If your sermon is a dog . . .

Posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 4:59 pm

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A couple of weeks ago I read a book on preaching in which one of the chapter titles was: “If your sermon is a dog, walk it proudly.” Well I had a chance to do that yesterday. I was preaching the second of a four sermon Christmas series called “The War Baby.” The series has to do with military imagery in the birth narratives. The sermons are (or soon will be) posted under the heading “The War Baby.”

I spend a good bit of time working on my sermons, though I don’t write them out and usually carry only a one page outline with me into the pulpit (sometimes I take nothing). I suffer from a malady known to many public speakers and entertainers; I am very critical of my own work.

A person sleeping can send me into mental hysterics. What have I done and how can I undo it? How can I wake this person and the rest of the congregation up? It may only be one person, but it begins to take on epic proportions for me. I recently listened to Steve Martin’s autobiography BORN STANDING UP and he suffers from the same sort of phobia.

I sensed, in the sermon yesterday, that there were some wandering attention spans. Because of that I ran to my office between services to see if I could perform some sort of healing on the sermon. Alas, the expected thunderbolt did not arrive and I preached the sermon pretty much the same way in the second service, though I was very aware of trying to keep everyone’s attention.

As God’s providence would have it (and that is true of everything isn’t it?), many people came to me after the sermon and told me how much the Lord had spoken to them through it.

It all goes to remind me that I am just the messenger and I can’t take credit when good things happen in a sermon. Our gracious God uses imperfect tools to accomplish perfect work and for that we can all be thankful. I cannot keep everyone awake, but I can study hard, pray earnestly, and do the best I can, and know that the results are not because of my work.

My father used to tell me “don’t put a lot of stock in what people tell you after a sermon, they will have another opinion next week.” We all are prone to believe our supporters and ignore our critics. But ultimately we must ask at the end of the day, was God pleased with what I did? Isn’t that what really matters?

Onward . . .

SamLam