What are four possible subtexts in preaching?

The first: “Aren’t we great!” In this one, the sermon reinforces what we already believe and say the things we want to hear. Preachers often preach this to build walls around the church and define further that those people aren’t like us. Usually, when pastors are having trouble in their congregations, it’s because the congregation expects this kind of preaching, but receives another!

The second: “Ain’t I great!” In this subtext, the preacher polishes the sermon just right in hopes that people will like the sermon product, will come back again, and will reinforce the preacher’s performance on the way out the door. Okay… all of us pastors exhibit this subtext from time to time, especially when we first start out. Forgive me when you hear this underlying my sermons.

The third: “Isn’t this truth great.” Now this is me. I love preaching a new way of looking at things. I love drawing people’s attention to things they haven’t thought of before. I want you to learn and walk away with a fresh thought on your mind.

The fourth: “Isn’t Christ great.” The third subtext is a pretty good one, but the fourth one is what we’re after each week. All we do in worship, the preaching included, ought to point us to an experience of worship with Jesus Christ and, not just know about him better, but to experience him personally.

These subtext will be on my mind as I prepare my messages each week. I encourage you to ask what your motive is as we gather each week. A lot of churches love that first subtext: “Tell me what I wanna hear!” Some promote the second subtext, because they want people to like their church and “hear our preacher!”  The third is admirable, in that knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. But the fourth is why we are there. Is it why you gather? Join me in asking the Lord to lead us there.

This Time Magazine article captures the latest shapshot of the ever changing landscape of religious consumerism.

Church-Shopping: Why Do Americans Change Faiths?

This past Sunday, we saw the latest episode of violence in Maryville, IL as Pastor Fred Winters of the First Baptist Church was gunned down in the pulpit. Certainly, one could point to copycat motivations as to why these types of events have increased. But while the motivations for this particular shooting have not come out, I think there’s something more to it.

When the police searched the home of the Wedgewood shooter, they found evidence of a deranged mind. He had punched holes in the walls, filled the toilets with concrete, and kept a set of journals dating back a decade that itemized plots against him. In the end, he chose a church as a means to act out his final rage.

Why a church? Some say it’s because the church stands for truth in a culture where anything goes, and the church is increasingly targeted. But I don’t think it’s as conspiratorial as that. These churches aren’t targeted by ideological terrorists aimed on destroying the church. These churches are chosen at random by people who have lost all hope for life, are angry at God and the world, and have chosen to end their lives. In a last act of defiance, they shake their fist at God for the disappointment they have felt in life, and since God is not a physical form they can personally attack, they go for his nearest representatives… the church.

It reminds us of two things: first, how desperate people are in the world for hope, for Good News. And second, that being representatives of Jesus Christ in this world is not just about our witness, but about our suffering. Sometimes, we get to speak for God to a world dying to receive the Good News, and sometimes we are the targets of a suicidal person’s disappointment in what they have failed to find on their own.

I find it ironic that on the Illinois church’s website, there still is this video from Pastor Winters speaking eloquently about the purpose we find in life when we give ourselves over to Jesus Christ. Here it is…

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,
late have I loved you!
You were within me, but I was outside,
and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unloveliness
I plunged into the lovely things which you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
Created things kept me from you;
yet if they had not been in you
they would have not been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.
You breathed your fragrance on me;
I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
– Augustine

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

At the end of the war, while sympathies were high for Jews everywhere, there was also a fear that they would flee en masse to America and Europe where they might settle and prosper. So the rest of the world forced a solution to the problem… the creation of an Israeli state. To pull this off, another atrocity occurred. Palestinians who had called that area their home for centuries, were uprooted and moved to make room for the Jews. One problem solved, an ongoing problem created.

That problem is on our television screens once again as Israel is now responding militarily to the terrorist group Hamas who now has elected control over the Palestinian territories. And the world quickly sides against Israel because of the Palestinian innocents who are caught in the crossfire.

I am far from an expert in Middle East conflict, but here’s my lay opinion. The world blames Israel for not creating what the world should have created in 1948 – a Palestinian state. Perhaps the only hope for the possibility of peace at this point is the creation of a Palestinian state to correct the mistake of a half century ago. Sadly, however, the seeds of centuries-to-come conflict have already been planted, watered and have now flourished. Maybe peace isn’t possible at all.

It also seems to me that as long as the rest of the world gets its facts wrong, those countries supposedly pleading for peace will do more to instigate further conflict. As one Jewish Rabbi argues in the Wall Street Journal today, Israel is blamed for “killing innocents” while Israeli casualties remain very low. That’s because Israel shields and defends their population from attacks while Hamas hides behind the Palestinian people. Hamas launches rockets from schoolyards and puts children in harm’s way as a means of deterring retaliation.

Israel is in a no-win situation. If they rid the Palestinian territories of the evils of Hamas, they will be seen as barbarians because of the many innocent Palestinians that Hamas will sacrifice in the process. If they lay back and allow Hamas to continue its terrorist ways, countless Israeli families will sleep each night in complete fear of another 3,000 rockets that will be hurled their way.

In the former, the world will condemn Israel. In the latter, the world will turn a blind eye to Hamas.

We live in an age where the more powerful force is always considered by default to be the bad guy, no matter who instigates the original violence. Israel is the more powerful force, and is by association, the evil perpetrator. So, instead of using reason and partnering with Israel to eliminate the evil once and for all and helping in the hard work of forging peace, the world sits back in the easy chair of blame and watches it all get worse.

Everyone is looking for a solution to the Middle East conflict, and while a Palestinian state would certainly help, it won’t happen until the irrational barbarian terrorists are removed from the situation. Innocent Palestinians and innocent Israelis don’t want war. They don’t want their families torn apart by fear and violence. They don’t want their children killed simply for walking to school. They want peace.

Who doesn’t want peace? People whose political power is advanced through terror and violence.

Who empowers these terrorists? A world that stands by with no solution but to allow Hamas to continue its dirty work at Israel’s expense.

After watching Schindler’s List, my concern for this situation got knocked up a notch. It’s hard to imagine the world ever allowing another Holocaust to ever happen again. Maybe it will never happen in as short a period of time as it did under the Third Reich. But instead, the world will sit back and watch it happen one child at a time, once decade at a time – all in the name of “peace.”

One question that has risen from this discussion is how much of what we do is to perpetuate a much loved institution and its beloved traditions, and how much of it is what God wants us doing. To help in this examination process, Barna has recently re-released a book by a fellow author, Frank Viola, called Pagan Christianity. In this, they argue that many of our basic traditions (our dress, the times of worship, the architecture of our buildings, etc.) came not out of the scriptures, but from secular, even pagan, roots.

I have not read the book, but if the argument is sound, it would not surprise me. Tradition has a way of becoming sacred over time, no matter what its origin, and certainly many of the traditions we hold dear have become confused with the Ten Commandments themselves!

Some will conclude that an institutionalized church of any kind will be destructive and will advance the argument for house-only churches. But for the rest of us, it remind us that we must always cast a critical eye on our traditions, that we must not allow them to solidify into sacred theologies, and that we need to determine what is wheat in our practice, and what is chaff.

A fellow pastor found a memorable way to distinguish the sacred from tradition. He argued for three categories for everything we do in church. First, there are the absolutes – beliefs that never change (i.e. Jesus is God. We are sinners. Jesus died and rose again, etc.) Then there are convictions – things we believe deeply, but aren’t as clearly revealed to us as the absolutes are (predestination vs. free will, once saved-always saved, church/state issues, etc.). Finally there are preferences (what we wear to church, what is good music, etc.). Keeping these categories clear will help us in distinguishing what is of God and what is of man.

So one last warning: always remember that pagan Christianity arises when our opinions, which start out as preferences, become convictions, and, then, are established as absolutes. Our thinking, then, becomes rigid, and the Spirit of God finds yet another layer of self through which he must penetrate in order to reach our hearts again.

Read an exerpt from the book Pagan Christianity.

In yesterday’s message, I tried to hit home the point that Christians have taken far too much of an oppositional tone with the world to the point that our voice and witness has grown anemic.  Do we stand up for what is right?  Absolutely.  But do we adopt the world’s tactics to do it.  No.  We have been witnessing from afar with such a tone of judgment, that it is no wonder people aren’t responding to the gospel.

I referred yesterday to the Dalai Lama as an example of the influence we have if we don’t retaliate with the same vitriol that is aimed upon us.  His more loving response in the face of fierce Chinese opposition has resulted in the growth of Tibetan Buddhism.

I guess my comments must have reached the ears of the Dalai Lama himself(!), because no sooner did I get home and log into my computer, I discovered this article from Time Magazine.  The Dalai Lama’s strategy of non-violence has gained him a strong voice in the world.  In the article, we see the growth of the freedom movement and his ability to speak authoritatively to the oppressive Chinese government.  In his speech, he reiterated, “The Middle Way Approach, independence or self-determination, whatever is pursued in the Tibetan struggle, we shall not deviate from the path of non-violence to achieve our aims.”

There is power and effectiveness in the Jesus way: to engage the world without fear or condemnation, but with love and confidence, believing in the power of the gospel to change the world without reducing ourselves to the world’s ways.  May the way in which we share the gospel become as important to us as the gospel itself.  Enternity depends upon it.

TIME: Dalai Lama Signals a Tougher Line on China

We are one body, each contributing its part.  If we are not working together, the world sees us acting just like the world… protecting territory, angling for power, seeking worldly attention and rank.  I don’t want to be a church that grows simply because we attract hungry consumers who want to be at the biggest and greatest church.  I want to be a church that grows because the gospel is being lived out in a way that attracts people to the mission of God in the world.

Okay… enough preaching.  On to the details.  I’m talking with pastors about how our youth can be plugged in more effectively into the youth work that is already taking place in some larger churches.  Yes, it would be nice to have a self-sustaining youth ministry, but God does not mandate that we have all self-sustaining ministries.  So, I see a great opportunity to partner with other ministries to do together what we are unable at present to do alone.  Imagine youth trips, Bible studies, ministry projects…

Small groups… when you’re small already, it’s rather challenging to break up into even smaller groups and sustain them well! Or if you travel some distance to our church, and have no fellow church members in your neighborhood to meet with, it makes small group time very difficult.  I’ve talked with one pastor who leads a congregation that happens to be close to where a half a dozen of our church members live.  I brainstormed with him about what it would be like for some of our members to integrate into their small group network.  Imagine, instead of being alone in your neighborhood, you are now able to be a part of a small group.  Meanwhile, you become an ambassador between two congregations and will help several churches stay connected in ways we haven’t been able to before.

I’m thinking about other possibilities…  One pastor is excited because of our church’s close proximity to the city.  We have a presence that his church doesn’t have.  I’m imagining shared ministries and outreach efforts.  But most importantly, I’m staying open to hear what God can do if we have a cooperative spirit.  I would love for the Harrisburg area churches to show our communities that we are different, that we can work together, that there is a cause much greater than ourselves worth giving everything for!

Remember after the Phillies won the World Series, the network replayed the final out over and over from the point of view of every single player, coach, and fan!?  Quiet.  Then eruption.  Quiet.  Then eruption .  It was this same exuberant cheer that filled my television screen over and over.  From Chicago, to Times Square, to Atlanta and onward across this country, much of America was waiting one moment, and cheering the next.

I must admit: I choked up.  Now, I always choke up when men hug after a championship victory.  I’m a sucker for that.  But this was different.  Blacks and whites, standing together from across this country, cheered together, in a monumental moment.  It caught me off guard because I was down in the weeds of the electoral college count and poll returns.  But suddenly, I rose above the forest to see an incredible point of history that I could not have realized, except in that moment.  One huge page had finally been turned.

What a victory this is for race relations in this grand country of ours.  Since our inception, blacks have been forced to live as second class citizens.  While each generation that passes sees measures of progress, there has always been the feeling that more was still to come.  But last night, a marker of history was placed down in our collective experience.  An African-American stepped to a podium and accepted the call to serve as our next President of the United States.  And as people on the street later recalled, African American moms said to their little boys, “See, you too one day can be President of the United States.”

Elections exact such an emotional toll on us.  And many today struggle to cheer because their side didn’t win. But all Americans can stand today, proud of this great moment of history, and be reminded that in this country, though we don’t always live up to it, “all men are created equal.”