I was 17 years old, and tonight I was going to be preaching for the first time in my life at the “youth service” our new church was hosting. At the youth service, teenagers handled every part of the service including song leading, piano, announcements, and even preaching. The audience would be about 150 strong, and this would be my first time speaking to a group that large in my entire life so of course, I was very nervous. I stood in front of the mirror wearing one of my dad’s ties and a very mature-looking Members Only leather jacket since I didn’t own a suit coat. I went over and over the sermon in my mind as the clock moved toward 6 o’clock faster than I would have preferred. In spite of my doubts about my personal ability to preach, I knew that I had an important message to deliver, and that God could use me to deliver it.
I do not come from a long line of preachers. My dad was an electrician, his dad was an electrician, and before that, electricity may not have been invented yet. Neither of my parents were the most involved members of the church, but I never doubted their faith in the Lord or questioned how seriously they took the Bible or the things of God. I learned the basics of electrical work from my dad, but it was my mom who imparted to me my love for language and the power of words.
When I was 4 years old, she taught me how to read using Dr. Seuss books like Hop on Pop and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. She would put pencil marks above the vowels to let me know which ones were long and which ones were short, and I would sit on her lap and read them out loud to her.
When I was growing up, my mom and I always loved word-related games. We would often try to stump each other with obscure vocabulary words or sit down and play board games like Balderdash or Scrabble. When we played Scrabble in my family, no one was very patient. We didn’t like for people to take too long on their turn, so when I was taking too long on my turn, my mom would often say, “It doesn’t always have to be a blockbuster.” What she meant was that every round you play is not necessarily going to be your best round, so don’t take all day thinking about it. Sometimes you just have to throw something on the board, so we can all get on with the game.
Thankfully, my first sermon went pretty well, and I was off to a decent start as a preacher. I pretty much bombed my second sermon and on many subsequent attempts, I laid an egg so to speak. In my mind as I prepared, I would be eloquent and dynamic, but when I would go to actually preach, it would often fall flat. Sometimes I questioned whether I was even cut out to be a preacher (and so did the people around me!).
One night in particular I sat and listened to my pastor preaching, and it was one of those nights when he was simply on fire. I can picture him now from my front row seat as he thundered forth God’s word with such power from behind that pulpit. At that moment, I thought to myself, “I will never be able to preach as well as Pastor Nichols is preaching right now. He is preaching at a level that I will never reach. But I wonder if I can just preach well enough to be a pastor - not necessarily like him, but just a pastor. Can God use me to accomplish something for his glory?”
21 years after my first sermon at that youth night, I have written and preached almost 3,000 sermons, and I’ve been a pastor now for 15 years. Preaching for one hour three times a week to the same group of people can be challenging. Especially when people have traveled a long distance to attend church or even flown in from out of town, there is a lot of pressure to preach a home run sermon. Over the years I’ve learned that mom was right: it doesn’t always have to be a blockbuster.
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