I greet you this morning. Brothers and sisters in the name of the Lord. From Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, the 12th chapter. And the first second verse is wherein Paul is writing of the offering of our lives, the gospel being the essence of sacrifice and how we are not to conform to this age, but be transformed so as to be true members of the coming age. And this is what it says.

I feel for you, therefore, brethren, by the merciful God, to protect your body, to worship and sacrifice wholly acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Then you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The subject from which I will speak with you this morning is How to eat to preach. How to eat. To preach. As preachers, male and female. Black and white. We are milling around in the hope of a light go round from for our ministries are part story bravely begging for food. They will call for us to grow and to help and hold them servants of the Lord. But instead we are feasting on the rinds. The peelings the hulls and all kind of good for nothing slimy scum from the tables of the world. We are seriously suffering from an acute case of eating slop at times when we should be genuine good preachers for the Lord due to us not eating the minimum daily requirements. They are called living sacrifices according to God's will.

It is human nature to want to do what's right, to want to be good at anything that we do. But we are so anxious to be good preachers that we follow the scent of every hog pen that comes our way to fill our empty guts. We hunt in every way that we know for this mangy stinkin foodstuff of what makes a good preacher. We slaver and groan for the stinking grub about the make up of the good preacher. Trying to fill our hungry preaching stomachs. We are famished to be good and acceptable preachers, so we lick our chops and pant greedily for this hog slop. Just gulping down in large parts this filthy stereotype of what makes a good preacher? We have become greedy guts for this shoddy, worthless debris, this scrap and refuge of the hog in our hunger to be good preachers. So much so that we end up moving confusedly in circles in the hog pens of life. This slop on the hog pens of the world that we put in our mouths and chew on and swallow with fittish pleasure. It's quite up in our conversation. We are half the stereotype of a good preacher. We say, You know, a good preacher can sho nuff hoot. And it doesn't have to be no man's grit. He just family part and all of that. And every time we get into a pulpit that church rocks and rolls, and they have a shouting good time. Man if you want to be a real good preacher, you got to be able to raise a good old common meter hymn. And if you can't sing, you show better have a singing ace in your corner of the church who can sho nuff do it. For they.ain't nothing like good singing to guarantee good preaching.

We don't stop this slop what how one can be a good preacher in the conduct of his church services when we talk all about the personal and private life, about what makes a good preacher. With women ministers and women who are serious in that church, when we say that the whole kind of work that they can do for the Lord is better if they remain homely and as dull as possible. And as unappealing as nature can allow it. We say now see, A Good Preacher got a have some decent suits, some sharp shirts and some nice shoes, and he got to look good. He can't be too hip with with a beard. I too have too big of a fro, not be too black in ideology because he'll never make it as a preacher. We see a good preacher got to appear that he has everything under control. He's got to be cool, calm and collected. He's got to know how to handle the women folk. By being not too hot and not too cold, but just right.

Yeah, that's right.

His wife should be one of the best dressed women in the church. The children ought to be the most well behaved in the community. We say a Good Preacher must have a certain kind of car. He must have a certain number of out of town engagements during the year. His sexual appetite must be of a certain degree. He must have fun in a specific manner. He must have a definite number of boy children and a definite number of girl children. He should do this. He should do that, and he should do the other whether he wants to or not. Oh, yeah. We go on and on talking about what makes a good preacher. And not only do we talk this trash, but we devour it hungrily, trying to satisfy our appetite to be good preachers ourselves. We incorporate the various stinking slop into our preaching stomachs. Trying to satisfy our hunger. To be good preachers.

But what we fail to realize is that this stop eating, the eating of this slop will kill us. I'm firmly convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt, that if we don't start this day taking in the minimum daily requirements that the Lord has set forth for us with the result in us being genuine good preachers in His name, that we will kill ourselves. This slop that we have gobbled down, that we try to live on every day of our lives can never satisfy our hunger to be good preachers. This worldly slop will keep us weak because we spend so much time trying to do the slop work that I really think we'll be just that: slop. This slop eating will cause our fickle stomachs to always be upset bubbling with sourness. Cramped with acid indigestion with a double dose of heartburn.Slop slurping from the hog pens of the World will cause us cramping misery. And our bodies will reek with sour death. To continue eating this hog slop of what a good preacher must do a bleeding ulcer will develop in our ministries and nothing solid can stay inside of us. On our preaching stomachs. With this ulcer, our service for the Lord will be no more than a regurgitation of the slop that we have devoured oxtails back to our parishioners. For if slop is all that we take in, then slop is all that we can dish back out.

Well.

Our preaching stomachs will be so upset due to this ulcer, that our ministries can be no more than slimy vomit. We will be constantly puking green and gray vomit with flecks of orange. They move like the uncooked inside of an uncooked egg stubbornly clinging to its own mass, refusing to break up and be removed which chokes and strangles the very breath from our preaching lives.

Since we know the detrimental effect of eating this slop to satisfy this natural hunger to be good preachers, let us begin to partake in a well-balanced meal daily that is composed of three basic food groups in order that we can be genuine good preachers according to God's will.

Well.

The first food group for which we must obtain a minimum daily requirement in our well balanced meal in order to be genuine good preachers. Is the academic food.

Well.

The academic food is the daily nourishment for the mind wherein we engage in certain stimulating activities in order for us to stay actively alive and grow in our thinking. Now, these certain stimulating activities that we should engage in for academic food are of a spicy variety, this academic food is as varied as the folk who partake of it. The substance for keeping the mind alive may come in the form of a liquid, solid, or a gas, it maybe canned bottled packaged or carton. It may be all, but the content of all academic food grips the mind in a particular way. Academic food. Academic food makes you lay open your mind and it is acceptable to that. which you already think, perceive, feel and will, in order that our living ideas may grow. This mother food that spurs us on may be obtained by attending classes here at ITC. By reading books, periodicals, newspapers, by participating in discussions debate and quarrels, by studying it every day in whatever form or fashion the threads in our minds that deepens or thinking.

Amen.

This academic food is one of the minimum daily requirements for growing strong bones and teeth in our preaching. So each of us must do whatever we have to do to enhance our thinking. daily. An example of the need to take a food from the academic food group daily is analogous to a character described in a story who is blind in one eye and have trouble with the other but could not afford eyeglasses. When asked why he was wearing only the frames without the lens, he replied, It is better than nothing, isn't it? Is it? Are the frames that we wear without the lenses, preachers, enought to cover up our vast ignorance? Our shallow thinking, our inarticulate irrational arguments of ethics and morals. When we don't take in our daily required academic food, our slop eating makes us just like this character who wore the frames without the lens. Our frames make us hide behind our clergy collars, make us always fall around in the pulpit, make us always dramatically let everybody know that we are preachers and pastors by sticking our names on any and everything. Our cause us to don ourselves with crosses on little chains, cause us to quote and peat Bible verses like mental diarrhea. We run out of saying anything worth listening to because we are hungry for some solid of academic food that might be and all the ways that we can put sufficiently lens in our empty frames is to devour and digest some academic food that deepens and broadens our mental scope each day for the rest of our life.

Thus I firmly believe that we can become genuine good preachers when we stay actively alive and grow in our thinking, when we chew digest and assimilate some academic food each day of our life.

Yeah,.

The assumptions for thinking that we each must decide upon in relation to our present degree of the mental cultivation satisfies a portion of our hunger to be good preachers. With academic food from what we eat each day, help make that hog slop that we gobbled down before repulsive to us. Because we become strong enough to think for ourselves.

Yeah,.

This food for the mind gives us strength to push that mangy garbage away from us and pull on the nutritional brain food. We must partake of academic food each day of the rest of our lives in order that we can resist the hog filled stereotypes of a good preacher and be transformed by the renewal of our minds to actually be genuine good preachers according to God's will. Lord give us this day our academic food let us take and eat of it.

The second food group from which we must obtain our minimum daily requirements for a well-balanced meal in order to be genuine good preachers. Is the sociological food. The sociological food is the daily nourishment for the heart. Wherein we mingle with the people in our congregation and community, in order to feel alive actively and feel in their needs and knowing their hopes and their fears. Consequently, mingling with our parishoners and neighbors require a lot of our blood, sweat and tears. The sociological food is found by engaging in activities that reveal the pulse of the people with whom we work. And we must partake of this food daily. To be a good preacher, we must devour into our ministries every day. The mixing with and at talking and walking with those who must hear our "Thus, saith the Lord." Yes, there is not one cleracut thing that we all need to do to obtain its minimum daily requirement for sociological food. But here again, this health food is in abundance. According to our individual differences, some of us may eat of this sociological food when we participate in pastoral care wherein we visit the sick and the shut in, we care for unhappy families, disillusioned young folk, and deserted children. When we married newlyweds and celebrate the arrival of newborn babies. Others of us can feel the heartbeat of our parishioners when we converse with them in their homes, when we see them on the street, when we work with them in some form or fashion. Still, others of us take in this needed sociological food by sitting in on committee and board meetings, by attending the various programs that are being sponsored, by doing whatever our individuality deems necessary and strengthens us and feeling with and knowing our people.

For instance the need to take of our sociological food daily is quite evident in the parable of the sower. It says a farmer went out to his field to sow grain. As he scattered the seed on the ground. Some of it fell on the footpath and was trampled on and the birds came and ate it as it lay exposed.

Well.

Other seed fell off shallow soil with rocks beneath the seed began to grow but soon withered and died for lack of moisture. Other seed landed in thistle patches and the young grain stalks were soon choked out. Still other fell on fertile soil. This seed grew and produced crop 100 times as large as he had planted. Our minimum daily required sociological food that we take in strengthens our work for the Lord because we did not have to run soil tests for our congregation and community. How to break up the surface soil around our hearers in order to destroy weeds, prevent crusting and preserve moisture so that they may be fertile and develop and grow into glorifying beings for the Lord in all that they do and say. Therefore, I whole heartedly believe that we can become good preachers when we constantly remain in touch with our congregation and community because of our daily intake of sociological substance. This food that is obtained by mingling with folk must be absorbed and incorporated so that our preaching can become alive. With sociological food help to satisfy our hunger, to be good and what we have been called to do according to God's will. Because we did know their problems, their problems and their fears. This daily sociological food helps us to speak to their needs in a transforming way rather than our former running to the hog pens of life to eat the slop ourselves. Just as the daily required academic food causes our minds to grow. The daily required sociological food causes our hearts to grow. We can feel the contraction and a pulsating throbs of their heart and speak to our hearers innermost thoughts and feelings in the name of the Lord. Lord give us this day our sociological food. Let us take and eat of it.

This third and final food group from which we must obtain our minimum daily requirement for our wellbalanced meal in order to be genuine good preachers. Is the theological food. The theological food is the daily nourishment for the soul.

Well.

Wherein we worship with God in order for us to stay actively alive and grow in spirit and in truth, Thus when we worship with God both in private and in public, our theological food draws us nearer to God, nearer to our blessed Lord. To be genuine good preachers. Each day of our life, we must partake of food that will strengthen the relationship between God and mankind. We eat of this theological food when we show reverence for God through prayer, through church services and other rites. That cause us to think deeply and continuously on the Lord. There's not one form of theological food, not one form of worship in which we all must engage, because what might help one person might hinder another. After all, a great deal on how we should obtain our daily theological food depends on what we are used to. Some of us may meditate in song by singing or listening to Carol Ward. Shirley Caesar, or James Cleveland. A few of us may find God best than a special liturgy. Others of us can eat our daily theological food when we open our selves up in prayer, like James Weldon Johnson prayed. Oh Lord we come this morning knee bowed and body bent before the throne of grace, like empty pitchers before a full fountain with no merits of our own.

Yeah.

Oh Lord open up the window of heaven and lean out over the battlements of glory. And listen this morning.

Yeah, All right.

As men and women of God each day we must take time out to eat the food for the soul, we should get away from the hustle and bustle of our fast moving lives each day and cut into the inexhaustible source of power. That of owner and Lord of all the universe. Our daily theological food strengthens us and turns us away from the worldly slop about preachers. Our theological food shows us the way of the Lord. For instance, sometimes we try to find a theological food in some routine gobbled-down trash and call it meditation. By saying a word or two to the Lord as we fall out of bed in the morning, or as we fall in at night. In observing us you can see us spiritually pickling with some new worthless ditty that we heard in a conversation, or on the radio just moments before we try to worship with God. Hurrying rushing deaf into our causes of worship is a sure way not to feel the presence of God. Disagreements and angry words in the midst of meditation will not help, but instead will cause us to eventually starve for spiritual food. Some Americans spend weeks of preparation before meeting royal personage of another country. How can we rush into God's presence in the way that we often do? God's coming and revealing Himself, becoming a and making himself known, appearing as the one he really is manifesting his worth and its will. And we must eat our theological food every day in order to stay in conferential fellowship with him, and be genuine good preachers.

My belief is that we all can be good preachers when we partake of theological food each and every day of our life in order to stay alive in spirit. If we have been called by God to preach rather than by man. Then we must worship with God in the way that we sense God's presence. This food for the soul satisfies a portion of our hunger to be good preachers. Thsi theological food makes our souls strong and our preaching bodies healthy. Theological food gives us power to be nourished by the Lord Himself. Our daily required worship with God gives us power to clean up some of the hog pens of the world. This soul food that we must eat of our daily dries up our ulcer from the slop and nourishes us to be true to our Lord. First and foremost. Lord, give us this day our theological food. Let us take and eat of it.

To sum up the whole balanced meal. We must eat from the three basic food groups. Each day of our life. We must have all types of food so that we can be well balanced and not. In one area and perishing in another. We must obtain our minimum requirements to be genuine good preachers in order to discern God's design for us. We must eat a portion of academic food. We must eat a portion of sociological food. And we must eat a portion of theological food each and every day of our life. Are you fed up with the hogwash that people force on preachers? Are you tired of being squeezed into a mold of what makes a good preacher that hinders you and your work for the Lord rather than helps you? Are you sick and tired of trying to live in a straitjacket because you are preaching? Do you want to come out of the closet of jacklegism? Don't. Do you want to be metamorphed from the airtight cage of cal coonism? Let us seal our mouths this morning to the slop of the swine and start partaking of the health food for the mind, the heart and the soul so we can do the will of the Lord. Let us become unhypnotized by this hog stench that has been fed to us ever since the beginning, when people said that we looked like we were going to be preachers. Don't you want to be a genuine good preacher? Don't you want to be good and acceptable and perfect as a living sacrifice to God? Will you take and eat? Of these three basic food groups stopping the slop from the world and starting the food under God This day, now, henceforth and forevermore.

Yes.