Preaching

Summer whizzes by alarmingly quickly. The 4th is almost gone and tomorrow begins yet another week of puppeteering, hyperactive kids and more antics from G and G (my two fellow team members)... Oy.
I spent a large chunk of my four-day break preparing sermons. Oh yes!
I gave my second sermon yesterday in church, and despite my apprehensions it was well-received, as was the first sermon, which I gave a week earlier. In fact, I’ll be preaching a third sermon next Sunday and then another at the little Baptist church my aunt attends. (The oldest Ukrainian Baptist church in the United States, incidentally.)
How did this happen? I took a lay speaker training course in April mostly on a last minute whim with a vague idea that taking that course would somehow equip me to help my struggling home church. Never in a million years did I imagine that the pastor would resign suddenly and that I’d be asked to fill in for one..then two...then three Sundays. I feel as if I were launched from a catapult and landed startled and wide-eyed behind a pulpit. And yet, it feels good. It feels right. It’s....FUN!
Even though it consumes my Saturdays, I enjoy creating the bulletin and I enjoy writing the sermons. The first sermon is titled "Freedom through Forgiveness" I recounted the story found in Genesis of Joseph forgiving his twelve brothers who had thrown him into a well and sold him into slavery. Using large rocks to symbolize the weight of grudges and a willing volunteer wearing a backpack, I tried to illustrate that we must forgive one another because God forgave us and forgiveness brings freedom and peace.
The second sermon is titled "Our Daily Bread." I used the story, found in 1 Kings 17 of the widow in Zarephath who shared with the prophet Elijah, the last of her oil and flour. Yet that oil and flour did not run out. The point was that when we trust God to provide for our needs, God can use us to provide for the needs of others. Sermons three and four are still brewing in my head, like good coffee.