For years I've rooted for whichever team was playing Notre Dame. Then we started watching Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN2. Mike Golic knows sports and is a lot of fun. They mix great reparte with sports talk and interesting guests. Golic was a lineman in the NFL for years and before that was a captain for the Fighting Irish. His oldest son is now an offensive guard at N.D., his second son, a sophomore, is also on the team, and his freshman daughter is on the N.D. swim team.
I can't believe I'm pulling for the Irish to go undefeated on the season.
Every week I spend several hours preparing a sermon to preach to the good people of Pathway. I want my sermons to be supremely biblical, but relevance is also a requirement. The Bible isn't a textbook and I'm not a lecturer. It shouldn't be that the room could be empty with no difference, or even that, just before I begin, David Copperfield could magically pull these people out and replace them with another group. My sermons should be for the people of Pathway, fitted specifically to this flock God has given me.
I was thinking about that this afternoon, about tomorrow's sermon and how much I want it to be relevant for these people. And that made me think about the way it was done in the old days. It used to be that the preacher and others with a part in the service sat up on the platform. They looked out at the people and the people looked at them. When it came time for the sermon the rest of them - song leader, Associate Pastor, whoever - went down to sit with the rest of the people and the preacher got up to deliver the sermon.
The point is, the pastor looked out at his people for the first 40-45 minutes of the service. He saw his flock, the people he'd preach to.
For reasons I can't identify all of that has changed. Now all who take part in the service sit down in front with the congregation and go up to the platform (or if you meet in a gym like we do, to the mic) and do whatever it is they're to do, then return to their seat. I suppose it's more egalitarian; the preacher and other leaders are worshippers just like them. But part of me wishes I spent that first part of the service looking out at them. It would help ground my sermon in the reality of these people and their lives before I got up to preach.
Pam will be home from work soon and I'll be in bed shortly thereafter. It's Saturday night and my head is already ramped up for tomorrow.
2 comments:
I hope you remembered to set your clock back one hour or you'll be looking at empty seats.
Arizona is one of two sensible states (Hawaii) that doesn't do Daylight Savings Time. So we don't have to change clocks twice a year or worry about showing up for church at the wrong time.
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