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L.I.P.: Leftovers, Insights and Prods

Let’s face it. I’m the preacher. Now I don’t really like that ‘title’. In fact, I see myself more as a ‘minister’ or ‘evangelist’; and prefer either of those terms over the designation ‘preacher’. But, truth be told, I am a preacher and I do preach. As the main individual sharing God’s word with the congregation each week I have a responsibility that is both challenging and sobering (and incredibly Biblical I might add).

But I’d like to share with you a couple of dilemmas I have as a preacher. Simply put here they are.

TWO CONCERNS:

1) Premature Closure. Once the sermon is over, it’s easy for it to be over in the sense of finished, filed and forgotten...at least on the part of the hearers. [Jesus apparently felt this same thing. Notice how his famous Sermon on the Mount ended with the parable of the wise and foolish builders. The point being, “Don’t just leave after the sermon, put it into practice.” See also James 1:23-24 “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”] How do we get the word of God, spoken on Sunday morning, to be put into practice on Monday morning?

2) Missed Entrees. Then there’s the problem I have of reading and discovering so much about the sermon text during the week, but not being able to share some incredibly interesting, helpful, and challenging items when the sermon is preached. There are a couple of culprits at work: a) Time constraints prevent some of these from being shared; b) More often than not though, some important or interesting things in the text just don’t ‘fit’ into the flow and direction of the sermon.

A NEW MINISTRY:

I want to provide at least a partial remedy for this dilemma by offering a feature I want to call LIP (Leftovers, Insights, and Prods) Service. These will fall mainly into three or so categories:

-Quotes, statements and insights from others that pertain to the content of Sunday’s sermon.

-Issues in the text that I ignored in the actual sermon (again due to time constraints or flow)

-Gentle Reminders and Practical Application ideas so the sermon lives beyond Sunday morning

-Family (or small group-?) discussion items.

Some final points:

Warning: These piece will likely be very sporadic. Some weeks I just won’t have time to do them. Some weeks there will not be too much more to share about the prior Sunday’s text.

Format and Feedback: I plan to have these attached to the church’s outgoing weekly emails for the first few weeks (i.e., through the end of 2005), then have them sent to those who indicate they want to be on the “LIP service” email list and/or post them on the church’s internet cite. Please send me any helpful thoughts or suggestions you might have.

And pray that this LIP ministry (service) is not like most lip-service.

In Jesus,

David Hunter

October 25, 2005

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