Preaching Shadows

So my sermons are not in order these last few months, and one is missing because I never wrote it down, not even a note. It turned out really well, and I might be able to recreate it, but it was a month ago and I forget my sermons pretty quickly (which you have to do in order to remember the next one. At least that's how it works for me. Tell me Monday, "Good sermon" and I'll struggle to remember what it was about even though I thought about it all the previous week.)

I just have to say I have mixed feelings still about putting my sermons in written form on the internet. Preaching is a particular form of communication and for me writing the sermon is very different from preaching the sermon. The words are approximate to what I said. I don't use notes when I preach. I write an outline down sometime Saturday and never look at it again, usually. Mostly I find that the written word doesn't carry the energy of preaching, at least not these written words. I can write with energy, but sermons get their energy from what happened when I was in a room with the congregation and we all encountered the text together.

Preaching is very communal. The sermon is for a specific situation, a specific congregation, a specific date and time. It is unique to that encounter. I always feel as if the people of the congregation pull the sermon out of me. They add much to the experience and process of preaching.

So these words on this digital media are not the sermon, just a shadow of what I tried to say that particular day.