“Good Show Man”
After I preached my first of two sermons this morning at church, I almost fell laughing when an older fellow left shaking my hand saying, "good show man." I don’t know what he was making reference to in regards to the service; possibly the pulpit mic I whacked as I was waving my hands preaching that jolted the two hundred or so from their momentary lapse of sleep, the children’s sermon that seemed to bomb, or the way I sped through my sermon notes as if i were afraid that at a moments notice folks would run out screaming. All in all I felt good about what I preached. I took a wack at Joshua 1:1-9 this morning as my sermon text. My whole sermon centered on the promises of God and that as followers of Christ we’re called to trust in the promises that God promises to be faithful, that he won’t fail us, and that God won’t abandon us. I don’t know if they got it. I hope they did.
I did pay attention though to some feelings that I had about preaching that I hadn’t experienced before in my young ministry. You see as most young pastors, I’ve been on the other side of the pulpit hanging out in the pews with the people. What hit me was the thought of how do you tell someone with a straight face that God is faithful, God won’t fail us, and that he won’t abandon us when you know that there are folks who are sitting in the pews who just can’t get excited about what you are trying to preach about because of their own stuff happening in their lives? How do you turn the "good show man" into a meaningful transforming experience and make God’s Word come alive in a way that opens the eyes and hearts of God’s children?