Saturday 20 February 2016

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Sermon Club - a Timeline

Day / TimeActivity
MondayDay Off
Tuesday Read the texts for Sunday
WednesdayAllow time for texts to be mulled over. Meanwhile carry on with everyday business as usual.
ThursdayMore mulling, while burying people / visiting people / preparing assemblies / church committees etc etc etc 
FridayForget there's a sermon to be written. Do some more of the above. Still plenty of time.
Saturday 6pmGo on Twitter to tell everyone you'd better write a sermon pretty soon. Receive lots of affirmation.
Saturday 7pmWatch old "Midsomer Murders". It was the creepy vicar. But then it always is.
Saturday 8pmBack on Twitter bemoaning a lack of ideas. Receive lots of affirmation.
Saturday 9pm Write a blog post on the text, thinking it might become a sermon.
Saturday 10pmRead back blog post and realise that 2,000 words on how you felt once while sitting by a pond in a retreat house in Leicestershire hardly counts as a sermon. Despair
Saturday 11pmJot down three points:

"Some people weren't nice to Jesus"
"Jesus was nice"
"Be like Jesus".

Reflect that it's true, albeit a bit brief. Probably will be able to pad it out in the morning?
Saturday 11.15pm Well-earned gin/scotch/beer/milk/cocoa
Sunday 00:00 - 6amStressy dreams in which Simon Cowell is in the congregation, giving his views on your sermon, its theology and illustrations. You keep forgetting what the reading is, and you are unaccountably dressed as Looby Loo.
Sunday 6amMake stupidly strong coffee.
Sunday 6.15amCheck to see if anyone's blogged any sermons. Discover they have, but they're all completely at odds on the meaning of the readings. Despair.
Sunday 6.30amGo on Twitter to tell everyone how hard it is.
Sunday 7amHave another coffee.
Sunday 7.15amTry "Text this Week". Discover that they think it's something before Lent and you've got it as something after Epiphany. Despair.
Sunday 7.20amJust another ten minutes on Twitter?
Sunday 8am Have another coffee.
Sunday 8.15amSpend a while ensuring all the coffee you just drank won't be causing a "problem" halfway through the service.
Sunday 9amStart to lead service fretting about the fact you've not got a sermon. Preach on three points:

"Some people weren't nice to Jesus"
"Jesus was nice"
"Be like Jesus".
Sunday 10.15amEverybody says "Nice sermon, vicar/pastor/archdruid. Nice and short."
Sunday 10.30amReflect you should probably blog your sermon, like everyone else. 

5 comments :

  1. Looby Loo? Good of you to own up to your age but otherwise I'm struggling.
    Anyway there is always the 'Jesus wasn't nice he was good and there's a big difference'
    sermon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well I do have the sermon I preached 6 years ago. And three years ago. And I don't think this lot of heard it. Or did I bring it out for proper Ascension Day? And anyway, does it adequately cover the European Union question?

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  3. Were you reading my mind last night?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have an archive of about ten years of the Expository Times - a relic of when my father was the editor - with a sermon for every week of the year. This means that, unless I'm spectacularly unlucky and get planned at the same church for the same week more than ten times, I always have something to fall back on.

    Of course, these being mainly from the eighties, they aren't always bang up to date, but it's surprising/depressing how often something written in a time of crisis thirty-odd years ago appears impressively relevant to the world today!

    ReplyDelete

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