Breaking all the rules...

I wanted to make a couple of notes on the sermon I posted yesterday:
1. Most of the ideas came from my dad's brain. My dad and I had a long conversation last week because I wanted to talk about fear and faith and I knew that my dad has done a lot of thinking about fear and love in relation to the work he does at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. My dad is one of the Vice-Chancellors and he is an all around University problem solver. He's worked in Counseling and Placement, Human Resources, and now he kind of goes wherever he's needed at throughout the whole University system. He's done a lot of talking with managers of employees about how not to operate out of fear and be reactive all the time but how to manage employees from a more loved based approach (that's a really crude summary of what he does). He's also a really smart guy. So all the basic ideas in the sermon are his- thanks dad!

I wanted to mention a source he told me about that I didn't include in the sermon but hope to read more about myself. He told me about Maxi Maltsby, a cognitive behavioral therapist who wrote a book called: "Help Yourself to Happiness."that was published in 1975. He's the one that talks a lot about reframing your thinking along with other ideas that could help people who maybe couldn't afford psychotherapy.

2. I broke a lot of rules in this sermon. I didn't follow the natural progression of the Biblical text. I didn't even delve into a whole lot of exegesis, or explanation of the scripture. This was a different sermon for me, a topical one. Another rule I broke was that this sermon was intended to be a "feel good," sermon. If you left feeling better than when you came in, good, that was my intent. I also mentioned a movie by title. Many of these things I learned not to do in my preaching class. Most of the time I follow the rules, and I think the things I learned help me to be a better preacher. And if you didn't already know this, then know that I like to follow the rules. But sometimes, you have to break the rules. And that's what I did Sunday, and I have no regrets.

That's all for now- more soon. Plan on seeing a lot more of me on this blog after I start my sabbatical on Thursday afternoon!