Preaching

Yesterday I got to preach at a small local church. The situation was interesting, I recived a phone call on Thursday asking me to preach, the minister had to be at another church that day. So I was able to switch things around and go, needless to say I had to come up with a sermon on the fly. What I decided to do is preach a sermon that I had preached before. This is the first time I have done that and surprisingly it was good. I felt that the sermon was just right for this congregation, as I looked over the congregation I saw many affirmations of the message which is always rare.

An interesting thing about this particular congregation is that my mother had been the minister there before the current minister. So when I looked out on the congregation I saw many faces that I recognized, I rarely attended there because I attended my fathers church, but I also saw many new faces out in the congregation.

I have to admit that I was a little distraught during the day though. I was supposed to be teaching Sunday school for my field education but this is the second time I’ve had to cancel (once for the wedding and then this preaching emergency.) My goal was to get home in time to join the youth group for the Crop walk but instead we got tied up and didn’t get home till after four. I knew the group had to either be finished by then or so far advanced that there would have been no way for me to catch them. I know that my supervisors are extending me grace in this in fact I had told the minister that if an opportunity came up for me to preach I would take it. But that doesn’t change my feelings.

My hope is this week will be better, I feel exhausted like I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I haven’t decided yet but I may skip class to do some personal maintenance.

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