I was meant to be leading and preaching at 10 o'clock this morning at a prep school chapel service.
I've been quite busy lately, so I only actually started writing my sermon while waiting for the train back from Durham yesterday at around 5pm. I never actually finished writing it, because the train got quite noisy with drunk people and I didn't get back to my room until after 11, by which point sleep mattered far more than more detailed preparation.
This morning, I woke up at about 6am. I knew I had plenty of time, so allowed myself to snooze for a bit, then woke up again at 8, which was somewhat too late.
I'd only been there once before, and that was via a friend's house which was quite out of the way, and seemed to remember it took about 30 mins. I was therefore aiming to leave at 9am, but got slightly distracted in a conversation after breakfast and then struggled to get all my props together. I left at 9:30.
After driving "slightly" too fast while trying to read a map (but only when there was no traffic around me so that it didn't matter when I swerved across the road a bit), I managed to get there at about 9:45, at which point I realised that I had a) left my sermon in my room somewhere and b) forgotten to bring a Bible, and the only Bibles evident in the church were good old-fashioned KJVs. I had, however, remembered my props and the passage I was to preach on.
I believe at that point I may have prayed something along the lines of "help!!" I then remembered some of the best arguments for the traditional way the C of E does things - robes mean that people don't focus on the person leading but on the office and liturgy makes it a lot harder to mess up. So I donned my robes (which I hadn't forgotten - the person there usually wears robes, but I'd been given a free choice) and decided to use quite a bit of the printed liturgy. As I sat down, I also found a Good News Bible in the shelf in front of my seat (no others in the church). I've never been so grateful to find a Good News Bible in my life!
Given all of that, the sermon seemed to go pretty well and the service to go very well. God is so gracious...
Custard, this is the headteacher speaking...
ReplyDeleteOkay, no it's not it's only DS. What passage were you preaching on?
Philippians 3:4b-12
ReplyDelete