Ch.30
An Incredible Gift
In the face of
all these calamities, you might ask: “How did you survive?” The
answer is both simple and deep: God !
I would not wish our trials on anyone.
I would not wish to re-live them. But I could not wish to have
avoided them. Our experience of God through these trials is indeed
more precious that any suffering. Our knowledge that God
is and that God
is faithful
makes these seem – well I won't say “light and momentary” as
St. Paul does – but the benefits were certainly so much more than
worth the cost!
The other thing is that it gave God the
opportunity to show that he can provide. Not only provide but provide
in advance!
My first example
of Gods provision is an incredible spiritual gift which made it
possible for me to continue as a minister through the darkest days, a
gift He has let me keep.
The story starts some months
before the events of the last few posts:
While the revival was on we had been
taking in church growth conferences, as well as reading avidly and
listening to tapes by successful pastors and teachers we also used
holidays as an opportunity to see what other churches were doing..
I had taken a group of men up to a
conference in Sydney where Paul Yonggi Cho leader of the then world’s
biggest church (Sunday attendance then I think 500,000) was the main
speaker. It was a great conference and there were many other speakers
from Australian churches (well Australian AOG churches!) talking
about the problems of building up from small beginnings …. I
remember one was “breaking the 200 barrier” and the
organisational changes necessary as growth proceeded.
The “breaking the 200 barrier”
speaker was from a church in Brisbane which had grown to an
attendance of about 2,000. We were going on holiday the Brisbane, so
I contacted him and asked for an opportunity to talk to him about our
work at Lang Lang.
Sue and I duly went to see him. But he
didn’t want to talk; he wanted to pray for us to have “the gift”
(i.e. speaking in tongues – What is it with Pentecostals and
tongues!). So he prayed for us. Well, Sue did but I didn’t. I think
it was a sign of God’s sense of humour, but it was perplexing at
the time.
So holiday over we went home. One day
shortly after, I was praying and said to God “So why didn’t I get
to speak in tongues” God replied “Why don’t we try English
first? Give me your next sermon” My stomach knotted up.
Now as usual God had prepared the
ground. I had been finding the actual composing of the sermon harder
and harder. Not the background preparation, that is just rote work:
Study the set bible reading; possibly translate it myself from the
Greek for New Testament passages; consult the commentaries etc. You
just sit down and do that part. But as for finding the words to
convey something of the results of that research to my particular
congregation; that part was becoming increasingly burdensome. I had
been starting preparation earlier and earlier. By then I was starting
next Sunday’s sermon the Monday before, and still I was drawing a
blank late into Saturday night.
So although my stomach knotted at the
thought of it I said “OK Lord”. I did the usual background work
for all the bible readings. But I made no plans or notes about what
to actually say. Yes, I was nervous,
Kooweerup was the earlier service that
week (they alternated). The hymn before the sermon was ending. As
usual I prayed silently during the hymn. I had no idea what I was
going to do. The Hymn ended, I walked out to the lectern. I turned
and faced the congregation. God said in my mind “The Epistle: Go!”
I started on that theme and out of my mouth came what sounded to me a
pretty good sermon on the epistle of the day.
Lang Lang service was next up. I was
feeling much more confident this time. I thought I could even tweak
some bits. As I faced the congregation to start the sermon God said
“The Gospel this time: Go!” Oops! I didn’t have time to think!
I was off talking about the Gospel reading set for the day!
It was the most phenomenal gift –
actually having God “ghost write” my sermons. It is from my
subsequent reading a less common spiritual gift – but tremendous
fun!
That is not to say I adjusted easily to
the change! I always felt “naked” going to preach, no matter how
much background study I had done, without having some words or
structure planned.
An early hurdle was a civic service.
This was to be held in Lang Lang after a parishioner there became
Shire President. All the shire notables were to be there. I was
scared! God was very kind, he told me the opening few words. So I
knew I had to get up there and say this opening sentence –I just
didn’t know what went next! There is a joke about a politician who
fires his speech-writer, only to find that for his next speech after
a brilliant start when he turns the page all that is written on it
are the words “you’re on your own now”. I knew that joke. I
went up to the lectern with some residual trepidation!
I shouldn’t have worried. God had it
all sorted. It was a really good and appropriate sermon. Better then
anything I could have cooked up!
I would like to say that from this time
on I simply trusted God with my sermons. But that would be stretching
the truth! I still had low grade anxiety for some time when I got up
to preach, and sometimes acute fears. But I did get more relaxed as
time passed.
One advantage of this arrangement is
that I could never be caught by surprise. If anyone said – even at
the absolute last minute “can you do the talk / sermon?” it was
always “no problem”.
It is to this day a gift I cherish and
continually thank God for. It has let him do things using me that no
amount of rhetorical skill or training could have accomplished. I
will give you two examples.
I was about to enter one of the darkest
periods of my life. For months on end I was unable to do even the
background study for sermons. For some time I don't think I even had
the energy to open my Bible. Mostly by the time I dragged myself into
church on Sunday morning I hadn’t even read the
scriptures set for the day. Yes, often I just heard them read out in
the service then got up and preached on them. Yes, I did listen to my
own sermons, and yes they were theologically sound. I was amazed to
hear things come out of my mouth that I knew as I heard them were
things I had learned in theological college but which I had long
forgotten I ever knew.
God’s wonderful gift of preaching
kept me functional as a minister through the darkest valley.
Later when things were getting better,
I never quite knew who was going to be my audience. Time after time
the usual ten or so were seated, then half a dozen or a dozen
strangers would walk in! God would craft the sermon, the vocabulary
and idiom to suit the actual audience. I heard myself do it time
after time, I could tell it was totally appropriate, but I know I
could not have thought it out.
It really is an incredible gift.
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