Some Things Are Different

 Here are a couple of differences between pastor Mitchell and my pastor now. 

Pastor Mitchell was a topical preacher. He took a subject, searched the scripture, and crafted a message on that topic. My pastor is an expositional preacher. He lets the Bible speak for itself. He tries to expound on a text and only adds outside information to make his point. They accomplish the same thing. But they are two different approaches.

Pastor Mitchell used to use weddings as a reason to preach on marriage. Some pastors see all of the visitors and they view the wedding as an evangelistic opportunity. The Holy Spirit can use a wedding sermon to convict sinners. Focusing on evangelism makes you miss an opportunity to support marriage.

Pastor Mitchell got tired of people leaving right after the marriage ceremony was over so he moved the wedding until after the sermon. Here people tend to stay and we still do the wedding festivities before the sermon.

There are things that are carved in stone in our faith. How to preach a sermon and how to run a service are not things to fret over. God leaves a lot up to us.