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    • Saturday Sermon Prep

    As I said last week, Saturdays are often my days to prepare the sermon. 

    It’s not procrastination.  Really, it’s not.  I actually worked ahead on the sermons for Advent, so that they were done well before the time of delivery.  And that worked pretty well.  That’s actually my preferred mode of operating, truth be told.  Work ahead, be ready, make sure all the widgets are in a row, or whatever.

    But several things conspire against early sermon prep these days.  First of all is busyness.  Sad excuse, right?  Well.  That’s the one I have control over, and I do think that if busyness were the only factor, this would all be dealt with summarily. 

    Second, we have groups that read the Bible together.  These groups read the passage I’m preaching on, along with the other lectionary passages, in the week prior to the big preach.  (Ok, so maybe just the preach…)  I draw from the reflections in those groups as the sermon takes shape: sometimes from what is heard and said, and sometimes from what is not.  It is an important exercise in exposition and interpretation to listen to the voices of those who are reading the Scriptures around you.

    Third, there’s the Holy Spirit.  He shows up when he’s good and ready.  Sometimes, it’s the middle of the night.  Other times, it’s not.  Whatever the case, I usually need some good “getting quiet” time to hear him.  Which probably goes back, in part, to the busyness thing.  Well. 

    But the sermon for tomorrow is done, and we’re going to hear from God.  Amen?

    Written on April 12th, 2008 , Congregational Leadership, Congregational Life, Missional / Emerging Theology, Personal Discipleship Tags: , , , ,
    McLaren on Huckabee on Wright

    Brian McLaren posted the following quote from Mike Huckabee:

    As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had … more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

    - Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Source: MSNBC)

    He then adds:

    I’ve been dismayed to see so many white pundits take more umbrage about Rev. Wright’s statements (some of which are, no doubt, offensive) than they do about the racism that created the anger, insult, and hurt out of which those statements arise. By amplifying their offense at Rev. Wright, they demonstrate their relative insensitivity to how destructive racism has been, and in so doing, they add to the anger, insult, hurt, and misunderstanding – perpetuating the vicious cycle. Their impolitic responses make Mike Huckabee’s response look all the wiser. Way to go, Mike. That’s leadership worthy of the adjective “Christian.”

    What’d'y’all think?

    Written on April 11th, 2008 , Congregational Leadership, Missional / Emerging Theology, Personal Discipleship Tags: , ,
    Structured for Organic Growth

    My post the other day generated some comments that draws out the theme of Christian unity and church governance as an aspect of the church’s organic growth.  Ben suggested that due to the immanent eschatology of the early church, (i.e., that the Age to Come was going to show up any day), they didn’t spend much time setting up structures that would last, which created a “more vibrant, growing, organic community that would have been impossible to create from the top down.”

    Our structures must be designed to empower organic growth.  This does start with Eschatology, because it is necessary for Christians to work backwards from the Kingdom of God that is and is to come in order to establish how that Kingdom applies in This Present (Evil) Age. 

    This presses us to consider how we may live the Life of the Kingdom among our real neighbors – those with whom we have contact, especially in physical proximity.  This implies a decentralized network structure is going to have the most tendency for success. 

    I think, however, that this defies our natural definitions of “top-down” or “bottom-up.”  In a sense, the church is always top-down, because we affirm that God initiates creation, initiates contact with humanity, initiates salvation, and initiates discipleship.  In Christ, we affirm that God acted to do what humanity could not even have started to do: to destroy sin, death and the Devil and bring the Kingdom of God into contact with our lives in This Age.  Anything less is Pelagianism. 

    Yet, at the same time, in a human sense, this divine initiative produces a high level of unity, enough to maintain a quite decentralized system.  This is especially true in the early church.

    For instance, Tertullian, writing around 200 CE, argues that the people to whom he is writing are not truly Christians because they have changed the faith that was handed down by the Apostles to them.  It’s a clear-cut case in Tertullian’s mind, because all the congregations have remained in the same faith.  As he says,

    Is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? (De Praescriptione Haereticorum 28)

    The implication of this quote is a profoundly different view of the church structures than we currently have.  In saying this, Tertullian implies that there is no centralized hierarchy to maintain unity, but that each congregation has received the same faith in Jesus Christ unaltered from the Apostles, as guarded by the unifying Holy Spirit. 

    In effect, he says, “we have no possible way of riding herd on all these people in all these congregations.  Yet they all believe the same thing and practice it the same way.  How can you explain that, you who claim you have a better grip on the truth than we do?”  Any time human beings get together, he says, there is diversity of opinion and some level of disagreement and disunity.  So if this were not of God, there wouldn’t be the unity we see here. 

    I think we can see that by the year 200 or so, Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire to a degree that no real regional, inter-congregational structures were possible, necessary or wanted.  And yet the Church grew and spread faster in that era than throughout most of the rest of its history. 

    One final thought: even Caesar, with all his power and might, could not keep his empire united in the early 3rd Century.  Society and technology did not allow for it.  Yet in the same era, the Church was obviously and completely unified, without a central authority.  What does that say to us?

    Written on April 11th, 2008 , Congregational Life, Congregational Transformation, Missional / Emerging Theology, Patristics Tags: , , , , , , ,
    Eucharistic Convergence

    This last Sunday was Communion Sunday at FBC Warren.  Probably due to my study under Bob Webber, I tend to use a form of prayer during communion that resembles the liturgical Eucharistic Prayers.  It’s always ad-lib, but there are common elements. 

    One of those elements is that of the Sanctus.  The Sanctus is the liturgical spot where, as the Book of Common Prayer so elegantly puts it, we say, “joining our voices with all the angels and archangels, and all the company of Heaven, who forever sing this hymn to the glory of Your name,”

    Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty
    Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory
    Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord
    Hosanna in the highest.

    I will often say (in less formal language) the gist of this during my prayer leading in to communion.  This, to me, is part of the common (communing) nature of the event: we are in communion (joined with) Christ, and we are also in unity with all those who call on the Name of the Lord – including all angels, etc., and all other followers of Jesus Christ throughout time and place, both in this age and the age to come. 

    This Sunday, for the part of the Sanctus, I was led (on the spot, I may add) to sing the chorus from ”How Great is Our God” by Chris Tomlin, which has become a song we use to celebrate during worship.  And the congregation joined in. 

    “How great is our God, sing with me, how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great is our God.”

    It was quite moving.  Essentially, we all participated in the act of Sanctus, and therefore the act of Communion with Christ and the Body of Christ globally throughout time, through singing, rather than merely calling it to mind by reference. 

    In this way, we have experienced Worship Convergence through communion: convergence of our experience in our local congregation with all the Saints who have gone before, those living now throughout the world, and those who will come after.  And with that, we live in the life of the Kingdom in greater measure. 

    And that’s why we do it (worship, that is) in the first place: to live in a greater measure of the life of the Kingdom.

    Amen.

    Written on April 8th, 2008 , Missional / Emerging Theology, Worship Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
    Children of the Unchurched

    Bonnie Brae SE

    Today was the first really nice day we’ve had in a while.  On my daily walk through the neighborhood this evening, I saw a number of people out, mostly kids and teens.  A lot of kids seemed to be finding good stuff to do, playing on playgrounds, riding bikes, throwing footballs around.  They were having a great time. 

    The teens, on the other hand, seemed to lack useful amusing activities.  I spied at least one ankle bracelet on one 15/16-year-old courtesy the local corrections department.  As I crossed a bridge, some of them decided to throw rocks at me from a long distance – not close enough to actually hit me or do any damage, but, well, it was enough to ignore them and move on.

    Prayer is my habit on these walks anyway, but this encounter pressed me deeper into prayer for the community, and I soon was led to consider the following idea: these are the children of the unchurched. 

    Thirty years ago, the nation’s religious landscape was in a period of rapid change.  A few churches and church leaders (the “young evangelicals” of the late 70s – early 80s) picked up on this development and began a wide range of churches and ministries in response to these de-churching trends.  From the “megachurches” and “seeker-sensitive ministries” to the Vineyard movement and Christian brodcasting (both big-hair and small-hair formats), the young evangelicals worked to transform the approaches, styles and methods to ministry in the new religious context.

    However, the rank-and-file churches did not, by and large, make the change.  To their credit, many churches made small or partial changes that integrated many of the new ministry styles and methods into their existing structures, and had considerable success.  Nevertheless, most churches did not make the systemic, systems- and structure-level changes necessary to meet the new ministry environment. 

    Thus, the trends of de-church-ification continued unabated.  In fact, one could argue that such events actually accelerated the process.  Now, in the days of what Bob Webber called “the younger evangelicals”, the vast majority of churches are now realizing that something is missing.  Those that were unable to connect with the Baby Boom generation did not connect with Generation X, Y, or Z either.  Thus, the average un-churched child, teen or young adult is not just un-churched but a child of an un-churched person.  This compounds the ministry contextualization issues at work in our churches.

    The first-generation unchurched person generally has a religious point of reference.  Often this is expressed in two attitudes toward church and “organized religion”: either indifference, as the church has made no significant impact on their lives so what’s the point; or rejection, usually via some negative experience in a church context or with Christians.  (No blame assessment here.)

    Beyond the first generation, unchurched persons no longer have that point of reference.  Therefore, their responses to Christians and the Christian message are often much more nuanced.  Moreover, they do not understand even the most basic of the basics.  For instance, I recently was asked by someone how much it costs to join the church!

    All of this presses home the need to engage the community at its level on its turf to discover how we may make connections with people in order that they may participate in the life of God toward discipleship and eternal life.

    Written on April 6th, 2008 , Missional / Emerging Theology Tags: , , , , , ,
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