Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Marinating -- not Microwaving

Tomorrow, Lord willing, Beverly and I will go to Houston, where I will speak at Bammel Road Church of Christ. We will spend a couple of days with our son Jonathan's family.

This will quite likely be a SERIOUS travel week. I just have a feeling that we will leave Houston to go to Memphis for the arrival of our grandson Noah. That is probably how Beverly and I will celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary -- which is Friday. I'm excited!

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I was reading an article by Joe McKeever entitled, "Why Sermon Preparation Takes Me So Long." Here is part of that article:

I once heard John Bisagno, veteran pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church at the time, say he did not understand why many pastors require so long to prepare a message. “Give me some privacy, my Bible and a note pad, and in two hours without interruptions, I have the sermon.” This, I might say, is just one of the five hundred reasons most of us who know Dr. Bisagno envy this gifted servant of the Lord.

To put it bluntly, few of us can produce the kind of sermon we ought to be preaching in that brief a time. In my case, this preparation time is not measured in hours, but in days or even weeks. Perhaps it has something to do with limited intellect, but a sermon has to grow in my mind—marinate as opposed to microwave, I sometimes put it.

I love that imagery of a sermon marinating rather than microwaving.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Great. Now I'll be thinking about food while you are preaching. I'm not sure if I'll see you as a big rib eye wandering the stage or a tasty pork tenderloin or grilled shrimp (I put together a tasty new marinade last time I cooked some).

Just keeping serving the sermons you've been having and we will have plenty to eat. I've loved the study the past couple of weeks.

Randy Davis said...

It is a very different matter to think long and hard over a subject and present a lesson on it after many weeks of thought and study compared to preaching/teaching two or three lessons each and every week.