Parable Of The Treasure & The Pearl....

Hey all,

This is a bit tough for me to do, but recently I did my first sermon at CC. Even though I have done a tons of them as a pastor, I still find it very personal to share my words with others, but my church posts mp3s of our sermons so there isn't much to hide. First off, I think the lead pastor of my church is a great speaker and I highly recommend him along witht the rest of the staff.

So basically, if you are interested you are welcome to listen and I'd love your thoughts. I find the best way to learn, grow, and mature is to share. And with that I will give you all my critiques of myself ahead of time.

First, I went a bit long. I planned for 30-35 minutes, and ended up at 49 minutes. Oops! I don't think it feels that long, but none the less it was.

Second, I shared an opening store about my morning that went well, but cut into my time - hence the 49 minutes.

Third, I was given the job of tackling a text for a one time shot. Normally we take a parable/story and look at it for three weeks. Week 1 textual analysis, week two a type of reflection/challenge/application for individuals and week 3 some type of creative interplay of the text, soul, and culture that pushes us outward. Since I was doing a text that was a one time shot, I felt a draw to do a bit of all three. This was not a pressure put on me by my staff, but simply my own sense for the text. So with that my last critique is that I felt my lack of comfort in the beginning with the textual analysis. Not so much because of a lack of understanding or anything. The text is actually pretty self explanatory and known, but more because of this being my first time in front of this group of people whom I have already grown to love and the sense of unknown as to wheather or not they already knew this information. I know that I shared new thought provoking information on the text, but since it was what I started with it naturally wasn't as comfortable. I felt I got into my grow as we progressed.

Final thought on this was that again with the time I would have liked to have not done my intro story and had a bit more time with the movie clips. By the way the clips are recorded so you can at least hear them.

OK! That was a long post, but it helps to think and reflect on this. Again if you have the time I'd love your thoughts as well! So here it is, thanks for your input! I really do appreciate it!

RS.SERMON.PARABBLEOFTHETREASUREANDTHEPEARL