Sunday morning

Different pastors bring different gifts to their callings -- some excel at counseling, others at administration, and still others at relational ministries. For me, everything revolves around the Sunday morning service. Not just the sermon but the service. I love to worship with my people. I enjoy preaching, but I see preaching as one (significant) part of worship.

I am not a great preacher -- I have neither the time nor the temperament -- but I think I'm a good preacher, and I work hard at it. Indeed, I have found that when pastors do reasonably well in their "public" ministries (preaching, funerals, weddings, hospital visitation), congregations often overlook a lot of their other weaknesses!

So I manuscript my sermons and then come in on Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings to go over the sermon enough times that it becomes a part of me. I don't try to memorize it, but I do want to know it well enough that I don't have to be constantly looking down at my notes.

I also believe that worship deserves the best of our efforts. Our service has a theme (an attribute of God based on the sermon text), and the music complements that theme (God is holy, creative, gracious, etc.). And I and our musicians work hard to do our best. I have often said that we don't have to be the best at what we do, but we ought to do the best that we can. Someone else may do it better, but we need to do the best that WE can, to the honor of Christ, in leading our people in worship. "Slipshod" or "careless" have no place on Sunday morning.

One final note: I prefer not to take Mondays off. I use Mondays to clean up all the loose ends from Sunday and also to take a preliminary look at next Sunday's text so I can be meditating on it through the week.