I had a meeting with my supervisor on Tuesday, despite him still being signed off. We discussed a couple of things and I got my "homework".My placement church are hosting the local guide district Thinking day service on Sunday morning and I'm to do the intersession prayer for that. As I used to be a guide, I have a fairly decent idea what should be in that. Sorted.
I'm also to do the sermon on 8th March. This has been arranged for a while. Now I'm wondering whether to write another sermon - to ensure Sunday's wasn't a fluke - or to recycle? Sunday's did go down really well, but it will be a totally different experience at my placement church. Also, my supervisor doesn't yet know I preached on Sunday - he knew I was helping with the worship group, but didn't specifically ask what I did during the service. Okay, perhaps I should have told him, but I wanted to leave my options open...
I've had a look at the lectionary and I'm sure I could come up with something. I may have a bash at writing another sermon. If I think it sucks or isn't coming together very well, I can use Sunday's as a fall back!
The photo was me being arty with a lectern. If you look very, very closely, you can see my reflection.
I always feel I'm short-changing someone (God? the congregation? myself?) when I recycle a sermon - note that that means I've done that (often). But there are certainly times that reusing the core message is very useful. What I found, doing pulpit supply one summer, was that you very quickly get a sense of the 'issues' in a congregation and you begin to preach 'into' that situation. That doesn't mean that you can't reuse a sermon preached elsewhere, but the emphasis changes or the main teaching point is slightly different or the phrasing is a bit different.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll know yourself if the sermon you preached in your home church is right for your placement. It will almost certainly get a different reaction but that's a useful reminder that you may be speaking the words, but it's the Spirit bringing them to a person's heart.
(Plus it's useful to have a little collection of sermons building up to use elsewhere)