Ministerially Speaking

by Kendall Franklin

I was pleased with the movement of the sermon. I engaged the Scripture and was preaching the text easily. I was wrapping up my second point with a particularly gripping illustration and was nearly ready for the home stretch with point number three. The message was coming to a crescendo when I noticed a whisk of motion just out of the corner of my eye. I didn't pay much attention to it. As a former youth pastor, I pride myself on being quite focused while speaking and not easily distracted by crying babies, noisy students, and sound glitches. Generally, I can keep the listeners' interest--or at least their attention, even in the midst of a periodic diversion.

Suddenly, the crowd seemed overwhelmingly attentive and interested. I thought to myself, "This must really be connecting." Just then I felt a tug at my right pant leg. Young Benjamin looked up at me and, tapping his watch, said: "Pastor Kendall, it's 6:52!" Every eye was fixed on the First Church platform featuring Benjamin and Pastor Franklin. I was beet red embarrassed. I wanted to climb into the pulpit, thus giving a new meaning to the phrase filling the pulpit. Tension built in the deathly silence. Being quick on my feet, I very creatively drew a blank. Benjamin was an eight-year-old special needs child that had escaped his flustered and humiliated mother's grasp. He was genuinely concerned about the time and the pace of my message. "Uh, yes, I know, Benjamin," I replied, patting him on the head, "and I'm just about to the end. In fact, I think I'm closer to the end than I thought." He headed back to his mother (not by choice). The congregation just exploded with laughter.

As a preacher I've never had anyone rush the platform or help me to tell time publicly (although I'm sure many in my congregation think I need a refresher course). I don't remember much about the third point. Let's just say it was brief. I received some kind words and sympathetic compliments about how I handled the situation. I even laughed when a board member said he felt bad that his row had been responsible for sending Benjamin up to remind me of the time. (He was just kidding--I think!)

Many amusing and humorous things happen in preaching and in the service of the Lord. The purpose of this column is to help us learn to laugh at ourselves. Others are laughing at us--we may as well too! Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn wrote in Mission Possible: "Take what you do seriously but yourself lightly." That's what we need to do as messengers of the Good News. What we are doing has eternal ramifications, and we should take it very seriously. But I've learned that God's unusual selection of me and you as delivery persons is quite intriguing. Maybe that's what Paul had in mind when he wrote, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Kendall Franklin is the not-so-serious senior pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Hutchinson, Kansas.