Whew!  I just finished the sermon I’ll be taping for Day 1 on Friday.  It’s been a few years since I taped a Day 1 sermon.  I forgot how nerve-wracking the process can be!

Don’t get me wrong.  I LOVE preaching on the radio….except for the part where you’re enclosed in a small padded room, and where every single sound you make–even the ones you can’t actually hear yourself making–are cause for a “Cut!” and where vocal modulation is best kept to a minimum (I have to check my “Baptist” at the door) and where there are no Amens or laughs or gasps or crying babies–okay.  I don’t miss the crying babies so much.

Yes, I love preaching on the radio…except for all the radio parts.  Sigh.

But…I do love to the opportunity it gives to hear what others hear when I preach.  (Oh, come on!  You’d listen to yourself, too, wouldn’t you?)  And I do love the thought that tons of people are hearing the same message and thinking about their faith in similar ways at the same time.  I especially love that Day 1 is broadcast on Armed Services Radio and that women and men in the military stationed over seas might get to hear the sermon….

…especially this particular sermon, now that I think about it.  I don’t want to give everything away–I want you to tune in an listen!  But the sermon I just finished is about seeing hard things…our military people serving in Afghanistan…I know they’ve seen hard things.  It’s nice to think that this message might reach people who might really benefit from hearing it.

You know what?  I need to get off this whole nerve-wracked self thing.  The gospel isn’t about me…it’s about helping others to experience good news.  And if this sermon might help someone stationed in a war zone experience good news?  The few nerves I’ve felt will have been completely worth it.