Joel Young Blog.com

Just wanted to share a bit of late night insight that has been changing my views and methods on how to prepare and preach week in and week out.

What I’ve realized is that preaching is a profession. Many preachers might agree with that, but probably in a different way. I don’t mean that preaching is a job that pays my bills, even though it doesn’t right now in my life. I don’t mean that preaching is my occupation. What I mean is that preaching is a weekly profession of mine that states my confidence and passion for God, His will, His plan, and His word. It may sound simple, but once I realized that preaching is essentially my weekly profession of the truth that God has revealed to me and the message he has placed on my heart, then it becomes more natural and more effective.

What’s your profession?

Today was a great morning at Horizon. Things just seemed to be clicking on all cylinders. But if I told the truth I would have to say that I struggled with this week’s sermon. It wasn’t super difficult I just didn’t feel like it had a lot of personality. It was a lot of Bible and that was about it. I don’t know why I was worried but that’s just what goes through my mind a lot. I worry about the relateability of every message.

Well, this morning God’s word worked in a huge way. I felt like it spoke some truth into everyone’s life today. And believe it or not God didn’t need the benefit of my wit or charm. God’s word alone was enough.

Funny how even preachers need to be constantly reminded of the power of God’s word and how much it can do all by itself.

Sunday at Horizon we will be starting a new sermon series entitled, “Unwrapping Christmas”. During this series we will be tearing the shiny paper off this annual celebration in order to more clearly see what we are really celebrating. But in order to have a good representation of everyone’s opinion I need your help with the first message of this series. Answer this question by leaving a comment to this post. “What do you anticipate every year at Christmas time?”

I look forward to reading your responses. Thanks.

On Sunday at Horizon I had the wonderful privilege of taking a hammer to a piggy bank in the name of the Lord. We finished up our two week conversation about being generous with our money and to end it with a bang I gave it to a porcelain pig with an 8 ounce claw foot. I have to admit that it was pretty gratifying for me, and was definitely a wonderful example of the pain that we often experience when we give generously. Breaking things in the name of the Lord is a business I would like to be in. The best part was the horrible time we had getting all the little pieces cleaned up when church was over. I underestimated the destruction factor just a little bit, but it was SOOOO worth it. What a cool Sunday.