Surely I’m not the only non-spiritual person who has the tendency to check out of a morning worship service when there’s a guest speaker? At least that’s been my habit. Sometimes I’m all in but most of the time my mind wanders.
“Where’s my pastor this week?”
“What’ll be for lunch later?”
“Why is my fantasy football team so terrible?”
Ok. So maybe I think that when my pastor is preaching too.
This last week we had a guest speaker though who blew me away with a thought that had never crossed my mind:
He said that there have been two times in history when the entire world knew who God was. At first, I was skeptical. How could that be true? Then he hit it: in the garden and after the flood. So at some point, someone dropped the ball. They didn’t pass on the good news. I was so convicted I paid attention during the whole rest of the service!
Thoughts:
How are you ensuring you’re passing on the Good News about Jesus to your family and not dropping the ball?
And
What was something a guest speaker at your church said that really hit home?
hahaha….I never tell the teens to pay attention. Although, we do ask them to put their devices in our media box until youth group is over.
I think one of the coolest thing a missionary shared was an illustration on what it means to “go all in” for God. He brought in poker chips and pushed them across a table. Nothing hugely difficult or profound, but I think about it a lot and how I want to put all my chips/stakes/money on Jesus. I’m going all in for him.
And another missionary who was going back onto the field in his late 60’s. He mentioned how he had a huge heart attack that caused him to leave Africa years ago. After years and years, of being in the US he realized “I’m either going to die here or in Africa. I’d rather die in Africa.”
Boom. 🙂 Thanks for getting me thinking this morning!
No one can hold a group of listeners attention 100% of the time, but a good speaker works foremost and foremost at presentation skills…having a good message is great but if no one really listens…ignoring your engagement, communication and presentation skills is truly ‘dropping the ball’.
A missionary recently shared how an unreached tribesman shared what it meant to him when Jesus asked the disciples to follow him and they immediately did so.
I was hanging on every word. He invited us to imagine being in the village and the name of Jesus being shared for the very first time to the people.
When they can take you to those places in your mind it has a huge impact I believe.
Thanks for sharing Ronald!