Busted...

I have a habit of pointing out patterns that I find in presentations by speakers. This applies to preachers, teachers, seminar leaders, etc. I wrote my top list of repeated phrases a few months ago in a blog post. Phrases like "painting in broad strokes" and "unpack" made the list. In fact, I decided just for fun (my kind of ridiculous fun) to use those two phrases (back to back) during my chapel sermon last week.

My habit of pointing out things in sermons came back to bite me. Familiar words from Jesus in Mark 4:24 say "Consider carefully what you hear," he continued. "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more."

My measure - pointing out specifics in a sermon

Yesterday, I preached a sermon at my home church and I included what I thought was a throw-away line in the middle of the sermon. I said that salt is "what most of us relate to making food tasty or high cholesterol." I didn't think much of the line. I just wanted to put in a transition to the actual use of the term salt in Matthew 5.

A person pointed out to me later in the day that in fact salt causes high blood pressure not high cholesterol. My initial, internal defensive response was "is it that big of a deal that I said high cholesterol? is that the only thing you heard in the sermon?" Later on, after reading Mark 4:24, I reflected on the fact that my measure of pointing out specific parts of a sermon came back on me.

I am now starting to realize that all of my criticizing of things over the years in the church (poor leadership, specific sermon points, etc) will now be pointed at me as I enter full-time ministry. Writing a sermon, leading a church, doing anything as a full-time pastor is more difficult than I realized when I was a person who showed up on Sunday morning and had a lot of time to point out the problems without offering solutions...