Especially for a preacher, losing one’s voice is not a pleasant prospect nor a pleasant experience. In over 40 years of preaching, I have never completely lost my voice so that I could not talk/preach at all. I have, however, experienced voice problems. When I was ministering with the church in Plymouth, Michigan, we had a JOY bus program that included running the buses three times each week. I was a co-captain and helped with the singing (shouting). I taught an adult Bible class on Sunday morning and preached twice on Sunday. Each Sunday, I used my voice at very high volume for 4 hours, and in “projection mode” for another three hours (more or less). My vocal cords rebelled, and the doctor said I couldn’t speak for 7 hours each Sunday without damaging my voice.
Over the years, I have had various respiratory or throat problems that temporarily limited my voice to a lower volume than normal, but I have never missed preaching because I lost my voice. I do know that voice problems cause one to talk funny. People would say, “It sounds like it hurts”, but I would assure them that it didn’t hurt–it just sounded like it did. Or a little child might say, “You talk funny.”
Right! There is normal, and there is funny. This blog is not about what happens when we have problems with our physical vocal cords. This article is about what happens when we lose our “spiritual voice.”
Jan and I were in a foreign country. We found a church that had a familiar name–and it was advertising an English service. We thought we would be “at home”. The service seemed pretty normal until the “sermon” began. The “preacher” basically just read an article he had found on the web. I guess he liked it. Frankly, it “talked funny.” Most careful Bible students would not agree with the article.
These two things got me to thinking. Here are my observations.
First, four negatives.
When we imitate others and do not develop our own faith, we talk “funny”.
When we fail to tell our story and forget how to talk, we talk “funny”.
When we become professional and not personal, we talk “funny”.
When we talk at the intellectual level and not at the heart level, we talk “funny”.
Then one positive.
When we study God’s word afresh, we talk “funny”.
What would you add to my list?