I realise this sits ironically above my previous blog post a year and a half ago titled ‘Ps: I love preaching’ (https://kiwimadepreaching.com/author/laura-giddey/) but trust me, I have not lost my passion for what I do in that time. Keep reading.
The year has started with a whir and a bang, as I’m sure it has for many of us. At the end of last year my supervisor suggested I don’t commit to preach in the first term as I would have the build-up to Easter Camp to contend with, as well as everything else. Naturally I thought I knew best and didn’t listen to her. (Apologies Heather!) So I found myself a few weeks away from my preaching date staring at the theme, with not a lot of inspiration. The weeks were filling with admin and planning for youth group and sermon prep was taking a backseat. The topic wasn’t grabbing me, I wasn’t used to not preaching to a text, and I didn’t feel like I had personal illustrations to draw from. Preaching wise, I was feeling flat.
So what to do? What would you do? Are you meant to push through and make it happen? Or do you listen to your spirit and step back from something that you can’t handle? How do you discern the difference?
I chatted to my boss about it and he directed me towards focussing on a passage if I felt more comfortable with that, and encouraged me to persevere. Returning to the ‘First 15’ certainly helped and I began to carve out time to really focus on the text. Slowly it came together and seemed for form something of worth.
Ultimately I was glad that I continued working towards the preaching date. People seemed really impacted by the topic and a lot of really helpful ministry came out of it. God clearly took my reluctant words and used them to hit hearts. I ended up preaching quite a different sermon to how it first looked, but hopefully it remained true to the text and series.
I’m still struck with this question thought; what do you do when you don’t want to preach?
