a minor accomplishment with a fizzle

I have preached through my first sermon series.  I completed the entire Sermon on the Mount as it is in Matthew 5 to Matthew 7.  I have said more than once, while at church, "If I get nothing else from my time as being a pastor... if I quit right now and didn't preach again, the things I have learned preaching through this amazing sermon are priceless to me."  And I mean that.  I blogged my way, verse by verse, a few years ago, but preaching through it changed everything.

So, as I approached the end of this series it was feeling like a bang, but when the day finally came it felt like a fizzle.  My brain felt scattered, the main point felt misconstrued, the message was simply missed.  I won't go into detail, but I just wish I could go back and re-do that message.  The sad thing is that it was such a simple portion of scripture with such a distinct, easy to find application.

What got in the way?  My pride?  My laziness?  A momentary loss of brain functionality?  I don't know.  I just know it felt like a fizzle.

I did have one person come up to me afterwards to ask about the message.  Something from that passage had pin-pricked them, and they wanted to talk about it.  This person waited  until everyone else had left the church  just so they could talk to me.  It was my oldest son.  That was a bang for me and it warmed my heart.

Preaching isn't the only thing that I am supposed to do as a pastor, but I am not going to turn this post into an explanation of the pastoral role.  If I did that I would have to go into all of the multitude of fizzles that I have done in all of the other areas of my pastoral role. I simply wanted to point out that I fizzled this Sunday preaching and that is a little depressing.

There you go.