What sort of a world would it be

if we treated our fellow humans like we want to be treated?

What sort of workplaces would we have if we treated our colleagues as we would want to be treated? Our supervisors and bosses? Our employees?

What sort of families would we have? What sort of marriages? Relationships between children and parents?

What sort of schools would we have? How would faculty treat students? How would students relate to their teachers? Administration, parents, interested individuals?

What sort of churches would we have? Servant-Leaders? How would the ministry structure and practice change? How would church politics be changed?

Instead of living in this way (which is the way the truth of the gospel is made manifest in our lives for the world to see), we prefer suspicion, resentment, rumor, mistrust, greed, politics and self-promotion.

If we will live the gospel we will live it in the ordinary moments of life. If the way of Christ is to be seen in our lives it will be seen in the lives we lead in all of the above (and dozens more) "areas" of our lives. The gospel is a story to be lived as we die to self and sin and are raised to live in Christ. Its time to stop fragmenting and sectioning off our lives into those areas which we will allow to be gospeled and those we reserve for our own selfish needs. Its time for us to stop abstracting the gospel and start practicing the gospel: in our churches, in our schools, in our businesses, in our relatinships, in our homes, in our lives.


Grace and peace.

If you had it your way

what sort of preaching/teaching ministry would you have? This is for you preacher-types, but more so for you pew-sitters like me.

I'm a teacher, not a "preacher." Even when I preach, I preach like a teacher, not like a "preacher." I don't do jokes, I don't do poems, I don't have three rhyming or alliterative points, and if I had my druthers I wouldn't offer an invitation. The word can well convict by itself; the word doesn't need a preacher begging for response.

If I had it my way, and if I preached regularly (doubtful that I ever will after this post ;)), I would combine my Sunday morning class and the Sunday sermons. Seems to me our churches need more scripture, not more variety of scripture. Let me explain: check into any run-of-the-mill Church of Christ (perhaps others for that matter) and I'll bet that what you'll find is a class-offering that runs the canon from end to end. One series in the Sunday AM class(-es); another for the AM sermon; another for the PM sermon; and still another for Wednesday class(-es).

Wow.

It's one thing to be there every time so you're not out of step with the flow of things; its another to be astute enough to remember where you left off in each of these classes/sermons. I'm particularly speaking to churches that go through books from start to finish. You topical-study folks have another thing going. I'm not a fan of that either, by the way, but that is another post.

Here's what I'd prefer. I'd like the whole church (kids and adults alike) to live in a book for months at a time. I'd like to do the exegetical leg-work in a Sunday AM class (ideally over coffee with small group discussions from time to time). I'd like appropriate coordination between children's classes and adult classes. Families ought to study the same text each week. The sermon ought to be proclamation of the message of the text of the week. The sermon should assume the exegetical detail, not rehash it. The sermon should trace out the theological message of the text and begin to apply it. The sermon should announce the message of the text and call the church into encounter with the text. Sunday evening small-groups can further discuss the implications of the text for our lives as disciples-in-community. It'd be great to discuss the text over a Sunday evening common meal.

Having done all of that, I'd love to devote Wednesday evenings (if we'll keep them) wholly to prayer and worship. No classes. The last thing we need, given our hectic pace of life, is a mid-week lecture. We need prayer and worship in the middle of our week. We need middle-of-the-week peace.

We'd get a far way along in our grasp of the implications of the text this way. This arrangement can dispense with the silliness of an arbitrary 13-week cycle. Who came up with that anyway? We'd be able to really spend time with a text, inhabit the world of that text, and then enter into the world that text imagines for us. What's the rush?

I'd like to think that churches could well follow the academic year for this kind of study (that's the teacher in me speaking). One book from September-April. Think a church would know a book of scripture well in 7-8 months? You bet they would. And I venture it would be a better knowledge than what we would get with hop-scotch-through-the-canon. Summer gives flexibility for vacations, special series, and a host of creative activities. Special services and holidays throughout the year are always appropriate.

No doubt there are dozens of objections to this. Even so, I think it would well worth it.

Just me thinking.

Grace and peace.

New Podcast

I preached at Central Church, Sunday September 11, the story of Scripture. We have a link to it on the church's site. My thesis is that if we will navigate well the world in which we live, we will do so because we know well the story of Scripture. The very structure of the story - where it begins, where it goes and where it will end - will form us, shape us, equip us, and comfort us.

Bible study in the particulars of any given text is needed, useful and helpful. Indeed, God meets us in the diligent, responsible and faithful proclamation of his word. But, that said, my aim in this sermon is not to give new teaching, or even necessarily exegetical or expository teaching, but to trace out the Biblical story in a "big picture" sort of fashion. We need particular preaching; we also need to hear the story as story. We need good exegesis; we also need a sense of the whole of the Bible. We need to know where we came, from, where we are, and where we are going. We need to be formed by the whole panorama of Scripture. We need to be grounded in the fabric of the metanarrative.

Particularly for this September 11 there is no way I could begin to address the problem of evil, the issues of moral and natural evil, disasters and terrorism and how we, as people of faith, ought to navigate our lives. At least I can't do it well in one sermon. Theodicy quickly done is theodicy poorly done. So my goal is to rehearse the story and thereby open us up to think in terms of the big picture of Scripture. I can do that in one sermon.

By the way, I don't often preach. More often than not I'm preaching one sermon here, one sermon there. Occasionally I do both services on Sunday. I have done a few weeks at a time. Were I to preach regularly I would spend much of the time in entire books. I sense another post forming here; I'll come back to that thought.

I say all of that to invite you to listen, critique it, think on it, be encouraged by it. I have already critiqued myself: in listening to it again, I immediately I regret not discussing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We are blessed by the earnest of the Spirit. I didn't even touch on that in the sermon; I should have. That is a powerful message we need to hear. That God is present to the church and to the world is a message we need to hear. Perhaps you can help me see the story better. What did I miss?

Grace and peace.

Grace and peace

to you, friend.

Thanks for dropping in.

May your heart be filled with the refreshing and sustaining grace of God in Christ. May the love of God touch the depths of your soul. May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit of God be your Help and Advocacy today.

May you love the Lord with your heart and soul and mind and strength. May the gracious blessing of God flow from him to you to others as you love them.

Grace and peace to you, friend.