500 Sermons Later

Last week I was going looking through a journal I keep of Scriptures and sermon topics I preach every Sunday. The idea of the journal is to keep me balanced and not focus too much on a particular book. I was counting up the sermons and there was 499 over the years in Spiritwood, Lakeview Church, and even one sermon at Saskatoon Free Methodist Church (two wrecked car, two dead deer, 189,000 kilometres driven to and from church during that time) . Today was sermon 500 and as I was telling Wendy, it seemed to capture up the essence of what I believe about the church and being a Christ follower. I also preached in denim for the first time. The Nazarene church I grew up in had a thing about blue jeans. I actually remember a sermon about a donkey, Fonzie, blue jeans, gum, and looking at people when they walked in late and how bad all of those things were. I have been reading Scripture since then and I have yet to find the prohibitions again denim, Fonzie, gum, and looking at people coming in late for church. As for the donkey, I think that is what we are if we do those things.

Today I was preaching on the younger son's return in the Parable of the Prodigal Son and how many of us can't get past what he did and how he would have looked while the Father could only put his cloak around him and through a feast. He saw his son, we just see the filth and even the fact that he may have been wearing jeans. The other thing is that as hard as it must have been, the son went back to the Father. I agree with Reggie McNeal's assumption that the church may get in the way and even block people from the Father. That's because too often we see church as the destination and not the Father and church as a destination, rather than a jumping off area, can be an ugly place.

After church we had a good talk about those things over some soup and sandwiches and the realization that we may be leading people to church and not the Father, not just as this small "c" universal church but even as a local church as well.

For years I have been teaching from a stage with a pulpit. Today I just grabbed a rather shaky lecturn and just used that on the floor. It always amazes me that every time I move from the stage to the floor, how much positive feedback people give me. I think the different position changes both how I speak and how people hear. The smaller lecturn makes a difference as well and I think we all like it.

The annoying thing is that I kept catching myself in a bad habit that I have had for the last five hundred sermons. I hopefully will have it stopped before sermon 1000. It's hard to believe it will be a decade as pastor of Lakeland Church this fall. It was supposed to last six months and there were a lot of weeks that I wondered if it would last that long. Thanks to the church, Dennis Camplin, and Vern Munshaw for thinking I could do it. For those that didn't think I could do it, thanks for not telling me :-)