I added a new page called "The Street." I believe "The Pulpit" is important in as much as it impacts life on the street. In other words, the gospel matters in real life - everyday, ordinary, mundane, crazy, stressful, messy life. So the "The Street" will be a place for stories - stories of how God breaks into the places where we move, meet, walk, and talk.
Currently I have two media pieces I did with some guys a couple years back. A shout out to my boy Steve Sykes at Rocksonik, and Jeremy Roegner (who, by the way, designed the sixthgen logo).
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My 6-year-old daughter decided to make a list for my birthday. Her spelling:
1. Baloons. 2. Candls. 3. String. 4. Rapping papr. 5. Presints. 6. Kissis. 7. Hugs. I would add #8: One Happy Daddy. This note comes a few weeks after she gave me a threatening note demanding a kitten. "Daddy, please, please, please can I have a kitty? If you do not give me a kitty, I will not listen to you." I responded to her letter with a note of my own: "I do not negotiate with terrorists." Some believe in a childhood "age of innocence." I tend to believe in original sin. The next day, she wrote me another note: "Daddy, you are the best daddy ever of all time." All of this reminds me of the ups and downs of being "a sinner and a saint at the same time." And it reminds me of the many threatening letters and words spoken by the children of Israel throughout Scripture. And the Father's patient hand throughout. So I'll settle on the fact that for all of parenthood's challenges, joy transcends. I saw this bumper sticker earlier today. It's like another I've seen: "Look busy. Jesus is coming." After a quick chuckle, my pastoral analysis begins, and I "geek out" about theological interpretations of the culture. While this may be a relatively harmless bumper sticker, it is evidence of a deeper view of Jesus in our culture. Like the kid who says, "Who's Jesus? Well, he's that one character on South Park." For many Americans Jesus is a tame, harmless religious figure. Akin to the Dali Lama. Like Santa Clause. A nice guy who espouses rules to live by. If this was my Jesus, I would not find him very compelling. And I'd probably find hokey stickers to put on my bumper. I prefer this Jesus: - The manly, kick-butt Ruler of the entire universe (see Revelation). - The King who takes a job as a server (Matthew 20:28). - The Preacher who likes a good party (Matthew 9:9-13). - The Victor who punched death in the mouth (see the end of all the gospels). I have yet to find Jesus behind the sofa. Translated "And how are they to hear?" I've heard it said that in our current context of media and technology, the only people who give monologues anymore are comedians, professors, and preachers. Who else do you listen to for an extended period of time? Who else do you allow to speak at you continuously for 15, 20, or 30 minutes? We have all experienced boring sermons and dull preachers. Is preaching dead?
The above picture was taken in the small prayer chapel at the base of the Luther Tower on the campus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. It's a cool place, beyond the lore that it was the scene of one of the Lutheran exorcisms upon which the movie "The Exorcist" was based. In the center of the room there is a solid marble altar, a perfectly square block. Engraved around the altar are words in Greek, from Romans 10:14-15, "And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" At the base of this block altar is the design of a compass in the marble floor. The symbolism is that this place sends out preachers, east and west, north and south. Preachers sent with the gospel, so that many might hear the Word of God. I spent part of the day on the seminary campus at their annual theological symposium, this year's being on preaching. (You may be tempted to stop reading after seeing the words "theological symposium." Please don't.) Pastor Dean Nadasdy of Woodbury Lutheran Church in Minnesota said: "The word of the Lord came," write the prophets, and when it came, they hit their knees, they listened, they prayed, and they came out talking. What this means is that your pastor (at least this one) approaches preaching with deep humility. We do our best not to "make stuff up." We speak on the authority of another. We speak what we've heard ourselves. As your pastor, know that I preach only what's first been preached to me. In other words, I wrestle with the text as it relates to my own life. Only then can the Word of God come from me authentically, honestly, and powerfully. So I still have high regard for preaching, even if many dismiss it. I still believe that there are prophets, mouths of men that God chooses to fill with his words. And so I strive to grow as a preacher. But most of all, I open myself to God's word, "hit my knees, listen, pray, and come out talking." I recently read a book by Doug Saunders called Arrival City. He writes about the final great human migration. "A third of the world's population is on the move this century, from village to city, a move that began in earnest shortly after WWII, when South American and Middle Eastern villagers left their homes to build new enclaves on the urban outskirts." The bottom line is that the whole world is becoming urbanized. What the Western world has already done a century ago, the rest of the world will do this century. Stunning facts:
This raises a number of questions - sociological, economic, educational, etc. A few questions I ask: Will people's quality of life really improve in urban areas as opposed to rural villages (beyond economic measurements)? What will happen to rural cultures, values, and traditions? What will this do to families? And there are a million more. A final question I wonder about. What will this do for the mission of the church? Cities are already centers of learning, culture, politics, and education. Will the church be able to influence cities with the gospel? Will the church care for massive influxes of urban dwellers? I currently have a college intern who speaks Spanish, whose father is Peruvian. As a college student, he is considering pastoral ministry. Could we pour into him here in St. Louis, and raise him up in order to send him out? To Sau Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, or Buenos Aires? As a way of generating pure, unalloyed terror, this was demonically perfect . . . I was immobilized watching a live, instantaneous mass death . . . I was, like most of us, simply terrorized. And it's only now, a decade later, that I've come to see how significant that feeling was, how transformative it would become.
A couple days removed from the 9/11 anniversary, I reflect. The above quote is from an article by Andrew Sullivan in the Sept. 12th issue of Newsweek. Ten years have allowed the words "terror" and "terrorism" to become commonplace. The word has even lost a bit of its . . . terror. Fear and uncertainty have become the "new normal." We come to expect long airport security lines and invasive TSA searches. We are nearly numb to death reports from Iraq or Afghanistan. In the days after 9/11, the media collectively agreed not to show gruesome images of the planes crashing. Now we've seen montages of all the footage, along with bodies falling from the towers. All of this is to say that we have effectively been terrorized. We are a resilient country, yet we cannot deny that this event has changed us. Sullivan notes that 10 years of distance from the event has revealed how "transformative" it has become. Modern terrorism has done for my generation what World Wars and Great Depressions did for others. If we didn't know it before, we know it now. Life is fragile. Evil is real. Our time uncertain. Peace is not a given. Humans are incredibly vulnerable creatures. There is a mantra found throughout the Biblical text that is particularly appropriate for a terrorized people. "Fear not." (Josh. 1:9; Judges 6:23; Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 28:5,10; Luke 1:13, 30, 2:10, 5:10; Revelation 1:17). Whether voiced by an angel or Jesus himself, "Fear not" is a repetitive chorus of counter-terrorism found from the Old to the New Testament. Are we safer 10 years later? That's up for debate. But this simple statement was not given to people who felt safe. God spoke "Fear not," to Joshua and Gideon on the brink of war. Angels spoke it to mournful women at the tomb and trembling men in a field at night. "Fear not" is precisely for those who are in a moment of terror. It doesn't answer "Why?" It doesn't offer a neatly packaged answer. It is a phrase that simply begs you to trust the One who speaks it. "College students spend a lot of time listening to lectures. But research shows there are better ways to learn. And experts say students need to learn better because the 21st century economy demands more well-educated workers. Lecturing was invented as a way to share information in a time before books were widely available. Now, there are better approaches."
My friend Andy Thompson turned me on to this article on lecture-based learning and college education. See: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures. Basically, lecturing is old school and ineffective. Maybe you already knew that. But there are some ideas about what's next in education. As a pastor, I'm always listening and learning. The preaching and teaching of the Word of God demands our best. Of course I'm not suggesting a change in the "content." But our means can be as varied as the literary genres of the Bible. From prophets to wisdom literature, historical narrative to acacolyptic literature. And don't forget about the tactile nature of the sacraments. You can touch and taste. Two things I have learned educationally: - Learning is relational. Preaching, teaching, and learning do not happen in a vacuum. The Word is digested in community. Discipleship is not a book, but people pouring into people. This includes preaching, and also conversation, debate, prayer, and living together through shared experiences. - Learning is incarnational. People relate what they learn to what they already know. Preaching and teaching requires that we make connections to what people already know and experience. Therefore it is vital for preachers and teachers to listen well and study their context. Let me know if you have educational insights or thoughts on this article. Tell me what you've always wanted to tell your pastor about his preaching and teaching. Home is a place for exuberant joy and lots of jumping. Where is your home? I don't simply mean an address. Where and with whom do you sense that you are truly "home"? When I proposed to my wife, people asked, "How do you know she's the one?" My first response was, "She is my home." I was "home" in Minnesota over the weekend for my dad's surprise 60th birthday party. And once again, we experienced all the notions of home. There was intense laughter. The telling of stories. Eating way too much food. The kids running barefoot in the backyard with grass-stained knees and kool-aid mustaches. Bouncing on the neighbor's trampoline. A slow game of bocce ball under a gently warm sun. The re-living of shared experiences as we poured over old pictures and laughed at dad's hippie hair in 1972. When you're "home," the day passes with no care for what the hour is. There is no place to be but present in the moment. At home you can be vulnerable because you are assured of safety. "Home" has seen you at your worst. There is nothing to hide. At home, you are loved. It matters not how you feel or what you look like. You are loved regardless. You don't want to leave home, but you know you must. You have work to do. So you go. But you know you can always come back. Much of Scripture is about a particular family, a particular land, and the hope of a home in its fullest sense. The garden, the patriarchs, the kingdom, the city, the land, the feast. God gives us people, places, and moments that provide identity, security, and meaning. And in such "homes" we get a peek of the fullest of all homes. I am in my seventh year of being a pastor. In my first year, there was immense pressure to blog. Every hip, young, trendy pastor was doing it. I said I would never blog. I resisted, mostly for two reasons.
1.) I didn't have time. I actually was doing the work of being a pastor. Which involves people, planning, praying, and preaching. All those take time. And I had (and have) a young family. 2.) I didn't have anything to say. I thought I was smart, gifted, and unique. I could have written stuff, but it would have been stupid. I now feel that after 33 years in the church, a BA in Theology, three years of seminary, one year of internship, a Masters of Divinity, 7 years of ministry in one place, and 10 years of marriage I am beginning to have something to say. So I will publish. This is not intended as a place for debate. While it will be theological, it is not meant to be academic or inaccessible. I publish for people. For my people, the members of Christ Memorial and Reliant Church. And for anyone else who wants to hear a gospel-laden pastoral voice in their life. So if you're a fellow pastor who spends endless hours blogging about the minutia of the latest theological controversy, get off my site. This is not for you. This is for my people. Thank you. |
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