Leadership Notes

November 6, 2019

Leadership Notes

It's funny how things work. When I got up Monday morning, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about for this week's Leadership Notes. It was fixed in my wee little brain.

Later that day, one of Thom Rainer's mass emails, this time an offer to sign-up for an online refresher course on preaching, popped into my inbox. In the promo, he specifically mentioned times when you said or did something while preaching you would like to take back. Every preacher has those. The coincidental {funny} part was I had already planned for my weekly email to address that very thing!

Now that I've found the chase, I can cut to it. I offer my apologies to those at the 11:00 o'clock worship service for any awkwardness I might have caused. It happened early in the sermon. Here are two brief paragraphs intended to illustrate that words can encourage or discourage:

1. For some of us, when we were younger, somebody ridiculed us. Somebody called us names. And we believed it and we held on to it and we shouldn’t have.

2. For some of us, when we were younger, grandma told us how talented we were and what a great singing voice we had. And we believed it and we held on to it and we shouldn’t have.

My intention was for #2 to make the point and create a momentary lighter tone. I expected audible laughter to ensue. No such ensuing ensued. My oldest granddaughter {God bless her kind heart} told me later that she laughed, just not very loud.

A more stable mind would have simply moved on. But in the absence of expected laughter, I had to go and point out that said laughter did not happen. Even the crickets felt the awkwardness of that moment. And I did what I rarely do…let my discomfort distract from the message.

If you were at that service, I'm sure we can both agree it will be a good thing if something like that never happens again. But who am I kidding. Awkwardness can be stilled, but never silenced. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Apologetically, Contritely, and Affectionately Yours,

an

Richard