My past few sermons have surprised me. The process of writing a sermon, although laborious, is typically pretty cool for me. But lately what I've found it that I've planned to give some lighthearted sermons with somewhat predictable endings but have instead ended up going way deeper than I though I would. (Now I know I should always be willing to go deeper but I wasn't going to, ok.)
For instance, I was going to preach on the beauty of having a break--and the plan was to talk about the beauty and responsibility of a summer break. Instead the sermon was a totall indepth look at Sabbath, the old covenant, the new covenant and how it relates to us today.
Last week I preached on God is Fortress (using the OnePrayer focus) and found myself going in directions I hadn't planned.
Tomorrow I'm preaching on the Providence of God. What?! Yes, the providence of God--his ability to economize our world based on his design, story and purposed. Totally didn't plan to preach this. The "plan" was to preach on God is Provider (again a OnePrayer theme). I was going to try to encourage our Michigan congregation to trust in God and be encouraged in tough economic times (blah, blah, blah). And now I am so glad to go deeper and lead people deeper.
Another beauty in all this is how cool it's been to read large chunks of scripture, theology and church history. I'm re-learning and learning for the first time perhaps some great stuff about God.
So there you go.
If my church podcasted you could listen online.
If you go to my church...see you soon.
