This is my last post dealing with baccalaureate (at least until next year).  But I do want to offer a few final thoughts.  If you want you can check out the sermon I preached on my sermon blog (the link is also on my blog roll).

I was not sure how many people to expect but was pleasantly surprised when more than 75% of the seniors were there.  The total number of people was about 350+.  It was the largest crowd that I have ever preached for.  That realization alone made my heart beat a little faster.  I am not sure why.  I wasn’t nervous.  I think I was mostly excited to deliver a message to these seniors that I felt they needed to hear.

During the service, two of the seniors gave their faith story.  Both of them did a fantastic job.  I began to wonder if I even needed to get up and preach.  As the song before the sermon began, my heart rate started to speed up and I began to wish I had brought my water bottle with me – my mouth was completely dry.  I tried to calm myself down through prayer – trying to convince myself that this was not about me.  My heart rate did slow down but my mouth was still dry.  I was frustrated because I hadn’t felt this way since internship.

I started to preached and found myself fumbling around at first, but as I got into the second and third paragraph I started to clam down even more and things started to flow better (my mouth was still extremely dry).  Afterward a number of people came up to me to thank me for the message.  Even  couple seniors thanked me.  I am so uncomfortable about receiving compliments about sermons I preach because they are not from me.  But I responded graciously and silently gave credit to God (I should have been more vocal about that).

All in all it was a fun experience.  I feel the message that God wanted delivered was delivered.  Will the sermon have any impact on these seniors as they go into the great unknown?  Only God knows and that is whose hands I will leave it. 

Thank you for allowing me to debrief.  Take care and God bless.
-edh-