Preaching Text-Fessional

I'm over doing the videos for these things because I hardly ever watch anyone else's videos - especially YouTube links. I don't know why. I'm usually blogging in a setting/environment where I can't just be watching videos all the time. Anyways, here is my Preaching Confessional on this morning's sermon.

We began a new series today called "The Pursuit - David's Heart for God." This will be a 14 week series through the life of David and how we can be people who pursue the heart that David had for God. My talk today was called "The Internal Pursuit" as we looked at David's anointing to be king and how God says, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

I think the morning went pretty well for me. I was a bit distracted by some other aspects of the morning that weren't going totally according to plan and I tend to be the kind of person that wants things to happen the way they are supposed to happen. Part of this is my weakness and part of this is people doing what they have committed to doing. But I'm not going to get into that here. I haven't preached in Elevation since August 5th which is actually not that long, but it seems like so much has happened since then with VBS week, then going to Africa for two weeks, and then getting sick for about a week. All this just made me feel like a stranger in my own church and feel a bit off when it came to preaching. I think I was connecting with people for the most part and I think they were genuinely challenged. I said a couple things that I'm not sure if people would get upset about. 1) I talked about how there are other churches in the area with fancier youth rooms and ministry "stuff" than we have. I was making a point that I can get jealous about those things but I have to remember that those are not signs of ministry success in God's viewpoint. I just hope that people didn't just think I was whining about not having a Student Center. 2) I said how I don't like how most churches just have successful white-collar businessman for their elders and how I don't think that is a sign of potential leadership in the church in God's eyes. I just hope people aren't mad at how maybe our church could be viewed that way. I don't think that's how we choose elders, but it could be perceived that way.

We also had people write a phrase on a piece of foam that can stick on their mirror or window as a reminder. The phrase could be something like "God looks at the heart." This way people can remember the "Pursuit" series everyday and not just Sundays.

The rest of the sermon went reasonably well. I think that people understood the challenge. I think that people understand the series. I think that people are thinking about this concept. It was a weird morning for me and a good morning at the same time. I'm looking forward to getting into prep tomorrow for my talk next Sunday on the David & Goliath story. It will be interesting to preach on one of the most famous Bible stories to ever exist. I think Noah's Ark and David & Goliath are probably the two most famous Bible stories. So how do I make it memorable??????????? I have some ideas.....