David Kenney

This is a picture I took of the “Great Bible” that was at a recent Dead Sea Scroll exhibit I attended.  If you don’t know the “Great Bible” was the text that in 1539, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish. It became the first English Bible authorized for public use, as it was distributed to every church, chained to the pulpit, and a reader was even provided so that the illiterate could hear the Word of God in plain English.

This was the fulfillment of a dream held by Christians since William Tydnale and Martin Luther who felt the bible should be available to all and not just in the hands of authority figures or scholars. .. and certainly I get that. At the time the authorities and teachers were abusing their privilege and they used their status to hinder the populace. It was during this time that the reformation had coined a phrase, “Sola Scriptura” which means “only scripture” or “by scripture alone.”

And the idea behind this philosophy is that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Consequently, sola scriptura demands that only those doctrines are to be admitted or confessed that are found directly within or indirectly by using valid logical deduction or valid deductive reasoning from scripture.

And again…. I agree. I would not be much of a teacher or pastor if I did not agree with this statement. But if the bible contains all we need for “all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness” then what do we need teachers for? Why do we need Christian books or for that matter any knowledge of biblical history?

Well… we don’t.

But the answer lies in the failure of the question. We don’t “need” those things for holiness or salvation. Certainly we are all theologians, the bible belongs in the hands of the common person and everything needed for correction and rebuke (2 Timothy 3:16) is within its pages.

But the reason we have teachers and books, isn’t because we need “more” than the bible. And perhaps as a “teacher” myself, this blog post seems self-serving; one could argue that I am merely making an argument that my role in the world is needed.

But let’s stop listening to me, and look at scripture.

Acts 8

30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31″How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Nobody here is arguing that the bible isn’t “all that is needed” or that “Salvation is coming from the words of Philip” but certainly Philip is important to the story. In fact a few passages earlier we read that Philip was actually told to go and to be a teacher by an angel of the Lord.

This fits with what we know of the role of teachers as a spiritual gifiting,

Ephesians 4:11

It was Jesus who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers.

So clearly, biblical teachers are not only important to understanding the bible, but they are given to us by Christ.

Well, look at this similar story in Luke 24 – when the disciples are on the road to Emmaus they are discussing what had happened with Jesus recently and when Jesus listens in he responds to them with this statement…

“How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

What is Jesus doing here? He is explaining Torah, he is using Sola Scriptora and he is explaining the meaning to these two men. A little later these men say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

That statement is a beautiful definition of how learning feels.

The disciples and the Ethiopian were not merely reading and hearing truth… they were “learning” how to understand and apply that truth not only to the events around them, but perhaps even their own lives. In fact the bible even argues that God is not always “easy” to understand…

Isa 55:8-11

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

A.W. Tozier said, “I believe that we find the Bible difficult because we try to read it as we would read any other book, and it is not the same as any other book.”

Certainly everyone at one time or another has lowered their text with a quizzical look on their face and thought, “I don’t get it.” The bible does contain many passages that contain history that is not common knowledge, traditions and sayings we are not familiar with in the 20th century and several lines that appear to give inconsistent information at a first or second or even third glance.

So there is a need for learned men and women to come alongside us and “teach us” either through the sacred art of the sermon, through books, videos, the classroom or a bible study.  And this really isn’t “self-serving” for me as a teacher, because for certain I have needed teachers and books to get to where I am as well – and I will continue to seek out people to lead me and teach me in the years to come.

The gathering that is the body of Christ is built on the understanding of a community of people. It is “together” that we are the body, and no one part can say to the other, “I don’t need you” (1 Cor 12).  I think when we try to “go it alone” that is when we try to live a lie that the world teaches us. It’s the common world-view that we can “make it or break it” alone. All you need to do is “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and you too can succeed in life. And I think that way of thinking leads so many to failure and ruin and depression.

At my work, I see a lot of young people who request to “ride alone” in the park rides. They “think” this will make the attraction more fun as they will get to do whatever they want, perhaps have more room to stretch out, I don’t know. But I always think… why do you want to ride alone? Life is meant to be shared and experienced with others. I think if life has taught me anything it is that we can accomplish more together.

Life is meant to be shared.

This is why people seek out others in marriage, this is why the family unit is one of the tightest bonds; this is why labor unions are formed, this is why we live in highly populated cities.

God meant us to live life together.

Christ meant for his church to do ministry, give and share, and read his words together.

So yes, I believe in Sola Scriptura, but I also believe in the shared journey of the church. It is together that we read and interpret the scriptures, it is together that we worship our Lord, together we correct and rebuke and it will be together that we change the world.

I just got the joke of this picture the other day, for some reason I thought it was about being a “short” pastor (which I am).

I was asked in an interview lately what music is on my ipod and I had to admit that I generally don’t listen to music anymore (apparently I have reached “that age”) and that my ipod is filled with sermons and podcasts.

And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the traditional sermon. There are lots of schools of thought on what it means to give a “sermon.” My seminary would say that you should preach on a passage of scripture and then use topics and other verses to support it.

But there are lots of ways to preach a sermon:

• There are the sermons that use the “3 points” rule….
• There are pastors who love alliteration…
• There are preachers who talk a stern 30 minutes…
• And then there are ministers who have no concept of time….

The sermon is a big deal. Ask any parishioner why they go to their church, and they will either answer that they like the preacher, the music or the people. (wouldn’t it be great if it were all three?)

When my wife and I visit churches during the month, we always take note of how long the sermon was compared to the other worship elements; and being either the longest (or second longest) worship element of any service – it can sometimes be an ordeal. For the most part a sermon is typically 30 to 45 to 50 minutes long!

That’s the thing, I remember the things that a sermon should cover or include, but I don’t remember the part where my seminary professors said, “And make sure it’s at least thirty minutes long.”

I recently read somewhere that a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at California State University says that “…The time-worn tool of the instructor “telling” and students “listening” has become passé.”

You may not believe this, but the students of today have a shorter attention span than those of twenty-five years ago. Students, then, did not have access to the sophisticated media they have today to divert them from reading and listening. Today, these technologies are more cheaply available; and their addictive images and sounds contribute to an attention span that, for the average 17 to 23-year-old, may be between five to seven minutes, and even less for those with attention deficit disorders.

Five to seven minutes!

But just wait a second before you hit the print button and run this blog off to your senior pastor.

Let’s think a minute about Jesus’ sermons. We really only have one “big sermon” recorded.  We have the infamous “sermon on the mount” and then tons of little “sound bites” that are either parable “story teaching” lessons, or times when we see Jesus teaching through his actions.

Perhaps most of his parables were twelve or so minutes; no bullets, no fill in the blanks, and no cool power point.

And then there is the media to think about. People today watch a lot of television. According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s Communications Industry Forecast and Report, quoted by the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003, the average American spent 1,745 hours watching television, which works out to 145 hours a month. That’s more than six complete days in front of the TV… each month.

We get all of our information from screens.

I think a lot of times pastors miss a great opportunity in talking with their audiences by not using current topics and media in their messages. Most of this is simply because Christians as a rule try to remove themselves from secular society. One of my wife’s biggest pet-peeves is when she is talking to someone and says, “Did you see such and such on TV last night?” and the person comes back with “Oh, we don’t watch television.”

It its estimated that between 127 and 400 million people watch television every night, over 500 million use the internet world wide, millions buy DVD’s and CD’s every year, and millions more go the movies.

Let’s go back to Jesus’ lessons.

Remember, Jesus uses stories about farming and agriculture and he talks to a mainly uneducated, repressed people group. He uses word pictures about commonly found items like coins, food and farm animals.  He talks about recent events and mentions their political and religious leaders (sometimes by name).

Jesus made his lessons relevant.

Were Jesus’ teachings short and to the point?

Perhaps, there is no real way to ever know, but that certainly seems to be the example we have in scripture.

So is a sermon terrible if it is forty-five minutes long and discusses the genealogies behind the book of Numbers?

No.

….well… yes, but that’s not what I am saying.

Donald Whitney says, “…many fail to think of preaching as worship. But listening to preaching is something you do, and it is an act of worship to listen with an eager mind and responsive heart.”

No matter what, God is speaking. We as a congregation need to be open to that. Jesus says in Luke 8:18, “So be sure to pay attention to what you hear. To those who are open to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But to those who are not listening, even what they think they have will be taken away from them.”

I think the topic is defiantly two-sided; pastors should strive to connect with their audiences and be easy to understand and the congregation has an obligation to at least be open to it.

Hopefully it only took you a few minutes to read this.

And it’s not just because he has his own dot com (who doesn’t?) is a published author, is funny and has cool publicity photos (as evidenced in this post). He’s cool because, …well I don’t need more reasons…. because he lives in Texas. (I panicked)

Anyway, I recently had a chance to sit down with the author and discuss his latest book, O Me of Little Faith. (ok that’s a total lie, I just sent him the questions in an email and he wrote me back, but it sounded cooler).

DK: I have heard you mention before that writing books was your “second” job, without divulging too much – what is your first? What do you do for a living?

JB: “I’m a full-time, self-employed freelance writer and marketing professional. I have a background in the advertising industry, and primarily make a living as a writer in that world. I write ad copy and communications stuff for corporate clients and do a bit of graphic design, like newsletters or brochures. That’s what I do during business hours. I write my books at night.”

DK: As a writer/blogger who are some favorite writers of yours?

JB: “Some of my favorite bloggers include guys like Seth Godin, Scot McKnight, and the late, great Michael Spencer. As for writers, um, how much time do you have? My favorite religious writers include Buechner, Nouwen, Brennan Manning, Parker Palmer, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, and Eugene Peterson. I’m all over the place when it comes to fiction. Right now I’m into children’s books, so Kate DiCamillo and Roald Dahl are getting a lot of airtime. I’m a Tolkien fanboy. My favorite novel of all time is John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. And just today I was remembering how much I loved reading Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. That was about 15 years ago, so maybe it’s time to revisit it.”

DK: Your new book, O Me of Little Faith is a break from your recent Pocket Guides, what prompted you to write a “book” book?

JB: “Yes, it’s definitely a more personal “book” book. It wasn’t an intentional progression, as in “I have written snarky religious-historical books. Now I will write a memoir.” I was actually pitching OMOLF at the same time I pitched the latest round of Pocket Guides, back in 2007. It just happened that those got published first.

Anyway, I’ve been dealing with this doubt stuff for years, and a sequence of events back in 2006-2007 got me thinking that spiritual uncertainty was something we’d been sweeping under the rug far too often as Christians. I got the sense that there were a lot of us churchgoers who doubted… only we were keeping our doubt to ourselves. We were hiding it behind happy spiritual masks, alone in our struggles but pretending to have it all together. It’s been said before that writing a memoir is a way to reach across the loneliness. Doubters usually feel alone in their doubt, so I hope this book offers a way for people to travel the same road together. In sharing my personal story, I hope to encourage others who might be living a similar story.”

DK: Obviously your book is centered on the theme of “doubt.” In your first chapter you indicate that your goal isn’t to “answer all the questions” so was this more cathartic for you just to get some of these thoughts on paper or was it your intention to use doubt as a universal feeling most of us share to bring the reader in and perhaps say you’re not alone in all this?

JB: “To be honest, it was both. Certainly there was something therapeutic about sharing these personal stories and opening up about my internal doubts. Writing is beneficial that way. But it has to be more than catharsis, too. I wanted to let other doubters know that they weren’t alone, and to give them the freedom to be honest about some of this stuff. I don’t have the answers, but I can offer companionship and understanding — and sometimes that’s all we need.”

DK: Do you think to reach today’s modern agnostics doubt can be a stronger approach to evangelism than bold confidence?

JB: “Absolutely. Last week I heard Daniel Taylor (The Myth of Certainty) point out that books like Blue Like Jazz or Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis represent a new kind of “street-level apologetics.” It’s a genre marked by spiritual storytelling, up-front uncertainty, and a willingness to ask hard questions. Even though you don’t typically think of these types of books as “evangelism,” they do provide a safe, cushiony place for people to think about faith. Our generation isn’t going to be reasoned into the kingdom with Josh McDowell-style evidence or rational arguments. Call it post-modernism or relativism or whatever, but story plays a more important role. So does shared experience. I’ve found that conversation is more likely to happen in an environment colored by shades of gray than one marked with black-and-white. Which is to say that agnostics are more likely to be comfortable around an honest doubter with a story to tell than around a rationalist itching for a debate.”

DK: On Easter at Mars Hill Michigan, Rob Bell told his church, “Our hope is that (Mars Hill) would be a place of healing, a place where you could doubt and ask whatever question. A place where there was lots of freedom to explore and discover and be stretched…”  In your opinion, what kind of future awaits the church leader/pastor who perhaps wrestles openly with questions and doubts?

JB: “That’s the hardest question by far. Pastors are people in authority, and personally I want authority figures to be smarter than me. I need to trust them and I want them to have things figured out. But a pastor who wrestles openly with questions — who admits to not having the answers — isn’t going to project the kind of confidence that gets people to follow his lead. So the question is, what awaits a leader who has no one to lead? I honestly don’t know the answer to this. But I do know I’d make a lousy pastor.

I still keep coming back to this idea, though: Is it better to struggle with doubt and be honest about it? Or to struggle with doubt and hide it in the name of keeping up appearances? Real faith or fake spirituality: Which is preferable for a follower of Christ?

The easy answer is to side with honesty. But it gets more complicated when doubt is a chronic, lasting issue rather than a temporary season. What then? At what point do you reexamine your line of work? I wish I had the answer. I don’t.”

Rob Bell speaking at Hope College’s inaugural entrepreneurship symposium hosted by HCOG. Hope College Opportunity Group (HCOG) HCOG is a student-driven group aimed at nurturing and developing the ideas of Hope College students.

1. Part one – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJUV3mZyEb8

2. Part two – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtAkDj2ZmlE

3. Part three – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eu4k11EJPg

Is Bigger Better?

There are lots of questions and truths that we would cognitive ascent to and that we would intellectually affirm and yet the truth is that we think and feel and are driven by deep subterranean forces way down in our bones that actually drive us and make us think and feel in particular opposite ways. These things drive and shape us and create the filter by which we engage the world around us.

John 6

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Jesus had to confront the misconceptions about the Messiah, misconceptions about power, about the wilderness, and about what the truth of God looked like in changing times.

What would Jesus say to modern church growth experts who say “If you do A, B and C then this and this will happen”? He would say, “I love your passion… and yes, you can do this… and yes, sometimes there are large crowds… parking problems… but sometimes the crowd thins, not everyone will go with you. Sometimes people leave you.”

There are things we talk about: women in church, war, doubt, faith, etc. that sometimes thin our crowd. Faith and doubt dance together.

Sometimes the crowd thins and people leave. Sometimes you go in one direction and not everyone comes with you. Sometimes large groups of people say, “enough.”

Because when you talk about the flag and the cross – shouldn’t our primary allegiance be to the cross?

Luke 21

¹As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ²He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.³“I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Jesus saw the rich giving large amounts and the poor widow giving a small amount. But even though the rich had given more money, Jesus said that the poor widow had given more than all of them.

Because for Jesus, “More” is not always more.

Why do we have Christian organizations ranking local bodies and leaders according to their influence and creativity. Really? And this coming from a people who claim to follow a man who said ‘The first will be last’?

Put your crack pipe down! If you’re on “the list,” get off!

The widow Jesus saw put in more when really she really put in less; but somehow along the way we have become the people had more, who put in more, but who actually put in less.

Is the church, in our culture, known for its beautiful self?

Inverse fidelity – less is more.

When you rank and break down a church into numbers and statistics you violate the bride of Christ and what she was meant to be.

Have you had a deep dissatisfaction with what you’ve done? Are you carrying this burden for this thing you’re building for God? Have you stressed about the size of your church or organization? God wants to set you free from that.

Standard fidelity gets implanted in my mind. What actually shapes how we think, feel, and behave is impacted by that.

The body of Christ is a living and breathing Eucharist. We are the Eucharist. The word is literally taken from the words “good gift.” In your church, how does the good gift work? Jesus’ body was broken and His blood was poured out.

There’s a cost. There is trade. That’s how the Eucharist works.

We pour ourselves out so that others can receive life. The idea is if someone else takes, someone else has given. If someone learns, someone taught.

So we break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing and saving of the world.

A church is a Eucharist for its city.

The questions we need to be asking are, “How can we break ourselves open and pour ourselves out so that this context we are in might experience the healing, saving grace of the God who loves us?”

The Eucharist is a sacred, holy thing. And your own Eucharist, your own gift to the people you serve, the gift of your community, is a holy, sacred thing. The gift comes from a deep place of humility. You surrender to yourself when you give yourself away in humility. But when you exploit that and break it down and rank it and analyze it, it violates the sacred, holy nature of the Eucharist…

Jesus sees the world in a whole new way. Don’t demean what God has given you.

John 5

¹⁹Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.

Jesus says, whatever the Father does, the Son also does. We don’t have to do anything we don’t see the Father doing. Jesus’ work comes from a grounded, centered, calm place where He only has a few things to do and sets about doing them. He’s not distracted or stressed. His work comes from a particular place

Whatever God has for you to do may be costly. But there’s a difference between hard and difficult and between costly and a burdensome. God won’t give you something you can’t handle.

In Exodus 20 we have the 10 commandments. The first of the nine commands are all external and can be measured and observed. So what about the tenth? Maybe obeying the tenth is a reward for obeying the first nine. The Ten Commandments end with “You shall not covet.” And some people view this as more of a reward than an actual commandment. That perhaps if you love God and seek him with your whole heart, you won’t want any other life than your own.

When you obey God you won’t want what someone else has.

You won’t want anybody else’s life because yours will be just fine.

Jesus says to us in Matthew 5, “Blessed are you…” In other words, “blessed are you – who are exactly where you are.”

God wants to set you free from the anxiety and burden you carry about feeling like you have to measure up to others. God wants to set you free from the stress of size. God wants you to enjoy the place where you’re at and the work that is in front of you.

The whole Gospel message is counterintuitive. Love your neighbor as yourself is counterintuitive.

Is there any way you’ve neglected to take care of yourself because of the allusion that you have to keep going all the time. You need to be fulfilled with energy and vitality so you can love what you do more than you did before.

Have you been observing a Sabbath? Which day of the week are you busy doing nothing? Which day of the week have you set aside to feed your own soul so on the other six you have enough food to share with others? Which day of the week can you not be reached by phone or email?

Which day of the week is feeding your soul so you can then turn and feed others? Because until we take care of ourselves, we can’t properly care for others.

Often times our oblige to work and to produce is driven by an unhealthy motive. REPENT. Change your thinking. And start with yourselves.

Does your spouse get your very best or does your spouse get what’s left over after you’ve given your best to your church, to what you are building? Hopefully your spouse will be there for the whole journey.

Jesus wants to make sure that the people who are proclaiming peace and life are feeling and experiencing it in the deepest, most intimate levels of our lives.

Do your kids get your very best? How often to do they see you say, “No!” to the demands that would try to take you away from them?

We feed the machine and in the process the things and people around us aren’t thriving.

God has given us just a few things to do… just do them.

If things are going well within the church but not within your family then they’re not doing well.

They are inextricably linked.

You ignore the one at the peril of the other.

We need to live a centered, whole, peaceful life in the center of God’s love.

Bigger brings more.

More brings more with it.

Let other people have more.

You have your simple, beautiful work ahead of you.

And that’s good news.

1. The Original Guerilla Theatre

2. Elbow Video One Day Like This

3.  The Story We Are Telling….

4. Danny Mackaskill Video

5. Returning to the New…

6. How Technology Shapes the Sermon

7. The Fig Tree and the Failure of Language

8. Fumbling Around with your radar…

9. UNKLE Heaven video

10. For Those With Ears to Hear…

11. You are the Medium….

12. The One Thing I’ve Never Heard Someone Talk About That Has Changed Everything For Me

13. My thoughts from the conference at Neue online

Rob Bell

A note or an aside where someone veils a complaint or insult amidst a compliment or suggestion becomes a “chocolate covered turd.”

What do I extract from these encounters? What do I take away?

It’s the 9 to 1 ratio killer. I could get 9 praises, but I only focus on the 1 complaint.

And we think, “I’m the pastor, I should be able to shake this stuff off.”

Have you ever heard a rumor about yourself? …and it was true?

Acts 21

³⁷ As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, “May I say something to you?”

“Do you speak Greek?” he replied. ³⁸ “Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the wilderness some time ago?”

What is that about? What are these rumors about Paul?

What continues to play in my inner dialogue?

Who has my attention? Are they the “self-appointed…”

The official committee for Doctrinal Purity, orthodox Rhetoric and general Theological Correctness?

Don’t these people [groups] often speak words to you when you don’t need it. Over time these tiny words become paper-cuts and we suffer….

Death by paper cuts.

And then what happens? How do we act?

We hold back from our congregations – we hold back creatively, we hold back prophetically and we hold back personally.

We list the “those people” and we label the “bad people.”

We take revenge and we punish passively.

If we expect to stay in this game for the long run…

…we must be masters of forgiveness.

Name the wound, what exactly was it about the comment that hurt us?

Did it expose me?

Did it over analyze me?
Do I feel studied?

Am I hurt/insulted because I want to control the words I speak, but also control the people’s response to what it is I say?

They may be sheep, but sheep have teeth

Proverbs 26v11

As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.

Some people are just toxic and it is ok to set up boundaries.

Titus 3v10

Warn divisive people once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.

Some people are divisive.

You [as the pastor] are not an ecclesiastical punching bag. The unhealth of the church can be placed on you. And no, that is not what they pay you for.

Luke 12v13-14

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”

Was Jesus’ role as a Rabbi to settle disputes of family or law? Apparently not. Jesus flat out says, “dude, this isn’t my job.”

You are a precious resource.

If Jesus asks you to love your neighbor as yourself, then you must first love yourself.

Learning to forgive is learning to be free.

On the cross in Luke 23, Jesus forgives even those who sought to kill him. As a last act, he forgave his “special friends.”

The Christ pattern of the cosmos is an understanding of death and resurrection.

Tim Keller in his book the Reason for God says,

“You can forgive. It’s a form of suffering. Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. … However, …you are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person… Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the life long death of bitterness and cynicism.

Parker Palmer said, “…the cross says, ‘the pain stops here.’ The way of the cross is a way of absorbing pain, not passing it on, a way that transforms pain from destructive impulse into creative power.  When Jesus accepted the cross, his death opened up the channel for the redeeming power of love.”

Free your identity from how you are received by others.

Practice forgiveness

Exercise forgiveness

Master forgiveness

Who do you need to forgive?

Pictures from the conference:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1190321@N22/

“I had fun everyone, thanks to everyone for the talks, the handshakes and the heartfelt nods.”

Peter Rollins

“All communication is consumption.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Sermons should be a “service.”

It’s not that Christians claim Christianity is TRUE – but what does Christianity SAY when they claim that it’s true?

The story of Isis and Ra. [snake/cobra origin]

In this Egyptian story, Ra is old, so decrepit that as he goes on his daily travels, his spit dribbles onto the ground. The needs of humankind are neglected; the universe itself is fraying a bit due to the inability of the solar power to maintain order.

Isis, a magician, a wise woman, a daughter of Ra, conceives a desperate plan. She knows the art of image magic, and can create life out of inanimate objects. But for the supremely immune Ra to be affected by her arts, the image must have something of him in it. One day, Isis follows after Ra and gathers the earth that he has moistened with himself. She fashions from it an image of a small snake, the very toxic dart, and brings it to life.

Isis lays the snake in his accustomed path, with the instruction to bite Ra as he passes. This he does, and the snake springs up and clamps its fangs into the divine flesh. Ra, surprised, makes his way back to his abode, where a tremendous fever takes him. He shudders in his limbs, he cannot believe the virulent poison can be harming him, Lord of the Gods.

Isis says to Ra ”Father, if you do not give me your true name, you will die of this burning. Don’t play games with me, I’ll know the true name when I hear it.”

Isis leans in. She hears the mystical syllables, and this time, she rises up, satisfied. “What are you waiting for! Now heal me, daughter! Heal me!” Isis speaks the words, the syllables of Ra’s one true name. The poison flees his limbs, the sweat dries on his brow, he lies back in relief, free. “Now, daughter, speak the words back to me, give me back my one true name, my one secret name.” “Father, one day I may need to heal you again. If you have lost all consciousness, how could you tell it to me then? No, I will keep this word.”

And Isis left her father’s bedside.

How is this directly tied into Moses who lifts the bronze snake?

Numbers 21:9
So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. [was healed]

How is this directly tied to Jacob wrestling God and demanding, “What is your name?”

Anselm felt that God exists in the mind and in reality, but pushed it further to say that God only exists in reality, because he is too big [vast, expansive, awesome] to fit in your mind.

It’s the 3^rd level of existence – hyper

A boat at the bottom [you] of the ocean may be completely consumed by the water [God] but only experiences a fraction of it’s vastness.

God is a trauma.

He is something you don’t recover from.

He if life changing.

And the bible is true because it’s a trauma [not because it makes sense, but because it doesn’t]

The truth of God is in the creator of the metaphor.

God is not the patch we put on the wound of our unknowing. God is the wound.

The lesson from Jacob is, in learning God’s name – God’s name “name’s us.” In trying to learn God’s identity – we find our own.

So what is revelation? Revelation should be knowledge and truth… but do we have those things?

Incomprehension: it’s knowing that you don’t know. Experiencing the apocalypse and the unspeakable.

Bedazzlement: it’s anxiety and having your world rocked.

Transformation: and now you are no longer the same. Isn’t this the example of Saul/Paul? A light of unknowing, that took him by wonder, and it blinded him.

Revelation reveals as much as it conceals.

At IKON Rollins said they were singing a worship song once and all of a sudden the words “melted away” to reveal large letters “I AM THE TRUTH” and then “FOLLOW ME” and then “FOR I WILL CRUSH MY ENEMIES”

…it’s those kind of things that take you back from singing the songs that sound like “Jesus is my boyfriend.” Why do we sing those songs?

[we are] the revelation, the invitation, the invocation, the insurrection.

Perform revelation

Find new ways to live revelation

The nation of Israel means “to wrestle.” The nation of Islam means “to submit”

In the Lord’s prayer we say “Our Father [and you know a Father] hallowed [set apart, or as if to say “but not like any father you know….”

About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave the Vatican. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave. The Jews realized that they had no choice. So they picked a middle aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for one addition to the debate. To make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk. The pope agreed.
The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger.

The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat.

The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”

An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said: “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?”

Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe. “What happened?” they asked. “Well,” said Moishe, “First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here.”

“And then?” asked a woman.

“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “After that we broke for lunch.”

Speak words of revelation.

A man died and went to St Peter at the gates of heaven, but when he got there he noticed that his friends were just outside the gate. Peter motioned for the man to enter, but before he could set foot, he remembered that Jesus was a friend of sinners and that he often invited the pour and the outcast to his table.

“That’s ok,” said the man. “I will stay out here.” And St. Peter smiled and said…

“Now, you truly understand.”

“If I ever become a saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness,’” Mother Teresa wrote in September of 1959. “I will continually be absent from heaven—to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”

What was the story of WALL-E? Was heaven all it was cracked up to be? No, it was place of indulgences and eventually sloth. WALL-E forsook the party and stayed with the earth as it’s caretaker.

Some may ask, do I deny the resurrection?

“I deny the resurrection every time I turn my back on the poor or become a cog in a system of injustice.”

Rob Bell

http://www.maniacworld.com/awesome-skateboarding-explosions.html

Where do sermons come from?

1. Radar
2. Buckets
3. Chunks
4. Marinade

RADAR: Come Monday morning we are all staring at the “blank screen” how do we turn the blank screen into content?

From having to say something [pressure] vs. having something to say.

Because coming up with a sermon that carries meaning and weight and packs a punch is a lot of work, but most of the time we just shake the hands and say, “thank you – it was all God.”

There is sermon material all around you, everywhere in every body, in every conversation vs. trying to scramble for something Tuesdays at 9 am.

Genesis 28

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

John 5

¹⁷ In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

As a pastor, what you do for people on Sunday mornings is… you make connections, and you point out what has been there the entire time. And you help people to wake up to a God who has been there the entire time.

You know what God’s other name is…..? “Surprise.”

Where does the radar pick up ideas from?

Exegetical Life: write, picture, save, ask, get it, clip, tear, store, mark, remember, download, with no edit button.

Exegete Text: memorize, inhale, words, location, culture, concepts, stories, time, pictures, action, connections…

Where do you start? How about with memorizing the text. Allow it to work through you.

What have other people [commentators] said about the text

What are the key words and what do they mean?

Are the pictures words?

Where does it take place? What else takes place there?

Some questions to ask:

If I couldn’t’ use biblical words or Chrisitan words to describe this? How would I tell this to a…

Child, Martian, Non-Christian, using no words, or drawing pictures, or using actors – how would I dance this? What music does this bring out?

What is the THING behind the thing?

What is the MYSTERY behind the mystery?

What is the TRUTH behind the truth?

A sermon on “Marriage” says “don’t come” to non-married people.

So what is the “element” to preach on….?

Marriage [is about what?] <-communication <-patience, respect, holding your tongue, how we are connected to each other.

Tithing <-giving <-trinity <-living in community, sharing, generosity.

Don’t START with tithing, start at the THING and end softly on the application.

How can you get this across to your audience?

Exact it, show it, do it, ignore it, perform it, circle around it, hand it out…

The alone object on the stage creates tension and it asks of the audience, “Where are we headed?”

How can you use someone’s – resources, skills, talents? And when you discover someone’s story or talent, write it down – “get a name and license plate number.”

BUCKETS:

one bucket per idea /fragment / insight / sentence

one a week

no pressure

no time frame

revisit them regularly

it’s the difference from being intentional vs. accidental

It’s paying attention

If you are giving a series – ask – how does it break down into components?

Tell people to write their stories down and send them to you

This is where you can unpack books you read, articles, blogs

Some of your buckets grow into…

CHUNKS:

If it isn’t HOT – drop it

Now you are into accumulating and arranging

Communicate your ideas to your staff so they can process in enough time with you

Things are now beginning to take root

Prune back and edit

Marinade:

Food tastes better if it’s had time to sit and stew in its juices and so do your sermons.

It’s so much easier to memorize a sermon if it’s sat in you for months

All of the labor, time, attention, intension, and flavor pays off here. Certain things need time to “soak” in you.

If it’s truly in you – you won’t need notes.

Rob Bell

What is the framework of a sermon?

A sermon…has an engine…has an energy source…comes from somewhere.

Why are you saying this? Why now? Why should we care?

What is the spark, engine, picture, for these people at this time?

A sermon can be built around…

1. Moment
2. Movement
3. Mystery

Example One – Moment “I had a moment just then and I have to tell someone…”

Jesus curses a fig tree

2 Kings 5
Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy… Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”… But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant for this.”

“Go in peace,” Elisha said.

Naaman worships a localized deity. This story is actually a question about “what is the right thing to do?”

Example Two – Movement

Gen 27 “I am Esau”

Gen 32 “I am Jacob” this is a story about movement, how did we get from there to here?

Throwing your pearls before swine – Matt 7:6, 7:1, 6:25, 6:32 – it all backs up from worry

Psalm 1

Blessed are those who do not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers…

How do we move from walking, to standing to sitting? What is the movement?

Example Three – Mystery

Philippians 1:6

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

BEGAN, GOOD WORK and COMPLETD are all….Genesis language.

Or look at the 10 Commandments, commandments 1-9 are all sins someone could see with their eyes, they are all sins you could catch someone in the act of doing.

The 10^th commandment is “no coveting” and it seems like a private, personal sin. BUT- the Rabbi’s would say, it’s a gift and a commandment. For if you obey commandments 1 through 9 you will become the kind of person who does not want anyone else’s life.

Revelation 4

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.

There is a throne at the center of all things and I am not on it. That is why we gather every week to worship the one on the throne and to remind ourselves that it is not ours.

Everything is related to everything else.

Sermon Breakdown….

Name the parts of your sermon – define them – classify them

Know them

Be aware of them

Feel them

Step aside and allow them…

Gather these tools and speak to these subjects, but not exclusively….

Read the passage

Gather information

Learn the story

Ask questions

Draw pictures

Rant

Take action

Insight

Observe

Give statistics

Declare

Invite…

Ask: How long can I create this tension?

Before giving a sermon define your:

Speed

Intensity

Tension [turn in your bibles to…stuff on stage….stuff in their hands]

Pacing

Tone

Posture

Arc

There are openers that overwhelm and leave you with no room to go.

Remember: There are no rules other than KNOWING what it is you are doing, when you do it.

Story board [Everything Is Spiritual was 102 3x5 index cards]

A sermon creates:

A picture

Space

An image

Experience

An encounter

A word

And a place for people to find themselves in it.

A sermon can be:

Focused and yet open to interpretation

Said and yet left with things to say

Defining and yet open for more imagination

Resolute and yet unresolved and left with “issues.”

A sermon is where everyone is invited “where they are” [A, B, C] to the next place or level in their lives [Q, R, S]

A sermon is like building a cathedral of words that invites people to come into it & say “ah its beautiful”

A sermon can be a word spoken just for them….

Peter Rollins

This wasn’t so much a lecture or a sermon so much as it was the ramblings of an Irish man. [don’t get me wrong, I loved it and am Irish and if you have a problem with it, walk over to room 326 and I’ll punch you in the neck!]

It shouldn’t be about living out your dreams so much as it should be dreaming about your wants.

Christian leaders should be people who “refuse to lead.” Someone has to say, “it’s not my fault.”

Things that the do at IKON, Peter Rollins’ church

1. Non-membership course.
2. Last Supper – invite someone from the community to come and talk and share their views and if they don’t like it – it’s your “last supper.”
3. Omega Course – a 12 step program to leaving Christianity, exiting toxic religion
4. Evangelism Team – a group of people who ask neighboring faiths to evangelize to them
5. Atheism for Lent – for lent they give up God and read the critics of the faith to hear those voices.
6. Transformance Art
7. Apocalyptic Night – the guest speaker and soloist, never played, instead the crowd was told, “someone is coming, but they are not here yet.” So instead random people got up and told stories.
8. God Delusion – a 18 foot tall woman in a huge dress that went out into the audience and various members were unraveling it and the staff wore unraveled clothing, The apostle’s creed was on the walls and members were allowed to manipulate the text as they wished.
9. Protested their own events
10. write their beliefs on rice paper and ate them.
11. Women speaking in church – had a woman come forward and act nervous and sit down “women shouldn’t speak in church” followed by a woman who sang a sermon written by a hated fundamentalist preacher.
12. Pyro-theology “the only illuminating church is a burning church.”

Sadly the world creates Ironic Churches [instead of Iconic ones]

STORY: A man goes to his preacher and conveys the need to go and help a local family who are down on their luck and about to be evicted by a cruel landlord.

“How are you connected to this family?”

“I’m the landlord,” says the man.

The irony is WE create the problems in the first place.

Like talking about how bad corporations are while we sit in starbucks.

STORY: There is a guy who goes to his shrink with an issue because he thinks that he is small kernels of seed, and even though after many sessions is cured of his belief, he one day comes back afraid. “My neighbor has chickens!” he exclaims.

“But you know you are not a seed,” says the Doctor.

“Yes” shouts the man,  “but do the chickens know?”

Who are the chickens? We need to convince them.

We may know things but we disavow our beliefs.

Fashion is shallow, but we worry about how we look.

Batman is a business man who is so wealthy he can fund his own military campaign. Isn’t he fighting the crime and poverty in Gotham, a problem that HE himself creates?

In the Matrix didn’t we finally see in movies 2 and 3 that the machines allowed resistance and that the system actually “requires” resistance in order for it to work properly.

Your boss doesn’t care that you bad mouth him behind his back. You still come to work on time and do your task, so ultimately your “freedoms” do not affect his bottom line.

We all need our little air vents. But only a little resistance prevents real actual change.

In a revolution – everything changes. The poor are not just “fed” but they are transformed from actually “being” poor.

But in an insurrection a small pocket of people begin to live “as if” revolution has already taken place.

We have to violently rock the bowels of our belief.

When we listen to a singer, we don’t cry – why? Because the singer cries for us. The canned laughter laughs for us – we have “belief through the other.” As long as the pastor believes it, then I don’t have to and everything is ok.

Do we affirm doubt? Only a little, because if the pastor doubts then everything falls apart. The “structure” can not have doubt.

God is not an object in your world, he is the force that allows you to act with your objects.

You can not see light – light allows you to see.

God is now here…..God is nowhere.

As soon as you can point to God and hold him in your hand and say, “God is here.” Then he is nowhere.

We have to offend ourselves as preachers. And be open to being wrong.

Suspend space – then we can engage in becoming nothing and then we are all equal.

Can’t we fight as friends?

Preaching should DO something. Perform – catch people off guard.

Is your sermon all about “the answer.” Or does it have meaning, does the text speak in new ways, does it draw people into a transformative conversation?

Don’t give thirsty people water…give them salt.

Don’t give hungry people bread…give them aroma.

Do we scare people into conversions?

Ask yourself…

Do we seek eternal life or God?

Do we seek meaning or God?

Do we seek a partner in life, or just an end to loneliness?

How do we fulfill our needs?

I never needed God until I met him.

I never needed a son, until I had him.

Why?

Because it’s retro active. We have always needed God, but we didn’t know until we met him.

STORY: A woman who has a sick child finds that her child has died, so she ties the body to her back and begins to seek someone who can help her. She ends up visiting a monkey who lives on a hill who she is told can help her. “I can help you,” the monk says. “But first you must bring me some mustard seeds from someone who has never experienced loss or pain.”

And in the search for such a person, all she finds are people with shared experiences and it is through the stories of others that she is able to grieve and bury her child.

Suffering needs listening.

We try to become like God, but God became a man.

Christianity is a religion that critiques religions.

There was a pastor who was bothered by cats when he prayed, so during those times he would tie them to a tree. But because it was his practice, it was noticed by other student monks and when the senior monk died, his students would continue to tie cats to trees when they prayed. And when the cats died, they would replace them with new cats and when the tree died, they planted new trees and some would go so far as to write treaties about the nature and meaning behind cats and trees…..

Rob Bell

Rob started this talk with a Inspired Film of a BMXer who street biked off various walkways and railings and a rubiks cube guy who solved the cube with his feet [which I was later told by someone that the video is a hoax and that it was filmed in reverse]

Where and how you begin and where and how you end – shapes the story you are telling.

What is the big deep story?

Gen 1v11

¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.

The word “produce” is the Hebrew word dasha = sprout

Progressive generality

Creation is going some place

Dynamic not static

Tomorrow will be different than today

Gen 1v26, 28

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Rule – kabash – subdue

Responsibility

Stewardship, participatory, physicality, harmony within hierarchy, everything in it’s proper place, the appropriate ordering of creation.

Gen 2:3

³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy

God blessed “barakh”

Soil and spirit are united

Heaven and earth are one

There isn’t “somewhere else.”

Life is all there is, whatever it is.

Aesthetics

Naming

Organizing

Learning

Worship

Relationships / partnerships

Making things

Exploration

This is where the story begins…. Gen 1 and 2

The story ends in Revelation 21

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.”

All things have been made new, and the story ends here….on earth. The same place it began.

If you were to remove all of the sin from the bible you’d have a pamphlet, but it would be a pamphlet that contains Gen 1 and 2, and Revelation 2:1 and 2:2

It started in a garden and ended in a city. And what are cities?

So even without sin involved, we can all see that the story is going somewhere.

In Gen 3, sin enters and you have

• Disruption of peace [shalom] and wholeness and health
• Rebellion against God
• Participation in death
• Missing the mark

Genesis 3 is not how the story begins or ends, so “yes” sin is serious, but it is temporary.

Confession [yadhah] is admission and declaration

Repentance [t’shuva] is to turn

Shouldn’t the story be about God?

Matthew 19:28 Jesus restores all things

Acts 3 Peter all things

Colossians 1:20 Paul says Jesus reconciles all things

A sermon that begins with Genesis 3 begins with sin and if you start with this premise in your preaching, then your goal is the removal of sin. To get rid of the problem.

But a sermon that begins at Genesis 1 then the goal is “how do we get back” to shalom and restoration and peace.

What is the larger story that you are telling? Is it just how to get rid of sin?

Genesis 3 – tells us what you are not – “You’re an abomination.” – Where is the “good news” in this?

Genesis 1 – tells us what you are.

Genesis 3 speaks about a disembodied evacuation – i.e. the rapture

Genesis 1 speaks about a participating physicality – proper relationship with God

The book of John gives us 7 creation “signs.”

In John 2:11 Jesus turns water into wine and John says this was his first “sign.”

John 4:54 Jesus heals an official’s son [second sign]

John 5:1-14 Jesus heals at the pool of Siloam [third sign]

John 6:14 Jesus multiplies bread [fourth sign]

John 6:16 Jesus walks on water [fifth sign]

John 9:16 Jesus heals a blind man [sixth sign]

John 11:47 Jesus raises lazarus [seventh sign]

The seventh sign is a man coming back from the dead and for the Jews the number seven is intricately tied to creation, so what happens in John 20?

Jesus comes back from the dead [an eighth sign] which would signify a new week and therefore Jesus is the firstborn of a NEW creation. And who does Mary think Jesus is when she sees him? A gardener? In this new creation, the “death problem” has been resolved.

The resurrection is a story about God reaffirming the goodness of creation.

Heaven is where God is storing Earth’s future.

What are the implications of this?

Business “creates” to further shalom

Art “aesthetics”

Justice

A Sermon is….

A sermon is continuing insistence that through the resurrection of Jesus a whole new world is bursting forth right in the midst of

A sermon helps people to see the new creation with their own eyes,

What you look for you will find.

Preaching should have a tour-guide dimension to it.

Bring hope not rooted in escape but engagement not evacuation but reclamation not in leaving but in staying and overcoming.

Not hope is “some day” but here and now.

Not heaven then..there..that’s not relevant.

It always has been….will be God’s world.

Arthur Holmes said, “All truth is God’s truth.”

I want to be a part of things that will be in that future proper world.

Elbow – One Day Like This