Empty Pews

I had the opportunity to preach last weekend. I love preaching. I love being able to impact another person's heart and soul, to confront their perception of reality with transcendent Reality. It is a job I do not take lightly, nor should it be taken lightly.

The church I work at records sermons to put on the web and to give to those people who can't make it on Sundays. I found out this morning that my sermon didn't record right. In the process of finalization, it was all lost. So I'm going to have to re-record it, this time in front of empty pews.

People apologized for the inconvenience this would cause for me. There will be no energy, no feedback, no faces to engage. There will be no build up to the sermon with a wonderful rendition of "Build Your Kingdom Here", no prayers, no praise. Just me, and a microphone, and empty pews.

I look out on empty pews, reminded of the faces that filled them just a couple days before. And I wonder. Did my message change them? Did they live this Monday differently from the one before?
But, as I get ready, I reflect on reality. I do have a listener. I do have two ears and one heart listening in on this sermon, and they might be the most crucial. My own. I get the opportunity to impact hundreds of people's lives through my words, but if my own heart is left unchanged, it is all for naught. If the cause I communicate is so un-compelling that it does not change me, then I have no reason to expect that it should impact others. No reason to utter anything. Will my Monday be different from the one before?

So, I prepare for empty pews. I prepare for one person. The Preacher himself. I have been caught up in a Story, in a Message. And that story is changing my life. And I ask my hearers to go where I am going, too. That means when I tell others to love their spouses, I take that first upon myself. When I tell others to give back- I must take it seriously. We go together on a journey of faith; I am not special. I walk together with all others, asking them if they will come with me on a journey, a journey of re-formation, integration. A journey where we follow a Savior who first traversed the Way he leads us on. A journey with a Savior who bids, "Come, follow me." We go on a journey where the pews must be empty for the Message to move.