Olympic Marathon Race Courses and Sermon Delivery

Yesterday I posted my sermon to a blog post, even though I knew I would be changing the beginning.  I had seen a story in The Washington Post about ordinary people running the Olympic marathon course in Paris overnight, and the story fit with my sermon about carbo loading and Jesus as the delivery mechanism for nourishment of all sorts.

I began this way:  "Overnight, while we were sleeping, over 20,000 people ran the Olympic marathon course.  They weren't Olympians.  No, they were ordinary people.  The men's marathon was done in the morning, and the women would be running on Sunday.  In between, ordinary people decided that they, too, would run the course in between the men's and women's events.  And they did."

I reminded people that the course was challenging and long:  26.2 miles.  I said that I couldn't imagine just going out and running it.  I would think that I needed to train.  I said that the longest course I had run was a half marathon, and that I used to run all kinds of road races as a teenager.  From there it was a natural progression to talk about the carbo loading before the race that was my favorite part of training.

Yesterday I also experimented with delivering my sermon without relying on the printed manuscript.  I usually know what I plan to say, but if the manuscript is there, it's hard not to read it.  Yesterday, I didn't rewrite the introduction, and from there, it was easy-ish to glance at the pages here and there.

My sermon yesterday was much better than most days--in part because I didn't read it, but I also had an energy level that isn't always there.  It was even odder, because I had been up since 1:45, so not my usual approach to having a high energy day.

Right now, my public speaking aspect of my sermon still feels the most serendipitous to me:  some days are better than others, and I can't figure out why.  After 35 years of teaching, I don't have some of the public speaking issues that bedevil some people.  Perhaps because I don't, I also don't spend much time on the public speaking aspect of my sermon.

I will keep working on my sermon delivery and reporting back occasionally.  Perhaps it will be useful.  And if nothing else, it will keep me on track in my attempt to become a more powerful preacher.