Blog

The Sermonator?

November 18, 2013

So, it’s almost 2:00 AM on a Sunday and I’m still awake. I’ve been wrestling with sermons over the coming weeks and am a bit frustrated. Normally I try to prepare my sermons some time in advance just in case “things come up.” You see, in the life of a pastor, anything could happen. You never know when someone might become ill (your own children included!), a person may pass on, or what else might come up.

Considering I’m also in the ordination process with the United Methodist Church there are also quite a few extra things on my plate. I have also been trying to work on a doctorate over the last year and that has put a number of extra things on my plate. It also doesn’t help that I’m a voracious read who has let his own reading list pile up as well.

So, needless to say, I’m feeling a bit wrung out. I don’t feel as if I’ve really been seeking God’s help in preparing these upcoming sermons so I have spent the last hour just reading Scripture and trying to find a direction in which to point. You see, I preach mostly from the Revised Common Lectionary and have been doing so for the last five years. Considering the Lectionary is on a three year cycle one might think it would be easy to go back a few years and read over old sermons and possibly reuse them. This isn’t always a bad thing but, in this case, nothing was working out.

So, what have I done? Why am I still up? Have been able to work anything out? The short answer is, “Yes, I think so.” I decided to start reading the Scriptures through the lens of my geeky self. I looked at the Advent texts with geeky eyes and believe I’ve finally come up with something for this coming season and hope it will speak into the life of the church. As the geekpreacher, you’d think this would be fairly easy but it hasn’t. Strangely enough, I don’t normally preach a lot of geeky sermons. Oh, a few have popped up over the years and I make sure I prepare one for GenCon every year but at the churches I serve I tend to not head in that area.

This year will be different and I hope you will be praying for me. I’ve decided to go with the theme of “A Very Sci-Fi Christmas” and hope it will work out alright. The sermons which I will be preaching, yet sadly unable to video, will be:

Advent 1: The Sleeper Must Awaken (Dune)

Advent 2: The Eye of Harmony (Dr. Who)

Advent 3: The Road Warrior (Mad Max)

Advent 4: The Last Starfighter

It’s quite an eclectic bent and I’m still a little unsteady about it all but I think it will go well. The biggest challenge is trying to sum up a variety of movies and TV shows from the 70s and 80s to people who may not have seen them. If you think you can some up any of these movies in two to three short sentences, please feel free to do so in the comments section. If you’re able to help out, so much the better. Crowd sourcing a sermon, which I’ve done in the past, can be quite a bit of fun.

At the very least, this means I’ve got to go back and review a lot of source material. Yes, it’s going to be tough watching all these movies and reading all these biblical texts and see how these stories intertwine. (Unfortunately, you can’t hear the happy sounds I’m making as I type this right now. In reality, I’m hoping this is going to be a lot of fun. So, again, I ask that you say a prayer or two for me and, barring that, please help me find a copy of Mad Max 2 on DVD. It’s the only one I’m missing.)

2 Responses to The Sermonator?