Preaching Prep 101

I am preaching this Sunday at Ventura First Assembly. I have just gotten the confirmation of that fact Sunday, two days ago. I have, once again, a ton of material from which I would like to draw, but, once again, I am praying that God would help me to see the ONE thing He would like the church to hear.

And the bad news for me is: what God wants to say may not be what I want to say. That happens just about every time I speak to our church, and quite often when I speak to other churches or groups.

So what do I do when this happens? Pray. Sometimes I fast. And then I keep making notes all week long - and I never close a door to hearing from God. I have just seen a post on FaceBook and it got me to thinking. I took two words from that post and went to Google, then to MeriamWebster.com and I began to look into the oldest known uses of these words in 'American English.' And finally, once I had a good handle on how these words SHOULD be used in our language, I took a break and reflected on how they ARE used. Big difference. After that, I began to cogitate on how these terms are used in the Bible, keeping in mind that the Bible was not written in English, and that we depend heavily on interpretations of the language by men who are generally connected to the more classical definitions of the words and phrases.

Want to know what the two words are that started all this today?

Come to:

Ventura First Assembly
346 N Kimball Road
Ventura, CA 93004

Sunday - 10 am

See you there.