation of how to get saved & why they needed the Holy Spirit in it all but things like that just leave me feeling mauled. I know. I know. It's not about me. Paul had it heaps worse. The persecuted church has it worse. And seriously, I get their point. They were all settled in for a drinking & smoking session & we rock up with our talk of God & holiness & sin & the need to be saved & rain all over their party.
Sometimes I just want to be like everybody else ~ unnoticed. Rock up on Sunday, sing my 3 hymns, give the nice 3 point sermon, have my cuppa & head home for an after church nap. I don't want to be that crazy God lady in the park.
There is a really sad aspect to this. I had a prolonged period where I wasn't preaching & I really thought I was all good with that because, you know, women preachers & all that but Jeremiah 20:9...*sigh*
You have been were you needed to be. In the park is where those who have been blinded and made deaf by the world, those that need the Light and Voice the most.
ReplyDeleteProcrastination? Well, I often feel that God puts things off to the last minute, but it this all comes together in the right moment in time.
When I got over myself [which took some time] I pointed out to the MOTH there has never been revival where there has not been open air preaching. This revelation does not make the experience easier but it does explain why the attack...And you are quite right: we are in the park because that is where the lost can be found.
ReplyDeleteAs for the procrastination ~ I hate it when God does it. Just desserts? ☺