Monday, December 29, 2008

Sermons should be given with the same intensity of feeling as a woman who is in childbirth. You must focus all your attention there. When you stand before the podium, you must feel like a pregnant woman on her way to the delivery room. If you reach that level, you need no preparation. The content of your sermon is not the issue. The issue is whether your heart has reached that level.

When you give a sermon, if the members know you have already given a sermon with that title before, they will not like it. It is similar to the desire of people wishing to feel the change of seasons. People are not always happy just because it is morning. There are days of depression even when there are few worries.
Even though it is such a nice and invigorating day, you can still feel depressed. Then what do you do to get over this? If there is no stimulus to help bring about this change quickly, go and find a more depressing place. By going to such a place and putting yourself into an environment that is contrary to yours, you can find new stimulus. You can also supplement your current state by creating a new stimulus through which you can directly overcome your situation. If you cannot find solution s and manage your everyday life, you will not be able to offer spiritual guidance to many others.

If you give an ill-prepared sermon and no one receives inspiration from it, even if you give all your strength and there is still no result, you must come back and spend some time wailing regretfully. It is a shameful thing. You must feel ashamed. That is how you develop yourself.

You may want to say on Sunday, “Where in the Bible shall we read from? Break out the hymns! Break out the Holy Songs!” Do no t do this. This is not what you should do. Center your worlds on your knowledge of people; use real life resources and relate them to comparable passages in the Bible. Give an interesting sermon that compares personal experiences with the content of the Bible. Then the mind of that listener will be completely blown away. When he hears about his own experiences, he will like it. Do not attempt to do it by looking at books. Books come from people as well. You must know that people themselves are the original books.

Church leader should undergo many hardships. They should go through a lot of life training. They need to experience the lives of a poor laborer, a beggar, a top executive, even someone with the highest authority. Then, with all those experiences in such a public position, your testimonies will be more real.

I spend more time praying for members than praying for the sermon itself. I pray with sincere investment: “Heavenly Father! What must I do to raise these people? Is it this or is it that?” Then I give the sermon as my mind directs.

If you have an intimate relationship with God, do not worry that you did not prepare for your sermon. You need that kind of experience as well. Even when I meet famous people and must speak up to ten times a day, I must talk about different things each time.
But do I prepare for each and every one? My heart at those times is to completely have the consciousness of an offering. There is no “I.” There is no concept of my existence. There is no sense of having possessions. Heaven is with us when we stand a position of absolute dedication. (1028) –34

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