This past week-end, I preached for the first time in six weeks. It was longest I
had gone between teaching opportunities in many years; in part because of our 'teaching team' approach to bringing God's Word, and in part because of travel.
The 'unexpected surprise' to me was not that I felt any loss in passion or clarity from the Spirit, (I didn't!); but that I did lose a bit of the discipline of bringing the Word in a timely fashion.
Said plainly, I just rambled too much! Let me be clear: I don't think there is any 'magic number' in terms of how long a message should be. Just about a month ago, I heard Pastor Rick Warren give a 'normal' Sunday message that was 55 minutes long. Other equally gifted guys can limit themselves to 25 minutes and be very effective.
In some traditions, the sermon is the central item in the worship service and is always an hour or more. In other, normally newer churches, it is always much shorter; believing that 'unchurched' folks have a 20 minute attention span because of television viewing.
What mattered to me was that, in reviewing the message, I had diluted the key points by adding to much unnecessary commentary. Fortunately, I had an opportunity to edit the message on Sunday morning, cutting the unimportant but not losing any of the essence of the text in Nehemiah 7-8. (How I thanked
God for another chance..!)
When it comes to sharing God's Word, 'less is more' most of the time; as long as you know you have brought the core truth in understandable terms. As for me, I'm going to work at 'keeping the rust' off; cherishing every opportunity to
preach/teach for the gift that it is..
If you care to see the 'reviewed version'; go www.northway.org and follow the prompts to 'watch the message'. How blessed we are!
Pastor Jay
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