This past Sunday, I had the privilege to teach Sunday School. This is an adult, mostly older, members of the church.
The class goes by the name of Bereans after the church by the same name in Macedonia as described in Acts 17:11 – Now the Bereans were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined all the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Hi all,
I’ll be telling you about the Toastmasters speech in an upcoming blog once I get a good recording of it to share with you.
What I can tell you now is my nerves really got to me during the and I’m not really certain why.
I think it had to do with having to work with running my PowerPoint presentation on Zoom while maintaining eye contact with the camera while trying not to look at my script.
That’s all an excuse, I stumbled through it but I got it done. Surprisingly, people liked the speech, I’ll tell you about that soon.
I felt like I was back in school when I was scared to speak up at all. I’ve already told you about the one time in High School I gave a speech.
As an adult I was still nervous about doing any public speaking, but things began to change in our adult Sunday School when I began to speech up with my thoughts on what the teacher was saying and the Biblical verses we were studying. I then began finding myself volunteering to teach the class from time to time. My wife and I have taught together a few times as well. I was also being ask to do the Bible reading each week in class.
Then came the next and newest part of my life. An interest in Voice Acting. As a scriptwriter I wanted to know what the actor needed from me.
So, I took a voice acting class. I wasn’t expecting much, and certain I would be nervous stepping up to the mic in front of the entire class for the very first time.
You know what? I had no nerves what so ever and I read the script and performed with joy. I was so surprised by how I felt doing it I knew this was something I would continue to do. I would go on to take further voice acting classes over the next several years, have demo reels produced, and audition for roles.
So why did the nerves swell up during this speech? I really can’t say, but I won’t let them stop me from doing anything anymore.
Hope to have the speech up soon.
Kevin
As a little child I usually attended Sunday School while my parents went to church and their own adult classes. For our group of kids we were taught through colorful Bible stories in ways that were understandable for little ones. Hearing about the animals on ‘Noah’s Arc’ comes to mind.
As fun as those stories were, they were the simple beginnings of my understanding of the Bible. This period of my young church life I look back on as the ‘Jesus loves me’ time; for we sang that song over and over. I was only starting to know what that truly meant.
My first Bible lesson that struck deep with true meaning probably came to me one Sunday while I was sitting on a pew with my family in church. I was probably no older than 7 years of age.
Our pastor was giving a sermon on Mathew 7:3-5/Luke 6:41-42
Luke (NIV)
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
The visual image of a plank (or ‘beam’ as used in the King James version) was something my young mind and vivid imagination could see.
Every child by that age has gotten dust or dirt in their eyes and knows just how uncomfortable that is. So to imagine what it must be to have this massive plank of wood stuck in ones eye is a horrifying thought. Then to think trying to get a dust out of another’s eye with this thing stuck in my own is equally horrifying.
This imagery embedded itself into my mind.
It was my earliest lesson in not to judge others and it has stayed with me ever since.
It seems like an easy lesson to learn; don’t make such a deal out of pointing out the flaw in someone else’s life and act like you are the only one who can fix them, while completely ignoring the major problem within your own life. Yet we do it all the time.
Though I try not to judge others, I would be an equal hypocrite if I said I never judge other people. It’s far too easy to do so. But I try very hard not to. I have to stop and realize that I could end up going through the same thing they are and if others point out my faults with such an attitude, would only make my situation worse.
If you can help me, great, but don’t treat me as a flawed and only you can help me. I won’t do the same thing to you.
However, in an attempt to not judge people, sometimes I imagine my plank is much larger than it truly is, or imagine it is there even when it is not. It can be too easy make your own flaws greater than they actually are. So in your attempt to not judge others too harshly, don’t judge yourself too harshly either.
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