I preached the sermon at my church this past Sunday. It was about the community. (Cliff’s Notes/SparkNotes: shining our light, being the “salt,” serving as Christ’s ambassadors without feeling weird or like we have to have all the answers. Churches exist for people outside of the church walls. The world is waiting for us.)

As far as sermons go, it was a “rough birth.” I worked on the draft for weeks. A whole room full of preachers looked at it over and over and it still felt off to me. My senior pastor took it apart and built it up again. I took it home and changed it 427 times. I labored over that message but didn’t feel it was quite what God had for me to say. I shared it with my coach, and she preached a three-sentence sermon that said it better than I could. I wanted to record her, play it, and sit down! I started to call another pastor and ask him to preach it (he already had five jobs at church that day). I prayed for snowstorms and a power outage (no such luck, just light rain and bad satellite). I even tried to catch my husband’s terrible cold (14 days and I didn’t even get a cough).

On Saturday night, when it was clear that this was my assignment and I wasn’t getting out of it, I literally Googled “nervous to preach.” I figured some long-suffering preacher out there would have some words of wisdom for a relative rookie like me. He did. I learned a simple, new way to connect with God. A little Isaiah 26:3 goes a long way (hint: it’s not.about.me.).

By Sunday morning, I was finally ready and willing. In fact, I was pretty excited. I mean, I knew my microphone and my hair would fight and the microphone would lose once again (for the series: hair 18, mic 0). I knew my hands were too cold and clammy to shake the congregants’ hands (gross!). I knew wearing black was a visual risk. Even still…the message. All I could think of was God’s people getting fired up, reaching out to others who were lost and hurting. My new spiritual practice kept my nerves in reasonable check (well, at least I didn’t pass out). I was even able to preach in front of my pastor. Y’all, this was a HUGE HURDLE that I had been dodging successfully for four years. I even delegated some worship service tasks to him which was fun.

God is good!

After preaching three services (Lawd, I’m still tired!), someone came up to me. She said, “I believe you will do what you said you will do.” I had just preached for 25 minutes about doing A LOT, and she needed just about every type of help I talked about. God had drawn on the word as soon as it went out. I was so grateful to have some mature, faithful siblings in Christ to work with me and to stay with me to be sure that she got what she needed.

From this experience, I feel a sense of personal and spiritual growth. Even putting this sermon video up is a significant leap for me. Thanks to God’s loving patience in dealing with me and my machinations and shenanigans, I am inspired to do even more to help equip my church to respond to the needs of our community.