Still Wrestling ...

I don't how most other pastors would describe their sermon preparation, but I would often describe mine as "wrestling". I wrestle over what passage to use, over what the main thought needs to be and over how to best present it so that people will take notice and wrestle with it themselves. Maybe I am more wrestling coach than pastor, never thought it that way before, but maybe...I may need to develop that thought further in the future.

The point this morning is that it is Sunday morning at 6:20 and I am still wrestling with the message. This has happened before, in fact I have wrestled right up until I stepped up to preach a few times. That is an unsettling, nervous and exhilarating feeling.

Part of the wrestling this morning is that this is not a normal Sunday morning worship time. Our small town has an annual Festival and this is the weekend. For a few years they have had a Sunday morning worship service at the park as part of the Festival. This is the 3rd year in a row that the responsibility has fallen to our church. Our worship band, team and leader will lead the musical portion of the time and I will be sharing the message. This will take place outdoors at the park. There are supposed to still be some vendors and other parts of the Festival still there and the service will be followed by other events. We did an outdoor service at the park for Father's Day, but that was just us, no rides, vendors or other events. We had complete control of things, this is much different.

I figure at an outdoor service, in a park, with all of the other distractions that I have a much shorter window of attention than normal. That adds to the pressure. So here I sit, still wrestling, praying and hoping. I want desperately to communicate well so that the message from the Word is received, understood and that people would wrestle with it on their own some after the service is over.

The service is now 3 1/2 hours away. Here goes, if you read this in time say a prayer for the service and for me. If you don't read this in time, well you can figure that one out on your own.