The Voice-less Preacher

For only the second time in my eight years of pastoring, I have no voice. Well, today I have a little tiny bit of a voice. Yesterday I had none. Sunday I got through about two-thirds of the sermon at the 11:00am worship service and fell into such a fit of coughing that I had to leave the pulpit and hack away for about ten minutes in the sacristy. (By the way, the only thing that stopped it was two full drinking glasses of communion wine. Mogen David. Good stuff. But - whatever works.)

Being voice-less is a problem for a preacher. Especially at Advent. It's not all bad, of course; it does teach one a good lesson in listening, even if forcibly. It cuts down on the number of phone calls I can make in a day (down to none, for about the last five days, since the coughing started). You would think my writing time would have improved, since the speaking time is down - and if this were not Advent, that might have been true.

I am working on a post about our decision to leave Current Congregation and take a new call. Exciting, terrifying, and everything inbetween. Hopefully the voice will be back for Sunday.