Birthing A Message

I've had a number of comments the last several days on messages from the last two Sundays. Click here to listen to them online. Good comments, and encouraging, with some curiosity to how it comes together for me each week.

First of all, I want to say it's much like a birthing process. Well, at least as far as I can analogize it anyway. Any given message is usually "conceived" weeks before it is "born". What happens in between is the "labor" process.

Please understand that I am not trying to pretend that I know what it feels like to birth a baby. I am only saying that I believe this is a good analogy as far as I can understand it as a man.

The "labor" process for me as a Pastor and preacher doesn't refer only to the "labor" or "work" of studying, though it certainly includes it. It refers also to the painstaking process of trying to figure out whether what I sense is needing to be said is really the Holy Spirit, or if it's last night's dinner. It also includes ruminating over it to try to put it into words that most can understand and apply.

I believe any Pastor wants to wholeheartedly speak only Jesus' words to his flock. But we're all human. So discerning what's me and what's Him is a big deal.

Our current series, "Authority Issues" has been brewing for a couple of months. I just named it last week, but knew that I would be doing some teaching on how we deal with authority in our lives.

I'll post more later on how the name came about, why I think the name of a message or series is important, and why I think images and artwork are such an important part of any theme and message.