Preaching

Preaching has been a wonderful comical fascinating joyful part of my life for many years now. I was first asked to preach a sermon in February of 1980. I can remember it so clearly because I said yes in order to dedicate it to my mother-in-law who was away on a special retreat that weekend. I was trembling scared as I stood at the podium in the parish hall of Trinity Church Wrentham MA. At that point we worshiped in the parish hall during the winter to save money. My knees were shaking, my heart was thumping, I had a white knuckle grip on the lectern, and I felt like my voice was shaking as well. I've laughed about that sermon many times since. I don't have a clue what I said or even what the scriptures were for that day, but I'll never forget the experience. I ended up being asked to preach again and again around the diocese because of my leadership at Camp Dennen. God used those experiences to shake me up and mold my preaching. He took me out of the pulpit and took away my reading a written text. With each change that I knew God wanted of me, I was shaking again. I laugh when people say that my preaching seems so natural. If they only knew the struggles with God that I had in letting Him lead me to this method of preparation and preaching. What a lucky guy I am. Preaching was one of the first places where I learned I could trust God, which now seems so easy in so many areas of my life. Walk in His will and you will find God trustworthy as well. I'm sure of it.