Not a practice that we own up to easily. Usually we engage in re-gifting surreptitiously. We don't want the recipient(s) to know that they weren't the first to receive what is being offered.

But this morning, I engaged in precisely that activity. Happily.

About a month ago I was asked by the Chaplain at SFTS if I would preach in chapel this morning, 19 October 2009. I wholeheartedly agreed because I really enjoy preaching and especially to the community of SFTS. When I agreed I fully intended to write a new sermon because I also love to do that - making the sermon relevant to whatever is going on in the community at the moment.

Over the last two weeks I struggled to find time to do my exegesis work and to come up with an idea for the sermon. I knew I wanted to use a technique that I have used in the past - that of weaving the singing of a hymn throughout the sermon text - but I wasn't sure which hymn or the thesis for the sermon.

And then it hit me. Why not use that previous sermon? Why try to reinvent something that I already was quite pleased with?

So that's what I did.

This morning, I preached a sermon that I originally preached to a church in Albuquerque, NM, in the fall of 2005. I also preached it once to the congregation of Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. I will probably preach it again to other congregations in the future.

I still believe in doing original work for most sermons. But I believe that God can work through the same words spoken in different contexts too.

So there you go SFTS, don't feel disappointed that those words weren't originally written for you. Just know that God was in the preaching of them to you as much as God was present the first time I delivered them.

 

Not a practice that we own up to easily. Usually we engage in re-gifting surreptitiously. We don't want the recipient(s) to know that they weren't the first to receive what is being offered.

But this morning, I engaged in precisely that activity. Happily.

About a month ago I was asked by the Chaplain at SFTS if I would preach in chapel this morning, 19 October 2009. I wholeheartedly agreed because I really enjoy preaching and especially to the community of SFTS. When I agreed I fully intended to write a new sermon because I also love to do that - making the sermon relevant to whatever is going on in the community at the moment.

Over the last two weeks I struggled to find time to do my exegesis work and to come up with an idea for the sermon. I knew I wanted to use a technique that I have used in the past - that of weaving the singing of a hymn throughout the sermon text - but I wasn't sure which hymn or the thesis for the sermon.

And then it hit me. Why not use that previous sermon? Why try to reinvent something that I already was quite pleased with?

So that's what I did.

This morning, I preached a sermon that I originally preached to a church in Albuquerque, NM, in the fall of 2005. I also preached it once to the congregation of Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. I will probably preach it again to other congregations in the future.

I still believe in doing original work for most sermons. But I believe that God can work through the same words spoken in different contexts too.

So there you go SFTS, don't feel disappointed that those words weren't originally written for you. Just know that God was in the preaching of them to you as much as God was present the first time I delivered them.