The personal phenomenon of preaching

I preached my first sermon when I was 15 years old. It was at Bendigo CRC a country town in rural Victoria. I was incredibly nervous and I can’t even remember what I said. I do remember buying sunglasses that had clear lens underneath and the shaded sunglasses part flipped up, I broke the sunglass bit off and wore the clear glasses, probably hoping I would look older, wiser and permeate integrity and Godliness.

Since then I have had to get real Glasses and have spoken in most CRC churches in the country towns of Victoria. Maria and I loved packing up our old Kingswood station wagon and travelling with a team of young people to a struggling church to lead worship, do incredibly dorky Christian dramas and I would preach.

Being a youth pastor in those days I never preached in the main morning service. It was always the Saturday night youth rally the youth and children in the back room in the morning and then the night service.

It was only after we started the junction and I became the leader of the church that Pastors started asking me to speak in their morning services. We started the junction in July 2002 and it was about that time I started getting invitations to speak interstate. I spoke at the National Christian Surfers conference, Encounter in Mildura, a camp with twenty of the main church’s in the city.

I can remember two years ago standing in Subiaco, Western Australia speaking at the Forge intensive for Andrew Hamilton (http://backyardmissionary.com/). I remember standing there thinking how incredibly fortunate I was to be here speaking and travelling around our beautiful country. I thought to myself, who am I? I am not a sharp thinker like Alan Hirsch our national director; I have a basic ministry degree, but nothing worthy of travelling for. I mean basically I am here by the grace and generosity of God. I try never to take it for granted, if I am walking through the airport to preach in Sydney or Adelaide as I do reasonably regularly and I see an airport cleaner, I remind myself to pray for them, to thank the Lord for the unbelievable opportunities I am given and to never forget that he opens the doors and prepares the away for His people to hear from Him, through the preaching of the Bible and the stories of mission. That my life is so rich and blessed compared to some others and to be thankful for what I have and what I do.

This year three dreams will come true for me. I got to speak at the Saturday night for the Soul Survivor Festival. Mike Pilavachi is one of my hero’s and he was there and lead a ministry time after I preached that saw hundreds of young people weep and respond to call to belong to new communities of faith. I can’t begin to tell you how humbling it was to be a part. My wife always keeps me really humbly; I went back to my seat after the meeting and told her how excited I was to see so many young people responding and she commented that it had nothing to do with me and it was all God. I agree with her totally and I never want to take any of the credit or glory away from Him who is King.

This weekend just gone I got to speak at the National youth conference for the CRC churches international. That was a great honour and privilege and felt again God moved and hundreds of young people knelt at the foot of the stage to commit to a life of missions work among their schools and neighbourhoods.

This year Maria, our three boys and I, for the first time, will travel to America. It is a life long dream to preach there. I know it’s not very PC to like America or even to acknowledge a love of the States. In fact I have preached in England and the Check Republic.

However for me as a dreamer and kid growing up loving Michael Jordan and the Movies and believing in a world where Dreams can come true, my dream would be to stand in church in America - me this simple Aussie/Greek Kid from the commission area of Doveton - and preach to the most confident and biggest dreamers in the world. What would I say; will any of them ask me to even preach? I don’t know I am going and am available and I have my story, Gods story and some of the most innovative and inspiring stories of missions around Australia.

I find myself again in the place of asking God to use me and to be available and willing to go where He leads. SO America, here we come.