Sermons from the Heart

H.H. Farmer was quoted as saying that the sermon is the word of God through the personality of the preacher. I think that is absolutely true. The preacher is without cause to speak without the pages of Holy Scripture. The pages of the Bible are brought home when they are communicated through our own lives and experiences. I know that in my own situation, my preaching ministry is shaped by my own life and by the shared experiences I have had with the congregations I have been blessed to serve over the past 38 plus years.
Of course my preaching ministry started out under the leadership and nurture of my own Dad, The Rev. Charles F. J. Starzer, who was the ultimate Pastor/Preacher. He deeply loved the congregations he served over the course of his 44 years of ordained ministry. But he knew that being a Pastor/Preacher was probably the hardest job that one could imagine. He never encouraged me to follow in his footsteps and he gave me every opportunity to say that I wasn't called to it. In retrospect the opportunities he gave me early on to preach may very well have been designed to make me stop and think before getting in too deep! The first sermons I ever preached were in the summer before I started college. I spent two Sundays preaching to the congregation which gathered in the "chapel" of Fairview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waymart Pennsylvania.