FEATURE 7
Back
to the pulpit
ONE MAN’ S JOURNEY
by Garry Phillips
am a 68-year-old Welshman now living on the west coast of Scotland. I am registered disabled after suffering two life-threatening strokes, the first in 2003 and the second in 2005. After over ten years I found an evangelical church locally which both doctrinally and liturgically met my high standards. This short piece is about my return to the pulpit after experiencing a disease that affected both my mobility and balance. In addition to this, it also greatly affected my speech, causing my voice to be so quiet it is hard to hear, and affecting my ability to control its modulation. Here, I explain my journey back to preaching. I write it to encourage those who, like myself, believe that God has called them to preach.
On being asked by the eldership to preach the Sunday morning sermon I was both delighted and fearful. Fearful I might make a fool of the pulpit and myself and bring dishonour upon God’ s Word. I have always earnestly prayed before preaching that God would use my talents and gifts and mould them so he would receive glory and honour. However, I digress. I had two weeks to prepare. Using my iPad, I wrote out my sermon in full. Fine. Next, I arranged to visit the church when there were no meetings planned to practise getting up to the pulpit. One of the elders assisted me with this and also with a voice check on the microphone which was a new experience for me. I was pleased with the latter as it really made a huge difference. During the approaching week, I practised in various parts of my house.
When the day arrived, I was conscious of my weakness and my inabilities. The common practice of the church I attend is to have a worship time just before the preaching of the Word, during which the speaker sits with the congregation. However, on this occasion I sat in the elder’ s chair, which meant I could ascend the pulpit steps before the sermon unnoticed by the church. I should say I was indebted to the elder who helped me up to the pulpit, as it was a difficult struggle for me. The practice run went well. However even after‘ preaching’ my sermon a few times at home, I focused on perhaps the wrong things. One of my failings was to focus on my voice. My next target in the process was to practise my modulation.
The practice was important, my iPad was a godsend and physical help and support were an absolute must. My overall assessment of that first sermon after the strokes was that I must practice more. Also, my timing was badly out. In times past, I could get it down to around a minute or so of the required time, but on this occasion I cut the preaching with about eight minutes left, but I don’ t think this affected anything substantially. Hopefully not.
I should say that I am not a wheelchair user. That would need a completely different strategy – like allowing the disabled person to speak from their chair. We live in an era of tremendous technological advances. We should use them to involve the disabled more fully in our worship, to glorify God. The church records all of its preaching ministries. However, I’ m still reluctant to download the message – at the moment at least. Maybe soon.
Garry Phillips
Garry fellowships with other likeminded Christians at Bethany Evangelical Church. He takes pleasure in rugby [ union ], and his local football team Glasgow Rangers. His special interests are expository preaching, the Puritans and cultural developments. Garry suffered two major strokes in 2003 and 2005.