So I didn’t intend to do a series of posts on preaching, but I was so frustrated on Friday I would have built an office tower out of tooth picks to avoid writing the message. 

It finally came together Saturday by noon.  I just hung out and played with the family for the rest of Saturday, reading it over before bed.  Sunday I woke up terribly nervous about it, and rewrote elements before 6 a.m. I was having panic attacks about the message’s dreadfulness.  (Preachers understand what I’m talking about.)

We have two services.  At 8:30 I felt it really got a shaky start, but then I got on a "roll".  Don’t know what else to call it.  But I found myself saying things I really wanted to say but mostly hadn’t planned to say.  At least not the way they came out.  It felt like a service with some anointed moments. But when I sat down I asked my wife Toni how it went and she said "Good, but did you plan on using the Bible in your message at some point?" I got so caught up in it that "moment" I actually forgot to read from the Bible. I had Matthew 7 ready to go on the screen – had prepped for it.  Flat out forgot it. Not good.

So, I actually dropped a personal story from the message at the 10:00 service and read from the Bible and still felt like it was a moment God has somehow orchestrated.  Praying God uses it.

We captured both services on video but this week I opted to use the 10:00 as our download service (I’ll often ask the tech gurus to use 8:30 if I thought it went "better").   The message should be accessible here by late Monday (or just download the video or audio podcast off iTunes). It’s called "What Christians Can Learn from the East".

At the end of it all, preaching is this strange dance where you know it’s really all God and yet you have to do your part, in faith, and offer it up to Him.   But somehow, that often comes with a lot of drama inside.

Oh yeah…gotta start writing for next weekend…and outline the next two series – one on sex called XXX: Does God Like Sex? Got another for June on family issues tentatively called Elephant in the Family Room.  Sundays come around with amazing regularity around here.

Thanks for listening.  Praying for you preachers and thanks for everyone’s prayers.  I needed (and need) them, and am grateful for you.

So the message is written…finally.  This one seemed so hard to write, and in the end it seemed so simple. Man, what a lot of work…but if it changes one life, it will be so worth it.

Thanks for the prayers, and other preachers and followers of Jesus…praying for you today too.  Here’s to what Jesus is going to do with it all tomorrow and beyond.

Almost every preacher who has been charged with the responsibility to communicate the message of God’s Word can tell you this story.  Message prep is hard.  Just hard.

Figure this out.

In last week’s message, I closed by encouraging people to get personal in their relationship with God – to pray and read the Bible and expect God to be there personally.  I said God might show up.  That has happened to me in spades this week.  I’m reading Deuteronomy every morning and it’s like God is speaking directly to me in 3D Imax with THX surround sound. It’s been so powerful. My prayer life has had the most joy it’s had in it in months over the last two weeks.  Amazing.

Now I need to finish the message for this weekend, and I feel completely stuck. I have pages of notes, believe God is in it, am excited about the text, but I’m stuck. I’d rather mop floors or wander aimlessly through a semi-frozen creek in hip-waders than write. If a telemarketer called right now, I’d be grateful.  Aaargh…. I just feel so inadequate, so burdened.  And my spiritual life is good (i think).

People who don’t preach, maybe you might pray for those of us who do preach.  Just so you know, there’s no crisis here (it’s probably not an "attack" nor is there some big counseling thing that needs to happen), and I’m not sure there’s a way "out" except through it. As a preacher, maybe we just have to live it. There’s just a burden associated with preaching that pretty much every preacher feels regularly.  Biblical preachers felt it too.  I can pretty much relate to everything Jeremiah said at one point or another in my preaching life. 

Other preachers – holler back.  You feel this?  Let’s share some stories. 

People who don’t preach (consider yourself blessed), you get stuck here sometimes?  This experience ever pop up this way in your life?