Gratitude for Helpers

When I started preaching over fifty years ago, I never thought about how many different sermons I would have to write and preach.  Back in those beginning days of preaching, it was common for churches to have morning and evening services on Sunday which meant more preaching than today's one sermon a week preacher will do in a lifetime.  I suppose I could do some math, but my high school math teacher would say in a heartbeat that it would be suspect so I will just say I did a lot of preaching.    

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I said "Yes" to the call to preach, but I did not have a clue.  Oh, there was a lot of preaching, but there were also funerals, hospital trips to see the sick and sometimes the dying, a thousand or more meetings in which it seemed little was accomplished, being administrator for a small business, and learning the brutal realities of church politics.  Had God laid it all out for me as clearly as I see it in retrospect, I would have been a harder sell when He called me to preach.   

Fortunately, along the way He provided direction I needed, people to help me when I was clueless about what to do, and more folks than I could ever count to pray for me as their preacher.  Seminary was good training, but it was more head stuff than the heart stuff which is at the core of ministry and being a disciple of Jesus.  I remember a new Bishop who said to us at his first Annual Conference, "I have never done this before and I am going to need you to help me."  I am grateful in these days which are closer to the end than the beginning for all those who helped me along the way.