…and boy, did I have a lot of fun!!! The Christian Fellowship down at college has a rota of speakers, and this afternoon my turn to share the Word came up. As you can imagine, I was frightened at first [my first thought was to hide under a rock until the Rapture happened], but I realised I had no say in the matter, so I went to pray. After praying…I prayed some about what God would have me to teach. Well, I prayed and prayed and prayed, yet one topic couldn’t leave my mind – election and predestination. Now, telling people about election who are either Pentecostals of the African variety or have never even remotely heard of Calvinism is one thing – telling them when you’ve never so much as preached a sermon is another thing, so I did what any wise person would do – I decided to call an expert. My pastor’s number remain a mystery to me – so I went to my old friend Rev. Ramshire. Now he still preaches all the time, even in his late 80s, so I went to him for advice. All he did was laugh and say: “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellll, young man, three things…” Those things sounded so good I wrote them down for the purpose of blogging:

CONVICTION: “A preacher who stands for nothing will fall for anything, Douglas” That will follow me for the rest of my life, believe me.

COMPETENCE: Rev. Ramshire was quick to add “Note, son, I said competence, not self-competence! Your competence is only relevant as comes to the Book!” I must have read and studied for like 3 hours every night [which is hard when you're also beginning revision for your end of year exams]

CLARITY: Finally, the good Reverend was quick to say this: “Boy do not, for the life of you and your hearers, ramble or mumble when you preach. You’re preaching the King’s Word, make pretty well sure they hear it boy!”

Well, those in mind, I stood in front of these guys with some hand-written notes, and taught a Bible study on “Election”. From a sight perspective, it went well, though we were all late and thus rushed to class without discussing it. I felt drained afterwards, and it was a miracle in of itself that I was able to last another two and a half hour class. Still, it was definitely worth it.

Grace and peace,

YoungCalvinist

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