Mary the Mother of Jesus (1)

Many years ago I was struggling to learn how to preach. It was around then that the elders of my home church in Altus, Oklahoma, invited me to deliver the Sunday-evening sermon.

I have no memory of what that sermon was about. That's probably good. The more I remember about my sermons back then, the more I feel a little embarrassed. There is a true sense in which ignorance is bliss.

What I do remember about that evening is not what I said, but what someone else said afterwards. After the final "Amen," after many of the people had left, I was talking with a woman who said something I haven't forgotten.

Before I tell you what she said, let me describe her to you. She was a widow, about seventy years old, in good health, very active for someone her age. She always looked nice, was soft-spoken, unassuming, kind-hearted, and just a fine person.

We were standing near the back of the auditorium, when she said to me, "I was so glad to hear you mention Mary tonight in your sermon. I don't think you know this about me, but before I became a member of the Church of Christ, I belonged to the Roman Catholic Church."

"No, I didn't know that."

She said, "After I became a member of the Church of Christ, one of the first things I noticed was, it was as if Mary had never lived. The preachers and teachers didn't talk about Mary, which was a shock because, in the Catholic Church, I heard about Mary all the time." 

Then she said, "I understand: the Catholic Church has made her out to be something she isn't. But, you know, there's quite a bit in the New Testament about her. And she was a great person. I sort of miss Mary, and wish I heard more about her."

As you would guess, the lady who said that to me isn't with us anymore. But I like to think of my posts about Mary as being partly for that good Christian woman. More later.

Returning a Favor to Dick Marcear

Next Sunday morning, I'll be speaking at the Colonies Church of Christ here in Amarillo. Their preacher, Dick Marcear, had knee-replacement surgery last week. He called me a day or two before to ask if I'd handle the preaching responsibilities on the 27th.

It's funny how things turn out sometimes. More than a quarter century ago, when I was a Bible student at Freed-Hardeman College, I started getting a few invitations to preach at some of the small congregations of the Church of Christ there in West Tennessee. I was getting preaching appointments! That was the good news. The bad news was, I didn't have a very good idea of what I was going to say when I got there.

About that time, I discovered in the college library a publication called Truth for Today. It was a magazine written by and for preachers. Every issue was filled with manuscript sermons. So, being in my situation at the time, I began going through back issues of Truth for Today looking for the very best lessons. I discovered a preacher out in Amarillo, Texas named Dick Marcear. As I read his sermons, I thought to myself, "This guy is really good. He preaches the Bible. His sermons are clear and imaginative, with lots of good quotes and illustrations." And at that point, I began to make some of those sermons my own.

So I guess it's only fitting that I would be preaching next Sunday instead of Dick Marcear. He's already done something similar for me. I take it as just another reminder that whenever we do something good, we don't always know who we might be helping along the way.

What Ministers Actually Do

Several years ago, a member of a church where I was the pulpit minister told me that his young son had decided to be a preacher when he grew up. The reason that the boy had opted for ministry was that preachers only worked on Sundays and Wednesday nights.

The image persists that preachers and other members of a church staff just don't have a lot to do. Strangely enough, it seems that fewer and fewer are opting to take on this supposedly-easy job.

I'm confident that there are a few lazy preachers. I may have known a few. I may have been one myself at certain points along the way. But not only are most ministers hard-working most of the time, they also have plenty to keep them busy. And they want to be busy: teaching, preaching, and doing anything they can to promote the gospel of Christ and the well-being of the church. For most preachers, doing what they do is not a matter of opportunity and employment. Instead, it's more about giftedness and gratitude to the Lord, wanting to do anything to increase His honor in the world.

The summer I turned fifteen, I worked at a car wash. The pay was $2.00/hour. At 60 hours, that came out to $120 every week. I always felt rich on pay day. Since that time, I've worked in a factory and in a record store. I have worked as a lawn boy, a locksmith, and a radio announcer-disc jockey (operating two radio stations by myself for the grand sum of $4.00/hour). But for about 20 years, I was a preacher among the Churches of Christ. And that was as real a job as I've ever had.

But what is it, exactly, that ministers do? Members of churches have a right to know. Because that's true, years ago I put together a representative list of my responsibilities and tasks as the preacher in a single-staff church I was working with in Connecticut.

To people who have always worked in multi-staff churches, my list will seem strange, way too broad and general. To others who have spent at least some time in a smaller, single-staff church, the list might actually seem short. Such is the difference between specialists (in multi-staff churches) and generalists (in single-staff churches). Either way, here's the overview of ministerial responsibilities and tasks I came up with:

1. Worship Leadership and Ministry of the Word

Write, rehearse, and preach biblical sermons.
Prepare and teach classes that inform and inspire.
Create PowerPoint presentations or hand-outs to enhance the effectiveness of a lesson.
Write articles designed to promote and nurture faith.
Plan the worship time and make assignments to worship leaders.
Provide instruction to worship leaders about their various roles.
Plan and organize special times of worship (Spring Sing, Christmas service, elder and deacon ordination services, etc.) .

2. Evangelism and Outreach

Make contact with visitors to the congregation (visits, notes, calls, etc.).
Initiate and conduct personal Bible studies.
Conduct follow-up studies for new Christians, or teach a new-members class.
Promote and participate in benevolent efforts of the congregation.
Respond to questions about the church (usually phone calls or visitors).
Plan, organize, and conduct an annual Vacation Bible School.

3. Administrative Responsibilities

Maintain office hours.
Open and post incoming mail.
Respond to incoming mail, e-mail, and phone messages.
Write for and be responsible for the publication of a weekly church bulletin.
Compose and publish newsletters, flyers, reminders, etc.
Order and stock office materials (copy paper, envelopes, etc.).
Serve as monitor of the church building.

4. Spiritual Development and Personal Maintenance

Pray regularly.
Study the Bible regularly.
Read good books and magazines.
Sharpen writing and speaking skills.
Stay up-to-date with current trends that affect church and society.
Maintain contact with leaders in other churches.
Attend (and perhaps also organize) a regional church leaders' meeting.
Keep one's physical body in shape through regular exercise.

5. Spiritual Care and Christian Nurture

Keep in touch with members (lunches, home visits, etc.).
Provide counseling to members (often amid a crisis).
Provide counseling to non-members (often referred by members).
Conduct pre-marital counseling (usually several sessions).
Use cards and calls to support and encourage others.
Visit and comfort those who are sick and/or hospitalized.
Recommend books or websites to help others with specific needs.
Meet and pray with other leaders of the congregation.

6. Other Roles and Duties

Plan and conduct weddings.
Plan and conduct funerals.
Serve as an ambassador for the congregation.
Write recommendations for job seekers, college prospects, etc.
Entertain and accommodate guests of the congregation (visiting preachers, missionaries, those interviewing for positions with the congregation, etc.).
Oversee the work of other members of the church staff.
Promote and support Christian camps and colleges.

Again, this is a representative list. Naturally, at different times of the year and in different seasons of ministry some of these tasks will come to the fore while others are moved to the back burner.

If you currently serve as a preacher or have done so in the past, what would you add or delete or tweak? What are some of your reactions? If you've never served full-time on a church staff, what is it about my description that strikes you as remarkable? Naturally, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts and responses.

Preaching on Mother's Day and Fathers' Day

A recent post over at John Alan Turner's place led me to start thinking about sermons.

Now, I realize that no one's personal experience counts as research. Impressions are not the same thing as statistics. But I couldn't resist the urge to identify what seem to be some trends in preaching when it comes to Mother's Day and Father's Day, especially in the group I know best, the Churches of Christ. Here's what I recall:

When I was a kid (the 1970s took me from age 7 to 17), I don't remember the preachers in my home congregation ever preaching a Mother's or Father's Day sermon. Seems like there were a few years on Mother's Day when the preacher felt compelled to acknowledge the corsages in the crowd, which led to a few remarks of appreciation. But it was never more than that.

I'm guessing that it was in the 1980s that this type of preaching became more common in the Churches of Christ, beginning with a sermon on Mothers' Day, if not one for Fathers' Day. Then, by the 1990s, both had become a bit of a fixture in this fellowship. If, like me, you're old enough to be a sort of walking history book, does my description match up with your own experience?

Here's something else I've noticed. In the Churches of Christ, the Mother's Day sermons I've heard (and, yes, preached) have typically gone something like this: You ladies are great! You certainly deserve a lot more credit than you get. We love you. Please, for our sakes, keep up the good work.

And then there's the Fathers' Day sermon, which has typically gone something like this: Some of us, maybe most of us, had fathers who were deeply flawed. Truth be told, most of you dads out there are a bunch of Homers too. If you only realized your great potential, you'd work a lot harder at being a good father (husband too). So get with it! Oh well, at least God is our father.

Again, does this sound familiar to you? Either way, I'm interested in hearing the experiences of others. A few questions:

What sorts of cultural norms and stereotypes influence this sort of preaching?

With May and June coming up quickly, what do you think preachers need to hear from the rest of us regarding how to handle these preaching occasions?

You preachers out there: Do you like or loath preaching on these two Sundays? And what are you planning to do this year?

A is for Abductive, B is for Balderdash

It's not too often that you read "Hogwash!" in a scholarly book review. But that's exactly one of the comments that Tim Sensing, a professor at Abilene Christian University, makes in his review of the book A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church, by Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. Sensing's review appears in the most recent issue of Restoration Quarterly (Volume 51, Fourth Quarter 2009, pp. 251-253), and it serves as a model of one of the functions of good scholarship: to drive out bad scholarship.

According to Sensing, A is for Abductive is a dictionary type book that "advertises itself as a primer for people desiring to discern the thought processes of churches that are responding to postmodern culture." The book includes entries like "I is for Icon." But Sensing doesn't have to go beyond the very first entry, "A is for Abductive Method," to find what he calls "enough fodder" for his review. In that first entry, the authors cite the work of philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce, and advocate an approach to preaching that, instead of analyzing, looks to create an image or compose an experience. Sounds sexy, doesn't it?

But as Sensing points out, not only are the authors guilty of mere assertion, they apparently didn't bother to read the work of C. S. Pierce: you know, the work that supposedly provides the theoretical foundation for what they're saying. They do cite a 1970 dissertation dealing with Pierce's theory. So Sensing read the dissertation and compared it to A is for Abductive. What he found was "no basis for associating Pierce's understanding of the logic of scientific discovery to the abductive method presented by the authors." In short, Sweet, McLaren and Haselmayer have completely misappropriated C. S. Pierce, and are, at least in this case, patently guilty of a name-dropping sort of pseudo scholarship.

Meanwhile, Sensing points out, all of the sudden everyone's getting all "abductive." For example, a recent article by Paul Windsor, "A Space to Occupy: Creating a Missional Model for Preaching," (Stimulus, Vol. 13, no 1 [2005]: 20-25) cites A is for Abductive as though it were a genuine authority.

Carl Savage and William Presnell do much the same thing in their book Narrative Research in Ministry: A Postmodern Research Approach for Faith Communities (Louisville: Wayne E. Oates Institute, 2008). Sensing notes that Savage and Presnell cite A is for Abductive "to make claims about narrative research methodology. Relying on the authors' pseudo-work leads them to assert that the essence of narrative as the primary voice of theological research in ministry is 'non-logical.'" (This is where Sensing has to say, "Hogwash!"). He closes with, "Those footnoting this work contribute to the dissemination of ignorance."

Upon reading this review, I was reminded that some of the best preachers I've ever known didn't know much about communication theory per se. But they did love the Lord. They modeled, imperfectly, what it means to live for Him. And they understood a few things about how to convict and persuade people, how to show them the hope that is found only in Christ Jesus and build them up in faith. Most of that know-how came as a result of their deep study of the Bible and a passion for preaching God's Word.

I know, to some ears that might sound a bit sappy, nostalgic, inadequate. I can only protest that maybe that's part of what's behind the loss of vitality in American church life today. There can be no doubt that major shifts are taking place in American thought and life. I don't understand much about that. What I do know is that nonsense masquerading as Christian scholarship or "the next big thing" isn't the answer. How 'bout you?

A Frenzied, Frantic Fall Semester

I know. Til now, I haven't posted anything in the entire month of September. Thanks for checking back with me. So what's been going on here?

1. School started. And, boy, did it ever start. Amarillo College set a record enrollment this fall, with well over 11,000 students, more now than ever before in the history of the school, and one thousand more than this time last year. My classes are packed. One of them, New Testament, maxed out at 30 students. (That's about as many as we can comfortably seat in our classroom). The other classes--The Old Testament, Introduction to World Religions, and The Gospel of John--are also pretty full. So it's a busy time at the Bible Chair. Lots of students, and that's nice.

2. School started. Yeah, I said that already. But I also went back to school as a student. I've always enjoyed the structure, the challenge, and the opportunity of a college course. Well, almost always. So I signed up to take a graduate seminar at West Texas A&M. It's a history class focused on medieval England, especially London. The professor, Dr. Bruce Brasington, is a full-fledged medievalist. He really knows his stuff. Best of all, he's challenging us to do almost all of our reading in the primary sources. I've decided to do my seminar paper on some aspect of the Lollards, those religious eccentrics who took their inspiration from John Wyclif. My working title is "Hell's Bells: Lollard Objections to Church Bells, the 'Horns of the Antichrist'." I hope the project turns out to be as juicy as it sounds. Maybe a Ph.D. in religious history some day? We'll see.

3. Hebrew. Oh, I'm also teaching another course this semester: Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. So far, student turn out has been high to say the least. The second week, we stuffed nearly 50 people into the classroom. We ran out of chairs. A few people went back to their cars and brought in their lawn chairs. I won't soon forget a doctor, still in his scrubs, sitting on the floor just a few feet away from me as we learned the Hebrew alphabet song. Here's the most exciting news about Hebrew: we're right on the verge of finishing up the process so that Hebrew I and II will be added to the curriculum of Amarillo College. This has been one of those long, drawn-out things. You wouldn't believe the work that goes into adding two classes to the course inventory of a college. But now it's done, and I'm just waiting to hear from the school that this has now gone through. If and when I get the news, then Biblical Hebrew I will be offered in the "Fall Too" semester at AC, which begins in early October. In the Spring semester, the second course would be offered on the regular schedule. Stay tuned.

4. Beautiful weather. This time of year it's very pretty here on the high plains. We've had some absolutely gorgeous days, with hardly more than a slight breeze. So I've gotten to spend a lot of time riding my bicycle and walking.

5. Preaching and teaching. Over the last few weeks, I did a couple of the sessions in the Wednesday-night summer series at my home church. Currently, I'm the fill-in preacher at the Church of Christ in Panhandle, Texas. For three weeks, I'm driving out for the morning Bible study and worship. The auditorium class is looking at a different psalm each week. That's something I really enjoy. So far we've looked at Psalms 4 and 113. Not sure which one we'll go with next Sunday. Any suggestions? (You have to say why). The sermon mini-series is entitled "Real Christianity." Seems like the lessons are about to convert the guy in the pulpit. But he's a sluggish soul. . . .

So what's going on in your world these days? I'd enjoy reading a few updates that I might not get from the blogs. Oh, anyone else going to the Moser Ministry Conference at Lubbock? Lemme hear from you. Cheers!

Small-Church Ministry: A Few Suggestions

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, nearly 60% of all churches in the United States have fewer than 100 in attendance at their weekly services. That's 177,000 congregations accounting for 9 million people. Of those congregations, a large number of them fall into the category of the truly small church, which has 40 or fewer members.

Through the years, I have known about and come to appreciate a good number of small congregations of the Churches of Christ. After going back through some notes and reflecting on my experiences, here's a bit of advice I'd share with anyone who's looking to work with a small church:

1. Arrive as a chaplain, not as a successful businessman.

Small churches don't require someone who's good at administration. There just isn't much to administrate. And, what little there is probably already has someone taking care of it. But there's never too much kindness, care, and love. So give them that. Especially if you go to a rural area--the scene for many small churches--you'll want to roll up your sleeves and do some work with your hands. To farm and ranch people, sitting at a desk isn't work. I know, anyone who has studied hard knows better. But people who have always worked with their hands need to see that you aren't afraid to get some dirt on your clothes and break a sweat. If you really work with them, they will listen to you as they never would have otherwise.

2. Remind them of their identity in Christ and of their mission in the world.

Sometimes a church just needs to be reminded that belonging to the Lord and living for Him is what life is all about. Like individuals, churches can get depressed and disoriented. A few years ago, a congregation that had been through a bad time welcomed a new minister. About two years later, one of the members of the congregation remarked, "He didn't try to set us on fire. I think he realized that it had been a long time since we had felt really good about being Christians. So he preached about Jesus and how great it is to know and serve Him. That did a lot to restore our spirit. Now we're a happier, more effective congregation."

3. Discover the very best aspects of the congregation and emphasize them.

In his letters to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation chapters 2-3), Jesus had at least one positive thing to say about each congregation. Every small church has something about it that's good. Identify that, and then tell the people what you've noticed. Build on that strength.

4. Encourage the congregation to do one or two things very well.

Unlike medium-sized and large congregations, the small church can't do many things at once. There simply aren't enough people or resources. However, a small church can and should carry on one or maybe two specific ministries. Help them to do something at which they can really excel. Meals on Wheels, Bible correspondence courses, special care for a missionary family. The possibilities are endless. What the congregation chooses will obviously be related to the previous point.

Just a few thoughts. What would you add or change?

Considering the Cold and Calvinism

Here in Amarillo, Texas, it'll struggle to get up to 25 degrees today. It was 9 when I got up, currently 11.

Today's high in Bangor, Maine? 50. Go figure.
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New graduates of Southern Baptist seminaries are three times more likely to be card-carrying, five-point Calvinists than are Baptist pastors. Nearly 30% of the seminarians are, compared to 10% of the older group. A good number of my brightest, most serious students at Amarillo College are staunch Calvinists. It might be time for preachers and elders among the Churches of Christ to do some teaching on this subject.

I'm no fan of the preaching style that bashes the Baptists, mashes the Methodists, and crucifies the Catholics, but is there any major point of doctrine that the Churches of Christ are willing to get in a spat over? (And, no, disavowing that instrumental music is a salvation issue doesn't count).

Sociologists repeatedly tell us that the growth of a religious movement depends upon its taking a stand that resists the culture at large or, in the American context, other religious cultures. As I see it, there's plenty in the name of God for Christians to resist. But how will that happen unless our leaders explore and teach about basic issues of truth? No, not every preacher will be an Augustine, a Luther or a Campbell. But every one should carry on the best ministry of the Word possible. Revival and numeric growth are always accompanied by a growth of the Word.

Fred Craddock on the What of Preaching

In 1971, the great preacher and professor Fred Craddock published his landmark book As One Without Authority.

In it, Craddock explained the how and why of his inductive style of preaching, laced with story and word picture. This was very different from the traditional, deductive style, intent on advancing truth as a set of propositions. At a time when many churches in the United States (especially their preachers?) seemed sick of the old top-down method, the book was a big dose of strong medicine.

A sermon, said Craddock, shouldn't be a biblical text re-packaged as a series of points. Instead, a sermon should take into account the shape and style of the biblical text one is preaching from. The preacher should be careful to use language that is imaginative, suited to the ear, and consistent with the every-day experiences of the listeners. Basically, Craddock was arguing for a more user-friendly sermon, one that said "Come and see" as opposed to "Hear the Word of the Lord." Of course, the success of the book had something to do with the strong, anti-authority feeling of that day.

Over a third of a century has passed since then. In a recent interview, Craddock was asked this provocative question: How have things changed since the publication of that book? And what might that suggest about the ways that we shape our sermons today? Here is a part of his reply:

That book . . . was primarily devoted to the how of preaching. How do you do it? And I was trying to work off of "Everybody wants to quit [preaching], so how do we get new interest in it?" The church was still interested; the ministers had lost interest.

If I were doing it again, I would devote more attention to the what of preaching. Because there are people, going in droves, sitting before pulpits and screens and other media. But they don't know what they believe. They have a sort of flavor of "I think I believe, but maybe I just believe in belief." There's the fear also that, if I believe something strongly, I've become exclusive, as though others didn't have anything. I would spend a lot of time with the what.

But you can't talk about everything in the same book. You try to put the grease where the squeak is, and in nineteen seventy-one, it was on the how. I think the time has come when preachers need to give more attention to what they're saying.

I thought this was a really fine statement, one that I wish more of today's preachers would take to heart.

What do you think?

What's the Point of PowerPoint?

These days I'm wondering about the use of Microsoft PowerPoint in churches and classrooms.

Like a lot of you, after I first discovered PowerPoint, I was very excited about its potential for preaching and teaching. This had the capacity, I thought, to really engage a group of people, to visually reinforce a message and clarify its ideas. It didn't take me long to wake up. I had a lot to learn.

I was a later-comer to the use of this technology. So most of what I learned early on came by way of good and bad examples that I saw.

One of the first things I noticed was that some preachers were copying and pasting their sermon notes and outlines onto a series of slides. Often, a slide was filled with a lot of text in a small font. Sometimes, with his head turned away from the group, the speaker would read from the slides word for word. If you've seen this sort of combination, you know that the effect can be the opposite of the intention.

Something else I noticed was that pictures and font styles and the use of animation were not always appropriate. Sometimes it seemed like there was no appreciation for the fact that fonts have the power to set a tone and create a mood. The words and the fonts didn't match. One time, I was completely turned off when the word "death" came spinning onto the screen. The animation suggested "Happy Birthday!" not "death."

I got a taste of the good use of PowerPoint when I visited the Otter Creek Church of Christ in the Nashville area. The preacher, Tim Woodroof, used nice artwork and just a bit of text (as I remember). The projections always fit, and never overwhelmed the spoken word, which was very well prepared. Something else I noticed was that attention had been given to coordination between the sermon and slides.

When I first started using PowerPoint myself, even though I was armed with my own list of dos and don'ts, there was still a lot I didn't know. For example, a friend showed me that, when using such a large screen, I should use a white font on a dark background, as opposed to using the default black font on white background.

Over the last several years, my use of PowerPoint has improved. I've read a few articles on the subject, and every one of them taught me something practical that I needed to know or remember. You can read one such article here.

I'm interested in hearing about your experiences as presenters and listeners. A few questions:

1. What, in your opinion, are the most important things for presenters to know and do when using PowerPoint?

2. If you preach or teach, do you use it all of the time? Some of the time? Never? Why?

3. In your experience, who uses PowerPoint especially well? What factors contribute to the quality?

Preparing for Fathers' Day

Like most preachers, this week I'm preparing to preach a Fathers' Day sermon. For me, that means poking around in Scripture, but also reading some recently-published stuff about fathers, what they're supposed to be doing, what they mean to children and, consequently, to society, etc.

Last Saturday I was at a library booksale and happened upon David Blankenhorn's Fatherless America. It was first published ten years ago and made a big splash at the time as I remembered. I'd never read it. And now here was a good paperback copy for a buck. So I bought it and started reading.

I didn't expect this or any book to speak so truly and directly to my own situation as a divorced father. But it does. And now I can't decide between the pain it provokes and the insight it provides.

The hardest part for me has been the section, "Can Visitors Be Fathers?" A few excerpts:

On how children think and feel about visits with their fathers:

"From the child's perspective, paternal love without paternal capacity is primarily a reminder of loss. This fact, more than any other, explains why postdivorce visits between father and child are so frequently painful, even traumatic. For the child, those visit-sized doses of father-love do not serve as a vaccine, as a protection from anguish. Quite the opposite. . . . For the child, this well-intentioned, ritualized wounding--this every-other Saturday reminder of what has died--frequently becomes the central emotional dynamic of father-child visitation after divorce."

"Visiting Father" as a contradiction:

"Visitation unfathers men. This phenomenon gradually strangles the father-child relationship. Indeed, the ultimate result of such not-like-a-father visiting is nothing less than the ending of fatherhood. Faced with the inherent falseness of their situation, many of these fathers . . . start feeling like strangers to their children, like imposters."

The necessity of sharing a residence:

"To be a good-enough father--to sustain the dailiness of effective parenting--a man needs to live with his children. When he does not, he literally becomes an outsider. . . As with the rupture of the parental alliance, the father's physical absensce from the home makes postdivorce fatherhood a radically different--and much more problematic--idea than postdivorce motherhood. For this reason, fatherhood after divorce is not even remotely parallel to motherhood after divorce."

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That's all for now. I love and am thankful for my father. I also value my own fatherhood, and I'm trying to make the most of it. But this is going to be my toughest Fathers' Day so far.