ArticleBlog | Back to the Pulpit – One Man’s Journey
Back to the Pulpit – One Man’s Journey
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 18.03.17
I 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.
