Sermon went well - God had it under control :)
So my aim was to preach suffering, God's love and discipline.
After some crazy times of the church members saying that I could not preach (because their had been too many guest speakers in the last month) and then Mimee quiting (!) and then I did end up preaching. And their was a lizard in the bathroom on the Sunday morning and Mimee was running late... it was one of those crazy times when everything is going on and you just have to run with it and know that God is in control!
So I introduced myself, prayed, then spent the first half of my time sharing about family stuff - explaining that I grew up in a Christian home, parents got divorced, I was like God 'why?' / no answer, things were not so good at home, then growing closer to God, Philippines and God realisations / that lead to life changes. Then I shared about Isaiah 6 and the way in which God encountered Isaiah before he called him and about what he called him & etc. Just spoke the whole way though the chapter highlighting God's love, redemption and plan. Then I tied it all up by answering my running question of 'what sort of God sends his own son as the sacrifice for the people?' with the theme of the whole Bible - creation, wandering, encounter, realisation, forgiveness, redemption, new purpose and a bit of JESUS! and then Ephesians - 2:8-10 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. to finish.
Then after I finished (I beat the 40 minute minimum mark by 5 min's!) I got the congregation to pray for each other (MBC night service style) which kind of worked - it is very different to the way they normally do corporate prayer over here (normally all at once out loud or one person from the front).
When we all got down from the stage (three languages, two translators) one of the members (elders equivalent) got up and talked for a few minutes - I was like 'I thought it went well... what is he saying to finish off my sermon???' But Mimee explained that he was just sharing his thoughts on the sermon / how he had been challenged. Roughly from memory the things he shared were - 'see ferungs have problems too / the christian life isn't easy for anyone' (suffering) - 'she did the right thing by turning to God in her hard times, we should do that too' (discipline) - 'we should wait upon the timing of God and pray more together' (God's love - I'd talked a lot about God's timing). So that was some pretty good, instant feedback that at least one person managed to listen!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
How Leonie's Sermon went
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