"Sunday comes around...every week."

As my first foray into "official" preaching winds down (six weeks of sermon prep and service prep and leading straight) I reflect on a few things that I have learned in the process:

1) No matter what, every week, every seven days, Sunday comes around. Meaning no matter what, something needs to be ready and prepared within just over 144 hours. But whose counting?

2) A Sabbath is a must. God is a wise God - and His command to take a break is for our benefit. Let me put it another way: there should be a WHOLE 24 hour period where you do NOT think about the sermon - or where you repeat to yourself "I will not think of next Sunday's sermon - over and over.
3) Let go of your perfectionist tendencies. I know I had to. I am so self-critical that if I begin to reflect and knit-pick everything that isn't right or can be done better then I lose the hope that I am meant to embody in my message.
4) Keep your eyes fixed upward. The moment you start worrying about what people are going to say then something else has entered into the process of learning God's truth for that week.
5) It really is true "The heart of a man plans His step, but the Lord directs His paths." Many times I began my message by thinking I was going in a certain direction, and God almost surprised me by where I ended up.The steps I took through the sermon preparation process were the ones needed to keep me moving, but God had my course and destination a head of time. I just had to get there.
6) When you are weak, then God is strong.

7) I know that I want to see more and more people involved in worship - from prayer, to reading of Scripture, to collection, to greeting, to hospitality, to worship leading, to singing, etc. Why the same people doing the same things? Man! I loved it when people get to participate. (Plus it lets me focus more on the one thing I need to focus on in a worship service.)



\manda