Lay preacher needs advice

[mindlight]

Hi there,

occasionally I am allowed by my pastor to cover times when he and his staff are away and he needs people to preach the sermon or lead the service. It is a great privilege and opportunity and I am always thankful for it. I put a lot of work into the talks I prepare.

Recently I gave a talk on Jesus healing a leper. I probably did too much preparation and it was a little long. Some people liked it, others questioned aspects of what I said (all normal) but one criticism that really bothered me was about a lack of personal connection with those who were actually sick. Following the sermon I have had a really bad week, I have been sick (heavy cough and cold) most of the week and drained of energy. I fell on the staircase twice which has never happened before and almost ruptured my spleen in one of these incidents. The spleen being very interestingly the part of the body that fights off disease.

I think God is trying to educate me but I am struggling to understand exactly how.

My sermon was very truth focused. I think an ideal sermon should balance truth and personal connection. But I have always hated those talks where everyone ends of thoroughly entertained and affirmed but walks away without a single new lesson learnt. I want to hear the truth in a sermon so that is what I preach also.

Maybe I am too focused on the bite of truth as opposed to the compassionate warmth of human connection. Adding anecdotes of dealing with sickness is difficult for me cause I am hardly ever sick (thank God). So maybe I am never going to connect completely with people with deep and incurable diseases. But I do want to do better than I am at making that connection. Do people have any ideas about how to do this?

 

[rockytopva]

God did not call us to heal people... He called us to pray for people

When praying for people....

1. Lay hands on them, or prayer cloths, or anointing oil.
2. Pray a prayer of faith over them in Jesus name
3. Believe that God will heal them and encourage them to those ends.


That is all we can do. From that point on it is up to God to perform the acts we believe him for. And if not now, we have got to believe at some point such an afflicted one will be made whole. But... God did not call us to doubt or reason... Simply to pray, and sometimes fast, and then let him do the work that we believe him for. If someone does not get healed right away we will simply continue on in faith.

At 12:00 in the video below some lady testifies to a healing after having been anointed with oil.

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[mindlight]

What is the truth you focused on to bring out in the
sermon?

I focused on the fact that what Jesus was trying to achieve with the leper was not just to heal him but also to bring cleansing to his life. Today we look for signs of power and miracles of healing - Jesus can do those. But he also wants us to be cleansed of the impurity which because of original sin is in all of us and which is actually the real reason we get sick in the first place.

Ironically the people who accepted the full healing and cleansing - were people like the Samaritan leper ( 1 of 10 healed) who alone came back to Jesus to thank him and was told he was clean as a result.

Think that the idea that sin is connected in any way to sickness is what provoked the greatest upset. But that is biblically true.

 

[Strong in Him]

Hi there,

occasionally I am allowed by my pastor to cover times when he and his staff are away and he needs people to preach the sermon or lead the service. It is a great privilege and opportunity and I am always thankful for it. I put a lot of work into the talks I prepare.

Recently I gave a talk on Jesus healing a leper. I probably did too much preparation and it was a little long. Some people liked it, others questioned aspects of what I said (all normal) but one criticism that really bothered me was about a lack of personal connection with those who were actually sick. Following the sermon I have had a really bad week, I have been sick (heavy cough and cold) most of the week and drained of energy. I fell on the staircase twice which has never happened before and almost ruptured my spleen in one of these incidents. The spleen being very interestingly the part of the body that fights off disease.

I think God is trying to educate me but I am struggling to understand exactly how.

My sermon was very truth focused. I think an ideal sermon should balance truth and personal connection. But I have always hated those talks where everyone ends of thoroughly entertained and affirmed but walks away without a single new lesson learnt. I want to hear the truth in a sermon so that is what I preach also.

Maybe I am too focused on the bite of truth as opposed to the compassionate warmth of human connection. Adding anecdotes of dealing with sickness is difficult for me cause I am hardly ever sick (thank God). So maybe I am never going to connect completely with people with deep and incurable diseases. But I do want to do better than I am at making that connection. Do people have any ideas about how to do this?

Hi,

First of all, congratulations in being able/allowed to preach the word; it is a great calling.
Secondly, you don't have to experience everything yourself to be able to preach on it - otherwise preachers would either have to go through divorce, redundancy, cot death, being persecuted for their faith and many more, or we'd never get any sermons on them.
Had you become ill before you preached, then maybe you could have referred to that experience; how illness can make you feel isolated, maybe depressed, with everyone offering advice or frustrated at the loss of health/productivity and time off work etc. You weren't ill beforehand, but maybe you know people who have had colds that they just can't get rid of? Or who are in hospital and maybe pick up an infection so that their recovery time is longer than they had hoped? Or maybe you could have, or can next time, ask your Minister/the hospital chaplain if you can spend a day with them, talking to patients/visiting intensive care/dealing with bad news so that you can reflect on that for a sermon. (It's probably best to say you want to see, and understand, their work rather than that you are doing sermon research!)
So maybe if you are asked to preach again on a healing passage, you can use that experience then - but I don't believe that God deliberately made you ill for the purposes of preaching. If he had wanted that, you would have become ill before the sermon.
With other subjects; it's good to relate your own experience/feelings. Hearing that a preacher sometimes struggles to pray or understand the Bible, has times where they don't trust God, gets angry, or whatever, reassures people that they/you are human, not some kind of super Christian who has their whole life sorted and is qualified to tell them what to do.
It has been said that people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

There does need to be a balance - a "sermon" which says nothing more than "this happened to me", is actually a testimony. God can certainly speak through it, and there are some powerful ones out there, but it may not be what is needed/asked for at the time. But a sermon which is ALL fact/theology/intellectual arguments becomes academic and irrelevant.

That said, the most important thing you can do is to be yourself. If you are naturally academic, you may struggle a bit to relate to people, or apply what your are saying to their lives; but it's important to preach as you can, not as you can't, or in someone else's style which is not your own. That will look awkward and you may come across as being insincere.

I don't know if that helps?

 

[Strong in Him]

Think that the idea that sin is connected in any way to sickness is what provoked the greatest upset. But that is biblically true.

It MAY be. It certainly came into the world when sin did; so there is a connection. But personally, I would not want to imply that anyone's illness was a result of sin - unless, I was in a 1-1 situation and I'd had a clear word from the Lord that this was the case.
You have to be really careful. If you say, "sickness is a result of sin"; it may be technically true and you may go on to explain it - but what people will hear is "it's your fault or punishment for doing something wrong." IOW they will be so shocked by the first part of the statement, they may not be able to hear anything else.

 

[Albion]

Recently I gave a talk on Jesus healing a leper. I probably did too much preparation and it was a little long. Some people liked it, others questioned aspects of what I said (all normal) but one criticism that really bothered me was about a lack of personal connection with those who were actually sick.

I'd recommend not worrying too much about this. Almost every public speaker realizes that he gets everything perfect sometimes...and fails to quite hit the mark on other occasions.

You've gained some new insights from this particular experience, so try to profit from that. Lean a bit more in that direction in the future, but do not radically change your subject matter or preaching style because of this one event.

 

[mindlight]

It MAY be. It certainly came into the world when sin did; so there is a connection. But personally, I would not want to imply that anyone's illness was a result of sin - unless, I was in a 1-1 situation and I'd had a clear word from the Lord that this was the case.
You have to be really careful. If you say, "sickness is a result of sin"; it may be technically true and you may go on to explain it - but what people will hear is "it's your fault or punishment for doing something wrong." IOW they will be so shocked by the first part of the statement, they may not be able to hear anything else.

I did explain it but for some people the connection is an unpalatable one and maybe I do need to work on how I say stuff.

 

[Greg J.]

I think fundamentally you just want to make sure you are conveying what level of understanding you have of what you're preaching. A sermon can simply be a conveyance of what some Bible interpreters believe (like what you get from commentaries). If you do that, make it sound like you are a partner with the hearers in working to learn something from it. Give your understanding and not the understanding. A spot on understanding is sharp and recognizable.

After the sermon if someone comes up to challenge what you said, try to take it as a good sign rather than an attack on your understanding or expertise. It means (1) they were listening and understood what you were saying, and (2) will likely continue to think about the subject, even if they have failed to understand the truth. Everyone is a work-in-progress. There's nothing we can do to make someone understand anything. We explain and do the best we can, pray for them, and intentionally leave the rest up to God in our hearts (like sharing the Good News with a non-Christian).

By far the best things to preach about are what you have had many experiences with (we call this acquired/ing wisdom), and a case could be made that is all you should be preaching. (The Lord can build on your experiences and reveal jewels for others from them.) In that instance, convey the level of experience you have through the preaching. Experience isn't the "best teacher," it is the only (real) teacher. Do you want a brain surgeon who has no medical degree from an industrialized country but has performed a thousand brain surgeries (95% success rate), or a guy that just finished his bookwork in medical school? The latter is only drawing on theories he believes are true (they're only theories in his mind until they are confirmed by his hands and seeing the results).

I'm often not interested at all what someone has read and understood if they've not experienced it. I can read, too. (In the case of Bible truths, I have already read it at some point.) It's not that fresh insights aren't worth hearing, it's just that learning from someone who has experienced something is a step closer to assimilating the real truth about something. It may be a narrow slice of all that could be read about, but it is real and comes across as genuine in a way book knowledge cannot.

If Jesus descended on a chariot of fire to talk to you about your upcoming sermon and left you with a script, it would still be an obstruction to the listeners if you preached it as the one and only Truth, because everyone subconsciously or consciously is aware that the words are coming through your own human understanding (potentially flawed and certainly incomplete). This is resolved by being honest about why you preaching something. When you are doing anything in obedience to the Lord, he is responsible for the consequences, and he will prepare you exactly the way he wants. i.e., speak of what you do know, not what you don't know.

I agree with @Strong in Him about the Lord teaching you. It is not uncommon for the Lord to give a preacher an experience of the subject matter in the week before the sermon. God can do it after, too, but it sounds more like an evil response to someone preaching the Truth that has not been modified to be comfy (this seem to be a pattern all over the world). Make sure you are in praying through sermon preparation and as much as you can before delivering it—and have others praying for you, too.

Don't try to preach the Truth in a politically correct way. Just trying to be sensitive to people's feelings, being polite, and humble will cover that as much as it should be, IMO.

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[mindlight]

Hi,

First of all, congratulations in being able/allowed to preach the word; it is a great calling.

Yes it is a decades old calling and one I want to keep doing which is why I want to get it right.

Secondly, you don't have to experience everything yourself to be able to preach on it - otherwise preachers would either have to go through divorce, redundancy, cot death, being persecuted for their faith and many more, or we'd never get any sermons on them.

That is true from the view of sharing truth. Many seem to disagree from the point of view of having the right to preach.

Had you become ill before you preached, then maybe you could have referred to that experience;

My experience over most of my life is about 1 -2 colds a year and no really major illnesses. So I do not have much to draw on there. I am a very fit and healthy person. Something I thank God for.

how illness can make you feel isolated, maybe depressed, with everyone offering advice or frustrated at the loss of health/productivity and time off work etc. You weren't ill beforehand, but maybe you know people who have had colds that they just can't get rid of? Or who are in hospital and maybe pick up an infection so that their recovery time is longer than they had hoped? Or maybe you could have, or can next time, ask your Minister/the hospital chaplain if you can spend a day with them, talking to patients/visiting intensive care/dealing with bad news so that you can reflect on that for a sermon. (It's probably best to say you want to see, and understand, their work rather than that you are doing sermon research!)

I am surrounded by sick people and to be honest their experiences should have tempered my words better. My own experience of sickness this week of being drained, cold when it is hot, and the continual coughing and spluttering, falling down the stairs has humbled me somewhat and I hope I can remember this experience for my next talk on healing.

So maybe if you are asked to preach again on a healing passage, you can use that experience then - but I don't believe that God deliberately made you ill for the purposes of preaching. If he had wanted that, you would have become ill before the sermon.

The ways in which I have been hurt this week have really spoken to me and I believe God has allowed this so that I learn something from it. I was ill when I gave the sermon with the same thing I have suffered all week though it was early on then and I had not yet learnt from it. I think some words that a preacher shares end up being for him also and this was one of those messages.

With other subjects; it's good to relate your own experience/feelings. Hearing that a preacher sometimes struggles to pray or understand the Bible, has times where they don't trust God, gets angry, or whatever, reassures people that they/you are human, not some kind of super Christian who has their whole life sorted and is qualified to tell them what to do.
It has been said that people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

There does need to be a balance - a "sermon" which says nothing more than "this happened to me", is actually a testimony. God can certainly speak through it, and there are some powerful ones out there, but it may not be what is needed/asked for at the time. But a sermon which is ALL fact/theology/intellectual arguments becomes academic and irrelevant.

That said, the most important thing you can do is to be yourself. If you are naturally academic, you may struggle a bit to relate to people, or apply what your are saying to their lives; but it's important to preach as you can, not as you can't, or in someone else's style which is not your own. That will look awkward and you may come across as being insincere.

I don't know if that helps?

I agree there has to be a balance and that truth is communicated through personality in the end.

 

[mindlight]

It MAY be. It certainly came into the world when sin did; so there is a connection. But personally, I would not want to imply that anyone's illness was a result of sin - unless, I was in a 1-1 situation and I'd had a clear word from the Lord that this was the case.
You have to be really careful. If you say, "sickness is a result of sin"; it may be technically true and you may go on to explain it - but what people will hear is "it's your fault or punishment for doing something wrong." IOW they will be so shocked by the first part of the statement, they may not be able to hear anything else.

I did try and explain this as you suggested. Original sin is a horrible lottery that doles out sickness unfairly. This is what I think upset some people and also the contention that even though it is not fair some suffer more than others it is nothing less than ANY of us deserve.

Medical science today heals bad guys as easily as good ones so the simplest idea is that sickness has nothing to do with behaviour or sin and this is the deepest error of our culture. Our lifestyles are separated from any moral guide by neutralising the consequences of the decisions that we make. Jesus also healed guys who ignored him once they had obtained their cure and guys who came back, said thank you and were interested in a relationship with Him. Some of those who were healed by Jesus may not have been saved by Him and today we look for healings and miracles alto often before we look for salvation. Salvation is the more important concern because sin is the deeper problem in every bodies life than sickness is.

 

[Strong in Him]

I did try and explain this as you suggested.

I'm sure you did.
But the thing is that in a sermon, if you hear something that shocks/upsets/puzzles/worries you, it's hard to keep your mind on what is being said, or may come next because you are shocked/upset worried etc and start thinking about that. It's happened to me; a preacher said something controversial, my immediate inner reaction was "what??" and I missed everything else that he said. So if someone is sitting in the congregation with an unhealed illness and they think they hear you say "illness is a result of sin", it's likely their reaction will be "he's blaming/God's punishing me; what have I done wrong?"

Original sin is a horrible lottery that doles out sickness unfairly. This is what I think upset some people and also the contention that even though it is not fair some suffer more than others it is nothing less than ANY of us deserve.

Sickness came into the world when sin did, but I don't think it's possible to say that an individual illness is always the result of sin. Some people are simply never ill, yet you wouldn't say that they are not sinners; whereas some babies are born with genetic illnesses or disabilities.
We deserve death - i.e hell, eternal separation from God. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death; not that illness is the punishment for sin.

Medical science today heals bad guys as easily as good ones so the simplest idea is that sickness has nothing to do with behaviour or sin and this is the deepest error of our culture.

I didn't say it had nothing to do with it.
If someone has a cold/flu/migraine/diabetes etc, I believe it's wrong to say, or imply, that it's because they have sinned. On the other hand, a stomach ulcer may be due to years of worry about something, and I have heard that sometimes arthritis can be as a result of unforgiveness, or suppressed anger - something to do with chemicals in the body. Yet even then, I would not say, or imply, that someone with arthritis was bearing a grudge and refusing to forgive someone.

I'm not saying that you said any of this either, but it may be what some people heard, or thought that you were saying.

Our lifestyles are separated from any moral guide by neutralising the consequences of the decisions that we make.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.

Jesus also healed guys who ignored him once they had obtained their cure and guys who came back, said thank you and were interested in a relationship with Him. Some of those who were healed by Jesus may not have been saved by Him and today we look for healings and miracles alto often before we look for salvation. Salvation is the more important concern because sin is the deeper problem in every bodies life than sickness is.

Yes. I have read of people who try to bargain with God and say, "if you heal me/my child I'll believe in you and go to church"; they receive that healing, yet don't go. I have read, and heard, of people who boast about their good health, say how lucky they are and may even see it as a sign that "someone up there is looking after them". Yet they are sinners, without Jesus and a lot worse off than someone with cancer who is a child of God and has deep faith.
God wants to make us whole - ad one day that will include complete physical healing for those who do not currently have it. At the same time, God is concerned about our health too, but physical healing may not always be HIS first priority for us. When I had M.E, which was unhealed for 18 years, I had arguments with people on these forums who implied, or even stated, that I wasn't healed because I didn't have faith and/or had committed a sin, or my ancestors had, that was being punished. I didn't believe either to be the case, and just felt condemned/judged by those who were saying these things.

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[Strong in Him]

What does M.E stand for?

Sorry. It stands for Myalgic Encephalomyletis ( may not be spelt correctly.) Also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Icelandic Flu, Chronic Fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, yuppie flu - and many other things.
I wasn't very badly affected, but I did have it for 18 years.