Preaching School

Image via Wikipedia Reflecting on last night's preaching school, I have to say that although James has put a fantastic amount of work into it, and Jon, Karen and Matt are great and very supportive, I feel less sure that I would want to carry on to the point where I was preaching in front of the church. This is partly because of my generic laziness - the positively-phrased feedback last night included the word "underprepared" - but, more seriously, because I can see two major problems. Firstly, I am too busy to be able to do this properly and take it as seriously as it should be. I can't even manage to do basic housework, let alone put in the amount of time and effort that preaching in public needs. I wouldn't put myself forward to lead a small group or do children's work, precisely because I know I couldn't give the commitment, and even allowing for preaching not being very frequent, I'm not sure I should say I'll do it if I don't think I'll be able to do it properly. Secondly, I am chronically depressed, with acute phases of misery and despair. This means that when I preach from the heart, I will not actually be giving a very good impression of giving Good News. Last night I really thought I'd given a sober but balanced exposition of the passage, and it wasn't until it was pointed out to me that I realised that I had missed out on the positive element of it and basically said "Life is shit, and that's the way it is". Now, I may think that about my life, but I cannot generalise from my point of view, and I certainly can't do it in front of church, where people will give more weight to what I say precisely because I am at the front of church, and I dare not risk generalising from my experience of life and doing it in a way that has a major impact on someone else if I don't even realise I'm doing it. I don't have anyone (other preaching school members aside) who I would go to for feedback and support, and I know that if I was asked to preach and was feeling down and miserable, I'd say "Yes, of course, that will be fine."

The only thing in favour of me carrying on is the feeling that this is something God wants me to do. On the other hand, I have previously thought that God wanted me to go into ordained ministry ("Thanks but no thanks" said the Church of England) or that God had called me to do youth work (managed to mess that one up myself), so a vague feeling that this may be how I'm supposed to use my ability to stand up and talk in public might not in itself be a good enough reason; certainly not good enough to risk doing something very important very badly.