Trailblazin Ministries Blog

Ministry

Preaching My First Sermon

Written by LaRosa Johnson
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
Filed under: Faith, LaRosa, Ministry

Ever since my teenage years, I've known that the Holy Spirit has gifted me to be a teacher of His precious and holy Word. Over the course of that time, I've never had the opportunity to present the Word in front of a group of people. Of course, there were a couple times (once or twice) where I got the opportunity to share a Word; but I wouldn't dare count those because I really didn't bring the Word of God, as it was more of a motivational speech than it was actual preaching. Through both the sovereignty and providence of God, I truly believe that He has kept me from advancing in ministry and having more opportunities to preach because He did not want for me to lead people astray or to have the platform without having the proper doctrinal teaching to back it up.

Fast forward to today, not even a full year removed from that place (spiritually and physically) where I used to be, and the Lord has now opened a door for me to preach His gospel message. A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to have lunch with my pastor (Bob Bolender) to discuss the gift that the Spirit had given me and the training that would be required in order for me to use it in ministry. During the conversation, he had made mention to me that there would be an opportunity to teach in October and to possibly get an outline together. Admittedly, I didn't pay it much mind, thinking that it wouldn't happen or he'd get someone else to teach instead. Well, a couple weeks ago, he hit me up on IM (how cool is it for your pastor to chat with you over IM?!) asking if I'd be ready to teach on October 17th, and if so to get an outline prepared and send it to him. I said okay, and I did just that.

When asked, the first thing that popped into my mind to teach on was the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) since I had been studying that pretty intensely of late for a study here on the website. As I started to prepare the outline for it, I realized that there was no way in the world that I could condense that much information down to an hour's worth of teaching. After discussing it with my pastor, I opted to go a different route and picked something that I had already taught via Trailblazin Ministries, which happened to deal with Romans 1:16 (one of my favorite passages). In the midst of trying to outline that teaching, I realized that I didn't want to do something topical (as that previous study was), but instead decided to take a more exegetical approach to the passage so that Scripture could interpret Scripture, thus helping to keep my own personal thoughts, beliefs, or biases from creeping into the teaching. Needless to say, the outline (1.5 pages) was very fun to put together, while still being serious and intensive, and I feel that I'm ready to teach it (link to the outline, slideshow & audio will be made available after I teach it).

Sitting here on the eve of my preaching debut, I must say that I'm both anxious and nervous. I was up in the pulpit on Sunday scoping things out and seeing how much room I would have for my laptop and Bible, and I felt pretty intimidated knowing that all of those people are going to be out there looking at me to deliver the Word of God. It definitely makes me nervous to think about it, but at the same time I know that it's not going to be me teaching this anyway, but the Holy Spirit through me, which at least gives me a small sense of relief. I do realize though that delivering the Word is no small feat or something to be taken lightly; I reverence and respect the Word of God, as well as the position that I have been put in to be a messenger of the gospel. But the more I think about it, what better way to kick off my preaching "career" than to use one of my favorite passages, and one that I should hold dearly as a messenger of God.

If you would, keep me in prayer as I prepare myself to be God's tool on tomorrow. I'll post on the main site tomorrow night or Thursday all of my notes and the audio so that you can give it a listen. God bless!