retreating and preaching

This past weekend I joined the Church in the One for their summer retreat up in the country north of Mississauga. This is a yearly tradition for the church, although due to scheduling issues and timing it was apparently smaller than usual this year. Nonetheless we had about forty people staying at a cottage near Mono Mills, complete with a trail in the woods, a campfire for roasting marshmallows, and a swimming pool. Unfortunately it rained much of Saturday, but that has been pretty standard for the weather in Ontario since I arrived. At least it didn't hail, which it did in Mississauga last week.

Anyway, Pastor Jon of CTO asked me to speak a couple of times the Saturday of the retreat, giving short devotionals/sermons to the group. In the morning I spoke about the Golden Calf story in Exodus, remixing a sermon I gave at my home church a few years ago, and in the evening I spoke about Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin in Acts. I intended the sermons to go together, focusing in the morning on being aware of what God is doing and not exchanging devotion to him for something less, and focusing in the evening on recognizing patterns of disobedience and giving those over to God.

The evening sermon in particular was pretty close to things with which I have been wrestling this summer. A common pattern for me is being completely disappointed in whatever I do or try to do in ministry. A little bit of this can be productive and helpful, assuring that I am never content with taking my responsibilities too lightly and that I am always striving to do my best. However, I tend to take it too far and have no confidence in anything I do, regardless how much preparation I make or how gifted I may be in a certain area. If I preach and give a wonderful sermon but make one slight gaffe while speaking, after the sermon I'll only remember the mistake.

After both of my sermons, but particularly after the second one, I felt this down feeling that is so familiar. With the second sermon, I feared that I had not been clear enough in what I tried to say and that I had just thrown together some unrelated points in a confusing way. As I looked over my sermon before the night meeting I felt like it just didn't work on some level, and after speaking I felt that I hadn't resolved the messiness.

(ASIDE: Incidentally, I had conversation about this with Pastor Jon a few weeks ago, and he observed that he often experiences what he calls "post-sermon depression," the feeling after speaking where one recognizes all of his or her mistakes and fears that the hearers didn't care or didn't get it. Often the speaker knows and recognizes everything he or she said wrong, while the majority of the time the audience remains completely oblivious to these errors. It was encouraging to hear that I am not alone in experiencing this.)

In spite of this down feeling, I was encouraged, by some very gracious and affirming feedback from a few of the people at the camp. A fellow seminary grad said that the sermon gave him a few ideas he had not considered before. An older woman told me the next morning that a group of the older people had stayed up that night discussing what I shared, contemplating what it means for their church. I was totally floored by that comment, as I don't recall ever being told that about anything I've said, ever.

It probably sounds cliché, but I really have to give the credit for that one over to God. Nothing I said was that profound, even if it was the best sermon of my life (which it wasn't... I hope). One verse that has always stuck with me comes from 2nd Corinthians, when Paul, while lamenting some "thorn" that has plagued him for some time, declares that God told him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." The whole idea of power made perfect in weakness is a classic example of the paradoxical truth that underscores the whole Good News of Jesus, and it gives me relief and strength to think that even when I have no confidence in what I do, God has given me some abilities and will bless what I do when I do it for him. This summer has been fairly difficult so far with so much downtime, and it's easy for me to let myself get discouraged by what I view as my own inadequacies or failures. Fortunately God can use me anyway.

So the retreat was good, it was nice to spend some time with the CTO church family and get to know many of them better. I roomed with about a dozen teenage boys in a barn renovated into a game room, which was an interesting experience. Having been a teenage boy at one time I knew to expect that I wouldn't get much sleep, and I was correct, but what else would you expect on a retreat? It was still fun, and I'm glad I got to the chance to go and be a part of it.

Pastor Alex, one of my supervisors, returns from The Philippines sometime tomorrow, so hopefully my activities will be picking up in the weeks to come. I have only a month left here, which boggles my mind. I don't know why I'm surprised - these kinds of experiences always pass quickly - but I feel overwhelmed when I think about the time frame. We'll see what happens.