June 20, 1982

Comment: "Why don't you do sermons as stories?" mywife suggested. "You tell stories well and people seem tolike them. Besides, you won't end up criticizing us asoften!"

My wife has a way about her.

That was all I needed to try it out. Who wants to bepreached at? I surely didn't!

The first time I tried the following sermon in itscurrent format, I served a church which had a lay person whohad taken university level courses in Old Testament. How doyou preach to someone with that kind of background, someonewho has as good or better a background than yourself? Youtell the story as story and try to let its implicationspreach themselves in the mind of the listeners. It's hardnot to preach, though!

Genesis 1

"In the beginning God created the heavens and theearth. The earth was with…