Occasionally I get asked about what it takes to preach or how you go about preparing a message or some other type of question that shows interest in what I do.  For the most part the way I’ve chosen to explain the responsibility of preaching is to basically say, “Preaching and putting together a message is a lot like studying and writing a term paper.  Then getting up at the end of the week and presenting your paper to an audience who may or may not have much knowledge, experience, or even interest in what you’re presenting.  Sometimes it’s good.  Sometimes it’s bad.  Sometimes you just wish you had more time to work through all or some of the details just so you could make it more clear or more challenging or even more creative.”  But Sundays come around with an amazing sense of regularity and you just can’t say to those who have gathered, “Hey, thanks for coming this week, but we really don’t have anything to say today.  It might be ready in the next day or two.”

Well, I tell you that to say that often after the message people will stop and say, “That was a good message.”  “I thought you were speaking right to me.”  “I really connected with what you were saying.”   Sometimes I’m sure people say things like that to be polite and kind.  It’s kind of like telling new parents, “That’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen.”  You just want to encourage them and support them.

At times, you may get the sense that those kinds of comments don’t matter to ministers or we don’t really pay attention to that stuff, but I’ll tell you (for the sake of most ministers and especially myself) those comments do matter.  Because there are some times when you get done preaching and you say to yourself, “Man, it’s a good thing God is involved in this whole process because if it were even slightly dependent upon me . . . I blew it.”

So, don’t read this and think I’m panning for more compliments or comments.  I just want you to know that I really do hear what people say about a message and it does matter and if on a given week a particular message resonates or it challenges or it simply meets you and encourages you where you are let me know because it just might be that know that will encourage me.