Where Everybody's Crazy

When I preach, I try to believe that God is going to speak to people through what I'm going to say. But I'm always surprised when it actually happens. Sermons are like sausages: (and laws) if you like them, you don't want to see them being produced. At least, they always seem a lot less uplifting for the producer than they're supposed to be for the consumer. In short, I find it hard to get excited about my own sermons. I'm forever picking holes in them. So it was good to hear this story today.

I've been preaching recently at the Nagahama English service, which happens on the first and third Sundays. It's a bit of a mixed bag, since it serves the English-speaking community but also acts an outreach to Japanese people who want to practice their English a bit. Two weeks ago I started writing a sermon and it just didn't feel right. It's a sermon for another day, but not that occasion. Instead I felt I ought to preach this sermon which I wrote as part of a module at Bible school. It's about finding God in the midst of suffering. Simon Ponsonby fans will recognise it as a cheap knock-off of one of his sermons.

I didn't actually notice the young Japanese man while I was preaching. There's only about ten or fifteen people at the service, but I didn't get a chance to speak to all of them. But apparently he's been coming along for a while because his girlfriend is a Christian and he wants to know more about what she believes. In the discussion afterwards, it turns out that he was actually going through a time of great suffering; a close family member was very seriously ill and the family was falling into chaos. He heard my sermon about finding God in the midst of suffering - and he went back to his girlfriend and said "can you teach me how to pray?" For the first time, they prayed together.

This week, I preached on contentment. As usual, I can see a load of holes in it already. But who can tell what effect it had on people there?