Shall We Gather?

I'd better get this in before there's another database connection error. Grrrr.

The scene behind the church this afternoon. It started raining, oh, sometime on Saturday and finally let up a little while ago. I saw on Facebook that we got around 15" of rain. Lots of flooding going on around here.

It rained almost all day long yesterday (Easter). I was pretty bummed because last year it was just so beautiful and bright outside. This year was dark and gloomy. Not the way I wanted to celebrate Easter. But, God was working on me and teaching me.

My mood is generally affected by numbers. And by numbers I mean weekly attendance and giving. It's not just my mood but my self-worth, understanding of calling, and all that. I wasn't fired up for Easter this year. I looked at the weather forecasts and knew that it would rain which meant that there wouldn't be as many people on Sunday morning. I was not happy. But, I noticed something as we began to worship yesterday. Suddenly, that concern and burden weren't there. I'm not entirely sure what God did in me, but I knew that as I got up to preach one of my weakest sermons of all time God was stripping away the self-focused concern about numbers. I cared more about clearly presenting the gospel to those gathered than the actual number of people who showed up. What a clear sign of grace to me and how grateful I was to have experienced it!

Slowly but surely, my heart is figuring out that my identity, self-worth, reputation, and all that are actually in Jesus and not me. I wish I figured out things a little more quickly but progress is better than stalling.

I Preached from My iPad this Morning

I tried preaching from my iPad this morning using Keynote (ref. this post). Two thoughts:

1. I'm pretty sure no one could tell. This was a huge deal for me. I don't want others to be distracted by it and I didn't want to be distracted by it. I'd rather people say, "That guy talks about Jesus and the cross a lot." rather than "My pastor uses an iPad." I liked that there were no shuffling pages and that it was easy to keep track of where I was in my notes. I think it was one of the better sermons I've preached both in content (iPad had nothing to do with that) and delivery (it aided me).


2. White text on a black background was a winner. Wow. I'm actually surprised at how well my eyes could pick up text with a glance instead of a stare. If I'm not using just one Post-it note in my Bible (my normal source of notes) I usually try to keep them all on one page of paper so that I don't have to shuffle multiple pieces of paper. Since I didn't have to shuffle pages of paper I made the font bigger which made the notes easier to see, too.

Preaching with an iPad actually turned out better than I thought it would so I'll probably do more of it in the future provided point #1 remains unviolated.

The iPad and Preaching

Jonathan Dodson wrote a great post about preaching with the iPad. My preparation and use is different so I wanted to write a bit about how I do it. I have not used my iPad to preach from yet. I mostly have a Post-it note next to the passage from which I am preaching and that’s the extent of my notes. It probably shows if you watch our video, but I’m just too awkward walking back to the lectern and looking down at notes. It’s uncomfortable for me.

So, here we go:

• Research: I don’t use my iPad for this very much. I do have both Accordance Bible and Logos on the computer and the iPad. Occasionally I will look something up in one of these two apps (primarily Accordance) and I might read one of the books from the Logos library like I would with the Kindle or iBooks apps, but that’s about it. I mostly use Accordance on the desktop. Also, I will sometimes copy and paste my Kindle clippings into Evernote, but I rarely go back to those and look again.


• Outlining I’m just using Jonathan’s designation here. I don’t outline very much. If I do use an outline for something, it’s usually a blog post, an article, or an idea for a book. But, for workflow purposes I start out with iThoughtsHD on the iPad or iThoughts on the iPhone. I always save these files in OPML format on DropBox. I do this because I can then open the map in Mind Manager or OmniOutliner. I might use Mind Manager to finish up a map and keep it saved in OPML so that I can then open it in my primary outlining tool which is OmniOutliner. I also use Outliner on both platforms but it’s file saving system is just dumb and really needs DropBox support. After my outlines are done, if it is a big writing project, I send the OPML file to Scrivener for the final draft.


• Manuscript Again, I don’t take a manuscript, but if I have to write paragraphs of stuff or copy in quotes from another source that I want to share, I only ever do it in TextMate. I am a TextMate kindergartner, but this text editor is so good. I write all my blog posts (including this one) in Markdown and nothing supports systems like Markdown the way TextMate does. My life is basically a bunch of text files (.txt) right now and I love it. No more worrying much about .docx unless someone sends something to me in Word. I. Love. TextMate.


• Preaching I haven’t done this yet, though Jonathan’s post makes me feel better about trying it out. I didn’t want to be that guy but Jonathan’s post and this one from J.R. Vassar have convinced me that I either need to quit worrying about it or just go ahead and embrace the brokenness of being that guy. I think I would differ from both of these guys in that I’m almost 100% sure I will import my notes into Keynote instead of a document. I tried showing some Bible passages and pictures in Logos a couple of weeks ago in a class I was teaching and the iPad kept going to sleep. I don’t think I want to be distracted by having to turn on my iPad every two minutes.

I can’t believe I wrote that much, but it was a good exercise for me. Anyone else have a preaching workflow they use on the iPad?

Very Proud

My sermon this morning began with me telling about a Jehovah's Witness lady who rang the doorbell at the house and handed me a tract - nice lady and she didn't stay long which was a plus. After she left I started to read through the tract she handed me. The paragraph contained one truth and one untruth. The truth was that John the Baptist did say that Jesus came to take away the sin of the world in John 1:29. The untruth was that Jesus died to rescue "obedient mankind." There really is a logic problem in combining both statements. If humanity were obedient, we'd have no need for anyone to take away our sin. Also, we are sinners - our genus and species would be better described as homo peccator rather than homo sapiens.

I read the two sentence paragraph to those gathered in worship this morning and asked the question, "What is wrong with that statement?" Several, at the same time, called out "obedient." It didn't strike me until later this evening, but they get it! They are getting the gospel! They know that we can't rescue ourselves, that we are lost sheep (Isa. 53:6), that we are sinners (Rom. 3:23)! I am so proud of my church. I pray our the depth of our gospel understanding continues to grow.

P.S. I may have to write up our Sunday School discussion which diverted away from Ecclesiastes toward evangelism and why we are so hesitant to strike up a gospel conversation, knock on a door, or proclaim the gospel in a public place. That was awesome, too.

Shot to the Gut

Sunday afternoon, after returning from church, I took out my iPad and checked my RSS feed. Not a great way to start out my afternoon recovery. I read a post about a pastor that broke my heart. I have read this guy's blog posts. I've purchased administrative documents from him that we tweaked and use at the church. I enjoyed learning from him. His evangelistic heart showed through everything that he did. He was close to my age and pretty much everything I thought of when I thought of success in ministry.

He is out of the ministry today because of an affair.

I was sick to my stomach when I read about it. I didn't even know the guy personally, but I took his fall personally. All I could think was, "This guy preaches like me, teaches like me, and from where I sit he looks like a better Christian than me." I was pretty angry about the whole thing, but then it turned to sadness and introspection. I've strutted around the last ten years believing I'll never do something like that - pure arrogance. We learned in Sunday school the last two weeks from Ecclesiastes 5 that we should _never_ speak rashly or promise things like that because our perspective is so very limited and, in my interpretation, we are unaware of how perilous our spiritual situations truly are. I repent of that pride and arrogance.

I woke up the next morning feeling so overwhelmingly weak. I think I'm so strong and stike out on my own, apart from God. The reality is that I'm not strong but weak and I've spent a lot of time confessing my prayerlessness and my reliance upon myself rather than Jesus. I pray that's the proper response to news of another pastor's infidelity. I pray that's the proper response because you can bet that there will be a lot of blog posts and talk about how to affair-proof your marriage. I'll tell you this - it's all a bunch of moralizing nonsense if you or me don't stick close to Jesus. I realized just how weak I am, just how much I need God's grace, and just how much of a weak lamb in need of a strong Shepherd I am.

It also brought me to realize that I need my church, my wife, and my friends - more than ever - to pray for me. Not for success. Not for thanksgiving, or anything like that - pray for my prayer time, for my time in the Bible, and most of all for my marriage. I love my wife and have been faithful to her and my intention is, barring death, to make it as long as my grandparents did, but it'll never happen without a total dependance upon Jesus.

Field Preaching

Since I was a kid, I've been fascinated by John Wesley and the early Methodist circuit riders. They seemed to be risk taking adventurists. I read two comic books when I was about 9 years old, one about Wesley and the other about circuit riders that captured my imagination - and I still have the one on Wesley! One of the things that has always impressed me about Wesley was his open air preaching, or, field preaching. It was a radical concept introduced to him by George Whitefield. The physically short Wesley must have had some great big pipes to reach the thousands who heard him. Sometimes he would preach in town squares and people would crowd around to hear him preach.

Though fascinated, I've long been a chicken about field preaching. One reason has to do with the weirdos who came onto the campuses of both schools I attended, the University of Arkansas and Asbury Theological Seminary. I've been called names by these preachers. I had a guy get up in my face on Beale St. in Memphis one evening. I've generally been turned off by these guys. I always thought, too, that there's no place for this kind of preaching today. I have lots and lots of objections.

But, Steve McCoy has made me think a lot about what real open air preaching is all about. He's also gotten me to consider an idea so crazy that it might actually work.

Wesley rode 250,000 miles on horseback and preached 23,000 sermons. Man, whatever was burning in him, God, set on fire in me.

It's the End of the World as We Know it - So Go Make a Disciple

I jokingly wrote on Twitter earlier that if I were a lying opportunist with no conscience, this would be a good week to write an end-times e-book for $50 a pop. In the last week we've seen a huge earthquake in New Zealand, continued protests, unrest, and revolution in the Middle East, one of the weirdest political stories of my lifetime unfolding in Wisconsin, and oil prices shooting up 9% in one day. I'd almost bet Tim LaHaye was busy working on a new bestseller as I write.

Someone loaned me some of the end-times novels that were popular in the late 90's when I was in college and seminary. It didn't take me long to grow in my disdain for both the quality of writing and the theology behind the book series. One of the first questions I had was a practical one: "Could I look in the eyes of a brother in Christ from a persecuted part of the world and tell him, 'It's okay. Before persecution comes, Jesus will vacuum you up and let everyone else suffer.'"? This kind of thinking could only appeal to comfortable, middle-class white people who can't tell the difference between persecution and having their feelings hurt.

For some reason, our little bubble of Christendom is caught up in second-coming fever - when is Jesus coming back? I get asked this a lot. How do I answer? Easy. It's in the Bible. Jesus says in Acts 1:7 "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority." I know this isn't a satisfactory answer for folks who turn on the television and see the events I've already mentioned. "Surely the time is near!" they say. Back in the Bible, however, I make it a point to look at Matthew 24:3-14

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Here are some of the questions I ask folks who are so ready to turn the events in the news into Jesus' coming:

• Has there ever been a time in which there wasn't a war of some sort, or at least the possibility that one was coming?


• Has there ever been a time in which one nation or kingdom didn't rise against another?


• Has there ever been a time in which there were no famines?


• Has there ever been a time devoid of earthquakes in various places?

Since, as best as I can tell, the answer to those questions is "no", I like to point to the end of that passage. If you are so intent on knowing when Jesus might come back, then do something to address the fact that there are 2,000 people groups in this world that do not have a witness of Jesus Christ among them. Since the risen Jesus gave a command to make disciples, maybe we should do what he said and make sure we spend ourselves in that and leave his return to the appointed time of which we do not know.

Imagine

I spent the last couple of days in Hot Springs, AR at a gathering for United Methodist clergy and laity to hear from our Imagine Ministries team and to talk about the proposals that they are bringing to the Annual Conference. I'm not going to comment on the content because I was in such pain that I could barely pay attention to most of it, but I want to say that I came away feeling pretty hopeful. The gist of the team and the gathering is that we United Methodists don't want to be a perpetuate a denomination in decline but instead we want to make disciples and be a part of Spirit-led ministries. Part of the conversation was lowering structural barriers to both disciple-making and ministry. As I read Tony Morgan tweet the other day, "Good people using bad systems will never produce good results." I think we all want to align good people with good systems in order to bear good fruit.

It can't be an easy task but I think our Imagine Ministries team is doing a great job. They have done some hard work and have been humble enough to admit that they might not have communicated everything as clearly as they could have and are taking steps to communicate clearly from here on out. I think the last two days proved their commitment to those steps. Kudos to all of them and I look forward to following their lead.

A Weekday Reflection

I'm traveling today to attend a denominational meeting in Hot Springs and I probably won't write about that so I was thinking about something a little different. I usually write a reflection on our time of worship every week and E-mail it to the congregation, so I thought I'd write one about the week and post it here.

• We had a Capital Campaign meeting on Tuesday night. I continue to pray that God will not only help us financially, but missionally.


• By that I mean I hope God ignites a passion for making disciples and exalting the name of Jesus during this time.


• I'm 34 years old. Is that not 30 too many for ear infections? I can't hear a thing!


• I'll have a link for you on Sunday, but I've been wrestling with the lessons learned from a non-church, non-religious podcast that is probably the most significant message I've heard outside of the gospel.


• The gist was "If it were a priority it would be done."


• Boom.

I'm done. I'm going to take some medicine and check out.

What I'm Learning in Ecclesiastes - Part Three

Here are the last two posts in this series.

So, Ecclesiastes isn’t the most upbeat writing in the Bible. At least in the first two chapters which is all we’ve covered so far in the Sunday School class I’m teaching. The third lesson I’ve learned so far isn’t all that cheery, either.

3) When I die, the world will keep on going.

Ecclesiastes 1:16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!

I’d like to think that the world will stop, but that’s not reality. My departure from this life is going to affect a very, very small number of people. Here's how I figure it - I’m connected to 374 people on Facebook right now. If I take that number and add the people I’ve been a pastor to in 8 years, then round that total up to the nearest thousand, my overestimation of how many people will in one way or another be affected by my death is 2,000. According to the internets, the world population is expected to hit 7 billion this year which means, theoretically, that my death will affect .000028% of the world. In addition, most of the 2,000 people I know won’t give it much more than an, “Oh.”

The world will keep on going. If you're as much of a wicked-hearted narcissist as I am, that fact hurts.

By God's grace, I can live (and die) with that. On most days I’m not out to make a name for myself - well, mostly I’m not. I really hope that I’m making much of Jesus’ name. I try to remember constantly the line from that poem by C.T. Studd "Only one life 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." The world will keep on, but hopefully a witness and testimony to the mercy and grace of God will remain that causes people not to remember me, but Jesus. I’m praying that the death I die every day to self will result not in people remembering me but seeing Jesus.

If that happens, for any of us, then who cares if we're remembered?