I'm a Bible communicator. There. I said it. Notice there are no supporting adjectives to this statement. Its taken my 3 years just to be able to admit this much. I can now admit that part of my role in ministry is to teach the Bible every Sunday. I began this journey of preaching 3 years ago--January of 2005. I was scared to death then and I still am. I wasn't sure if it would last then and I'm still not sure. But for now...
Yesterday I was reading Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, my favorite comedian. Martin admits to ignoring his stand up career for 25 years after he quit doing stand up--seemingly afraid and unwillingly to revisit the agony of live performance night after night. I thought it was an interesting perspective from such an unbelievably successful comedian and actor.
He is uncannily open about his developmental years in stand up comedy--and they were many. He talks a lot about his process, failures, personal struggles and breakthroughs. (Sidenote: did you know that one of Steve Martin's first true loves was Stormie (Sherk) Omartian before she became a Christian? That's crazy!)
This quote from page 139 was powerful for me as a Bible communicator-in-training:
The consistent work enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstances.
I believe this applies almost verbatim to preaching. Every blue moon (maybe a handful of times in the past 3 years) I've felt what its like to have "everything clicking." Its rare and when it happens, I've almost had the feeling that I'm standing outside myself watching and thinking, 'where did that come from?'"
But from the beginning of the journey of preaching, my greatest struggle has been to be "consistently good" in any circumstance, every week.
What is "good", you ask? For me it would be to truly understand the text (faithful), understand the congregation's needs at that moment in time (prophetic), clearly relate the text to today's world (relevant), manage to have people enjoy the process as its happening (funny), and most importantly, that the net effect would be that in the midst of all this, Jesus would show up and speak to people's hearts (empowered).
While this prize ("consistently good") continues to elude me, I feel a bit more relaxed knowing that I'm in a similar boat with other communicators of different varieties--or at least Steve sort of feels my pain. I'm guessing if most preachers were honest, their struggle is the same.
Now who would have thought that comedian Steve Martin would help me clarify and focus my prayer and growth desires as a Bible teacher? I guess that is the net value of reading stuff I like across different genres and disciplines.
"Uh oh... I'm getting Happy Feeeet!"
I heard great things about this book and about Steve Martin himself from Greg Koukl. (Stand to Reason - fabulous site: www.str.org)
For what it's worth, I enjoy your preaching. I had no idea you'd only been doing it so short a time. I appreciate you because you're honest and down to earth. Almost like a real person!
Posted by: Mo | January 30, 2008 at 07:32 PM