All Is Well

I haven't often paid attention to literary form in church talks or pieces of oratory.  The only instance I remember is in a talk I wrote to fit a form.  The only time I spoke in church on my mission was 3 weeks before I went home. With over 200 missionaries in one ward at once, your time to teach over the pulpit happens only once.  This is the  pinnacle of your preaching, your one word, your final phrase.

What did I want my sermon to be?

The most profound lesson I learned was that history repeats itself.  There are many patterns in the scritpures: Nephi and Joseph of Egypt, Lehi's journey and Moses's exodus.  To correctly portray this lesson I decided to mash-up my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon, Alma 24, to a beloved hymn whose subject mirrors that of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's sacrifice.  So my talk became a parallel walking journey of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's conversion and the pioneer's trek to the Salt Lake Valley, through the words of Come, Come Ye Saints.  

"They would give up their own lives.."
And should we die, before our journey's through...

"And praised God even in the very act of perishing."
Happy Day!  All is Well.

"They are blessed, for they have gone to dwell with their God."
We then are free from sin and sorrow too, with the just we shall dwell.

"The people of God were joined that day by more than the number who had been slain."
But if our lives our spared again, to see the saints their rest obtain.

"Thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people. "
Oh how we'll make this chorus swell, "All is Well, All is Well."

I believed this form to be successful, as the point was to make comparisons that history and lessons of the Lord repeat themselves, that God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  There were several comments on the form as a style that they had never heard over the pulpit.