A Chance To Preach

TUES., DEC. 16, 1992, 9:32 AM
FARM, STUDY

The call came last night from the church of which you were a member and ruling elder for some years… some years ago. The invitation was to lead the worship service and preach on the first Sunday in the New Year. Naturally you accepted, with glee. There is nothing you’d rather do on a Sunday morning than actually lead a service of worship and bring a message of hope, based in Holy Scripture and in these Teachings. You certainly knew that I would be offering you some guidance for this opportunity. So why don’t I start now?

I hear a variety of sermons that I like. There is no one theme, style, or approach that is best. It just must “fit” for most of a particular congregation to be effective. No approach can be pleasing and helpful to everyone assembled. Sometimes a message for even one person can be just what I want and need.

Obviously I need not tell you that I want you to preach, not read. You must develop your theme and your content early enough for you to know what you want to say. The written word can be effective in some instances. For this congregation, the spoken word, preached rather than read, will be in order. I would expect this, but I wanted you to know I approve of this.

You have several weeks to develop the theme, and, yes, you should worship with them on the Sunday before, just to get the “feel” of the service and of the congregation. Participate in the adult class both Sundays, for guidance and for relevance. You shall have a unique position… a visiting pulpit supply elder and a returning member of the congregation. You have a chance to blend those well.

This shall be the Sunday after New Years, so one sub-theme should be looking ahead to yet another year of life… as a person, as a Christian, and as a church congregation. It would be helpful to find out a bit more concerning the conflicts in that church, but you can, and should, still play the role of the hopeful prophet from the north. Don’t go into any detail, but indicate some awareness of the realities of their congregational life.

Take a moment to read the relevant Scriptures again. You see themes of chosenness, of God as eternal spirit, of creation of all and abundance to His chosen ones. It is not a matter of whether you are actually chosen or not. Those who hear and accept chosenness are those who are chosen. I put it upon your hearts and within your spirits. Those who wonder too much, even in humility, are those who are not yet ready for My Chosen.

Now you can’t say what I shall share with you now, for it would detract, for most of these folk… but I say to you that if you are not chosen in one lifetime you may be ready in another. Many who don’t respond to My call in a particular earth incarnation may hear and come in a more spiritual, less competitive realm. I want no atom of matter, in diverse forms of energy, to be lost. In like fashion, I want no soul to be lost. So despite conduct in an earth life that seems distant from Me I call and I assist… and I am not concerned with time or deadlines.