Back Home - Sermon to Write

I was at the 16th Annual Festival of Homiletics (FOH) all week. For me it was AMAZING! Fed me spiritually to be there. For lack of a better description, it fed me to be on the *receiving* end of the gospel and let it work on me that way... from the outside in, rather than the inside out. Also came away with lots of ideas. I also found it affirming in many ways, I'm not alone in this and I'm not the only one to have had some of the thoughts that I've had about ministry or when working on a sermon (or often more accurately, when a sermon is working on me).

The music was great! The music at the Festival and the book I'm reading, "The Jazz of Preaching" reminded me of how I connect to music... so went to Borders last night for a couple Jazz CDs and spent some time on Itunes this morning. Have discovered an artist named Eric Bibb (CD title "Get on Board" and his fun bluesy song "Spirit I am." This song had me dancing around the house this morning - that and the sunshine outside). :)

Ran across a great theme song for Saturday sermon writing by Mercy Me: "3:42 AM (writers block)". Heh!

As for my sermon... it's tough to settle down after all I was absorbing all week - lots rolling around inside me in terms of thoughts on the texts as well as general info on preaching I heard all week. Not sure where exactly I'm going yet.

I connect to the NT reading and being stewards of mystery (how cool is that?) makes me think of Michael Slaghter at FOH comparing us to being Medicine Women and Men - not CEOs, and of course the Gospel message about worry, as we all worry, even though we are advised not to. As an exercise on the plane yesterday I wrote in my journal things that I worry about off the top of my head. Not sure if I'd share them specifically, or use them to talk about general worries we all may have, or both.

Now that I've got some great music to listen to, maybe a little walk in the sunshine will help get the ball rolling.

I was writing in my written journal while I was gone. May share some of that, or further reflections on some of these things later.