Archive for March 2011
Who Died and Left You King
March 31, 2011 | 
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Christ can be seen as prophet, priest, and king. Jesus spoke of himself as a prophet in Matthew 21:11. He continues in a priestly role, interceding for Christians before God (Hebrews 7:25; 9:12). And Christ is king over all things (John 18: 36; Ephesians 1:19-23).
In many ways, ministers function similarly. In preaching we speak words that, we pray, are from God. In dealing with individual people we also speak truth—prophet-like—into their lives. We call sin, sin. We use our words and our influence to direct people to holy living and deeper faith.
We also serve as priests in some ways. I’m not talking about a clergy/laity division. But ministers have access to situations where most do not. We call the minister at times of death, deepest loss, and greatest joy. We comfort the hurting and bind up wounded souls. When people seek God, ministers stand—with priest-like words and lives—to connect the seeker and the One sought.
Despite this powerful gift and responsibility of serving in prophet-like and priest-like ways among God’s people, we have to remember that we do not serve in the role of king. That role is uniquely Christ’s. We serve the King among other servants. We have God-given work, but not God-given rule.
We forget this at our peril. Our domineering and manipulation only diminish the kingdom of Christ.
The powerful task of speaking and serving in the name of the Lord is heady stuff, and we easily mistake God’s call with our prowess. Subtly, we want to be kings and queens. Someday, subtly or not, God will remind us that the Kingdom is his.
Speak and minister boldly! For you are servants of the King!
Posted in Church Leadership, Preaching, Spiritual Formation | 
Tags: Christ, Jesus, king, minister, priest, prophet | 
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It’s All about Meme
According to the expert in all things linguistic, Wikipedia, a meme is a small unit of information. But not just any information. Powerful social information.
A meme is analogous with DNA: “as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information,” the Wikimaster tells us.
Despite the fact that the term was coined by the man every Christian loves to despise (Richard Dawkins the fundamentalist atheist) the word is useful. He takes the concept too far (surprise!) but it is a handy idea.
Think of memes as catch phrases. In churches of Christ you know you are home when the collection is “separate and apart from the Lord’s Supper.” Apart by five seconds, yet separate nonetheless. Yell “728B” and no Methodist knows what you’re talking about. The Presbyterians don’t have any idea about Acts 2:38.
Think in terms of ministry. Some churches look for preachers of “sound doctrine.” It’s a biblical phrase, but it is a meme for someone who thinks and preaches a certain way. There are preachers who know to avoid a church using that phrase because they know what it means. The phrase is a meme, having the power to categorize people based on their acceptance/rejection of that phrase.
Use the right phrases, and you are in. Or out. Depending upon your attitude toward the meme.
Despite the fact that you may have “Church of Christ” on the door to your church building, your congregation may be very different from one across town that also has “Church of Christ” on the door. Different in theology and practice. And using different memes. Are you being evangelistic or missional? Your answer to that question will identify you with a group of people connected by their meme use.
Are you “sectarian” (a bad meme for most people) or are you “tribal” (a cool meme thanks to Seth Godin). In reality I’m not sure there is much of a difference between the uses of the two words, but there is a lot of difference between the people labeled “sectarian” and those labeled “tribal.”
A key to the notion of meme is that of imitation and adaptation. We imitate the memes that seem advantageous. But we rarely imitate perfectly. So memes tend to change over time.
People tend to imitate those whom they want to be like or whose success they wish to share. One key way to imitate others is to use the same memes as they do.
It is in the repetition of memes that we see the power of Twitter and the simple button: Retweet.
Posted in Church Leadership, Not so serious | Tags: church culture, church of Christ, language, meme, retweet, tweet | 1 Comment »
Angels Unaware
Live boldly. God uses our lives even when we least expect.
I was blessed today in chapel at Harding Graduate School to sit in front of a guest on campus named Dave. He is an alum and came, it seems, just to attend chapel.
He was asked to say the prayer. Remember, I’m sitting just in front of him. What I heard when he started praying was an amazing voice, smooth, deep, rich. It was to voices what Cadbury chocolate eggs are to Easter candy.
Then we sang, and I got to hear his tenor voice (wait, he was a bass when he prayed!) smooth, strong, unstrained.
The experience was very interesting. I happened to have laryngitis. I could talk, but not sing. It was like he came that day just to sing in my place. (Although his voice is much better than mine even without laryngitis.)
It turns out Dave has done some radio and other voice work. I’m glad of that, since if not then he would have an unused talent.
He just came to chapel to be there. Yet he ended up giving me a potent gift completely unaware.
Live boldly. God uses our lives even when we least expect.
Posted in Christian Culture, Spiritual Formation | Tags: Angels, gifts, relationships | No Comments »
Audacious Preaching
So tomorrow evening I’m preaching.
As I contemplated my sermon today it hit me just how audacious I am in entering the pulpit. I don’t have a theology that allows room for clergy−my sermon is on 1 Peter 2 and the “priesthood of all believers”! But I do believe the preacher stands, just for a moment, in an important place.
The place is at the nexus of God, the people, and the text.
God is alive. God is active in the lives of the people. And God is active in the text. In the 20 minutes (or less) I speak, I will use words to connect the three rhetorically. To give the congregation a glimpse of how God, folk, Bible connect.
This is a humbling task, if for no other reason than that I am a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. But I’m on the program, so I will preach. Lips and all.
God give me and the congregation grace through the sermon!
Posted in Christian Culture, Preaching | Tags: 1 Peter 2, Church, clergy, preaching, priesthood of believers, sermon | 1 Comment »
Reasons (Not) to Read Rob
I don’t think I’m going to read Rob Bell’s book until I can get it used at a garage sale for fifty cents. There is no theology behind this, at least not the theology supporters and detractors would have for (not) reading it.
Want to read it? Great! Want to burn it? That’s your prerogative. I’m not trying to weigh in on the merits of the book itself or Rob Bell.
I have opinions about the very serious topics of Hell and theology and hellish theology, mind you. I’m just not telling you what those opinions are in this blog post. But here’s my two pennies’ worth about the circumstances surrounding Bell’s book.
A Christian media circus is more circus than Christian. If I want to sell books—cookbooks, novels, or pop theology—the best way to do that is through viral marketing. Create a buzz, and people will buy. Or in this case, they pre-ordered and pre-commented.
To create a media buzz the most important element is controversy, not substance. Of all the books on any given subject, I will only be able to buy the ones I know about. If I know about it; I’m more likely to buy it. Welcome to Marketing 101.
The positive and negative Twitter/blog/media firestorm around the release of Love Wins tells us nothing about the merit of the book’s ideas nor about Bell’s trustworthiness. It does tell us about his popularity. Or unpopularity. Put him and polar opposite John Piper together in a Tweet and you have media magic.
The other reason I don’t want to read Love Wins is because I’m just not sure the book is worth the trouble.
Take this blog post for example. I have very little knowledge of the book or the people for and against it. But I’m happy to waste my time writing a blog about it. And you are actually reading this? At least I’m not alone!
There are only so many hours in a day. I like to pick my books because they are substantial or at least have a nice cover that makes me think there is substance in there.
Anyways, I don’t think I’ll have to wait long for Rob Bell’s book to come out as a nooma video!
Posted in Christian Culture, Not so serious | Tags: blogs, buzz, Christian books, Christian marketing, Hell, John Piper, Love Wins, Rob Bell, twitter | 2 Comments »
Discernment for Young Adults
Posted in Campus & Young Adult Ministry, Spiritual Formation | Tags: authentic, campus ministry, campuscrosswalk.org, discernment, retro, young adults | 1 Comment »
Praying and Preaching
Sermon prep is prayer. Prayer engenders humility. Bring a word to the congregation!
Thanks to Michael Hanegan for sharing Willimon’s video.
Posted in Prayer, Preaching, Spiritual Formation | Tags: Michael Hanegan, prayer, preaching, William Willimon | No Comments »
Japan Does Not Need You
If you want to go help the church and citizens of Japan, join the club. But don’t get on an airplane.
When you arrive needing housing, transportation, and language translation, the amount you are really able to accomplish is very small. The cost of you going is very high.
Often, the people showing up to help in these situations are really trying to fulfill their own needs: Need for adventure, need for a spiritual experience, or a codependent need to help. The mission field is not a good place to meet these needs.
Based upon my time as a missionary in Croatia during the war in the 1990s, with its refugee and humanitarian aid ministry, here is a rule of thumb for deciding if one should go into the kind of situation we see in Japan:
Rule of Thumb
Do not go to a crisis area unless one of these is true:
- you were specifically and by name invited by an individual ministry leader who is willing to help you with logistics. Don’t “invite” yourself.
- you are an official representative of an organization that is or is going to help. (In Croatia we had great help from US and European church organizations!)
- you know the language/culture and can get around independently as soon as you arrive.
- you are part of a team organized by a relief organization and invited by a local group.
So what can we do if none of these four are true?
The answer is simple: support those who do meet the criteria!
For you to fly over to Japan and stay for a week would easily cost $5000. If you have those resources, bless those already set up to do the work. $5000 in relief contribution will do immeasurably more than what you would likely do as a freelancer.
For a list of ways to help and organizations to support, see this Facebook page set up by established missionaries in Sendai, the area hardest hit. (Scroll down to see ways to donate.)
Japan does not need you on the ground, most likely. Japan does need the church, however. And the church is the place where each one does his or her part. Not the part that catches our attention because it is on the nightly news.
Pray, give, encourage! To God be the glory!
(Also, see this document from missionaries in Japan with their perspective.)
God Extremes
Defining God is impossible, but clarifying how you see him can be important in our own spiritual growth. Terrence Fretheim gives some extremes to avoid as we seek to know God better.
- God is uninvolved overseer, watching the earth from the “front porch” of heaven. Like with an absentee landlord, calls are seldom returned and not much gets done.
- God is an absolute monarch: in total control, micromanaging the world. What kind of control is this? Mind control? Crowd control? Controlling personality? Control tower? If God is in control, but we are so unruly, isn’t God a management failure?
- God is so distant that our prayers are like cell phone calls that keep cutting out.
- God is our buddy. Like a pocket-Santa, ready to give gifts and warm feelings whenever you need them.
- God is superman and can intervene faster than a speeding bullet. Often, negative results are blamed on the lack of sincerity of the one praying.
- God is like the Queen of England: basically powerless, but able to organize elegant liturgical occasions.
Do you recognize your view of God in any of these? How can we get a more biblical vision of who God is and how he acts? How does a text such as Psalm 100 teach us about God in a way that avoids extremes?
Posted in Spiritual Formation, Theology | Tags: God, Psalm 10, Terrence Fretheim, theology, view of God | 2 Comments »
Make Poverty History
In When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert bring their expertise in economics and administration to bear on the issue of poverty and how North American churches can be part of the solution. They provide examples of successful, biblically-based attempts at addressing the core issues of poverty. Unfortunately, they also have many examples, some from personal experience, of helping in ways that do more harm than good.
Their book is undergirded by a model of human relationships developed by Bryant L. Myers in which a person’s relationships to God, self, others, and creation provide the key to alleviating poverty.
The model from Myers, which Corbett and Fikkert have expanded and clarified, gave me new insight into the nature of poverty. The model levels the playing field between the poor and non-poor by identifying growth areas for both groups. After all, who could not stand to grow in one of the four areas?
In addition, the model integrates both theology and anthropology, thereby sidestepping some of the extremist views that tend to invalidate one or the other. For example, the theology-centric “go read your Bible to fix your problems” perspective is balanced with the reality of human life. And the anthropology-centric view of some liberal scholars who downplay the role of God in everyday life is balanced with a vibrant view of an active God.
A more important aspect of the model is that it shows how ineffective it is to “throw money” at a problem. There are few relational issues that can be solved with money. Most people with money are well aware of this, but without an alternative solution, throwing money is the best we know how to do.
Corbett and Fickkert give us a welcome new solution.
Posted in Social Concerns | Tags: Bryant L. Myers, Christian ministry to the poor, Corbett, Fikkert, Helping Others, Poverty | No Comments »