Filling the Pulpit.

Last Friday my pastor, Pastor John aka PJ had surgery. He will be laid up for the next two weeks and therefore I got the honor (and I do mean Honor) of filling the pulpit for the next two weeks. I always get nervous when doing so. Why? I think it boils down to two things. 1. I speak to teens all the time and I think that I have become so used to gearing all my mindset, lingo, jokes, examples whatever it is to what teens like and what teens need to hear. So I get nervous when I do speak when you have to take into accounts Adults and their lives too.

The second thing I get nervous is more personal. I’m a big dude. So, to be honest, I can’t stand for long periods of time. I get real self conscious about it. I feel like my sermons are short, or that I get too distracted by thinking about the pain from standing. When I am speaking to the youth I sit. I have actually been told by many of my students that they like it that I do, it’s more informal but when it comes to Sunday morning, it’s not the norm

Now my pastor, from here on known as PJ, tells me all the time to sit and preach like I do on Wednesday night, not to worry about it. But I still do. For Sunday I decided to stand. I survived.

A few weeks ago our pastor did a Sunday morning service where he had the people nail their sins to the cross. He collected them and pick the ones that were the most mentioned. One of those was ANGER. So he asked me to speak on that. I prayed about it and I came from the point of view of what do you with your anger, how do you approach it?

1 Peter 3:9 (New International Version)
9Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

That is the main passage that I came from. We cannot escape life without getting angry. But that is not liberty to get revenge, shun or punish those who anger us.

Sunday night I spoke on a topic that is close to my heart which was The purpose of Mentoring. Specifically the example of Paul and Timothy. I thought it went good. We had the students all go sit by the adults of our church and then we gave the congregation questions to ask and answer with each other. So they got to know them, I even had two my older college students come up and sit with me. They actually sat with me the entire service (I did speak sitting down) and as I went thru the verses, I would talk about times I have had shared with each them in a Mentoring moment. Got alot of good feedback.

Filling in for the pastor when he cannot preach is vital to my ministry. Our church does not have a Associate Pastor, so I feel that has the other minister on staff, it’s my duty to do so. I think it is also important to help the people of the church that don’t know what we really do as the Student Ministers. This gives them the chance to see that the ministry is more than Pizza and Games. I think its an honor and I take it very seriously. Communication is very key to getting the people in your church outside the ministry to know what you do and ultimately support it. But I really hope I’m never called to be a pastor, it’s not easy at all.