Southmoon & A Cup of Java

Last Fall I read James Bryan Smith’s trilogy on Spiritual Formation.  The Good and Beautiful God, The Good and Beautiful Life and The Good and Beautiful Community.

Smith begins the series with the exploration of who God is, then moves on to the Life we are called to and in the third book in the series….. the calling to community….that is…..our call to be a part of the Church.   The terms “Good and Beautiful” suggest that God’s big idea has always been about involving all of creation in His project of setting to rights all that Satan has sought to disengage, dismantle and destroy.  ”Good and Beautiful” are terms which remind me of God’s own evaluation of Creation when He saw all that He had made and said, “it is good”.

In the Good and Beautiful Community, Smith reveals two conflicting narratives, one of  which leads to disillusionment and spiritual anemia or the other which leads to a robust faith based upon accountability and encouragement.  Here is a taste of Bryan’s insightful  observations in his own words:

False Narrative: The community serves my needs.  We live in a consumer culture.  Each day we are treated as a customer, and this leads us to believe we are entitled to have all of our needs met.  We have become spoiled…..While it may be true that treating churchgoers as consumers by trying to meet their stated needs may make them feel comfortable, by lowering our expectations of them as active participants we are decreasing the possibility of genuine transformation.  p. 129

True Narrative: The good and beautiful community is not made of merely comfortable Christians but Christlike men and women growing in their life with God and each other.  In order to become that kind of community we need a new narrative, a biblical narrative, to reshape our behavior.  Here is the new narrative regarding the rights and responsibility of the community:  The community exists to shape and guide my soul.  The community has a right to expect certain behavior from me, and can provide the encouragement and accountability I need. p. 129

Smith’s ideas resonate with my own observations of how people become disillusioned with unrealistic expectations about what being in a church community is about.   I have listened countless times to those who are ready to give up on church because “their needs are not being met” as if church is about providing proper “bang for the buck”.

While I agree that being in a church community should have benefits and meet needs, it has become far too commonplace that church members have fallen to the whims of what Smith terms  “a consumer culture”.    We have lost sight of the divine agenda of God to transform each us individually for His spiritual purposes.  Collectively as the church, we are called to participate with God in his project of bringing renewal, restoration and redemption to a world desperate to be given hope.

Ever since reading Mark Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase, I had anticipated reading more of his insightful and revealing and inspiring work.

Soul Print was not a disappointment. He writes with a purpose and a flair for turning the reader to an introspective consideration of spiritual truths. Soul Print concerns itself with the idea of our being made in the image of God and with a unique blend of gifts, traits and potentials that reveal to us God’s special purpose for our lives. Near the end of the book, he summarizes his thesis in this statement:

The soulprint is the truest reflection of God’s image. Locked within its vaults are your true identity and your true destiny. And part of what makes it mysterious is that it’s so multidimensional. It contains past, present, and future. It’s who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming. p. 146

The reader will find within Batterson’s book, insights into the personal struggles and precise moments when the author reveals having seen God’s purpose in his life. The book concludes with a section devoted to small group exploration of the ideas found within.

Small groups, book clubs, and conversations over coffee, will benefit from the springboards of thought provided by Batterson.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

All too infrequently Christian perspectives are given which seek to glamorize the Godly life as easy, convenient and happy.

If you read Crabb’s book with that anticipation you will be disappointed and perhaps even a little miffed.  The book, Shattered Dreams supports the idea that rich and deep and full relationships with God only come about when individuals learn to embrace the hope that transcends heartache and disappointment and pain.   In Crabb’s own words:

“We must discover a hope that thrives when dreams shatter, when sickness advances and poverty worsens and loneliness deepens and obscurity continues, the same hope that anchors us to God when dreams come true.”  p. 30

The theme of the book is developed utilizing the rich narrative material found in the Biblical book of Ruth.  This biblical basis challenges us to look deeper into a familiar story to achieve some unexpected benefits.  In doing so, Crabb gives us a fresh look at the truth that God is there even when we experience loss.  He pushes his point even further to insist that only through shattered dreams can we discover the fulfillment of our dreams and hence….. true joy.

For those who are struggling with failed relationships, chronic illness or the loss of a loved one, you will find a solid argument for not giving up on God.

You will not find pat answers or empty platitudes. You will not find quick resolution to speed you through the process of pain and loss.

What you will find is something which will resonate in its honesty and truth….something you can lean your full weight on.  If you are like me, at times you’ll want to poke holes in the argument Crabb is making because it feels weighty and as if he is insisting that we permanently embrace, even pursue pain, but stay with him.  He will offer you a path out of the land of shattered dreams.  In this book you will encounter robust theology and practical insights for living well.

For those who read this book and yearn to share its benefits with others, there is a study guide of over one hundred pages which is divided into an 8 week format for small group use.   I can guarantee this book will have practical and lasting benefits to those who read it.

It will equip, encourage and enliven your walk with God.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

What did Peter know about hope? He was, from all we can gather, a successful fisherman.  He and his brother Andrew spent a lot of time fishing on the Sea of Galilee.  They knew how to mend the nets, how to find the hot spots and how to know when a storm was brewing and it was time to go ashore.

So what did Peter know about hope?  In 1 Peter 3:15 he seems to indicate that Christians know something about hope.  In fact, he says we ought to be ready to answer people who ask us about our hope, why we have it, and what a person needs to do to get this hope.

From what we can surmise, Peter wrote this epistle around A.D. 62.  Rumors of escalating persecution were already afloat among Christians.  There was this emperor Nero, who was beginning to look at the Christian disciples as a threat, or at least, a nuisance.

Peter tells his fellow believers to “prepare (their) minds for action”.  1 Pet. 1:13.  He said this on the heels of an earlier statement which said……

….in God’s “great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Even in the midst of this escalating persecution, Peter is speaking of the resurrected Christ openly, boldly and you might say, recklessly.   It’s a far cry from the Peter who denied Jesus a few years back.

This is a new Peter.  A transformed Peter.  Born anew into a living hope….Peter.

Peter writes his letter to prepare fellow believers for the coming persecution which  threatened to diminish hope.  He asserts the claim that only Jesus would sustain hope in what would arguably be one of the most bleak periods in the history of the early church.

Peter exhorts them to be ready to give an answer for the reason of the hope they had.

Such exhortations and encouragement comes from a Peter who used to trust the sword when pressures mounted.   He fled, cursed and denied when the threat grew too intense.  On another occasion, he had placed hope in his own ability to walk on water…..and he sunk like a rock…..Peter….petras….rock…hmmm.       No matter how you look at it, Peter placed his hope in the wrong things.  I’ve heard hope floats.  Well, not an ego-centric hope.  Self-centeredness makes a poor flotation device….not recommended.

The Peter of the living hope shares the secret of his transformation.  “In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord”.  3:15 Caesar is not Lord.   Emperor maybe, but certainly not Lord.

So it comes down to deciding who is in charge.

When a person knows Jesus is in control there is trust and confidence that all will be made right.  Peter instructs us to put Jesus in his rightful place in our heart and hope will result.  When Peter says we should be ready to give the reason for the hope we have, he is saying such hope is not logical to the unbeliever.   They are mystified by witnessing such hope.   They ask how such hope can be present in what they observe to be a hopeless outcome.

Bringing this to a contemporary application, it occurs to me that our world may well be interested in just how anyone could possibly be optimistic and hopeful in such an age as ours.   Pessimism rules the day.   We have an economy which has tanked.   The world is politically unstable.  Greed and inequity has created a vast difference between the haves and have-nots.   How does a person gain and sustain hope?

I suggest we look, we learn and we live in a way that reflects the message of Peter as we live hopefully in very uncertain times.  It is a message for which the world awaits.

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who once said, “it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive”.

Likely he was building upon the earlier statement by Robert Louis Stevenson quotation, from Virginibus Puerisque, 1881:

“Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

Going on an excursion, a journey, an adventure is something of an appeal to most of us.  As much as I love the comfort and routine of being a home-body, I like the idea of occasionally packing the bags and going on a journey.

But what about a journey that promises no destination….that offers no hope of arrival?  The kind of journey I speak of here is one that requires effort and makes demands upon our endurance but carries no promise of arriving at all.

In America, we face some challenges in this regard.  We see it on the faces of people on the street, in the unemployment lines, Wall street and the nightly news.  We are told that students have a difficult time staying focused on their studies because they are not sure that their education will result in a job, a career, a promise that their chosen vocation will even be a marketable commodity by the time they graduate, get certified or receive training.  Losing hope, many students today find it difficult to “travel hopefully”.   America has lost a lot the swagger and confidence that each generation will have it a little better than the previous one.  But this premise is built upon an almost exclusively material basis. In my opinion, much of what is sapping our reservoir of hope is tied to the temporal, the temporary and the circumstantial.

For a recent post on Scot McKnight’s blog regarding how hope is lost and found in our secular context, see the piece about Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his ability to create hope in a corporate America context.

I have been doing a series of sermons recently on the theme of hope.   I am convinced that the restoration of hope cannot begin with the premise of the circumstantial, the temporary and the temporal. Without realizing it, we have been slouching our way toward a hope that is not built on things eternal but on that which Jesus described as a foolish man’s foundation of sand.

In her book, Bird By Bird, Ann Lamott reports having heard a preacher say that “hope is a revolutionary patience”.   Later in the same book she quotes G.K. Chesterton as having said:

“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.”

Romans 5: 1-5 is both insightful and instructive: (Quoted here in NIV)

“……we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Give careful notice that we have the promise of  “hope of the glory of God”.  You can put that one in the “sign me up for a little more of that” category.  What follows however, might fall more into the “hold on, let me get back to you” category.   For it is in this next section that Paul says,

“we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

It’s right about here that I figured out that when most of us ask for hope, what we are really saying is, “I want all my wishes to come true.” We mistakenly think that living a life of hope is somehow a guarantee that this hopeful journey we are on will be a pleasure cruise all the time.   To be cliché, we know from experience that every journey has its peaks, its valleys and its dark and lonely roads.

The key is to remain true to the spirit of the pilgrimage to which we have been called. We must do what we must to be “hopeful travelers”.   Our pilgrimage is not done in solo, but we are accompanied by fellow sojourners who may very well be encouraged by our example.  The apostle Peter insists that we should be prepared to articulate what it is that enables us to be “hopeful travelers”.

“…..But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have….”  1 Peter 3: 15

I’ll leave you with a few practical ideas on keeping the hope.  (Don’t expect rocket science here….like most spiritual disciplines, they are simple…..not easy…..but simple.)

I’d be interested in hearing from some of you if you have ideas

to add to the list.

1) Begin each day with a reading of scripture and prayer for today’s leg of the journey.

2) Notice the small stuff which gets packed into a busy day.  Give thanks along the way for the blessings which come moment to moment.

3) Find time to think of someone you love and someone who loves you.  Close your eyes for a moment and think of some truly happy event you shared with that person.  Biblical hope is relational.  It embraces the need for companionship along the journey.  If you feel you are on this journey alone, you will most certainly NOT be traveling hopefully much less arriving somewhere good.

4) On the count of three….I want you to smile.  I mean it….even if it is forced and contrived.  Even if you are alone.  Even if there is an emptiness, hurt  or disappointment still lingering, a smile reminds your facial muscles what it is like to be happy about things.  It will then be much easier the next time some little blessing comes your way to celebrate it with a smile.

5) Say to yourself or better yet, out loud:  “In God I trust; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?” Psalm 56: 11

6) Listen to or sing at least 3 spiritual songs each day.  Hymns, contemporary Christian, you choose, just put a melody with a Christian message in your path sometime during each day on your daily commute, over lunch break, somewhere.

Well here you go.  6 ideas.  If I were more creative, I’d make it a perfect 7.  I’ll leave that one to you.

Remember, we will not become people of hope by accident.   If we are to become more hopeful it will have to be intentional.

Hope sustains us on the journey.    See you on the Road!

The following is a rather random and rambling collection of quotes and internet links I am providing for participants of our Monthly Ministers gathering in Milwaukee, WI.   For those of you who were not a part of this meeting, you are welcome to peruse through these random thoughts for any benefit you might gain.  I promise to post up something a bit more meaningful in a few days.

Christian Workers Meeting Notes, References and Links  1.18.11

Preaching Sermons – Then and Now

How many of you plan to preach a sermon this Sunday?   How many of the rest of you expect that you’ll be in church this week and hear a sermon?

Sermons can be powerful experiences or they can be pointless.  The discussion that follows will address how we can make the most of the time spent in preparing and delivering Sunday sermons.  It is my purpose to lead us through a consideration of the benefits and outcome of sermons which are prepared with the intent of transforming and inspiring to action.  These thoughts are not based on a premise that preachers are failing miserably and need an overhaul.  To the contrary, these thoughts are offered in deep respect of the motives, the diligence and the high value preachers place upon the challenge of preaching.

According to findings by Lori Carrell among participants in the Lilly Endowed Center for Excellence in Congregational Leadership at Green Lake, Wisconsin:

Preachers prepare sermons anywhere from 5 to 20 hours.  Average prep time: 12-13 hours weekly.

Majority of time spent in studying Scripture.  Other time spent in Writing and revising, Internal Rehearsing ,  Reading related books and Creating Visuals.

From James Thompson:

The “new homiletic” is a generation old now.  We hear the call for a new approach to preaching almost three decades ago, and we exchanged the “old wineskins” of argumentative preaching for the “new wineskins” of narrative.   A revolution in homiletics occurred, meeting scarcely any resistance.  Numerous books and articles, with their chorus of voices challenging traditional views of the sermon, became the homiletics textbooks throughout North America, ensuring the impact of the new homiletics on congregations everywhere.”  2001,  Westminster John Knox Press,  James Thompson Preaching Like Paul, p. 1

From the time of Augustine, preachers turned to the Bible for the content of preaching and to Aristotle for the form and style of the sermon, entering into a marriage that was doomed to fail.  Thompson, p. 3

Whereas in the “old wineskins” of preaching in the Aristotelian tradition the task of the preacher was to “get an idea across” through rational persuasion, in the “new wineskins” of homiletic thought the preacher’s task is to lead the congregation to “experience” the dynamic of the text—including its aesthetic and affective dimensions.  Thompson, p. 3

In contrast to the older homiletic emphasis on “points”, Buttrick describes the sermon as a series of moves that are logically connected and shaped by the preacher’s awareness of how meaning forms in the consciousness of the listeners.  James Thompson, p. 6

Thompson reminds us that:  “…..if we define the sermon as an address in the context of a worship service, we do not have a single sermon in the entire New Testament.”  Thompson, p. 22

PAUL’S SERMON IN ATHENS-  Acts 17: 16-31

- This is most certainly…… NOT the full message as Paul spoke it that day.  Luke condenses it but captures accurately, we trust, the essence of Paul’s message.

- N.T. Wright rightly observes….this would have only taken 2 minutes…hardly the Paul we know who preaches till midnight..  2 Cor. 10: 5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

I might add which led to the ugly “Eutychus” incident.

- All said….this is one of the few texts in the Biblical record of a sermon.  (Stephen’s message of Acts 7, while not a sermon in the strictest sense is a splendid example of a prolonged public address.)

Strive for Unique Ways of Covering Familiar Material

From Chip & Dan Heath   Why Some Ideas  Survive and others Die…Made to Stick,

Flight Attendant Karen Wood improvises the standard message of emergency precautions aboard airline flights:  On a flight from Dallas to San Diego….

If I could have your attention for a few moments, we sure would love to point out these safety features.  If you haven’t been in an automobile since 1965, the proper way to fasten your seat belt is to slide the flat end into the buckle.  To unfasten, lift up on the buckle and it will release.

And as the song goes, there might be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are only six ways to leave this aircraft:  two forward exit doors, two over-wing removable window exits, and two aft exit doors.  The location of each exit is clearly marked with signs over-head, as well as red and white disco lights along the floor of the aisle.    …Made ya look!

Preachers or Teachers?

“I get uncomfortable when you use the word ‘preaching,’” said a pastor from the Midwest. “It’s just not something I want my people to think of when they think of me.” The top reason provided by pastors for this teaching term was “disassociation with negative connotations.” Ministers imagine their listeners as sufferers of a collective pulpit-banging hangover. A quick word association with “preaching” had pastors in this study predicting that their listeners would say things like “manipulative,” “pressuring,” “authoritarian,” “moralizing,” “lecturing,” and “judgmental.” Still others expected listeners to conjure up images of the most egregious televangelists.    Lori Carrell, Transformative Teaching: Lessons Learned. Online Resource

What are your expectations for your learners’ spiritual growth? How do you communicate those expectations? It matters! In a recent listener communication workshop, parishioners repeatedly challenged their pastors to more “courageous” preaching.

Take note of an interesting teaching phenomenon called “grade inflation.” Professors perceive that student work and motivation are inadequate, but

as they expect less, they begin to give higher grades for mediocrity. A cycle is created, as low expectations fuel low levels of learning. If higher expectations are clearly communicated, student learning skyrockets. What educational objectives did Scripture and Spirit direct you to set for your Sunday teaching last week? Lori Carrell, Transformative Teaching: Lessons Learned. Online Resource

Lori’s Green Lake Conference Links

http://cecl.glcc.org/lori_carrell_articles.html

Lori’s Book: Lori Carrell, The Great American Sermon Survey (Mainstay Church Resources, 1999).

The following is From Chip & Dan Heath   Why Some Ideas  Survive and others Die…Made to Stick, p. 64  Chip is professor in Graduate School – Organizational Behavior Stanford University.

Heath’s 6 Key Qualities of an Idea that is Made to Stick:

1) Simplicity

2) Unexpectedness

3) Concreteness

4) Credibility

5) Emotional

6) Stories

Sermons Most Likely to Succeed in Transforming People Spiritually

1) You make a clear appeal for specific actions/changes in behaviors and attitudes

2) The sermon stays focused on a single theme

3) Even though the sermon might very well be conversational and consensual, there is an appeal based on authority.

4) A clear connection to Scripture and the Divine Agenda of God is maintained

5) The sermon focuses on the transition from a listening experience to a living experience

A few of my own observations:

1) Avoid Trendy and Gimmicky but not at the expense of relevance or helping an idea to stick

2) Avoid Ego-centrism but not to the point of being detached or theoretical

3) Avoid clichés and worn out phrases but not to the point of being obscure

4) Be careful of the “shock and awe” temptation

5) Be aware of the perils of “feature creep”  Less is sometimes more.

6) Put the hay down where even the goats can get to it.

There has been much discussion of whether or not preaching can be taught, given the fact that the preaching moment occurs at the intersection of tradition, Scripture, the experience of the preacher, the needs of a particular group of listeners, and the condition of the world as it bears upon that time and place.  It is a good question, even if unanswerable.  But the more appropriate question, Can preaching be learned? is answerable, and in the affirmative.  Fred Craddock, Preaching, p. 19-20

When the life of study is confined to “getting up sermons”, very likely those sermons are undernourished.  They are the sermons of a preacher with the mind of a consumer, not a producer, the mind that looks upon life in and out of books in terms of usefulness next Sunday.   Craddock, p. 69

Introductions

An introduction should command attention.  When a minister steps behind the pulpit, he dare not assume that his congregation sits expectantly on the edge of the pews waiting for his sermon.  In reality they are probably a bit bored and harbor a suspicion that he will make matters worse.  Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching, p. 160

An old woman said of the Welsh preacher, John Owen that he was so long spreading the table, she lost her appetite for the meal.  Robinson, p. 165

Keep the introduction short.  After you get water, stop pumping.  Robinson p. 165

An introduction should not promise more than it delivers.  When the preacher fails to meet the need he has raised, the congregation feels cheated.  p. 165

Conclusions

Some sermon crafters actually prepare the conclusion first so the sermon will proceed toward it in a direct path.  Robinson, p. 167

Directly or indirectly the conclusion asks, “So What?” or “What difference does this make”?

Do not cruise about looking for a spot to land.

A summary

An Illustration

A Quotation

A Question

A Prayer

A Challenge

A Call to Obedience

A View to God’s Ultimate Purposes

As mentioned earlier, these thoughts are rather random and without the continuity and flow of a typical blog post.  The intention is to offer access to the sources and links referenced in the presentation.  For more on preaching see an earlier post titled:  Epicenter of Grace. To all fellow preacher/teachers out there:  I am honored to be among your number.  Our work, while deeply rewarding at times, can also produce a fair amount of self-doubt and angst.  May God grant you all a sustained passion to continue in this high calling and this high privilege.