Solid Preaching Selfless Editing

Greetings!

Thank you for glancing in my direction.

I am not one who receives random brilliant thoughts on a daily basis much less a weekly one. Such events are as rare as shooting stars, sustained weight loss, and the Detroit Lions in the Super Bowl.

My thought collecting centers around the crafting of a particular sermon during a particular week for a particular audience. The synapse army in my brain trains its nearly exclusive attention on the sermon. This results in my lack of original thinking on other topics, including movies and clever facebook posts, as well as my inability to tote other important information over short distances (that is, things I am supposed to tell Carolyn when I get home from church.)

Always the sermon gathering includes an overflow of stories/insights that never make it into the message.

And in spite of the occasional encouragement to "preach as long as it takes", believe me, no one would want to suffer through every Monday-Friday insight that any preacher concocted before the final cuts Saturday night (even the preacher her/himself).

Good preaching leans upon good editing to a degree that cannot be overemphasized.

So if you do hear a message I've shared on a Sunday morning that doesn't seem particularly strong, assume that I just left out the wrong things out that week.... please. Any alternative assumption lacks Jesus-y compassion.

Blessedly, on occasion, the thoughts, information and stories left behind and unheard Sunday mornings have sufficient vigor to remain in the back of my mind with a post-it attached reading: "This would be helpful to share too."

So the overall purpose of this blog is to share a few morsels from the left-behinds of my sermon preparation process. Some morsels will be links to the works of others, other items may be images that speak more enduringly than my words, and the rest? Whatever seems right.

My next blog should be by week's end and shares a really moving message from a gifted thinker regarding the Church and the LGBT Community. If I had only one more blog to share, it would be this one coming.

Blessings
Chris