Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christian Ministry

  • It Was All God – Pride or Humility?

    The gentleman came to me with a sheaf of papers after a meeting at which I was speaking. “I’d like you to read this,” he said, holding them out to me.

    Now this was before I had started publishing, not that I haven’t had related experiences since. But even so, this gentleman wanted me to tell him whether he should seek a publisher. In our conversation, it actually became clear that what he wanted to hear was that his manuscript was great and he should urgently seek a publisher. He wanted affirmation, not discernment.

    He looked right at me and said: “God gave me all of this. These aren’t my words. I couldn’t have written them. It was all God.”

    There are at least two ways to take a statement like that. The first is that the man believed that what he was holding in his hand was something good. (For the record, it wasn’t. I can’t tell you it was wrong; it was simply too incoherent for me to be certain.) He might then be humbly saying that he could not do this on our own. It is good for us to remember that without God, we are not. Period!

    But there is another sense in which such a statement might be made, and I have sensed it in many cases, and this is to try to force someone to pay more attention. It might be that the writer is concerned about the quality and wants to catch the reader’s intention. It might be that the writer lacks credentials and believes that the claim that God did it is the only thing that will give the contents weight.

    When People Speak for God front cover

    I commit an entire chapter of my book When People Speak for God to this topic in a chapter titled Practical Considerations of Hearing. The problem is that we are all too willing to make the claim to be speaking for God in the church today without realizing how serious such a claim is.

    In charismatic communities this often comes out very directly, with people claiming to speak prophetic words frequently. Now I want to be clear that I believe God can and does speak. If I could summarize the thesis of my book in the size of a tweet, it would be, “God always speaks; we rarely listen.” (That line doesn’t occur in the book itself, but it does summarize the thought.) But in Old Testament times the claim to be a prophet was serious. The penalty for being a false prophet was death.

    When discussing someone’s claim to be a prophet, I have been told a number of times over the last few years that one cannot always throw strikes. Now when we’re praying for one another, advising one another, sharing what we believe we heard from God in our devotional time, that’s quite true. The key in each of those cases is that we’re talking about what we have understood and not claiming that we are directly passing on a message from God for the hearer. But the attitude that dismisses claims of false prophecy as unimportant cannot, in my view, be reconciled with any scriptural view of prophecy.

    Those who don’t believe in modern prophecy shouldn’t feel left out, however. A preacher in the pulpit, proclaiming God’s word needs to take that point very seriously. If I pridefully proclaim my own view as God’s view, not acknowledging that I am a broken vessel pouring out God’s word as I best understands it, and inviting you to search for yourself and hear God for yourself, I am in danger of the same fault. I could be said to “speak presumptuously” (Deut. 18:17-22) and one need not read far to find the penalty for that.

    I think that this is another of those Christian paradoxes, however, like the incarnation. It is clearly impossible for Jesus to be 100% God and 100% human at the same time, yet that is precisely what I believe. It is (humanly) impossible to proclaim God’s word with full conviction and complete humility, yet I see that as the call to those who preach and teach.

    The canon of scripture as we have it consists of materials that were read many times over the centuries by God’s people with the resulting conviction that this is God speaking. Sometimes the prophets said specifically “this is what God says.” At other times we have extended writing that doesn’t make that announcement. In discussing canonization, we often fail to emphasize the fact that the body of believers that made the canon a formal canon was already using roughly those books. Why? I believe it is because they heard God speaking in them.

    Whatever the format by which I present God’s word, whether in a blog post, in writing, in teaching, in a sermon or a private conversation, the key issue will be this: Do people hear God through me? When I make the claim, I am in danger of pride. I don’t deny that God may call on a prophet to say “This is what God has to say.” He certainly has. I don’t deny that God may call on a preacher to say, “This is the word of the Lord” when he preaches.

    But the most important thing is that the preacher or teacher actually gets out of the way and lets the Holy Spirit work. If I get out of the way, people will recognize what God is saying to them, often when I have said it very poorly. As a friend of mine said in a recent sermon, it’s a miracle that people ever hear God’s word when he’s standing in the pulpit. And he’s a pretty good preacher!

    When I am weak, then I am strong! – 2 Corinthians 12:10

  • Could You Use This Video about YOUR Church?

    Though I think I might ask myself the next question. Will I grow spiritually after I get there? The atmosphere of grace is, I believe, most conducive to growth!

    (HT: Kouya Chronicle)

  • Reflections on Church and The Jesus Paradigm

    As a publisher I have the joy of spending a great deal of time with a book as it goes through the process of publication. I don’t expect you to read my thoughts on The Jesus Paradigm as anything like a review, but there are some special things about this book and the way it has influenced me as I worked on it.

    I like to think of my business as a ministry, which is “churchese” for “service.” It is my intent to serve both the church and the community with materials that challenge and educate. Now don’t get me wrong here. For a small publisher, signing an author who has written nearly as many books as the company has published is a sound business decision. I didn’t decide to sacrifice myself in service and publish this book contrary to my better judgment. It’s a good book; it’s a book that is likely to sell quite well; it’s also a book that is kingdom building.

    Now as I frequently must, let me warn you that I’m going to be writing quite a few words. I’ve been thinking about the concept “church” for a long time and struggling with many things. This is also largely addressed to a Christian audience, so it may well bore others. Read on at your own risk!

    What happened with this book was that a number of things I’ve been thinking about, things that have challenged me over the years, came into sharper focus while I was editing and preparing it for the printer.

    I traditionally point out about now that I disagree with some things in a book I’ve published, and that this is a good thing rather than a bad thing. That’s part of developing brand identity since in a company founded by one person, it’s easy to confuse the person with the company.

    But in this case I think anyone who looks at the header of this blog and reads a few essays, and then does the same thing on Dave Black Online will be in no danger of confusing the two of us.

    What I think I need to emphasize instead is just how much I agree with in this book, and the tremendous value I find even in the things about which I have reservations (ecclesiology) or differences in emphasis (hermeneutics-maybe).

    In my personal testimony I note how I left church after my seminary training (MA, not MDiv) because I then regarded Christianity as a total “one-way street” surrender. I note that at the time:

    Some Christians argued with me that such a total surrender as I described was not required, but I could not see a partial surrender to God at the time, and I still can’t do so.

    Despite believing that, I have struggled with how to put that into practice, particularly in church life. The extent to which “church” doesn’t work, or perhaps doesn’t appear to be what it seems the Bible points to, has continued to bother me.

    Let me list some of the threads of thinking that have bothered me.

    (1) Again as I note in my testimony, I felt God’s call to ministry as I was registering for the second year of a pre-law program. I switched to Biblical languages. Unfortunately I found that while many people would talk about a lack of Biblical knowledge in the pews, the church had no place for a teacher who was not also ready to pastor a church. I observed that pastors got overloaded and rarely had a chance to actually teach.

    (2) If you look at most pastors and then write up a job description as you might for a business, you will see a job that nobody can actually perform. Our pastors cannot lead, teach, and equip, because they are so busy doing, and not necessarily doing the things that truly go with their calling.

    (3) I grew up with missionary parents who were truly dedicated to their work. By this I mean being willing to go out to serve God at risk of life and limb and at times depending on God for their next meal. I spent four years in southern Mexico, and then three in Guyana (South America) and while we were in the United States, they worked in underserved areas.

    In this process I experienced a number of things:

    • I experienced mission trips as loading up mules and backpacks and hiking to a village, or in Guyana getting in a boat and heading up river. This gave me a different view of “discomfort” than I have encountered in various short term missions in which I have been involved.
    • I experienced worship and teaching in circumstances that varied from outdoors under trees to small, simple churches that were no more than walls and a roof. I have felt the presence of God in places most Americans would regard as unusable.
    • I learned that “mission” was not necessarily something you did in somebody else’s country

    (4) By contrast, I have sat in American churches that would be inconceivably luxurious while people debated the color of the carpet for hours. Somehow I just couldn’t get into it. We’re replacing chandeliers that don’t look just right; Christians somewhere else are trying to do the minimum necessary to keep out the rain.

    (4) I have wondered just how we could create a church that would carry out the work of the gospel as its primary mission. I don’t like evaluating ministry purely on a numbers basis, but I believe that you can often calculate what real priorities are by looking at where the money goes and secondarily by looking at how time is used. By this measure the priority of American churches in general is neither social service nor gospel preaching but rather self-maintenance.

    Enter The Jesus Paradigm. In a sense it is almost fitting that the author, Dave Black, contracted Malaria while in Ethiopia and the book was released while he was in the hospital. As I have noted recently in writing about 2 Corinthians, the person can be inextricably linked with the written message. Paul didn’t want to boast, but he had to, while at the same time defending himself from the charge of weakness by claiming that he was weak.

    In some of the reviews and in comments brought to me personally there have been questions about a number of things that are either lacking in the book or that people question. I’m not going to try to defend this book by saying that every word is absolutely correct and will stand the test of time. I’m not trying to make Dave Black into a prophet or incorporate his book into the canon of scripture.

    These questions relate to ecclesiology and the lack of extended practical directions, both of which I will address, and the political commentary, which I will not.

    One major question has been the lack of detailed practical advice on how to put the message of this book into practice. I don’t like to criticize reviewers as a publisher, but I think that criticism misses the point.

    The way you put this into practice is by prayerful, constant surrender to Jesus. Read John 6:28-29. The problem is that we want a checklist, a program, or at least a detailed guide. The fact is that we have one–scripture brought to the moment by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    I recall from my experience here in Pensacola with the Brownsville Revival. Now please lay aside your issues with what was being done in that revival. I’m not pointing to Brownsville as an example. Pastors and church leaders would come from far away and they would want whatever it as they perceived that Brownsville had. So they would go back home and try to apply what they had seen at Brownsville.

    They would use the same music, not just the same style but the same songs. They would organize their services in the same way. They would try to style their preaching after the revival preacher Steve Hill. Then they would wonder why it didn’t work.

    It didn’t work because kingdom service is not a program, nor is it a checklist, nor is it an organizational manual. It’s a surrender.

    If you don’t know how to do this, dig into Acts and the Epistles, though only after you’ve thoroughly dug into the gospels. Spend your time in prayer and study and in listening to what God has to say to you. You will find ways to put the Jesus paradigm into action.

    Another issue is with ecclesiology. How can this material be applied to a different structure of church than just Baptist? Here we may certainly have many disagreements as to details. These are good to discuss with the proper spirit.

    I can look at this from my Seventh-day Adventist background and now as a United Methodist, and I think that the most critical thing here s the way church leadership thinks of themselves and behaves. I believe a Methodist church pastor could spread the Jesus paradigm through the committees of teams of his church structure just as boards of elders can do so in other church structures.

    But the bottom line, in my view, has to be more revolutionary, but again I think it applies to all different structures. The issue is this: Where do our resources go? Do they serve our desires or do they serve others? As I have looked at the church budgets of the churches I have attended over the last few years, the vast majority of the budget goes to buildings and staff salaries, and the staff is largely charged with maintaining the members that are already there.

    As long as we’re spending the majority of our money on maintenance, we’re not going to be reaching people as we should either in social services or in proclamation of the Christian message.

    This is why I’m so delighted to have the opportunity to publish The Jesus Paradigm, and yes, to have the opportunity to market it as well. It will challenge us to apply this “downward path of Jesus” (also a phrase from the book) to our circumstances wherever we are. It will direct us to Jesus himself and the early church to find ways of doing that.

    I don’t think this will necessarily be simple, but I think it’s time for us to be praying, thinking, and listening for the Holy Spirit in regard to how we can accomplish it. Otherwise, our churches are just an extremely expensive and annoying form of social club.

  • Do We Live What We Believe

    When one edits a book, one has an extraordinary opportunity to think multiple times about some of the statements. In the case of a revolutionary book such as The Jesus Paradigm, which is in the final stages before release, there are quite a number of such sentences.

    One of these impressed me enough that I quoted it on Twitter, and also used it in an ad for another book on discipleship. It reads:

    The key to church renewal is very simple: every follower of Jesus is to live what is believed.

    Now on the face of it, it’s a fairly straightforward statement. I have very often said myself that the one tool of evangelism I would prefer above all others is a church congregation living the message of Jesus. Now please don’t bother with comments about legalism and about how we are not perfect. Certainly none of us are perfect. I’m not even close to a candidate for that adjective.

    But “I’m not perfect” quickly becomes an excuse for any level of inaction. Jesus does give commands, such as “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). One suspects that Jesus anticipated some sort of response to this command.

    So I think this little sentence expresses a critical principle of renewal in the church.

    But then I started thinking of it the other way around. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who is an atheist. Somehow the misbehavior of a televangelist came up in conversation and after we discussed a particular incident, she said, “You know, Henry, if I believed in God I would be terrified to do something like that.”

    I carried that sentence in my head, and even used it in a sermon that I titled “Practical Atheism.” (It was on a Sunday night, and was one of the best attended services, if I remember correctly! Perhaps many Christians would like to know how to be atheists.) I told this story and then quoted Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart: ‘There is no God.’” I suggested that in the modern world, an atheist observing our church services–and our reactions to them–might not be a fool to say “There is no God.” He might simply be observant.

    This keeps coming back to me as I study through Leviticus again. It isn’t a popular book, to a great extent because very few people understand it. It takes lots of work to understand, and even then there is much that is very difficult.

    But there are a few themes that are very clear. First, approaching the holy is both desirable, even essential. Second, approaching the holy is dangerous. Third, God’s presence is powerful and active. Things change when God gets involved. I’m not going to develop or support these themes; I’ll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say that they seem quite clear to me.

    These days, however, I hear frequently about the presence of God. “Wow! God was really present in our worship service this morning. I could feel it!” Now don’t take me as deriding the idea that one can feel the presence of God, though I prefer to say that God is present everywhere and everywhen, and we should discuss how aware we are of his presence.

    What I do question is how God can be especially present at so many worship services with so little impact. People go back again and again to experience the presence of God and then leave and go on living in the same way.

    Either we are not experiencing the presence of God as much as we say we are, or that presence is having much less impact on us than it should.

    I’m afraid it may come back to belief. We need to practice what we believe. That’s true. But is there another dirty secret in many of our churches–that we don’t actually believe the stuff we claim. I’m not talking here about doctrinal statements or theological propositions. I’m talking about belief that there is a God and that he does have expectations, that he might get involved in our lives in some way.

    Perhaps if we become certain that this is important we can get on with discussing those particular beliefs more effectively. I don’t know, but I’d like to try.

    So let me ask one question, of myself as well as of my readers:

    Do we really believe what we say we believe?

    I think that if we do, we’re going to live it, or to express it better, let Jesus live it through us.

  • A Bowdlerized Lectionary Passage

    There are a number of lectionary selections that skip part of a passage. Sometimes this is for time. Sometimes it relates to topic, but sometimes it is simply used to remove material that might offend.

    I like lectionary preaching and teaching. I think it forces pastors to get out of their comfort zones and expound on passages they might otherwise not read. I don’t think it’s the only way to go. I think preaching through the Bible has a place, as does topical preaching. But topical preaching is especially subject to the limitations of a pastor’s particular interests.

    Further, I like a worship service that includes all four passages of the lectionary. As Christians we have remarkably little patience for hearing the scripture. I sometimes get the feeling that people prefer the sermon because it has less Bible in it. I have encountered very few services that do include all the passages, but I have truly been blessed by those that do.

    But having said all of that, the Revised Common Lectionary can get no my nerves, and this week was a case in point. The Old Testament passage is from 2 Samuel 6. The story, as told in 2 Samuel, brings out many aspects of worship as seen then in Israel.

    We start with the ark of the covenant in exile, away from the center of Israelite life. David wants to bring the ark to Jerusalem, so he proceeds to do so joyfully. But joy is turned to sorrow when Uzzah tries to steady the ark and is struck dead.

    Now I know that’s a difficult passage in the Old Testament, but you might as well not try to understand the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures at all if you don’t want to recognize that the writers viewed contact with the holy as a very dangerous thing. (This is one of the difficult passages that my friend Alden Thompson discusses in his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?.

    After the ark is kept in a home for a time, David again comes to move it to Jerusalem with better preparation. The story ends with David dancing before the Lord, and his wife Michal despises him for it.

    Besides the inherent danger of approaching that which is holy, this story also illustrates the combination of fear and joy. We want to separate the fear of the Lord from the joy of the Lord these days. We don’t understand how these things can co-exist. But the Bible writers had no such problem.

    Now what about the lectionary passage? Proper 10B gives us 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19. This splits the story as all the people are making merry and before Uzzah touches the ark in 6:6, then resumes it when David starts taking the ark on from the house of Obed-Edom. It skips 6:12a which tells us how David is motivated to do so when he sees that Obed-Edom is blessed while the ark is present.

    We now continue the joyful procession, with our scripture reading skipping a funeral and three months of time, heading on into Jerusalem. Presumably, the congregation is not supposed to ask just why the ark is in Obed-Edom’s house.

    Finally, the story ends with verse 19 as everyone goes home happy, and skips Michal’s story, which provides the other counterpoint. Worship can be destroyed by disobedience to God, but it can also be destroyed by those who despise the joy.

    You may tell me that people can read these additional passages for themselves, and that the extra reading will not contribute to the service. I don’t think one can be certain of these things. For many church people these days, the scripture reading is pretty much all the scripture they get.

    In this case, I think the story is made to say something completely different than it does in its full context. It’s like a different story all together.

  • All Tangled Up in Solutions

    Imagine being on a ministry committee with the responsibility for examining the plan for Jesus and his congregation (the disciples) going to Jerusalem that final week. What would you consider? What would you recommend?

    From my observations of the various decision making bodies in churches, I suspect there would have been a few people who would bring up good, practical business and political plans. After all, many claimants to the title of “Messiah” or “King of Judea” had come to bad ends. One should surely learn from their mistakes.

    The best management advice would have suggested not going to Jerusalem at all, or perhaps doing so incognito. Of course, without 20/20 hindsight, we know that the best possible business and political advice would have been completely wrong.

    Yet the pattern of decision making, and of evaluating decisions that would have avoided holy week is precisely the way in which we make and evaluate decisions in most of our churches.

    [Warning: I’m about to ramble!]

    I’ve been thinking about this recently because of the discussion amongst some Methodist blogs about measuring ministry. I started following this a bit when John Meunier wrote a post titled Check Day Every Week. In it, he tells us of Bishop Willimon’s (North Alabama Conference) new dashboard on the conference web site which informs all concerned–or not–of how each church in the conference is doing based on various measures.

    Now I have great respect for Bishop Willimon in many areas, but his dashboard profoundly troubles me. I wonder, for example, just what such a dashboard would have shown about the climax of Jesus’ ministry. That may be an unfair question, but it did occur to me.

    But then I read this post, It’s All in the Numbers, following a link from John Meunier again, and again I was profoundly troubled.

    Now again there is much to be admired here. There are many ways in which this church is truly living out the gospel in their community. Yet there are no professions of faith as of the time of the post, and just one baptism coming up.

    Now as I discuss this, please don’t mistake me for some sort of expert on church growth or pastoral ministry. (Actually, on re-reading, I see no chance that you would!) I studied Biblical languages in school. No church administration, no pastoral counseling, no ecclesiology. There are those who think that if you read Greek you can pretty much handle anything, but that’s not the case. On the other hand, I’ve been watching churches work–or not–since I can remember.

    What troubles me about Bishop Willimon’s dashboard is the question of just what “success” is in a Christian context and how it should be measured. I’ve been studying 2 Corinthians over the last couple of weeks and I’m profoundly impressed by Paul’s simple, yet incredibly challenging words: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” — 2 Cor. 11:30 (NRSV)

    So if I were a pastor or a congregational leader, should I want to show a dashboard that displays how many people I have brought to Christ, or how many I have baptized? How would “boasting of the things that show my weakness” work on a dashboard?

    Even further, looked at from a business standpoint I would have to ask just who takes responsibility for those stats. Do we account for the different locations and callings of all those churches?

    At the same time, I have to ask whether a church that is not growing, producing new spiritual life, is really doing the work of ministry. It’s surely not an indefinitely sustainable pattern. And there is, after all, the gospel commission. Evangelism may not be popular today, but it is a command. If we aren’t making disciples, just what are we up to?

    In a sense, we see an apparent conflict here between making disciples and being disciples. Of course, this conflict may be, and probably is, largely artificial. It’s likely that many of the churches who are bringing in new members, and thus making new disciples, are also being disciples. Those churches who are doing the work of ministry–being disciples–may be doing the work of witness, but are just plowing hard ground.

    It seems to me that what we look at is a set of methods or programs that we expect to help pastors solve these sorts of problems. There must be some method that one can use that will bring in more souls, make more disciples, produce a better church congregation and thus improve our witness.

    I know how desperate pastors are for these kinds of things, because sometimes they will even ask me. And you know, I really know nothing whatsoever about church growth programs. But right now, I’m thinking it’s worse when they ask the experts on church growth, because then they get a method or a program, and they try to apply it in their own church. Very often, it doesn’t work.

    In my own area–Biblical studies–I see this with the desire to find a program that will get one’s congregation studying the Bible. Church libraries and storerooms are overflowing with discarded material that was supposed to make the congregation more Biblically literate and build their enthusiasm for Bible study.

    I’m often asked what “program” I follow. Well, I have written some materials, but those materials will only work with one additional ingredient. For me, the only formula to generate more active and effective Bible study in your church is to be excited about study yourself, and let that infect others. (Hint: It’s part of discipling!)

    Similarly, I recall talking to many people during the Brownsville Revival here in Pensacola. People would come and observe Brownsville in action. They thought they wanted something similar in their own churches, anything to bring life to seemingly dead congregations. They would go home and try to implement the things that Brownsville did, and in general, it didn’t work.

    Why? I would suggest it’s because only discipleship begets discipleship, and I see this as a New Testament pattern. There is no program to produce true disciples. There is only the process of letting God take over. That is so hard. I like to hold onto my piece of the territory. Programs allow me to do that. They let me talk about my success, when I know very well that “God gives the increase.”

    As I was thinking about this post, I received a link to a new review (from unlikely christians) of the forthcoming book by David Alan Black, The Jesus Paradigm. (Full discloser: My company is publishing this book.) Now Dr. Black is a professor at a Southern Baptist seminary, and I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation. Between those two points there is a great gulf fixed–or is there?

    We have chosen to measure success in a manner that makes us feel comfortable: giving, attendance, etc. Nevermind that the “wildly successful” 500-member church is in a community where 1% of the population has really believed the gospel. This is success? Black offers another way:

    It is necessary that we view what we do on Sunday as merely the beginning, not the climax, of our work. In other words, we need to change the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the ministry of our churches. The question is not ‘how many attended on Sunday?’ but ‘What did those who attended on Sunday do during the week to advance Christ’s kingdom?’ This is what it means to be the People of God. It is a people who understand that the mission of the church is to fulfill God’s redemptive mission. (75)

    I’d like to comment here on the best way to disagree with a book, or even a person. A number of folks have pointed out to me how “Southern Baptist” Dr. Black is. But that can easily be an excuse to miss the point. The question is not what your structure is or which program you’re following, unless your structures or your programs are preventing you from truly following Jesus Christ. The challenge remains the same. It’s a good idea to talk about church polity and how it impacts our ministry, but first let’s get to the foundational principles.

    What Dr. Black is saying here is something I know my own pastor would preach. He has even begun adding “and your witness” to the areas in which new members are asked to support their church. I like hearing that. It says that we have a church hear to be a witness and to make disciples. Disciples carry out the ministry of Jesus loving one another as Jesus has first loved them.

    One of the questions I always ask someone when they ask me for suggestions about how to make their church grow spiritually and even in numbers, right after I tell them how deep my ignorance of the subject is, is this: What is the mission of your church?

    I’m amazed at how few people in the various congregations I’ve visited can state a mission for their congregation or even quote the written mission statement. I recall once asking a member what the mission statement of their church was. I was, in fact, looking at it written on a sign on the wall, but the member didn’t know.

    But let’s take a step behind that written mission statement. What is God’s mission for your church? We know it involves making disciples. And before we take the easy road, consider the answers that many of God’s servants through history have received. Their paths have been difficult and dry, often they have seen little measurable success in their own lifetimes, and frequently they wind up in fiery furnaces, facing lions, or hanging on crosses. There’s no program that’s going to handle all of those things!

    There is no substitute for prayerfully seeking God’s will for your church, then following it even when some dashboard doesn’t portray you in the best light.

    God is calling you to accomplish in your community what God can do, not what you can do. So break off all the tangled thread of solutions that were designed for someone else, get back to the basic gospel, and do what you need to do.

    Now that sounded like a conclusion, but I’m going to add one thing. I’m not against all programs and solutions that are suggested by others. I’m not against good business practices in church, with one critical proviso: All programs must be subordinated to the mission to which God has called you. To be honest, until you have the answer to that question, I don’t think you can possibly choose a workable program. After all, I can’t choose between my hammer and my saw until I know whether I want to pound in a nail or saw a board.

    Thanks for sharing in my ignorance and weakness here. Perhaps if we’ll all be weak, we’ll see an outbreak of strength in our churches–God’s strength.

  • Dave Black on Christians and Nationalism

    He posted an excellent article on his web site titled A Lesson from Ethiopia. Further comment at Mt. Tirzah Baptist Church.

  • Ministry Mistakes (or not)

    The Internet Monk has a list of his most bone-headed ministry mistakes. It’s worth a read. Some of them aren’t really mistakes, in my view. For example, #4:

    4. Two of my deacons made a big deal about me taking the a.m. service ten minutes too long two weeks in a row, and they humiliated me in front of the rest of the deacons over it. No affirmation of my preaching at all. Just p.o.-ed that I had gotten them to the restaurants a bit late. I was angry; really angry. The next week I preached for 12 minutes total and dismissed the service at 15 minutes till noon. The reaction was predictable. I actually consider that one of my finer moments. If your view of preaching is “How soon do I get to dinner?” you deserve to be accommodated.

    Enjoy!

  • Way to Go Omaha 1st UMC

    I really like this:

    Why do I like it? Because besides collecting some help for folks in need, this gives kids a taste of the experience of others. Hopefully it will stimulate their thinking and result in many new ideas as the years go by. We need to harness the imagination and energy of the young!

  • Are Sermons a Waste?

    It’s a day for questions! Ben Myers has a guest post by Aaron Ghiloni titled On sermons: a rant. Basically, he doesn’t like sermons. Really doesn’t like them.

    So as I sometimes do I brought this up with my wife as I was driving her to work. (Since I work at home we live with one car, and I do the grocery shopping on Fridays.) We started to list preachers whose preaching we liked.

    Now these preachers don’t demonstrate all the nasty characteristics listed in this post. In fact, in each case, we could name sermons by them that we really liked, and could definitely remember.

    When I say “really liked” I don’t necessarily mean that they made us feel warm and fuzzy. Very often, my favorite sermons when considered from a time well after, are sermons that annoyed me and more importantly convicted me when I first heard them.

    As we listed preachers and sermons, we noticed that there were very few things we could say these preachers had in common. I’m not going to list names, but we mentioned names of people with no graduate degrees and folks with doctorates, charismatics, liberals, and evangelicals, fiery exhorters and classroom lecturers.

    While my time in seminary was spent studying things like Akkadian and Middle Egyptian, not homiletics, I can gauage a sermon pretty well, and would say we included sermons that would have garnered seminary grades from A to C.

    So what did the good sermons and preachers have in common? The people preaching them are transparent and real. They are expressing things that God has convicted them of first. What you see is what you get.

    It’s interesting that I read two preachers this week who were open and transparent. This is so important. The notion that the preacher must be somehow spiritually above everyone else is destructive both to the congregation and to the pastor. When people who are acknowledged as leaders demonstrate transparency, it encourages others to do so as well.

    So my thanks to C. Michael Patton and David Alan Black (search for April 30 and then 8:27 AM) for being transparent. I share many of the difficulties they list.

    But then read this quote from Dave Black (May 1):

    … I have tried to live up to that example and have failed again and again. Listen, Dave, to the message of Mark’s Gospel. Hear it above the mockery that surrounds your failures. Hear it louder than your screaming fears about the impossible task. Hear it over and above your weaknesses and inadequacies. Jesus, at your word, I will follow you! At your word I will let down my net. At your word I will love as you love. At your word I will run again with your message. At your word I will dare to be your disciple. At your word I will keep on climbing!

    (If you want the full context, you’ll have to go read it on Dave Black’s blog.)
    While we’re transparent about our weaknesses, when we’re weak, he is strong.