Youth Sunday

This last weekend was Youth Sunday at San Gabriel Union Church. I’d like to report that everything went well and God was glorified. What more could you ask for? It’s strange that the actual service only lasted an hour and a half because for several people the preparation began a month and a half ago!

Pastor Steve got the ball rolling when he asked the youth director, Geoff Smith to make preparations for a youth-led service. We were talking about it in staff meeting one day and then I got the surprise of the year when they asked me to preach. I really didn’t know if they were serious, but they were both looking at me with a look of certainty in their eyes so I said, “Sure!”

Geoff started organizing people for the worship team and the other parts of the service and I started working on the sermon. Now, I have to let you know that I have been looking forward to preaching in “Big Church” for about a year and a half. That is when I finished working on a sermon at the Master’s Seminary. The sermon was on 1 Chronicles 28:9-10. As soon as I finished writing it I thought, “This would be great to use at San Gabriel.” In fact, I was thinking of my home congregation when I wrote this in a footnote in the paper, “This sermon is intended for a mixed audience ranging in age from fifteen to seventy-five years old. The intended venue is a Sunday morning service.”

I spent several weeks preparing the sermon for Youth Sunday and then I met with pastor Steve to talk about the sermon. He gave me some great advice and told me areas I could improve. That was on Wednesday of last week and by Friday I pretty much had the final version down to the length and format that I wanted. I went in on Saturday after the worship band had practiced. I plugged in the wireless mic and then preached the entire sermon to an empty room. One of the elders at church told me he did the same thing before he preached. I’m glad I took his advice because that really helped calm my nerves.

Sunday morning came and I was excited. What a privilege to preach God’s word to God’s people. The worship service was especially sweet for me as I thought of God’s faithfulness in my life. Pastor Steve introduced me and then I opened God’s word.

I would like to thank all of you who prayed for me in preparation for the sermon. God helped me stay focused so I could study, write, and practice the sermon. I also felt like God was protecting me from some of the distractions I usually have during the week. It was as if God wanted me to be focused on preaching.

I promised several people I would post the link on here, so here it is. The link is to the church’s sermon download page. If you right-click you can save it to your computer. A left-click will play it from the web.

To God be the Glory!