Sunday, June 23, 2013

too complicated

Preparing sermons can be a pain in the neck.  You pray, you listen, and you work.  Routinely I get stuck in sermon preparation and I have to take a step back and look at it from another angle.  Often I see the problem- the sermon is too complicated.  Too many thoughts, too many things for my brain to follow.  And if my brain can't follow it, how can I expect anyone else to follow it?

So I simplify the thing, and it usually goes better.

I think there is a life lesson here.  Sometimes we make things too complicated.  We need to simplify.  We need to find a few really good things and focus on them.  When we try to focus on too much, we lose our focus and are prone to miss some of the really good parts of life.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jeff, many people know that there is a pastor in the Blue Springs area who is endeared to his congregation and the community. He has terminal cancer and has a limited number of days left here on earth.

I've thought often of a comment he made in an interview with the Star several weeks back. He said "when I wake up every morning, I say okay God, what's my assignment for today?" Your inciteful post this morning, reminds me that it is not God who assigns us so much that we can't focus on what he desires. It is us, who tend to pile ourselves up with so much, when saying no feels uncomfortable.

Bless you. And by the way, we you preach that sermon multiple times every Sunday, we can't even tell what you've been through in the preparing. No church ever had it so good as WCC when it comes to good sermons (from Jeff, Don Canfield, Shawn, and others.)