This past Friday, Miss Mary posted a blog from 2014. She explained why. Nothing was coming to her, her mind was drawing a blank, blah, blah, blah. So, she researched her past blogs and found one that was perfect, so she said. It was so good she has decided to post a month of old blogs. Now, come on! What's the deal?!!? I mean, February 2014 was a long time ago. Very likely none of us ever read it. But still, A RE-BLOG! What is the big deal about writing an article? Sheesh!!!

Actually, it is a big deal. You try writing something relevant and inspiring every week for the last 900+ weeks. Looking for inspiration when the only one whispering ideas into your mind is a stuffed frog. Putting words down in one coherent sentence after another. Checking spelling, checking grammar and trying not to put to many 'buts' in the same paragraph. And then someone helpfully points out that there should be a comma in a certain point. I am thinking most people might have two or three articles in them, and then they would tail off. Each of us should be thanking Mary for being so diligent in her writing. 

Yes, it is hard to come up with something new and fresh. So, what about your pastor. Not only does he come up a sermon every week, he also delivers that sermon. Ah, you say, if he is being led by the Holy Spirit they all should be new and fresh. Only it doesn't work that way. Your pastor is human. He has headaches, backaches, a lawn to mow, a family to tend too, people bringing big problems and small problems and feeling better when they leave while he has to wrestle with those issues. Sunday comes racing along and Satan throws everything at the pastor he can to cause that pastor to veer off, yet everyone expects him to step up on Sunday and be Billy Graham. Does the pastor reuse old sermons? You bet he does! He doesn't want to use an old sermon, but sometimes it is all he has. He reworks it and goes with it.

And then there is the fact that you can use the same passage of Scripture multiple times and preach a completely different message each time, but some wise guy (or wise gal) will catch you after church and proudly say, "I know what you did! You reused an old sermon! In my Bible I mark a passage when you preach and you used an old sermon!" And this is usually said by someone who has no idea what goes into the planning, preparation and presentation of a sermon. 

When I started out in ministry, it was common to have Sunday morning and Sunday evening services as well as a mid-week Bible study and teach a Sunday School class. For two and a half years I pastored two churches on either side of the city. I figured I would just preach the same sermon at both churches. It didn't work that way because some of the people at Church A would jump into their cars and race along behind me to Church B to hear me preach again. (I never understood this, except they had no lives of their own.) Four Sunday services, two mid-week studies and one Sunday School class. One year I spoke at Kent State University five days in a row during Easter week as well as the regular schedule. And everyone wanted new and fresh. Forty eight years in the ministry, forty of those years as a pastor. I think I may have used one or two sermons over.

So, Miss Mary, re-blog and don't feel bad about it. And those of you who walk into the church on Sunday and you 'catch' pastor using an old sermon, give him a break. D.L. Moody, the great 19th century evangelist and the founder of the Moody Bible Institute, preached revivals about forty weeks a year. Six or seven sermons a week for forty weeks for dozens of years. He wrote toward the end of his life that he only preached a couple of hundred different sermons during his life, but he preached them over and over. Amazing that the Lord was able to use that slacker as much as He did.

So here is what I want you to do. If you know Miss Mary, give her a hug and thank her for being awesome. Go to your pastor and offer a firm handshake and throw in some respect. And finally, with everything you have going on in your life, take a month and write an article once a week and see what that takes out of you. Then, send those articles to Miss Mary or me so we can re-use them!  

Blessings.