The life of a guest preacher

I would like to think that I’m an easy guest to have. I try.

I’m blogging on Sundays in June for the Reformed Journal. My first-ever essay appeared in the print edition in 1980 and was titled “Woe is me,” a reflection on my first months of ordained ministry. I’m so pleased that the Reformed Journal is back in a new, digital form. You might want to consider a free subscription.

I never thought much about the life of a guest preacher until I became one.

Once, twenty years or so ago, I invited a friend and seminary classmate to preach at my church, and then a few months later—feeling obligated, I guess—he asked me to preach at his church. I think that’s known, technically, as a pulpit exchange, and that was about the extent of my guest preaching experience over the more than forty years that I have been a pastor. Frankly, I never used to get out much on Sundays.

But now that I’m not serving a church anymore, I am often—more than I expected, to be honest—a guest preacher. Read more…

Photo: That has nothing at all to do with my Reformed Journal blog post, or anything else for that matter, but I’ve been hoping to use it one day because I like the colors and textures. I used my fancy Nikon camera to take the photo in October 2015 in Jerusalem.