Mighty Refuge

"A mighty refuge is our God..." but God won't do your work for you.  I found this out last night, preaching at St. Matthew Lutheran Church for the Lenten service for the first time.  The opening song was "The Cares Chorus" - "Cast all your cares upon him..."  Last night my care was preaching, and I got really nervous.  Almost psyched myself out, because I got so nervous and didn't tell anyone until after it had built up.  So, cast your cares on God, sure.  A mighty refuge, yes.  And I still had to get up there to preach.

Earlier in the day a neighbor, who I hadn't met before, asked if I was a good preacher.  I told him it depends on who you ask.  However, I also added that my previous church would definitely all agree that I was a better preacher when I left than when I started.

Unless I spend gobs of time on a sermon, and write out a good manuscript, I don't even ever begin to feel comfortable preaching.

Part of it goes back to being painfully shy, literally, as a kid.  I was holding back tears last night, that's how bad it was.  Nerves, stage fright, whatever you want to call it, I'm still shy sometimes, and last night it hit.

I didn't prepare a manuscript, because I thought an outline would be good enough and my limited time yesterday (during my one year old's afternoon nap) would be better spent doing other things as well (like getting ready for Sunday!).  I would have been less nervous if I'd had all written out what I was going to say.

Now, St. Matthew and Piney Grove folks all said I did a good job, I'm great, it was a good sermon, I didn't need to be nervous, and someone didn't even fall asleep who sometimes does.  And I realized there was something else I could have told the neighbor.  I've never been criticized on the content of my sermons.  What I have to say is good.  Where I run into trouble sometimes and with some people, is how I give the sermon.  My delivery isn't always great, and for some people, it gets in the way of them being able to hear the message.  That, of course, goes back to my not really wanting to be a public speaker and my preference to NOT stand up in front of a whole bunch of people and talk.  It also goes back to some people's style preferences, and some preferred styles I don't do very well, or am considerably less comfortable using them, like preaching from an outline (which I've done three times in the past three months now!).

Moses may not have known what to say, and Jeremiah claimed he was too young.  Well, my challenge is being too shy, and yet I am way less shy than I used to be.