Sunday, July 17, 2011

Tips For Young Pastors

This would fall under the category of "things they don't really teach you at seminary." Though, in fairness, I'm not sure how they would really teach this at seminary.

But just so you know, there's the gospel you preach in the worship service, which you have been carefully tending to and thinking about and crafting since the moment you read the appointed texts for that Sunday and started formulating both your sermon and the full scope of the service.

And then there's the gospel you preach to the person who walks into the building 10 minutes after the service has ended, whose life is currently pretty messy, who came to their wits end and didn't know where else to turn, so they've come to you. And as you listen to their story, you realize the sermon and the service you just finished leading could have spoken pretty powerfully into the messiness of their situation, if only they'd shown up an hour earlier. But they didn't show up an hour earlier, they showed up now, 10 minutes after it was all over, and they are looking to you, now, in this moment, for a word of life and hope and light in a world that is overwhelming them with death, despair, and darkness.


You need to be prepared to preach the gospel in both situations.

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