Category: General

Seth Godin and Preaching

Seth Godin has an article up on [Really Bad PowerPoint]( http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/01/really_bad_powe.html) that speaks (I think) directly to the task of preaching. It’s simple; it’s good, and you should read it.

I swear, when I am pastor of a church, I am going to hire Seth Godin and have him train my evangelists. I am not kidding. I am going to have conferences on preaching and evangelism (and maybe even worship and spiritual formation) and have him come and speak at a round table forum right next to John Piper. And I’m not even sure he’s a Christian.

I don’t know particularly that he would be interested in participating in a religious seminar, but he’s got a message that a lot of Christian speakers need to hear. Preaching is made up of two parts – the message that you are trying to get across, and the way that message is communicated. For the first part, Christians have a process called exegesis, which basically can be summed up as reading your bible, and reading it well. But for the second part, a lot of people seem to think that all that’s required is a clear, succinct transmission of the information the pastor has acquired in his study. As Mr. Godin says, “If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.”

Seriously: pastors, if all you want to do is get information into the heads of your congregants, then cancel church, and send everybody an email. Start a blog, post your sermon, and spend Sunday helping the poor. Why not? Are you going to tell me that the reason you have to speak your sermon is because you have to make sure that every one stays to listen to you? Is preaching preferable to reading because it’s an accountability scheme in disguise? Are you going to tell me that the reason you must speak your message is that some people in your congregation are aural rather than visual learners? Send out a poll and ask them whether they’d really prefer to sit and listen to somebody talk for half an hour, rather than read 6-10 pages of text. If it’s more than 10 percent, I’ll be really surprised.

In the reformation, it was common to hear people insist that the sermon was absolutely necessary precisely because so many people in the church could not read. In America in the 21st century, that’s not exactly the case any more, is it? In fact, reading levels were so low that many considered it of the highest priority simply to get the local parson literate, and let him read a sermon that was cribbed from somebody else. Again, in the modern West, that isn’t a very good argument, is it? My pastor insists that the preaching (and hearing) of the sermon is the highest point in our worship service, a point that I’m not quite ready to concede. But even if that’s the case, how great can this worship be if the highest point of our worship could easily be done as effectively at home?

The answer, of course, is that preaching is not merely about transferring information. It’s selling something. And when you’re selling something, you want to get a response. Robert Webber says that all worship can be boiled down to revelation and response. God reveals his nature, his character, his purposes, and we respond accordingly – first in the service itself, and finally in our lives. As Seth Godin says, “Communication is the transfer of emotion. Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)”

Frankly, I can’t think of a single thing in his post on PowerPoint that doesn’t apply to preaching.

God Speaking

There’s a certain kerfuffle going on right now over the phrase “God still speaks today.” It seems to have been started by an anonymous article in Christianity Today, titled “My Conversation with God,” in which a conservative seminary professor described with awe and wonder the experience of God directing him to dedicate the proceeds from a book toward a friend’s college tuition. The author seems to have wished to remain anonymous either to avoid turning the article into a fund raising scheme, or because he was fearful of an anti-charismatic backlash.

Of course, there has been something of a backlash. Among other things, John Piper, who I understand is *not* anti-charismatic, or even a cessationist *per se*, wrote an article last week, in which he described having a similar experience:

As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, “Come and see what I have done.” There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that these were the very words of God. In this very moment. At this very place in the twenty-first century, 2007, God was speaking to me with absolute authority and self-evidencing reality. I paused to let this sink in. There was a sweetness about it. Time seemed to matter little. God was near. He had me in his sights. He had something to say to me. When God draws near, hurry ceases. Time slows down.

At first, I was very pleased to read about John Piper’s experience, until he transitioned about half way down and made it clear that he wasn’t talking about the same sort of experience described in Christianity Today. He was describing an experience he had reading his Bible, what you might refer to as a “quickening” of the text.

Honestly, my first thought was that he was mocking the other man’s experience: he used the same kind of tone and phrasing, and deliberately concealed the true nature of his experience until it was revealed in a startling sort of way. In fact, his efforts at concealment were thorough enough that, looking back up the article, it becomes clear the experience could not have happened *precisely* in the way he described it: “So I sat down on a couch in the corner to pray. As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, “Come and see what I have done.” Of course, it didn’t happen suddenly at all. He opened his Bible, turned to Psalm 66, and prayerfully read the text.

Perhaps it was a moving experience. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was there, quickening those words to him, and filling them with more meaning than he had ever realized before. I have no reason to believe otherwise. But it doesn’t fall in to the same category it would have if the words of Psalm 66 had fallen into his head, unbidden, and he had only later realized they were the exact words of scripture.

Reading through the rest of the article, you discover that John Piper’s real purpose in writing was to castigate the author of the Christianity Today article, not for having an experience, but for treating that experience with the amazement that it was due. Continue reading “God Speaking”

Testimony

For a job application I’m filling out right now to teach at a Christian school, I’ve been asked to share my testimony “including approximate date of conversion,” and it occurred to me that I’ve never actually shared the story of the beginning of my Christian walk on this site.

Frankly, I have ambivalent feelings about the term “conversion,” not because I’ve never had one, but because I believe I’ve had at least two. When I was about five years old, I remember coming out of church in early spring and praying to God that he would “make me a Christian.” (Apparently, I had been asking lots of questions the preceding few weeks – questions along the line of how the preacher managed to stay dry in his suit while baptizing people.) When I prayed, the image came to my mind of a poorly drawn stick figure, and I had a sense that my prayer was…insufficient. But the following Sunday, as my parents got ready for church, I echoed the sinner’s prayer after a preacher on TV. I immediately ran to my mother and announced that I was now a Christian. I was baptized a few weeks later. This would have been around 1983.

You may have some doubts about the authenticity of my “conversion” in such as simplified format, so early in my life. “Where’s the heart-felt repentance?” you may say. I started asking the same thing about a year later. I remember being at school, back behind a pre-fab classroom, with a group of boys, boasting. Oddly enough, however, we weren’t comparing the normal attributes that young boys are prone to demonstrate. Instead, we were each bragging about how young we were when we got saved. The assumption seemed to be that the younger you were when you became a Christian the more innately holy you must have already been, to come to Christ so quickly. I have no idea, I only remember bragging.

That next Sunday, there was a guest speaker at our church who preached a powerful evangelistic message. The gist of the message was that you might *not* be saved, though you had repented, if you had come to Christ for the wrong reason. What if, for instance, you had become a Christian simply for the sake of status or reputation? I was cut to the heart. My very words from the pulpit against me. When the time came for the altar call, I swore to be the first to rise. Eyes blurred with tears, I hurried toward the steps, to grab hold of the horns of the altar, as it were. I wanted to be a Christian, and not one in name only!

As I knelt and prayed, I waited for the pastor or a deacon to come and talk with me. Instead, my mother came. I poured out the secrets of my hear to her, and asked how I could know that I was saved, and that I hadn’t merely “prayed with wrong motives.” I don’t believe she actually showed me the verse in Romans 8 that says, “The Spirit himself bears witness,” but she told me she believed that the Holy Spirit would confirm my state before God if I asked him to. So I did. I prayed, and received a confidence that God looked on me and saw a Christian.

Nevertheless, upon conversion, I immediately became a perfect hoodlum. My life was not marked by a desire to live out the gospel. When I was 9, my parents moved, and I was placed in an exceptional Christian school, where I learned (among other things) that my hurtful, self-centered way of behaving was not the best tool for winning friends. Over the next year and a half, I worked on reforming my manners, and succeeded in making myself a very nice, attractive boy. My reform efforts were so successful that, while I had been wildly unpopular in that school, when we moved again and joined a new church, I found I had discovered all the secrets I needed to “win friends and influence people.” I had become very good at making myself liked. However, in all this my heart was not converted. Continue reading “Testimony”

I know what I want for Christmas

The NET Pastor’s Bible Pack
This is my kind of Bible. First, it’s a new translation, where, in addition to the usual concerns for accuracy and readability, they also paid attention to the writing styles of different authors, instead of merely fixing their vocabulary at a particular reading level. Second, in an attempt to provide the greatest level of transparency in the translation, they’ve included 60,000 translator’s notes. You can see exactly what choices were made, and why. Third, there’s a reason why they chose the acronym NET, since this is the first bible (they claim) to fully use the electronic translation resources now available. All the research and collaboration was done on-line, and in that spirit, they’ve waived nearly all copyright considerations: you may distribute the NET bible, without cost, in any form that you like, provided you don’t charge for it. The whole thing can be downloaded free off their web site.

However, if you want a nice print copy, with all 60,000 footnotes, like I do, apparently the only place you can get is directly from the manufacturer. So, anyway, I know what I want: There’s a nice “Pastor’s Bible Pack” that has the complete first edition, with all 60,000 notes, a reader’s edition, which only has 7,000 or so notes, and a diglot New Testament edition, with Greek on one page and English on the other. All in all: Yum!

To Pick a Church

I was listening to a sermon series the other day given by a pastor to a group of graduating seminary students on identifying the most important attributes in selecting a Church. In other words, how do you make your list of needs vs. wants?  I wanted to have a discussion around this with several friends but since I don’t have a blog myself, I asked Kyle and he has graciously allowed me to post a guest blog here for discussion.  (much easier for everyone to post their thoughts rather than keep it on a massive email!)

Kyle lived with me and my brother in Charlotte a couple of years ago for around six months and we have stayed in touch during his time in up north.  I live in the
Charlotte area and work for a Fidelity Investments company in their finance department.  I teach Sunday School and work with a very small youth group at my Church here in
Charlotte.  I enjoy photography & ultimate…but enough about me.

I thought it would be a good exercise to think through these questions and try to develop my own list before listening to the sermon series.  Now granted, no Church in the world is perfect but I suppose there should be some consensus on the most important attributes.  At its core, this also addresses at some level what is the purpose of the Church but I hoped to keep the discussion centered on specific attributes.  I would like it to be a discussion format where you not only give your list but support your choices.  I prefer something hopefully deeper than just opinions lest we slip into what my father would term “pooled ignorance.” 

So – lets hear it – what do you think are the most important attributes for a Church? 

Andrew <><

The IPCC is the Beast of Revelation

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the Beast of Revelation, says the BBC, in this video on global warming:

I swear it’s true. Go to about 35 minutes in for the details.

OK, so the BBC doesn’t actually come out and say the words “beast of Revelation” on the air. However, they do describe, among other things, the creation by Margaret Thatcher of a bureaucracy which then proceeds to take on a life of its own and grow to monumental proportions and power, issuing edicts to the very governments that created it.

The IPCC is the organization which periodically sends out notices that “most scientists agree” that global warming is a serious problem and human caused. The general impression is that the IPCC is a bastion for a Greenpeace liberal sort of perspective, yet the panel itself was apparently originally formed at the behest of Thatcher in order to give her ammunition to support converting away from coal and oil and to nuclear power, for reasons of *national security*. That is, it was a right wing toy that seems to have… evolved.

At any rate, I highly recommend the video. It’s just over an hour long, and it provides a fascinating perspective into the debates on global climate change that you might not have heard yet. The fact that it was produced by the BBC, in turn, helps to lend some legitimacy to what might otherwise be the unfavored view.

More On Copyright

In my last post on copyright and stealing, I had some pretty strong things to say about copyright law, that it was “stupid and shortsighted, having the effect of crippling the very people it’s designed to protect.” I want to make clear that those comments were directed, not at copyright as a whole, but particularly at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which extended the copyright protection of corporate icons like Mickey Mouse indefinitely, and created stiff barriers to distributing copyright material, even for free.

The problem with this law is that the cat is already out of the bag. Continue reading “More On Copyright”