I learned a critical lesson about church in my first youth minister position: Be yourself!
After I resigned that position, I wrote that statement on a sheet of paper, and here over twenty years later I still have that sheet of paper.
You are a person created by God who is unique from any other person ever created, physically and spiritually. God wants you to be the person He created you to be! God abhors sin, since sin only interferes with you being the person He created you to be. And God does not want church leaders or people in the congregation stifling your unique personality, your God given gifts, or your calling from God.
I love preaching! When I preach, it is totally personal, because I am conveying messages from God from Scripture, and those messages are coming from my heart. Thus in pouring out my heart, I must be “me.”
Once I tried to be someone different. My first day of high school, I was a new kid in school since I had gone to a different junior high school in the district where my family use to live. Taking the suggestion of a friend in junior high, I decided to try and create a new image. I was going to be cool. I did not have a plan ahead of time for being cool, but that is what I was aiming for. Coming up with a last minute plan which I probably could not even have articulated, I started trying to be the strong silent type, since that was my perception of cool, from TV probably. I was miserable. Slowly, I went back to being “me,” which is to be joyful and loud. Trying to be someone different, not only was I miserable, but my attempted image did not help me in a single relationship. My relationships with other students only were good when I was “myself.” Great relationships are genuine.
Likewise, a preacher needs to be totally himself or herself with listeners, so they may know who you really are in order to accept the sincerity of your message. Be yourself when you preach, and people will have the opportunity to recognize the sincerity of your preaching from your heart.
God works so we may keep personally improving, and as with any spiritual gift, God works to improve our preaching. Yet in being yourself, you will be a genuine preacher.
Hunter
