{"id":8650,"date":"2023-03-27T03:21:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8650"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:11","slug":"doubling-my-chances-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8650","title":{"rendered":"DOUBLING MY CHANCES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a professor at Asbury Seminary back in the late 90s who said, &#8220;As soon as you step into a pulpit, you double your chances of going to hell.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a statement about the risks inherent in carrying the responsibility of interpreting God&#8217;s word for others. Woe to anyone in authority who misrepresents God or His word &#8211; whether intentionally or not.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing a sermon each week is going to be an interesting new challenge. It is an underappreciated skill.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And an odd experience &#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>I have no idea if what I am preaching is on target or effective. And I am not sure what it would take to convince me either that I was really good at it or really terrible. \ud83d\ude0f<\/li>\n\n\n<li>I want to be really good at it &#8211; due to a mix of legitimate reasons &#8230; and ego. (Just being honest.)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Throughout the process &#8211; from studying through delivery &#8211; I swing wildly between complete lack of confidence and extreme over confidence. I try to remind myself that neither is warranted.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>It is terrifying and causes me to lose sleep.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All that is to say: so far &#8230; I am loving it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a professor at Asbury Seminary back in the late 90s who said, &#8220;As soon as you step into a pulpit, you double your chances of going to hell.&#8221; It was a statement about the risks inherent in carrying the responsibility of interpreting God&#8217;s word for others. Woe to anyone in authority who misrepresents [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8651,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions\/8651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}