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Intro
My first time interviewing with a conference to become a pastor was my senior year at southern.
I wanted to work for a particular conference, so naturally they were the first of my scheduled interviews when 3 conferences came to interview.
That evening I was told they went in a different direction.
They along with the other 2 conferences were looking to hire one of my best friend’s instead.
I later found out when I had shared some of my life experience, that particular conference was looking someone who had work experience outside of the church.
Looking back I completely understand their rationale, but at the time, I interpreted it is as, I didn’t have a good enough testimony.
I like testimonies!
They are tangible examples where you can see the real fruits of God’s work.
Testimonies help us get to know and understand each other better.
I’ve also found that testimonies help us get along with each other better.
Testimonies always bring us back to the cross.
However testimonies, now written on people’s hearts, are rarely the same.
They do help us better understand each other and love each other.
Testimonies inspire compassion in us for even those whom we have disagreements with.
When you understand someones personal journey and struggles you can better find the ability to empathize…because you can see that God has clearly been at work in the individual’s life.
I am always amazed as I talk to many of you to hear about your life’s journeys.
Some of you have lived quite the lives!
God has taken many of you to some pretty incredible destinations.
God has also brought many of you out of some awfully significant pits.
One constant I hear from so many of you is that “God never gave up on me.”
Some of you are in the midst of trial.
I think many of the trials you are currently facing will one day be shared as a powerful testimony of God’s endurance of seeking the lost and healing wounds in which we bare.
In one of my previous sermons, I talked about God’s amazing grace.
The amazing thing about grace is that it is given to us almost as a safety net, so that we don’t have to live a life in fear.“
Mrs. White says: It is God who taking the first step in humankind’s salvation, yearns over lost humanity and desires to bring them back to him.
God’s grace alone can quicken the faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness.
God’s work of grace upon all beings, as a result of Christ’s death on the cross prepares them to receive His offer of salvation.
Those of you who have shared with me elements or all of your testimony talk about, not what you did, through all of your hard work, but have always given credit to God for his work within you.
Did I mention, I like testimonies?
:-) Today I am going to share 3 testimonies.
One I found in a book I’ve read ; another is found in the Bible, and the last is part of my own personal testimony.
My hope is today you will leave hear inspired to examine further the testimony God has written on your heart.
Before we go further, lets take a moment to pray.
I’m going to share with you now the story of Roberta Langela.
Roberta began her life in a seemingly happy and stable home, living in Brooklyn New York.
Her family was devout Catholic, and her father worked as a longshoreman providing a steady income for a family that included 6 kids.
When Roberta was 11 years old though her parents marriage ended and she and her siblings were on their way to Florida living with her mom.
Roberta says, “I couldn’t believe it, I was taught families stick together.
If you couldn’t rely on the adults in your life, who could you rely on?
I was shattered!”
She says within a year or 2 she was already smoking pot and drinking, actually purposely acting out of her unhappiness.
Her Mother did eventually remarry, but that made life even more contentious, among her siblings, mother and now step-father.
Things got so bad, at age 16 Roberta moved back to New York to live with her father.
That living situation wasn’t any better and within a couple months, Roberta dropped out of school, and ran away from home completely criss-crossing the country on her own (still only 16 years old.)
She says that within a year she back in New York living with a man twice her age.
She says, “I just wanted somebody—anybody— to love me and take care of me.”
Unfortunately the man she was living with was an IV drug abuser.
She says, before long, they were both on cocaine and then heroin.
Roberta overdosed several times.
Roberta said, on one terrible night in 1980, she had shot up on so many drugs her heart actually stopped beating.
Her boyfriend at the time ditched her thinking she was dead and was afraid to have to answer questions.
She said luckily someone did call the paramedics and her able to revive her.
At this time in her life, Roberta was sure of only one thing, and that was no one cared about her.
She went from new boyfriend to new boyfriend because, as she writes, said she was terrified to be alone.
She lived in a rundown apartment above a church with one boyfriend who would beat her endlessly.
Every time though, she would beg him not to leave her.
She recounts, one instance on a sunday afternoon, she threatened her boyfriend, “I’m going to take my life!”
He was sprawled out on the couch watching the Jets game.
He didn’t even look up saying, “talk to me at halftime!”
He didn’t even care.
One thing that kept Roberta going was, that she never seemed to have trouble finding work.
She would work as a bartender in after hour clubs deep into the night.
She would then proceed to participate in afterparties, where looking back she understood there was definitely a strong demonic presence.
She writes, these were the parties even craziest people found to be to much.
Violence and drugs were everywhere, it was a miracle she didn’t die at one of those parties.
She writes she’d head back to her home around 9 a.m. on sunday mornings and find people lining up walking in the church she lived above.
This church was one some of you have heard of, the now famous Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Roberta said she would walk by these people who would be smiling, some would even look at her smiling and invite her in, but she declined angrily.
Other people being happy made her sick!
They made her so angry inside, she would go home even angrier.
She says though, one thing she could not escape was the music.
Some of you I’m sure aware the Brooklyn tabernacle have become most famous for their great choir.
Songs such as “How Jesus Loves” and “I’m clean” made their way through the walls and into Roberta’s ears.
She recounts breaking down weeping several times in response to the music.
Eventually, or as Roberta, puts it, as expected her relationship with her live-in boyfriend deteriorated and came to and in.
Very quickly she was in another relationship and moved in with another man on the upper-east side of Manhatten.
She recounts though, although she no longer lived above a church, she still could hear a neighbor singing every morning hymns of praise.
She met the woman in the hallway, and said to her, “I hear you singing all the time, are you a musician?
The woman replied, not really but I sing in my church choir…In fact, roberta found out this lady sang in the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir whose music she had heard so many times.
She couldn’t believe the touching music had followed her and touched her although she desired not to be touched.
Meanwhile, her drug and alcohol use intensified, she began selling furniture to buy drugs with.
One night finally she expressed to a friend.
“I think I have a drug problem.”
noting this was the understatement of the century.
This was an important step for her, expressing a desire to live differently.
She then proceeded to zero in on the biggest problems in her life.
One was her drug addict boyfriend being high all the time.
She kicked him out.
Isn’t it often the case though, when we begin to make strides in our lives and God reveals what changes in our life needs to be made, the devil seeks to clamp his talons in deeper.
Roberta, again found herself in another relationship, this time with a man who was clean.
However, even though he didn’t use drugs, she found drugs to be even more a temptation because this man was a drug dealer!
Very soon she began shooting up again.
Her desire to be clean was still present in her though.
She finally reached out to her mother, who in the meantime had become a Christian.
Roberta told her about her life, and then couldn’t stop sharing.
Her mother calmly replied by inviting her to come spend a couple days with her in Florida.
Those couple days turned in 14 months.
Her mother got her into a Narcotics anonymous program and finally Roberta got clean.
She was even able to get her GED.
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