Monday, 17 November 2003

Hmm. I've thought about writing about yesterday, but I can't be bothered. Read Jen or Rob's comments. They'll sum it up for you.

Tonight I preached again. I didn't really make a big deal about it. I didn't send my usual "I'm preaching" e-mail to the official Tom fan club (sorry fans). I only had this week to prepare and really till today, I had about 4 hours to properly prepare. I finished writing it at 3:30pm this afternoon, right before I had a meeting. And I didn't even get to go through it once before preaching it. I wasn't feeling too good about it, not very confident. I met Matt in the hall later on, and he prayed for me which was really nice.

May I just digress for a bit to say that I think Matt is a wonderful person. He annouced his leaving tonight, and that's kinda sad. Exciting because of what he's heading off to do, but having Matt around has been great. I couldn't have asked for a better boss this year. He's been really supportive, always looking out for me, making sure I'm going ok, open to sharing his life with me, and anyone really. He's a great bloke. Mum asked tonight if I'd miss him, and I said I would. I miss him now when he's not around the office. Not having him there next year will be sad. So that's what I'd like to say. Praise the Lord for Matt. May there be many more like him out there.

Anyway, back to me. Tonights "sermon" (I still feel silly saying that word), was kinda strange. It wasn't conventional. It was basically Tinku's story, and stuff about Abraham. I went into it feeling the least prepared I have ever felt. It's a scary feeling. And telling Tinku's story was scary too. It's a pretty full on story. Quite difficult to believe I guess. And telling it meant that I was committing myself to it. Committing and saying that I believe and endorse this story. Which I did, but I still found it a little hard. That and not being prepared, made me feel pretty vulnerable. That's a good thing though. I believe in vulnerable preaching.

I also didn't really enjoy myself tonight. Usually I enjoy myself. Preaching usually is fun. But this time, it was more draining, and hard. But I knew this was never going to be "my night". It was always going to be God's. The Holy Spirit had His way tonight. So it's nice being a "vessel" as they say. But it's still not the easiest thing in the world. Still I love doing it. It is an honour to preach God's Word. He gives us good stuff. It's good being privilaged to be able to spend 20 minutes every now and again talking about it to people.

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