Only 18...

Its almost over.

In fact, its close enough to say that "Its all over but the shouting!"

In June of 1974, I preached my first sermon...I can still remember the title of it..."God Is Not a Spaceman"...at an evening service in Edgewood United Methodist Church.  Other than the title (which has stuck with me for no explainable reason), and that the theology I employed to develop that sermon would most likely turn me off all these years later, I can remember nothing about what I said...and cannot begin to imagine what people must have heard.

BTW: I am very much aware, all these years later, that what I say in a sermon is not always what people hear when I preach that sermon.  And so, at the beginning of each of my sermons I always say, "Might what I say, and what we hear, be for us...at least in part, this day...the Word of God."

It is 41 years later and I am ready to keep in a digital file on my home computer only 18 sermons that I would want to possibly read again at some point...or reflect on, if the mood ever strikes me.  Now, during the early years of my preaching, sermons were either hand-written on legal pads or typed on my manual typewriter or produced on my Brother word processor...so no copies of those relics are extant.  Basically, during 8 years as the Executive Director of Metro Ministries, and 8 years as a District Superintendent, and now 6 years at St. Mark's here in Bloomington...I have whittled what I have to say down to only 18 sermons. 

To my mind, these 18 are pretty good sermons.  They repeat certain themes over and over again.  Themes like:
-God Creates
-God Loves
-God Redeems
-and God Continues. 
That's pretty much the drum I have been beating for the bulk of my preaching career.

From those 4 Theological Themes come 4 real-life applications.  The applications read this way:
-We ought to take into account who others are, and what others do, and think, and believe.
-Anyone not willing to risk is not really willing to live.
-We either get better or we get worse...and its always the right thing to choose getting better.
-Its important to find ourselves in harmony with God's activity in the world.

Yup, that's it...41 years and 18 sermons (worth keeping).

I do want to thank the many people who listened to these 18 and all the others didn't make the cut.

I have also tried...really tried...to never ask people, in a sermon I have preached, to believe the unbelievable.  These 18 meet that self-imposed standard, according to me.