After almost a decade on the bench, I’m back in the saddle again. If you have been following my story, you know that medical troubles in 2009 and 2010 unceremoniously sidelined me from public presentations. Living in Michigan at that time, I attempted a short-lived comeback in 2011 and 2012. I had the opportunity to teach some adult Sunday School classes and deliver a few Sunday evening messages.
After moving to Pennsylvania in 2012 to be close to family, many additional medical problems laid me up again. I was not physically able to handle live teaching situations. Nevertheless, those physical limitations could not stop me from thinking, writing, or dreaming of teaching again.
Over the past several years, I have slowly regained some physical mobility. However, I am still battling a mild case of aphasia, and I have remained a visual thinker. Despite these difficulties, I have grown more comfortable using my new third language, words, in both conversations and writing.
It was mid-afternoon on Thursday, January 14, and I get an urgent call from our church’s Senior Pastor asking entreatingly, “I know this a late request, but would you be able to deliver your Four Chairs message this Sunday?”
What prompted this emergency call? Our Senior Pastor had suddenly come down with a nasty case of the intestinal flu. The Assistant Pastor was hospitalized, awaiting open-heart surgery. The Youth Pastor was out of town and wouldn’t be home until late Saturday. He would have no time to prepare a message.
How did our pastor know about the Four Chairs message? Why would he think that I could be ready in two and a half days? It’s a long story that began several years ago when I talked with our Senior Pastor about my desire to get back into a teaching role in the church.
I was a Bible teacher for more than four decades and did pulpit supply work in many churches. My whole life, I felt that God called me to be a teacher. It was my ministry within the church. In 2009, that work was put on hold because of the many health crises in my life.
With God’s help, I have worked hard over the past decade to get back to the point of being able to construct and deliver a meaningful lesson competently and understandably. In the conversation with my pastor, I presented several ideas. My Four Chair theme resonated well with him. So I went to work and wrote out a complete lesson. He loved the message and said he would work it into the church’s calendar at an appropriate place.
That time never came. COVID shut down most of the world. Then, my wife, Elaine, was diagnosed with lymphoma. Her chemotherapy and a compromised immune system grounded both of us for most of 2020. When the doctors told her that she was in remission, I approached the pastor about putting the Four Chairs message back into the scheduling mix. We talked about a late spring 2021 date. Then I get the January call out of the blue.
What do I tell him? Is two and a half days enough time to go over material that I had written months earlier? Could I polish it up sufficiently to present it to a congregation in that short of a time?
Without hesitation and without consulting my wife, I said, “Yes. I’ll do it.” I readily admit the lack of talking to my wife was a mistake. I knew she was having some back spasms. However, I thought they were minor in nature.
When I told her about agreeing to deliver the Sunday morning message, she reluctantly told me that she didn’t think she could go to hear me. Her backaches were becoming more substantial. We immediately called her cancer doctor, who scheduled her for a battery of blood tests and a CT scan of her lower back. I was disappointed that she could not be in church Sunday morning. However, I also felt I had an obligation to fulfill by delivering the message.
My message title, Four Chairs, may sound familiar. There are several Four Chairs messages currently making the rounds on the internet. The first Four Chairs Message that I ever heard was at a Youth For Christ Saturday night rally in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1962. I have been present for three different Four Chairs messages from three other speakers in the intervening half-century.
My version is different from the four that I experienced in person and from the several that I have watched on the internet. It is the message that I believe that God has given to me to pass on to you in my next several blog posts.
Since I can’t drive because of my seizure disorder, one of the deacons picked me up Sunday morning. We arrived at the church one hour before the service to go over last-minute details.
This gave us time to physically spread out the four chairs I wanted to use as props for my lesson in place around the pulpit. I also had time to talk with the song leader and the AV personnel. Due to Covid recommendations in our state, we had removed hymnals from the pews racks. Congregational singing is enabled by words projected on a screen behind the pulpit. This screen is lowered or raised by a motor controlled from the AV booth. When the screen is down, it blocks the congregational view of the large cross on the choir loft’s back wall. Since I wanted to use the image of the cross several times in my lesson, I arranged with the AV personnel to raise the screen just before I began speaking and to lower it as I closed the study and offered an invitation.
The picture above is a photograph of the sanctuary of Calvary Baptist Church of York, Pennsylvania. It was taken from the balcony during a Sunday morning worship service before 2020. There were no Covid recommendations on masks and social distancing in public meetings when the photograph was taken.
To set the stage for my lesson, the large cross at the choir loft’s back is clearly visible. Over the cross, the bottom of the AV screen is visible. In positioning the four chairs, I had one chair placed on each side of the pulpit on the wooden platform. I also had one chair set on each side of the pulpit on the carpet at the bottom of the platform steps. Barely visible in the photograph directly in front of the pulpit is a center aisle.
At the scheduled starting time, the deacon in charge began the service with the call to worship and invocation. Then alternating with the song leader, they made the morning announcements, lead congregational singing, and read the morning scriptures, Acts 16:25 – 34, that I had picked to introduce my lesson for the day. In God’s provision, the Youth Assistant Pastor had prepared a children’s object lesson that connected well with the Acts 16 passage. When the object lesson was completed, the deacon explained the pastor’s absence and introduced me to deliver the morning message.
My knees buckled a little as I stood up to approach the pulpit. I grabbed a quick drink of water from the bottle that I was carrying to clear the lump from my throat. After I climbed the platform steps and stood behind the pulpit, I felt three things. The first was that my knees felt firm, and the lump was gone. I felt a growing confidence that I could do this. I felt a partial return of some of the abilities that were lost for more than a decade due to my many medical difficulties.
The second perception was a warm welcome from the congregation. I recognized that they were reaching out to me and praying for me. Many took out pens and note pads, preparing to jot down points that spoke to them. I could sense that they were ready to receive God’s message for them.
The third and most important thing was the presence of God in the auditorium. I could sense His hand on me, ready to carry me through this lesson. I was about to speak His words, not mine.
In my original conversations with our Senior Pastor, we discussed the idea that I begin with a short testimony of my Christian experience, academic background, and medical journey. Unfortunately, I got carried away telling my story and lost precious time for speaking God’s story. Time was flying, and I had used up 10 of the 30 minutes allotted for the lesson.
I switched gears and began my lesson, knowing that I would have to cut some of the material that I had prepared. Throughout the study, I trimmed parts that I could eliminate without losing anything essential in the message. The things I omitted were not unimportant. However, the lesson stood on its own without those points.
I finished my lesson with a strong challenge to the congregation. After the invitation and closing hymn, the song leader closed the service and dismissed everyone. I remained in the altar area and talked to several people who wanted to discuss the challenge. Others wanted to know more about the scriptural foundation of my illustrations. I promised them that I would provide that in future written form.
To honor that commitment, the next several posts will be a complete version of the Four Chairs lesson. As you read these coming posts, please leave a comment in the Comment section if you have questions or comments, and I will get in touch with you.
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