Are you Response-ible?

In an article entitled "What's the Secret to Your Success" (link), Michael Hyatt feels that his responsiveness has been (one of) the main key/s to his advancement in his career. When people ask him to do something, or to answer a question, or email, he is responsive. He reminds us that we are building our reputations, "one response at a time." Do we return emails, phone calls, and questions promptly? Can we be counted on? Do we plan ahead? When people think of us, do they think of someone they can count on to respond, or do they feel we are an person who can't get the job done? It is an area we don't think of very often when it comes to character, yet it is vital. Part of the answer to responsiveness is to understand the importance and make the commitment to being a responsive person. Another part is developing a system to keep track of all of the things that are thrown our way which need a response -- email, phone calls, questions in the hall, or when we are out and about. This is a good reminder for all of us, no matter what our calling is in life (of course it also pertains to our home life!)

How Long Does Contemporary Last?

I attended a pastor's conference last week which covered a number of theological trends that are taking place in the Western church. I found it fascinating to analyze the cycles in the church. The Emergent Church (with its positives and negative/s of aberrant or heretical doctrine from some corners) is a reaction to the Seeker Sensitive church (which also had some positives as well as negatives). The Seeker Sensitive church model was designed to make church familiar to those who were not familiar with church. If it looked like church, smelled like church, sounded like church, it was to be jettisoned. Hence, the getting rid of church symbols such as the cross, stained glass windows, organ music, etc., and the introduction of the praise band performed (intentional choice of word) by professional or semi-professional musicians. The appearance was to be that of attending a concert, with an inspirational talk added with the goal of attracting unchurched people to "church."

The Emergent Church has jettisoned the Seeker Sensitive church model with the goal of making church look like church, smell like church and sound like church. That is the reason that many of those espousing this model (or conversation) have returned the cross, stained glass, organ music, or even chants, incense, and other "churchy" things. They want to experience church. They are rejecting the professionalism and entertainment aspect of the Seeker Sensitive model which they have interpreted as phony with the desire of participating in the worship experience. [Note: I realize that the Emergent Church is broad and divergent and that these comments are a broad brush]

It has been noted recently that some churches are rediscovering hymnbooks!(link) May God grant us the wisdom to maintain our purpose and direction as we seek to be faithful to Him and to our call.

Concluding note: now, when someone phones the church office and asks, "do you have a contemporary service," I wonder how we should respond?

What to do when you shoot someone

Vice President Dick Cheney has gotten a lot of publicity recently about his hunting accident. HB London makes a very good analogy by pointing out that sometimes we shoot someone with our tongue -- gossip, innuendo, idle words. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Eph. 4:29). We can do a great deal of damage to people and the church of Jesus Christ with our random words. When we have wounded someone, we need to ask his or her forgiveness and seek to lessen the damage by going to those with whom we have communicated and making it right (link to article). P.S. HB also confesses two of his "almost" hunting accidents when he almost shot James Dobson.

Thoughts on Plug-n-Play Preaching & “Relevancy”

I recently received another promotional for a sermon provider service. It promoted such sermons as: Winter Olympics, Promise of Spring, Narnia, World Series Fever, Patriot Sunday, etc., etc. There were a few more traditional titles such as Easter series, Pentecost Sunday, and Thanksgiving... and it prompted my thinking. I realize that often times some of the hardest part of preaching is getting started and sometimes we can use some help with an outline, or someone’s thoughts that is the spark that helps to ignite the fire (of course expositional preaching through a book of the Bible does help alleviate this, but those special days of Christmas, Palm Sunday, Resurrection Sunday can still be a challenge). It seems to me that too often the plug-n-play preaching approach short circuit’s the message. It really isn’t very glamorous doing the study to produce a sermon that ministers to the people to whom God has called us to feed. Sermon preparation is just plain hard work. But picking up a devotional or a sermon someone else has preached and just dressing it up a bit and preaching it isn’t that effective. I have sat in on some of those. It is like serving fast food. It can be dressed up a bit, garnished a little, put on some fancier serving platter, but it is still fast food. It hasn’t really run through the heart and soul of the preacher first.

Another related concept is the phrase, “we need to make the Bible relevant.” The more I reflect on that, the more inaccurate I believe the phrase is. We don’t need to make the Bible relevant ... the Bible IS relevant. We may hide it’s relevancy with our preaching and teaching, but the problem is not the relevancy of Scripture, the problem is us. I believe that is the reason someone can pick up the Gospel of John, and come to a saving knowledge of who Jesus Christ is just by reading the text.

It seems to me that we can hide the relevancy of the Bible to daily living by trying to be so relevant (first paragraph) that Scripture is distorted and we make it irrelevant (or worse, inaccurate).