Taking Over

The accomplishment itself is worthy of note. Obviously I went for familiar reasons but if not for that I would love to have been there for the event itself 67 years in the same pulpit. Roughly 3,500 Sundays and still the Sunday to Sunday preacher. With impending surgery and some concern that he may not be able to return to the pulpit, after all, it is tongue cancer, the day was for most in the audience, charged with emotion. 

As Gerald Romine stepped to the microphone behind the pulpit in the building he personally built, his words were masterful reminders of how to handle it when we are put I the spotlight. “This is not going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but if you bear with me we’ll make it…I know mine are, and I know many of yours are: emotions are running high, but if God not had not intended us to use them, he wouldn't have given them to us. This is not intended to be a farewell speech. It’s not intended to be a going away party. It's not intended to be a funeral. That's not our purpose of being here. We're here this morning to worship God.”

Brother Romine acknowledged the moment, showed appreciation for how the church there had blessed him and his family for years. And then he preached the Word. He stayed, as he has for nearly 70 years, on target. He preached Jesus. 

I thought as I listened how neat it was. Those first few words, pregnant with meaning, difficult to deliver, but important. Then it was a thing of beauty, the Sermon took over, the Word filled the air, Jesus became the instinctive focus. 

I do not know what is going on in your ministry, with you and your leaders, in your house, or in your heart, but I do know that when we preach the key is to let the Word of Christ take over. There will be days of honor and days that are painful, but shine the LIGHT on the Lord. Let it be who you are, this coming Sunday and 3,500 more from now.