Steve's Letter: You Only Get One Shot, Don't Screw It Up!

I may have told you about the worship leader who overslept and failed to show for the Easter sunrise service at his church. The next year, the pastor called him Easter morning at 4 a.m. and said...

"Jesus is Risen! You had better too!"

I remember the first Easter Sunday I realized that Jesus was alive. It wasn't as powerful as the disciples' realization but, for a peon like me, it was close.

I was a young pastor in theological graduate school at Boston University and served a small church on Cape Cod to pay the bills. All winter, in that little church, we had struggled to get by. Cape Cod winters can be brutal and the people of New England are not known for putting church attendance at the top of their list of important things to do.

Someone said her church was so small that "when the pastor says 'beloved,' I blush." That small church on Cape Cod was like that. All winter we had worked to get people to church with very little success. That had a negative impact on our paying the bills and on me. I began to think that God had not called me to this. I had made a lot more money doing a morning radio show in Boston and, while I was willing to work for less, it began to look like the church wouldn't even be able to pay me.

Then Easter...

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Steve's Letter: A Killer of a Sermon!

I'm writing this on Monday after preaching yesterday at my home church. Sitting on my desk are the notes of a sermon that didn't quite make it.

No, the sermon wasn't half-bad. The "didn't quite make it" refers to the fact that it really didn't quite make it. Let me explain.

In the second service, I had just about finished the last point and was "headed for the barn" when I noticed a commotion going on about four rows back. People jumped up and ran over to a man who had just collapsed. At first I thought that maybe they were under conviction and I had revival on my hands. But frankly, the sermon wasn't that good. So I figured it must be something else.

I teach seminary students that if they're preaching and "something else is going on" in the church to try to keep at it unless everybody notices; then, if that's the case, they should directly address it. Everybody noticed in this instance so I stopped the sermon, prayed for the man who was obviously in trouble, and told the congregation that given the need for room (the sanctuary was full), I was going to have a benediction and then they should leave, making room for the emergency folks who had been called. I did and they did.

After a few moments, the man was a lot better and sitting up. (He was well cared for by some doctors and nurses who were in the service.) I went over to him and said, "Bill, it wasn't a great sermon...but it wasn't that bad." He laughed.

I visited him later on at the hospital. His wife—he has a wonderful family—told me that it was my sermon that had put him there. Then she laughed and said, "Steve, I'm getting a bunch of CDs of that sermon and sending it to all the relatives I don't like."

Cracked me up!

(After it was apparent that the man was going to be okay, one of the ushers at our church said, "Steve, that was a killer of a sermon!" Very funny!)

I've been told quite often that my voice is soothing and helps people sleep. One man even told me that, while he didn't agree with anything I said, he liked my voice because it was better than sleeping pills. He said that he played my CDs at night in order to get a good night's sleep.

I am certainly glad to be of service.

I don't think I've ever been told that my sermon could be used as a weapon though. I don't think it works that way. But still, I've made some copies and plan to send them to those people on my "hit list." Who knows?

If you recently wrote me a critical letter, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sorry.

You say, Steve, where in the world are you going with this?

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Steve's Letter: Why do you persist in irritating everybody?

As you know, for months now, I've been working on a new book, Three Free Sins! God's Surprising Gift. I'm writing this to you just before Christmas and the full manuscript is due at the publishers (Howard/Simon & Schuster) before the first of the year. It's three days before Christmas...

...and I just finished the manuscript!

As soon as I finish writing you, I'm getting drunk. (Given that I don't consume alcoholic beverages, one beer ought to do it.)

Okay. I won't. But the thought is a pleasant one...transcendence in a bottle.

As I read over what I've written, some of it seems to me to be very good, some of it not half bad and some of it so bad I wince. Trouble is, I'm not sure which is which. I'm sure the editors will tell me...and I'll wonder where they were when the page was blank.

Most of yesterday and this morning, I've worked on the last chapter. It is, as in some of my other books, a Q & A chapter in an attempt to ameliorate the damage I did in all the other chapters and thereby keep my job. The title of the chapter is Are you Crazy? Because that chapter is on my mind (and I always write to you with whatever is on my mind at the time), I'm going to share with you some of the answers to some of the questions in that last chapter.

Well, are you crazy?

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Steve's Letter: Happy New Year?

Good heavens!

Where did 2010 go? Seems like just yesterday I struggled to write "10" on my checks and letters. And now I've got to somehow start to do "11."

As you know, I write these letters to you a good deal in advance of when you receive them. I'm writing this before Christmas and during Advent, and I stopped to write to you. Do you know what I was doing before I just wrote this? I was working on an Advent sermon which is a part of a traditional series of Advent sermons that my pastor, Pete Alwinson, and I do each year. This year our Advent series is on the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah in the book of Isaiah.

I preached the first in the series last Sunday and Pete will preach this Sunday. Then I'll do the third Sunday. My text (the one I was working on) is from Isaiah 11 and, frankly, I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm going to do with it. But as I work on it, I'm thinking about the prophecy of the "shoot" that would come from the "stump of Jesse" (that would be Jesus). My mind keeps returning to the words of Isaiah about the idyllic future promised by God. You know the words, but let me give them to you. They are appropriate words for the beginning of a new year:

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