The Wisdom of Preaching

So this one’s for all the preachers out there.

For the longest time I gravitated toward a style of preaching that I liked more than another. I liked inductive, narrative style preaching (I still do). But the flip side of this preference is that I disdained most other ways of preaching. I’m not talking about just disliking other styles. I mean I really disdained preaching that wasn’t like mine. And what’s worse, I had theological reasoning for it. And the worst of all preaching (for me) was the practical/pragmatic kind. I didn’t like the kind of preaching (or preachers) that would put this grand story of God repairing the world on the bottom shelf. it seemed like they were dumbing it down, and that was not cool with me.

One of the things that I began to notice during my first few years of ministry, is how many converts I saw from Catholicism, or people coming from Presbyterian or Methodist, or other High churches. But, and here it what really started to confuse me at the time, I also saw a lot of the friends I went to Harding with, and who I had been going to church along side of move the other direction. People who had been raised up in Churches of Christ or Baptist or Pentecostal churches started finding a home in higher church traditions.

It seemed like both High church and Low church traditions had revolving doors on them.

And as I asked my incoming and outgoing friends why they were leaving or coming and they had an interesting response. For the people coming from higher church traditions, they loved the story aspect of the sermons, and how accessible they were. They had been participating in rituals for most of their lives, but had often failed to understand the significance behind them. For the people leaving these lower traditions, they were actually drawn to the ritual of it all. The stained glass, the pomp of a person moving through liturgy that had been going on for thousands of years.  READ MORE

The Next Christians and U2

So I’m on Sabbatical for the next few weeks from preaching. Leslie and I are so thankful for the wisdom of the Highland shepherds to work into every the rythymn of every year a season for rest and long term planning. We’ve spent the last few days with friends and family in Arkansas, swimming in rivers, shooting skeet and riding four wheelers…Yes I know, how very metropolitan of us.

But before this week, on the very first day of my sabbatical I got a chance to go to my first U2 concert. For over a decade I’ve listened to Bono sing about the Kingdom of God in sometimes cryptic and sometimes explicit ways. They are by far my favorite band, and Saturday night reminded me of why.

The faith of U2 has been the topic of a dozen books, and a thousand sermons. Bono has led the world in issues of justice and even said some very prophetic things to the leading powers of the world. He’s been espoused by people like Rick Warren as an authentic Jesus follower, and demonized by more conservative Christians who just couldn’t understand a “secular” rock star singing about Jesus stuff.

But that’s exactly what they are.

We live in such a superficial culture. If you ever doubt that, just TIVO the show Toddlers and Tiara’s one time. And it might be easy to try and write U2 off as one more example. But before the concert began we watched on the big screen statistics about world poverty, deaths from disease/poverty/abortion/war…which is not what you might expect before a rock concert. And yes, they were rock stars. Bono is the best showman I’ve ever seen. But it’s all connected to something larger. READ MORE

Contentment

Don’t watch this video first.

So after last week’s post about David and Bathsheba, I couldn’t help but keep rolling that genius little parable over and over again in my mind. That’s the thing about Scripture, there are so many layers and levels to it, that each AHA moment is really only scratching the surface of what is there. For example…

After last week’s post, I was reading in 1st Samuel, there David is still a soldier. He’s not quite the King of Israel yet, but it’s just around the corner. King Saul’s dynasty is unraveling fast, and David has spent the last couple of years trying to hide out and wait for Saul to get all the crazy out of his system. But now David’s supplies are starting to run down, and he’s trying to make a living for he and the soldiers under him off the land.

Here’s how that worked back then. David would protect the flocks and harvest of the citizens who lived around there, he’d keep bandits and wild animals away from their herds and then he would hope for other people to be generous in return for his services. It’s kind of like a smaller version of when someone washes your windshield at a stoplight and then asks you for a dollar.

One of these people David helped was a wealthy man named Nabal. He owns a thousand goats (which is always a good way to measure wealth) and 3000 sheep, and when David asks for some payment for helping to keep his large flocks alive…Nabal (whose name means fool) gets really, really angry. He tells these soldiers that they will go no such help from him, and that his stuff is going to remain his stuff.  READ MORE

The Sexuality of Power

Ask any Jewish person about their day in the sun, and they might mention Abraham, they’d give Moses some respect, but I would bet almost everyone would eventually land on King David. He was, after all, a man after God’s own heart. Not to mention that he helped usher Israel into their most prosperous time in history. They lived in the promised land and everything was right with the world.

One of the things that is interesting to me about the way we talk about David is how easily we parse his life. We either talk about his giant killing days or his wise rule as King…Or we talk about his dark side. The Scandal of Bathshebagate.  I can understand why we tell that story, as far as bible stories go, it’s got it all. Murder, adultery, betrayal, and lust. It’s like a late night movie channel special.

Or it’s like any political leader today.

I’ve spent the better part of last week trying to avoid any comment on Congressman Weiners’ recent “exposure” in the media. It was difficult, (sidenote: this exercise helped me to realize just how low my maturity level was). The sad part for me was that I like Congressman Weiner, I had seen him on several interviews and he seemed personal, compassionate and intelligent. But after the sad turn of events of the past few weeks have taken it’s toll, it’s easy to start demonizing him, but…. READ MORE

(Script)ure.

The Whole Sweep Of Scripture from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

If you were to read just the first few chapters of Genesis and then the last few chapters of Revelation, there’s a chance you would recognize that these two authors, separated by thousands of years, and a million cultural differences, were writing in a conversation with one another. Revelation was a distinct, separate book at the time. It wasn’t bound by leather into a collection with 65 other books. It stood on it’s own.

But that’s what makes the whole Scripture so interesting. Because these books were written indepedently, but they are not independent. They depend on each other, they are interwoven, sharing themes and language….and most importantly, a story.

I love N.T. Wright’s point here. “We must learn to read the parts in light of the whole.” READ MORE

Trophies

“Back in my day, kids actually had to win something to get trophies.” -Craig Groeschel

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”-St. Paul

So it’s been 17 years since a team I’ve rooted for has won a championship in anything. For those of you keeping score, that means I was barely a teenager the last time I’ve felt like I do this morning. There is something pretty remarkable about watching a team you care about reach what they had been chasing for so long.

I’ve said a lot over the past couple of weeks, that this series is the most captivating basketball I’ve seen since the days of the Bulls/Jazz. Maybe it’s because of Dirk’s playing sick, or the fourth quarter comebacks, maybe it’s because of the closeness of the games or because both teams had so much on the line.

But there is something deeper here too.

The author Donald Miller points out that the book Friday Night Lights was actually written about a season that the Permian Panthers lost the championship in. The book could have ended differently, the Panthers won the Texas State Championship the very next year, but the author chose not to tell that story. And what is interesting is why.

He chose to tell the story about the previous year, the one they lost, because that year they tried harder. Even though they lost, they played with more passion and sacrificed more to get there. And that, according to Donald Miller, is what matters.

It’s also what makes the Mavericks season so great. READ MORE