Today's Blog Title

As I was driving to work today, I began to think about an upcoming sermon I've been asked to share.  My mind was wandering to the proposed title that I gave the sermon and I'm wondering if I've handcuffed myself with the title.  Now with a long-ish drive and the mind exploring the wilderness inside my head I began to wonder the appropriate place of the sermon title.

I work with a pastor who has very strong opinions about signs in front of churches and the people who pat themselves on the back for their own cleverness.  While I can understand the distaste for bad signage, are we doing the same thing for people on Sunday morning?  Only are we displaying our cleverness for the lucky few who enter the building by offering witty sermon titles?

Knowing your context, how would the congregation respond if there were no sermon title?  Would there be panic; I'm pretty sure not.  But I'm curious to know if the absence of a title could/would draw people deeper into the message.  (Or would this become just another "marketing tool" to grab people?)

I suppose someone knows how this all came about.  I'd like to think it had something to do with the passage titles found in some translations.  Someone thought it necessary to give us a taste of what's to come.  Maybe pastors thought this was a good idea; and then the good idea became a cute idea and now we have books on "effective sermon titles".

Any which way, I'm now at work and trying to get my mind back to the tasks at hand.  First order of business, create a slogan for our Student Ministries.