Stress the Halls!

Why are the holidays so stressful? Let me hazard a few guesses.

1. Fantasizing: I think an amazing amount of people fantasize about what the holidays are going to be like. We paint the rosiest and most amazing portraits of what it will be like on Christmas Day and the days leading up to it. Many families gather together from around the country and the fantasy of what it will be like often does not meet the reality of people who are struggling with life, failing at finances, or stressed out from work or school.
   
2. Schedules: We don't think about schedules and how they affect us until they go awry. Holidays are all about scheduling. When will we arrive? Where will we stay? How long will we be there? When will everyone else arrive so we can get started? Who made up this schedule, anyway? Let's face it, we all married people different than who we are and then we had children who grew up and married someone different than they are who have children who are . . . well, you get the picture. All these folks in a close space with differing traditions, personalities, schedules, and interests. It has the potential for great stress.
3. Unfamiliar Territory: Most holiday celebrations occur on unfamiliar territory. Either we go to someone else's home turf or we have people in that change the dynamic of our home and household. Either way, we end up in unfamiliar territory. What do we do? Well, we either bite our lip and go with the flow (at which point when we finally get alone or on our way home, we swear we will never do that again) or we have the blowup - like the Colonel (Al Pacino) does in "Scent of a Woman" where he blows in and blows up the Thanksgiving Dinner.
   

Well, with all that, how do you cope? How do you make the holidays less stressful? I hazard a few hard fought suggestions:

1. Lower the Expectations: Don't go in thinking this is going to be the best Christmas ever. It's hard to top the first one for drama and impossible to exceed the one you think of from your past that was the best Christmas you ever had. Let it be what it is. A gathering. Enjoy the moment. If it exceeds your expectations, all the better. If it doesn't then at least it wasn't so far below your hopes and dreams that you find yourself fighting a deep depression or resentment.
2. Spread Out the Attention: Let others have their time in the sun. Like worship, Christmas is not about you, is it? If you don't have to be catered to, it will be amazing how much less stress their is around the season. If others have a desire for something to take place, fine. If that makes them happy, let it make you happy, too. If you aren't at the center of your plans, you might have a better time.
   
3. Get to Know One Another: One of the problems families often have around the season is that they gather for one of the few times during the year. In reality, you live separate lives. Cell phones have sure helped us to stay in touch but it is nothing like conversation face to face. The problem is, we don't know what to talk about when we get together. So, since we have different experiences that aren't the same and don't relate, conversation becomes tough to maintain. Here are few ideas:
• Be OK with periods of silence when together. After all, when you were all living together there were many periods of silence. They weren't awkward then, don't let them be now.
• Ask questions instead of telling about yourself. If you really want to know what is going on with someone else, let them do the talking. Tray a few of these:
• What was the best thing about this year for you? For your family?
• What was your best Christmas growing up?
• What one tradition did you and your family have around the holidays (good one to ask the in-laws)?
• Who is the most interesting person you have met in the last few months? Why were they so interesting?
• What is the best thing about your church? What's the most challenging thing? What would you like to see changed about your church? How do you plan to change it?
• If you could have seen one thing during Jesus' life with your own eyes, what would it have been?

Well, I hope these help. Everyone could use some help at Christmas. After all, even Mary and Joesph had to go through the stress of traveling (while pregnant), getting stiffed on their hotel reservations, early delivery, and strangers coming to visit at the most inopportune time. Merry Christmas!

Analyzing Narrative Preaching

My sermon today was a narrative version of the story of the Angel appearing to the Shepherds. One of the things I am attempting to understand is exactly how I do these kinds of sermons from a technical side of things. If I am going to teach others how to do this, I have to know some of the things that seem to come naturally to me (but may not to others). So, here is what I learned today in telling a narrative sermon:

1. My mentor tells his homiletics classes that repetition is extremely necessary in sermonic presentation. I agree. One of the major keys of narrative storytelling is the ability to have a repetitive line or concept that holds the story together. For instance, my opening line of the sermon today was, "It was a night like any other night." I not only repeated the line numerous times during the story but developed it further with two other variations. After moving from the job of the shepherds to the appearance of the Angel, I used the line, "But when the Angel appeared, it suddenly became a night unlike any other night the Shepherds had ever experienced." My final transition was to talk about the appearance of the host of angels and I used the line, "When the angel hosts appeared, that night became unlike any other night in the history of the world." The key here is to use both the mnemonic device for memory and the development of the idea as a way of building tension and plot. Eugene Lowry, in his landmark book, "The Homiletical Plot" talks about the stages of narrative as follows:
• Upsetting the equilibrium
• Analyzing the discrepancy
• Disclosing the clue to resolution
• Experiencing the gospel
• Anticipating the consequences
• He describes these as:
• Oops
• Ugh
• Aha
• Whee
• Yeah
• When I look at Lowry's process, my developmental repetitive phrasing helps move the plot along from the Oops phase to the Ugh phase. In other words, it was how I upset the equilibrium of the story (that at first it was a night like any other night) to analyzing the discrepancy (that is was a night unlike any other night). This moved to the issue that disclosed the clue to resolution (the birth of Christ). Whatever may be the case, you must find some device that allows you to build the story dramatically and create a tension between what seems obvious (it was a normal night for the shepherds) and what is hidden (the Angel's appearance broke the fabric of the space-time continuum between eternity and the now).
  
2. Another principle that I noted today was how narrative constantly gives opportunity to talk about quality issues of theology. Telling the story of the angels and the shepherds gave opportunity to talk about Temple sacrifice of lambs; the meaning of light and sound as the revelation of God to human beings; the reality of Jesus and the Angels as eternal beings that moved from an eternal place to a finite earth in order to accomplish a divine mission; the theological depth of the birth of Christ.
   
• The reason I bring this up is that it seems that many think that narrative does not allow preachers to preach either expository-like sermons with doctrinal or theological issues nor does narrative allow for theologically sophisticated messages. Nothing could (or should) be further from the truth. Preaching the word with 3 point sermons or telling the biblical story narratively allows you to share the deeper things of Christ if you are looking to do it. It must be intentional, but that's how it should be.
• Fred Craddock in his book, "As One Without Authority" criticizes expository sermons as doing harm to the text. We remove the text from its context in order to make some kind of alliterative, stylistic meaning out of it (The Pattern of the Shepherds; The Purpose of the Shepherds; The Perception of the Shepherds - or something like that). The real dynamic is that narrative, story based sermons allow you to stay in the story while making the points about doctrine and theology rather than leaving the story to wander through some made up idea about the meaning of the text that is really no more than your idea of how this concept should be viewed. Narrative allows you to stay with the scripture, even in the scripture, while you apply the power of God's thought (theology) to the words of the text (homiletics).
  

More To Come Later!!!

What They Dont' Tell You In Seminary

I told someone today, "This is one of those things they don't teach you in seminary!" Let me tell you why.

The little church that I am the interim pastor for (Foothills Church of God) had quite a traumatic day today. We have a Preschool at the Church. This morning, at around 6:20am one of the teachers arrived to open the Preschool. After pulling up into the parking lot, she was accosted by 4 men. They carjacked her SUV and drove to a bank ATM machine where they forced her to remove funds from her bank account. Meanwhile, some of the parents a few of the other teachers started arriving around 7am. Finding the church still locked (highly unusual), they got out and looked around the parking lot. They found a purse and some of the contents of it strewn around the parking lot. One of the teachers called the home of the lady who was supposed to have opened earlier in the morning. Quickly the situation escalated into a very nervous and worrisome event. The mother of the woman who was missing came flying down to the church. She was nearly hysterical. Children and staff were arriving. A call was placed to 911 and another call came to me. All I got out of the call was, "We need you pastor, come quick."
By the time I arrived, the police were there and the staff was crying and peeking out from doors and windows. The parents and staff that had discovered the purse and things were being interviewed by the initial officer. What do you do?
Well, all I know is that they don't teach you this stuff in seminary! I took several steps to try and deal with the immediate situation. I got the Preschool director to go in and get her staff to calm down and concentrate on the children. Nothing was going to be accomplished by having the children in a panic. I immediately went over to the husband and father of the victim to console them. I then talked with the officer to see if we needed to close the Preschool. He suggested we wait for the arrival of a detective who would be in charge of the case. He arrived momentarily and we discussed our options. We closed the Preschool and some parents and the director began calling parents to tell them that we would be closed for the day and reopen Monday. Meanwhile, the officers began to arrive in droves. We closed the parking lot and the police put up crime scene tape. For the next hour I walked up and down the street and talked to parents who were arriving to bring their children to daycare. I assured them that things were going to be OK and that the incident had occurred before any of the children had arrived.
After an hour of anxious waiting, a phone call came and all kinds of activity started up. A few minutes later, one of the officers told me that they had found the woman in a remote part of a place called Chino Hills and that her abductors had kicked her out of the car (unharmed) and left her in such a wooded area that the police were having to send a helicopter up on the mountain to retrieve her. The good news was that she was all right.
We told the staff and everyone was relieved. By then, some of the parents began arriving to pick up their kids. I continued to go up and down the street assuring everyone that everything was indeed OK. Later, I gathered the staff together and told them what a good job they had done that day. By then, the Administrator had arrived (she was taking care of her grandkids quite a distance away and then got caught in traffic trying to get to the church) and we talked with the staff about how to handle things on Monday. Some of the staff were still arriving and were shocked by the news. I spent the next hour in pastoral care, assuring everyone that this was a crime of opportunity and unlikely to be repeated by either the criminals or others. By the time noon had arrived, the police CSI had come and gone and all the children were picked up. The staff left and I headed out for lunch, grateful for all that I have learned in seminary and over the 3+ decades of pastoring - none of which prepared me for today ... and yet, with the presence of the Holy Spirit, everything I had learned in seminary and in pastoring helped me get through the morning. I ate lunch, came back to the apartment, and took a nap. Not a bad day. Thank God.

The Fun Part

The Fall Quarter has come to an end. As of last Thursday, I am officially on Christmas Break. When you're a Ph.D student, this is when the fun begins. At Fuller, your seminar is broken up into two phases. The first phase is the seminar itself. In my case, I spent the Quarter reading and studying with my mentor, Dr. Clay Schmit, on the Theology of Preaching. It consisted of reading a series of books on preaching. Almost all of them were revelatory. The first two books have influenced my thinking in such profound ways that I think it may have helped to clarify what I will do with my dissertation. Another of the books has made me ask questions about basic areas of preaching that are extremely important to me - questions about performance theory and the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the preaching event; questions about the role of the listener in the formation of the sermon and the whether the key theological issue in preaching is the Cross or the Resurrection. As I indicated, the books where revelatory.
But now, the second phase of the seminar begins. After all the classwork and reading is done, the final requirement is to write a research paper. The paper is usually between 30 and 40 pages and centers on an area of interest to the student that arises out of the seminar. During this period, you probably read more than you do during the Quarter. I currently have about 35 books surrounding me that I am using for my research paper. Unlike a term paper, I am not trying to show the teacher that I know something about the subject. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I know more about the subject I am writing on than Clay does (that's not a slam at him, either). This kind of research is designed to be concentrated detective work. You are looking for new connections or understandings that others may not have seen or made. For instance, in this paper I am looking to understand a historical character by the name of Erasmus. He was a philologist (a grammarian) who helped put together a quality Greek manuscript of the New Testament and helped to correct the Latin version of the Bible (called the Latin Vulgate). By the time I am finished with the paper, I hope to know more about Erasmus and about the implications of his translation of one word from the Gospel of John (how he translated the Greek word logos in John 1:1 - "in the beginning was the word (logos)". In the Vulgate he changed the translation from the Latin word verbum to the word sermo. The implications of that simple change of one Latin word for another changed the life and work of Erasmus. It may also help to change the way in which preachers and homiletics professors understand preaching.
And for me, this is where the fun part begins. I enjoy both the reading/research part and the organizing/writing part. I have already written 10 pages in the last two days. I have barely scratched the surface. By the time I'm finished with this, I may know more about Erasmus, sermo and verbum than 99.9% of the people in the world. I guess this is what it means to be a scholar. Sounds like fun to me!

Preparation

After a too long absence from writing here, I return to the keyboard afresh. I am in Minneapolis writing this after having attended the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Homiletics Meeting. This gathering of professors of preaching from around the world (I know of at least 7 different countries represented) is a time of both scholarly pursuit and networking. During the Meeting, professors and Ph.D. students present scholarly papers that are open to any Academy members to read, critique, and question. Next year, I will be presenting a paper (hopefully) dealing with some of the issues that I will be dealing with in my Doctoral Dissertation. It will be a chance for well qualified and published scholars to ask questions of and critique my thinking. I will be required to give a defense of my positions and arguments. Sounds both challenging and exciting to me!
This year, I spent time making connections and networking with members of the Academy. This is crucial since, after all, these will be the men and women who will be on or chair search committees looking for professors of Homiletics for their various seminaries and graduate schools. Knowing them gives me a foot in the door when submitting my resume. Some of these men and women are the leaders, movers, and shakers in the world of preaching. I spent time with Richard Lischer from Duke Divinity School, maybe the leading homiletical theologian in America; O.C. Edwards, retired from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, who has written the definitive History of Preaching for this generation; Eugene Lowry, now retired from St. Paul School of Theology in Missouri, and the leading voice in the area of Narrative Preaching. To one seeking a career in Homiletics, this is like a baseball player meeting Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays. Maybe more importantly (and amazingly) they now know who I am. Let me explain.
I don't know that I am now or will be in the future a scholar of the rank of these gentlemen I have listed. I think I am smart and continue to have a thirst and capacity to learn. However, I do have confidence in my performative abilities. After all, that's what I have been doing now for more than 30 years. This year at the Academy, the Performative Studies Group (one of many small scholarly groups that meet to hear papers dealing with the area of Performance Theory as it relates to preaching) received permission to take an hour at the Academy meeting to share some of their performative arts. One of the members, Todd Farley, is both a professor of communication at Calvin College and a professional Mime (he studied with the great Marcel Marceau). He performed a magnificent Mime piece about the meaning of God's call. Another professor of preaching, Dr. Jana Childers, did an oral interpretation of Daniel 5. Dr. Charles Bartow, professor of homiletics at Princeton Seminary, shared a series of poems he had written (even if you don't like poetry that much, his performance of them is riveting). My mentor, Dr. Clay Schmit from Fuller, performed several musical pieces - he is an excellent baritone. And there, on the same stage, was this unknown Ph.D. student sharing a "midrash" (a story based on a text of scripture). It was only 6 minutes long (about the prophet Elijah and his home town of Tishbe) but it was a hit. Over the next several hours members of the Academy sought me out to ask me about what I had done and how to teach others to do the same. One professor wants me to put some of these stories on DVD and send it to her to use in class as a teaching tool. Others bought my book. One who sought me out was Dr. Eugene Lowry. Not only was he complimentary of my performance, but he offered to help me in my dissertation. We will be communicating over the next couple of months and I may get the chance to study with him for my Dissertation (that would be a huge "coup" and make my Dissertation far more important and respected.
All in all, for someone attempting to make a place for himself in a crowded and competitive field, it was quite a week. Maybe God really does have something for me to do in this pursuit of Homiletics. I don't think I'll set the world on fire or win a Pulitzer Prize, but I might help a few young preachers catch fire and change their world. That would be enough of a prize for me. Thank, God, for an opportunity and a vision. They feel pretty good on the inside.

How Do You Know What You Know?

In the course of studying in seminary, one of the philosophical issues that confronts every seminary student (and undergraduate students as well) is trying to figure out how you know what you know.
One of the ways we ask this question has to do with how a child learns. Is a child's thinking determined by nature or nurture? Is our understanding and ability to think determined by our birth, our DNA, the inherent things within our creation and the things we inherit from our parents? Or is our environment the biggest factor in our understanding of things? Do we learn from others, experiences, the things that happen to us and around us? If you accept that both nature and nurture affect each of us in various ways (I think most of us would think that), then other questions arise that theologians and philosophers want to understand.
For instance, how do we learn? How do we come to perceive things? What are the factors that determine how we come to know what it is that we know? Most of the foundational textbooks that I have read for any of my seminars attempt in some way to answer this question. The term for this exploration is called epistemology. A fancy word for the pursuit of understanding how we know what we know.
To begin to understand how important this is, you should know that every realm of study from business to politics to science is concerned with the "epistemological question." Every area of educational discipline is concerned with how we know what we know. Theology is no different and, in many ways, it is the inspiration for the thinking that has taken place over thousands of years. If you have ever heard of Plato and Aristotle, then you have heard of the two men who helped to frame the debate that goes on to this day. If you have not read these two giants of philosophy, let me try and tell you what they said

• Plato believed that human beings seem born to ask, “Why?” His idea was that if a human being knows the truth they will do it.
  
• Also, Plato was deeply suspicious that the world we have before our eyes is not the world that is actually there. To describe this, Plato developed a famous allegory. It's called the Allegory of the Cave.
• Imagine that there are prisoners being held captive in a cave from birth. They are all chained, unable to move. In addition, their heads are chained to face only one direction, they all face a wall. Behind them is a fire that is always lit. Behind that is a raised conveyor along which statues of all various kinds of things (animals, plants, etc.) are being transported. The statues cast a shadow on the wall. The prisoners never see the statues nor have they ever seen real animals or plants. All they see is the shadow of the statues against the wall. The prisoners play a game in which they attempt to see who is best at naming the shadows on the wall. To the prisoners, the shadows are reality. They have never seen anything else. Reality is what they see because what they see is all they know. Finally, one of the prisoners is set free. As he turns around he sees a new reality. As he leaves the cave, he is blinded by the light of the sun. It takes some time but, eventually, he adjusts to the sunlight and experiences another reality of real animals (not statues) and real plants (not shadows). What happens if he returns to the cave? He will not see things in the same way. His reality has changed. He will not be as good as the prisoners in identifying the shadows. Everything has changed because his knowledge and reality have changed. Plato, seeing the prisoners looking at the wall, thinks that this may better represent humanity. We are not seeing what is really there but merely describing impressions, shadows of what is real.
• And that is why Plato didn't necessarily trust that the world around us is as real as we think it is. Therefore, Plato believed that the gaining of wisdom is the only thing that can help us gain a better understanding of what is real. What we see, the world around us, our emotions are all unreliable as a way to know what we know.
• Aristotle took a very different path to explaining what we know. He wrote a book called, Metaphysics (literally, those thoughts which are after or beyond thinking about the physical world). In it, Aristotle points to our senses as a way of understanding what is real. We gain our knowledge of the world around us by probing and testing. Our probing and testing gives us knowledge by way of reason. Reason makes sense of our experience.
  
• The basic difference between the two is that Plato thought that knowledge was transcendent - beyond this world. Aristotle believed that we can know this world through experience of it. And that has been the debate ever since.
  

All of this may sound too complicated to be of any real value. If you feel that way, I understand your confusion. Thanks for making it this far! For me, here is where it gets interesting. If you follow Plato, knowledge must come from somewhere other than human experience and interaction. If you follow Aristotle, knowledge comes from what human beings can experience and discover. For theology, the issue becomes whether knowledge is revelation from God (beyond this world) or discovered by human beings (we are the ones who determine who God is and what God says). While I am still in process of discovering the implications of both Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, this much I know. We know nothing without God having revealed it to us. I know what I know because God is a god of revelation and he has given me the capacity to understand this revelation.

The State of Preaching

I don't know if I've earned the right to make such an evaluation, but here we go. I preached the first service of a weekend revival last night and after the service one of the members of the church engaged me on this very subject. He had spiritually grown up under the preaching of Steven Olford and others and he was lamenting the lack of preaching power and biblical depth in the pulpit today. After the service I went back to the pastor's home and spent the rest of the evening talking with the pastor's family (his wife and in-laws, who are retired Church of God ministers). Part of that conversation also turned to the state of preaching, particularly in the Church of God. Off of this non-scientific "survey" and my own convictions based on very little observation as well as the understanding I have gained here at Fuller both from classes and from teaching students, I want to make a few observations.

1. Based on homiletical training of students, almost all of the training for students focuses on exegetical and hermeneutical training. For instance, here at Fuller M.Div. students must complete both Greek and Hebrew as well as Greek Exegesis and Hebrew Exegesis prior to taking Homiletics. In other words you take four quarters of language study before taking one quarter of preaching. The basic homiletics class (called PR 500 here) is a 4 unit class that is required for the degree. After taking PR 500 the student must take 4 more hours in either homiletics or communications. Most students take a Preaching Practicum course or two (they are 2 hours each) to fulfill their last 4 hours (a total of 8 hours is required in the preaching area). All this to say that the students are heaped in language and study habits and are given some practical experience in preaching (most of the time you will preach twice in each class, so you may preach in class as many as six times before graduating. This doesn't count your field ministry experience where you will probably preach once or twice. The disconnect I see here is that we teach them how to put a sermon together but very little performance training.
2. My mentor, Dr. Clay Schmit, is one of the leading voices in the area of Performance Preaching. Many people are put off by the use of the word "Performance" because they associate the word with the wrong things. Actors perform by becoming a character they are not. Therefore, performance is viewed by many as being akin to fakery or falsehood. Interestingly, the same connotation is not given to soloists in the church. We don't mind that they perform a song. Why the double standard? Because we are still questioning the use of emotion in the pulpit. The subject of emotionalism in North American church history is long and complicated. From the Pilgrims stoic, unemotional delivery (described as the Perkins Method by O.C. Moore in his, "History of Preaching") to the firebrand style of George Whitfield, we are unsure as to how much emotion is too much - how much performance is helpful and how much is manipulative. However, any layperson will tell you that not only don't they mind some emotion from the pulpit, they would also appreciate it if a few more preachers learned the details of rhetoric and performance in their preaching. That is why the area of performance studies is growing and I firmly believe it is one of the missing pieces in how we train preachers today.
3. The lack of creativity in preaching is astounding. We all seem to be trying to emulate someone else. We try to preach like Rick Warren or copy the style of a Joel Osteen. We get sermons off the internet and try and preach them as our own. We discover someone else's outline and preach it as though it came from our sweet and brow. Preaching is not only about doing the study required to preach well, it is also about "finding your voice" in the pulpit. You have not been called to be someone else. God saw you as a unique vessel and decided to use you, your gifts, your talents, your personality, your quirky sense of thinking to be His vessel for sharing the Word. When we copy something from someone else we deny the reality that God desires to use us and that God knew what he was doing when he called us. Use your gifts. Be creative. A three point sermon with a poem at the end may have worked for someone else but each preacher must allow her voice to shine out.
   

Maybe these will resonate with some of you. Let me know. There is more to come.

Catching Up

It has been some weeks since I last wrote on the blog. Some catching up seems appropriate. Since my last writing I have been hard at work with some fascinating (at least for me) experiences to share. Here goes:

1. I spent several days with Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, the renowned preacher and former Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. I became Fuller's official liaison for his "Preaching with Passion" Conference that the Seminary hosted. Dr. Ogilvie is an author (I have numerous copies of his books that he wrote as pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church) and a new, signed copy of his latest book, "The Red Ember in the White Ash". His inscription says, "To Jeff: God's man - a preacher with passion and my friend." Wow!
2. I have now given several lectures to M.Div students this quarter. I had to fill-in for my mentor, Dr. Schmit, who was on jury duty. I gave one lecture on "Text to Sermon" detailing how one goes from a passage through the daily process of study that will eventually end up in a sermon (I then spent the second hour preaching the sermon to them so that they might have a model to use and/or critique); Another lecture was on Narrative Preaching where I help the students understand the principles of how to do this genre of preaching. Most of that lecture was based on my book, which is required reading in the course.
   
3. Church of the Foothills (the Church of God congregation here in Pasadena that I am Interim Pastor for) is hosting an Arabic language service this coming Friday. It is supposed to attract a packed house of Arabic speaking Christians who live in the area. One of our Pre-School families left the Middle East after being persecuted for their Christian beliefs in a predominantly Muslim nation.
   
4. I am currently reading a book by Stephen Webb called, "The Divine Voice" which is an absolutely fascinating book about the Theology of Sound. His use of both the bible and dealing with the works of great philosophers and theologians, makes the book a unique read. It is helping to form my own understanding of the uniqueness and the power of preaching.
   
5. Joanie continues to get high marks from her new principal and the leadership of the school. I am so very proud of her and how she is growing in her life. She has been hired by Church of the Foothills to be their Minister of Music. Last week she shared her testimony with the Fuller Wives Support Group that she is deeply involved in. She is doing very well juggling her many tasks and the recovery from her hip replacement surgery continues to go well.
6. This weekend I will be holding a weekend revival in Whittier (about 20 minutes away). It is a big weekend for them and they are focusing on reaching out to their neighborhood, so I pray their efforts will be fruitful.
   
7. I have to register for Winter classes in a few weeks. It will be the last time I register for classes here at Fuller. After the Winter Quarter I will be preparing to take my Comprehensive Exams in the Spring and then I will be taking Directed Readings for the second half of my program as I prepare to write my Dissertation. While I have several years in front of me, it is amazing how time has flown by.
   

Better Than Any Words I Can Write - Malachi at 3 Weeks

Accomplishments

In the age of Reality Television, one interesting feature has come to light for me. The issue of competition has become the foundational basis for nearly all reality shows. Joanie and I have become fans of the show "Top Chef" - we've watched several seasons of it. Hits like "Dancing with the Stars" and "American Idol" have created a whole industry built up around competition between either well known stars in unfamiliar settings (ballroom dancing) or unknowns seeking to become known (to become the next "American Idol"). The one thing they all have in common, like the game show formats upon which they seem to be based, is that they engage the viewer in the "cliff hanger" motif. You never know who is going to win the competition.
The shows on television today that constantly receive the highest ratings are the major sports competitions - Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA Basketball Tournament, NASCAR races like the Daytona 500, and New Years Day Bowl Games, etc. Like Reality TV, they are competition based. This emphasis on competition leaks into the corporate world, into politics, and even into churches that seem to be in competition with other churches for parishioners, bigger budgets, and larger numbers. When High School athletics are on TV and the networks put on shows like "Kidnation" that glory in competition at the lowest ages; when parents fight to get their toddlers into the "perfect" Kindergarten or fear that their children's future educational lives may be ruined by not getting into a prestigious preschool; when young people assign value and importance to other people's lives based on what car they drive or what clothes they wear, competition has gotten out of hand. As my son, Jonathan, once said about Survivor, "How can you say that a bunch of people running around half-naked on a deserted island being filmed by dozens of camera people and then having those pictures sent out over the airwaves to millions and millions of people - how is that reality?"
Somehow we have to change the standard by which we evaluate what is foundational in people's lives. Competition isn't working. Something else has to supplant it that will make a better society... a better world. Maybe the better standard would be accomplishment (the symbol at the top of this post is the Chinese symbol for accomplishment). I think accomplishing something is far more important than beating someone in a competition. A child's crayon drawing is a far greater accomplishment than getting a soccer trophy. It shows development, creativity, and a growing understanding of the world in which the child is living. A soccer trophy means that your child has physically grown or developed at a greater speed than his peers. Eventually the others will catch up and pass them. What will they do then when their competitive edge is lost? Steroids? While I love sports and enjoyed my children playing them, it is not a great judge of their future accomplishments. Some traits from the world of competition may very well help in other phases of life, the ability to accomplish something is far superior to being able to win competitions at an early age.
Here at Fuller you hear a lot of students talk about education in terms of competition. This is especially true for those who want to go beyond the Master's Degree and get into a Ph.D. program. You have to get good grades to get into Graduate School. I understand that. In my own case, my strongest argument for getting into the Ph.D. program at Fuller may have been the high grade point average I accumulated in my Master's work. I understand how competition for spots can be fierce. However, the best thing about graduating with a Master's Degree was the learning that I received during the experience. When I received my diploma, it was the sense of accomplishment that I felt that was the most rewarding thing of all. Getting the grade was merely a way of judging how well I had accomplished the goals for learning in the course. It was not a competition. It was a challenge. I like challenges.
By the way, grades came out today for both the Spring and Summer quarters. I got my first A on a paper for the Ph.D. program. The first two papers I handed in (for the Fall and Winter Quarters of my first year) received A-. For the Spring Quarter I received an A. The difference between the two at this level of education is that an A- is a quality paper. An A paper is not of greater quality but has a deeper and better organization of thought that makes it of publishable quality. The difference is not really a subtle one. These are being graded by professors, all of whom have published several books and numerous articles and papers. They know the difference between a good paper and one that others in the field of your expertize will find meaningful. Getting an A is an accomplishment. No one is ever going to look and see if I got an A or an A- in any of my doctoral seminars. They will only look to see if I have the degree and completed my dissertation. However, it means a great deal to know that I may have reached a place where my thoughts and my work will be valued by others. It may mean that I have taken my first measurable step toward becoming a scholar. At the very least it is an accomplishment. And that feels good!
By the way, I got an A in Latin, too. That's not an accomplishment. That's a miracle.

Malachi at Home with Grandpa

Nothing I can say will be better than a picture of me holding my grandson while he finds his thumb! Grandparenting is great!

Evangelism with a Twist

If you are interested in knowing some of the cutting edge, pushing the envelope types of evangelism and worship that is going on in churches, please read this blog by a pastor doing something new and refreshing:

http://www.vinceantonucci.com

Blood Diamonds

We just finished watching the Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou movie, "Blood Diamonds". It tells the horrific story of the carnage created in places like Sierra Leone where the mining of diamonds has been used to pay for bloody civil wars and genocide. Meanwhile, those of us in the West go blindly shopping for diamond rings and baubles that have been bought with the blood and suffering of millions.
In the course of the movie the depiction of the torture inflicted upon the people of Sierra Leone by their own rebel forces results in the amputation of young men so that they are unable to either vote in elections or carry arms against the rebels. It is not just Hollywood drama but an accurate depiction of the real thing. The picture of this young man with no hands attests to the maiming that has been done and is still being done by rebels and opposing forces on the citizenry of various African countries. How can someone do that to their own countrymen and women? How can you kill a mother or child in cold blood merely for the benefits some mineral can give you? Of course, this is just Africa where backward people with no real morals kill each other for sport, isn't it?
We who are white and from the West look down on those peoples of color who do horrible things to each other. Blood Diamonds, the Killing Fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Rwandan massacre depicted in Don Cheadle's "Hotel Rwanda", the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1937-38, etc. There are no shortages of people of color killing themselves. How conveniently we forget the millions who died at Stalin's hands in the Gulags, or the holocaust ovens of Hitler, or the genocide of Turks against the Armenians, or the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, or the death toll at the dreaded Andersonville Prison during our own Civil War. These were not people of color killing themselves, these were basically white, Euro-Centric people who did unspeakable things to one another. No, the color of your skin does not dictate the level or depth of inhumanity one group accomplish. It is sickening.
Yet, there persists in the vacuum of postmodernistic thinking the idea that sin is a universal constant. We seem desperate to hold on to the idea that humankind is "basically good". We want to believe that such things only happen far away from us and never in a civilized society. But the biblical picture of the world still rings true in spite of the assault against it. In a world that hates itself, sin is the predominant force that drives the relationship of human beings, countries, and the world. I'm afraid that Sally Fields statement at the Emmy's is naive: ""And let's face it; if the world was run by mothers, there would be no...wars." No, I'm afraid there would be. Because human beings, regardless of gender, have the same problem - we are invested in sinful living. And the cure isn't thinking good thoughts or trying self-help books. Dr. Phil may help some but he is fighting a losing battle. The sin in our society is not a social issue but a spiritual one. And sin cannot be eradicated by tolerance, acceptance, and non-judgmentalism. It can only be changed by the power of God changing the soul of a person. Anything else that we try creates the same sad situation that was depicted in "Blood Diamonds".

Those Leaving Ministry

Joanie and I are enjoying the days with our new grandson and his parents. It has given me a few moments to pause and reflect. I just read my friend Lloyd Moritz's blog and it has prompted me to write this one. His facts and figures about what is happening to ministers are disturbing, to say the least:

Within 5 years of graduating from Bible College or Seminary 80% have left the ministry.

The average tenure of a pastor in a church today is only 3 years.

The average tenure of a pastor's ministry career is only 14 years.

Two thoughts strike me about these disturbing figures. First, as someone preparing to teach seminary students who are either about to enter the ministry or are already in ministry and seeking more knowledge, what do I need to do to combat these alarming statistics? What are the implications for teaching and preparing candidates for ministry?
Second, what is wrong with our churches that they have this kind of effect on ministers? I realize their is a corollary to this - what is wrong with our ministers that they are leaving in such huge numbers? I don't doubt that there are numerous candidates for pastoring that are seeking pastoral ministry for all the wrong reasons. I don't doubt that there are ministers out there that make a mess out of their situations and leave the ministry or the church because they have done the wrong things in the wrong way. I'm sure I can count myself among those who have done the wrong things and gotten himself into trouble.
However, I have had my ministry shortened at two congregations by the actions of men and women who should never have been given the power to make life miserable for the pastor. At one church, the culprits were three leading laypersons whose personal lives were a mess and whose actions were immoral. Yet, they were trusted and the pastor was "the hired hand". One of them went on to create the same havoc in another congregation before the leaders stopped him by supporting the pastor and creating church discipline. One of them left the church after his moral failure came to light. The other one stays at the church and continues to make life miserable for both pastors and laypersons alike. I should note that the other culprit at this church was a fellow minster and staff person. He was believed and affirmed while I was chastised and condemned. He became the pastor, lasted 18 months, had a moral failure, destroyed his family, and left the ministry. Obviously there was no spirit of discernment that undergirded that church.
The second congregation decided to listen to a faction of people led by two men who have no moral or ethical character. They spread lies and rumors; they made untrue and slanderous statements about my wife; they gathered around them spiritually immature believers who had this thing or that against me (though they would never talk to me about it) and made huge claims of power and support that they never had. I left because God called me to go into this PhD program, but I could not have stayed very much longer under the kind of attack these folks put me and my family under. Where are those two "leaders" now? They have left the church. One a layperson who now fancies himself a minister (hmmm) and the other, again, a staff person. The staff person has shown his colors by becoming a Baptist and joining the staff of a local congregation whose doctrine and polity are directly opposite the Church of God. Folks, something is wrong with our churches when the pastor is the object of scorn and distrust and church "leaders" are given more power than the witness and testimony of their lives deserve. If we keep doing this, the numbers at the top of this blog report will only get worse.

To The Heartland

We are halfway across the United States (from California to Illinois) and we did it after Joanie had spent the day teaching school. From LA to Chicago in a little over three hours. Not bad, not bad at all. As I prepare to go to bed (I will be the last of the household to hit the hay) I have yet to be able to greet the newest Frymire. That will all change at 10:30 am when we go to the hospital to see Joel, Shafali and Malachi. It has been more than a year since I have seen my son and his wife. Too long to go between visits. But all that will change when the morning (its 2am here) hits and we are off to the maternity ward.
Joel sent us this picture this afternoon. Malachi is 24 hours old in this pic. According to Joel, he has already changed features and looks different than he did yesterday. Isn't that amazing? We were created to change. But it seems the older we get the more we fight against any kind of meaningful change. We struggle to hold on to the comfortable while the very nature of our bodies and lives seeks change.
I've changed. OK, maybe not since yesterday, but I've changed this week. I've become a grandpa - that's a change! I've grown a goatee (anything to hide part of the mug - this is my collegiate rebellion phase) - that's a change. I've taken on a new ministry position at Church of the Foothills in Pasadena - that's a change. I'm taking two new classes in the Fall - that's a change! I'm married to Joanie - well, that's the same thing I've been for 32 years. But being married to her always brings about new things in our lives together and we've both changed even over the course of this summer as she has recovered from hip replacement surgery and we've adjusted our lifestyles.
God changes. That sounds like heresy, doesn't it. I thought he was the same yesterday, today, and forever? But God does change. He changes us. Salvation is his desire for each and every one of us and that is a profound change. And when God is in relationship with human beings who are in a constant state of change, doesn't that somehow change him or, at least, change the constantly changing dynamic of his relationship with a fallen, broken world that is being changed daily by the changes that are being made in people's lives by the Great Change Agent Jesus Christ?
I pray that if someone takes a picture of me on the inside and compares that with another picture of me 24 hours from now, I hope it shows that I have changed. Why? Because I know God is changing me even as I write. Even as I yawn. Even as I go to bed. Because, when I wake up tomorrow, I get to see Malachi. And nothing will ever quite be the same again.

Just 3 Minutes

At 7:00 on Wednesday night, my cell phone rang. Joel was leaving work and wanted me to know that he would not be calling me at his usual time (he calls me after he leaves work at 2am Illinois time/midnight California time) for us to talk as he rides home. He was on his way home early last night. There was much excitement at his workplace. His boss came rushing through the facility with a golf cart to pick up Joel and get him out to his car. THE Call had come. Shafali was in labor - she thought. After a couple of days of Braxton Hicks (contraction like pains that mimic the real pains) and the loss of the mucus plug, the time was now. The contractions were 13 minutes apart.
After Joel got home he was told that their OB-GYN had told them that they shouldn't come to the hospital until the contractions were 5 minutes apart. Wow! Just 5 minutes apart! On top of that, they had about 40 minutes to go to get to the hospital. In my mind, that seemed to be cutting things particularly close. But, then again, I am not a doctor (I played one on TV once - OK, not really, but you get the picture). At 2am his time (his regular time to call anyway) he called with Shafali in the car on the way to the hospital. The contractions were now closer to 3 minutes rather than 5. Wow! Just 3 minutes!
At 7:30 this morning a text message saying that they had made it through the night and that Shafali was 3 cm dilated and they were doing fine. Then......nothing. For the rest of the morning and into lunch, no word. I'm sure they were busy. I didn't expect a lot of communication. Too much going on and you have to concentrate on what's happening in the room, for sure! How long would it take? How far along was Shafali? How were things going? Then, at 1:23 California time (3:23 in Illinois), my phone beeped. The beep meant that a message was coming through. I assumed it to be a text message from Joel - an update on the progress of the birth. Instead, no words, no explanation, no update, no report - just a picture; a picture worth a thousand words. The picture of my grandson.
Not too long afterward came a call from the proud papa. As he related the amazement that is inherent in experiencing the birth of your first child, he told me something that amazed me. Now, I was there for the birth of both Jonathan and Joel. I experienced what Joel experienced today. After Jonathan was born, I went out and called my mother who was too ill to attend the birth. Joanie's mother was with us during the whole delivery - as was Doug. I told my mom all that I could about what I had experienced. But the one thing I couldn't do was allow her to see her new grandchild. It would be nearly a month before we could travel to see her and allow her to have a few minutes with her new grand baby. She was robbed by the cancer of even being able to see her grandson for nearly 30 days. Now, nearly 3 decades later, her baby boy is being called by her grandson to share in the birth of a new grandchild. Like my own mother, we were not able to be there for the birth (we are on a plane to Illinois tomorrow). But there is one notable difference. I got to see my grandchild less than 5 minutes after his birth. You see the picture above, taken by Joel, was taken when Malachi David was only 3 minutes old. Captured on his cell phone, he sent it out to me within 5 minutes of the birth. Malachi was born at 3:19 on a Thursday afternoon in September - on the 13th. And at 3:23 on that same afternoon, his grandfather received the very first picture ever taken of Malachi. I didn't have to wait 30 days or even for tomorrow night to arrive. I only had to wait 3 minutes. Just 3 minutes. Ain't it amazing!

Getting Ready for Malachi to Show Up

We are washing dishes (OK, Joanie is loading the dishwasher) and washing clothes (OK, Joanie washed the clothes) and getting ready to leave California for Illinois on Friday. It is such a hectic time for us: Joanie has just begun school (this is her second week) and I am just about to start school (begins on the 24th). I have a syllabus to get ready for a class I am helping to teach (on Creative Preaching) and a lot of preparation for the Preaching with Passion Conference that is coming up in October with Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie (I am the conference director or some title like that). This is the worst time to be taking 10 days and going away. . . unless you get to see your kids and be a part of the birth of your first grandchild. Then, it is the best time to be going away!

We spend so much of our time doing things that sound important and that we treat as important we can miss the things that are important. Classes and schoolwork, education and work are all important. But, they will be here when we return. The birth of Malachi David Frymire will only occur once. And nothing can or should keep me from that moment. Now, he may arrive before we get there (you know how births can be) but we will be there when he is but moments old. Like my children before him, I want to be a part of his whole life. I watched the joy my boys had in growing up with a set of grandparents like Joanie's folks were (my Mom and Dad died before my kids could get to know them). Their lives were enriched by the influence of these two wonderful people (Dad still influences them all greatly and, with Mom having passed away a few years back, Dad's wife Tina is now a continuing wonderful presence in their lives) and I hope that Joanie and I will have the same opportunity to influence Malachi as he grows. He will enter the world with wonderful parents who already love him and are excited about the joy of parenting.

So, we are getting ready for Malachi. Doing the most important thing we can do. We will be present. You know, that may be the most important thing we ever do - show up. Be there. I wish more people understood that when it comes to church and worship. How much larger and more dynamic would our worship services be if everyone just showed up every Sunday. Attendance would double at most churches (no exaggeration). We live in a society that believes that attending church once a month makes you a "regular" attender. It's the only place where that attitude lives. You are not a valued employee when you show up a couple of times a week. You are not a good student if you only go to class sporadically. Showing up means a lot. I went to my kids games, concerts, plays, and musicals. They could always count on Joanie and I showing up. It was important for us to be there. We wanted to be there - but it was also important to be there. I have become more and more convinced over the years that God desires to bless people who are faithful in worship - who just show up regularly. I even think that God expects us to show up and is sad when we don't show up. I remember when I was young and got to playing with friends and forgot to show up for lunch or dinner. That never made my parents happy and it always led to me being less than happy.
So, Malachi, when you show up your grandparents will be there. And that says a lot.

Out From the Safety of the Sanctuary

I spent most of the past week watching a group of about 20 children play soccer in the parking lot of the church. The goals were quite creative -but makeshift; The "field" had no grass - just macadam; The games had no referees - just parents and volunteers cheering. It may not have looked like either a soccer camp or a VBS - but actually was both. In a most unusual and creative departure from the usual VBS format, the children were instructed in both soccer and in the biblical applications that can be found in such a venture. A unique event and process to be sure. Two things struck me quite strongly:

1. It is amazing what happens when the church gets out of the sanctuary and into the world. While pastoring in Fresno we moved a Fall Festival celebration from the sanctuary area out to the frontage road. We went from a couple of hundred "church" folk to nearly 1,000 people from the church, neighborhood, and passers-by. Something like that happened here, albeit in a different way. By taking the VBS program from the church building to the parking lot, we attracted several families that were simply passing by. Literally. A father drove by and saw what was happening, went back and got his child and they, in turn got other children and parents to come. That would have never occurred if the children were couped up in classrooms or in the back of the church were no one could see them. You may be able to tell from this picture that the church is located on a fairly busy street. The parking lot is more than adequate for any cars needed for Sunday worship or for the preschool that the church runs. As a result, no one ever parks on the street. You can drive by the church and never notice that it is there or that anything is taking place. But not last week. Last week there were cars parked on the street. Parents, volunteers, and leaders were forced to park on the street. And, as cars passed by, they couldn't help but notice all the cars and all the activity going on. Young people out in the church parking lot having loads of fun. That image says more to the community than any advertising campaign a media company could devise.
   
2. It is amazing what happens when church people get off their Blessed Assurance and begin doing ministry that matters. When I interviewed with the Church of the Foothills about being their interim pastor, one of the leaders said that they had considered making a new sign for the front of the church that said, "Church of the Foothills - the church with no programs." An admirable thought, but what they really meant was that they gathered together for worship but not much else. But you should have seen them this week. Working together, playing together, interacting with folks from the neighborhood and the preschool. Suddenly, their faces came alive and their attitudes changed as they saw the fruits of their labors being manifested on the faces of the children.
   

I don't know if this will change the church or the neighborhood, but I do know it will do more than all the average services and leadership meetings that have taken place over the last few years. Lives are changed when the church abandons the safety of the sanctuary for the rough and tumble world of ... well, the world. More things can happen in a parking lot than anyone can imagine.

Success

There are many definitions of success:

• It is the favorable outcome of an action.
• It is growth, development, improvement and getting better.
• It is achieving what you have set out to do.
  
• Passing your driving test.
• Getting the job you wanted.
• You feel it when someone you love tells you that he/she loves you too.
• It is the pleasant and powerful feeling of achievement.
• You experience it when you win or earn a large sum of money.
• When you see your garden blooming.
• After meditating for ten minutes, without thoughts disturbing you.
• When you fix a broken instrument with your own hands.
• It is promotion at work.
  
• Getting good grades at school.

The definitions of success are far and wide:

Success is to laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've got my faults, but living in the past isn't one of them. There's no future in it" Sparky Anderson - former manager, Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds

“Go out and make people feel good for no good reason” Richard Bandler

“Happiness is a perfume you choose to wear. And when you do wear it others enjoy it as much as you do” Peta

The man who is always killing time is really killing his own chances in life; while the man who is destined for success is the man who makes time live by making it useful. Arthur Brisbane

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today. Henry Jackson Brown

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. Babe Ruth

For the last 20 years I have never given up on one dream. That dream is to achieve a PhD. The largest obstacle to accomplishing that has always been doing language study. As I come to the end of the first full year of my PhD I have time tonight to reflect back on this past year. I have taken 3 quarters (30 weeks) of language study. I have received an A- for two of those quarters in Hebrew and have finished that requirement. As of 8:30 tonight, I have completed another quarter of language study, this time in Latin. While I am not hugely proficient in either language (though I am becoming much more comfortable in Latin, having translated the entire 5th chapter of Revelation as a class project) I have completed the requirement. As of tonight, I am finished with language study as part of my PhD requirements (I have a couple of classes to take in this overall area but neither requires the study of a foreign language). Tonight I took my Latin final. I spent many hours these last two weeks translating a passage from the Gospel of John, another from a poem written by Virgil and, yesterday, spending the day translating a medieval commentary on Galatians 3:10 (we received the passage at the end of class on Tuesday, so we had one day to work on it). Each of these made up 3 parts of the 4 part final. Tonight, we worked in groups translating an ancient Latin text comparing the plight of humans and animals. With the help of the group, we came up with a very high quality translation of the text. We handed it in confident that it would receive an A grade. My hope is that I will get an A in the class (actually, the professor indicated that is the grade I will receive).

Success has many definitions. For me, this is success. I have climbed a mountain, finished this part of the race, overcome my insecurities and fear, and established a new benchmark in my learning process. In addition to all this language study, I completed a 55 page term paper on Charles Finney and his influence on D.S. Warner, helped my wife get through her hip surgery, and taken on the interim pastorate of Church of the Foothills. All in all, that is the definition of a successful and productive summer. And on top of all of that, I am about to become a grandpa! Success!

Sight But Not Vision

There is a difference between sight and vision. Unfortunately, in our society, the two ideas seem to be equated. I think they are vastly different. Sight is a physical attribute that allows us to physically see. Vision is something that goes beyond sight to see what can be but is not yet. The reality is that sight can get in the way of vision. I preached this morning on the story of the Deuteronomy. The book begins with the story of the 12 spies who went into the land to scope it out before the nation would transverse the Jordan. When they came back, 10 of them told why the nation should not go into the land. All the reasons were valid, as long as all you were doing was looking at the things you could see with your eyes. The people, the spies said, were taller, stronger than the Israelites. The cities, said the 10, were fortified with walls that went up to heaven. They convinced the nation not to go over into the land. They had been betrayed by sight.
40 years later, Joshua led a new nation (all the others except he and Caleb and their families had died) across the same Jordan. What did they find? Exactly what the spies had reported. The people were strong, tall, living behind incredibly fortified cities with walls that seemed to go to the sky. But now, with a long, hard Wilderness wandering behind them, these people came with a vision that was greater than their sight. The vision? They believed that God was greater than strong, tall men; they believed God was greater than fortified cities and high walls. So, according to the word and vision they had received, they marched around the city a few times and, lo and behold, the walls came tumbling down. The vision was greater than what they could see.
I just listened to Joel Olsteen (not one of my favorite preachers but a great speaker) and he talks about imagining your future before it comes to pass. It sounds a lot like The Prayer of Jabez idea of claiming your territory. Regardless of how you state it, the principle is the same. It still is based on the idea that sight is human and vision is divine. You can only have a vision through the eyes of God's Spirit.
If you need a fresh vision of the future, don't bother getting some self-help, self-actualization book. Instead, pick up the Bible and read Deuteronomy (OK, some of it gets tedious but do it anyway) and then begin reading Joshua and you will see the difference between a group of people who could only see and a nation of people motivated by a divine vision that changed the course of history.

Shoes

I will be going with Joanie today to a store in LA so she can buy shoes. Over the course of 32 years of marriage, I have attempted to avoid doing this as much as possible. Joanie hates to go shoe shopping because she can never make a decision and the decisions she makes are often ones she regrets after getting them home. However, the course of the last few years has made this process even more difficult. Let me explain.
About 3 years or so ago, Joanie had foot surgery. She had a bunion removed - a process that involved breaking her foot, shaving the bone and resetting the break with a pin in her foot. Ever since then, shopping for shoes has become even more problematic. Now, since her hip surgery, she has to go to a special store to get orthopedic shoes. As a result of her surgery, her left leg is slightly longer than the other one. This means she has the added burden of finding comfortable, fashionable shoes that will be helpful to her walking issues.
So, I'm going shoe shopping today. This would come under the "for better, for worse" injunction of the marital vows. But it is important for Joanie - for her health and well-being. And, therefore, it is important for me. I am reminded that not everything is about me and my needs. Marriage is a partnership with significant give and take. I get a lot and I give a lot. That is the nature of a marriage partnership. So, it's the shoe store today. It may not be the most exciting thing I will ever do, but it is part of what it means to be in relationship together. O Lord, please help Joanie find shoes....quickly. Please. Amen.

The Trouble with Translating

I have a problem with translating from one language to another. It's the same problem everyone has. There are times you can't find out what to do with a word. It doesn't fit the patterns you know; it's not in the dictionary you have; it breaks all the rules of what you have come to know as normative for translating. It just won't work. And the problem is, when I get stuck on a word, I get stuck for a long time. It can take me hours to try and work through the problem or figure out how to get around the problem. It becomes so frutstrating at times that I just give up.

• You ever get stuck?
• You ever get bogged down by a problem in your life and just can't figure out how to move beyond it?
• You ever waste an hour/a day/a week/a season of your life trying to figure something out that just wouldn't work out?
• You ever get so frustrated with getting stuck that you just give up on a project/a career/a decision/a person/ a problem?
  

Churches, Christians, believers, ministers, laity, women, men, children, and parents all get stuck. One of the reasons God put us living on dirt was to see the effects of mud and learn what it means to get stuck. When you are stuck, all the writhing around in the world will not free you from the mud. Joanie and I have been watching a show called "Man vs. Wild" where the host, Baer Gyllis, is a survivalist who goes into wilderness areas with next to nothing and finds his way out. It is all designed to teach you how to survive in the wild. More than once he has jumped into quicksand or a mud bog and taught the audience how to get out. You know how you do it? You stop wiggling. You try and relax. You work your way out slowly and calmly. You "monkey crawl" out of the mud. You use a stick if you have it, to lay on top of and try and get yourself to the surface before you attempt to extricate yourself from the muck. That's what you do when you get stuck.

So, if you are stuck translating Latin (OK, that may not be a popular problem) or facing a difficult decision (that one may be a bit more popular) all you have to do is relax (that's called praying in faith), stop wiggling around (that's called trying to solve it on your own), get on the surface (that means allowing God to bring you above the muck by his grace), and crawl your way out (that's called worshiping God when you are still stuck). Try it, you may find that can get unstuck from where you've been.

Preaching Ears and Eyes

One of the things that I have discovered about preaching has come through the experience of evaluating trial sermons by the seminary students here at Fuller. It is a subtle but desperately important principle. It can change and revolutionize how you approach the preaching event. What is it? Well, let me set the stage so you will know what I mean. Here are the principles:

1. Any good preacher or any preacher desiring to do well in the pulpit will spend considerable time in their study researching and exegeting the text. This involves reading the text in several translations of the Bible, sitting with books that help inform your mind about the text - such as commentaries, word study materials, and historical information - and filling up the blank pieces of paper that you have in front of you. Your time is spent in research and writing down the insights and information you find. That's the first step in producing a sermon.
2. The second step is to try and figure out how to put this mound of material into sermonic form. It is here that many preachers begin to slide off track. Too many of the students I teach and the preachers I hear seem to think that you can take the material you have on those now filled "blank" pieces of paper and put it into the sermon. Preachers cut and paste the material into several points (usually three) and find an introduction to those points and a way to conclude (well, how to do that would be another blog at some point). The results are usually less than satisfactory. Why? Because the material is in the wrong form.
3. At Fuller, the students I listen to have just come through two years of learning how to do exegesis. Most of them have learned how to do that through study of the original languages (Greek and Hebrew) and how to try and get down to the centerpiece of the text. They then put that into a paper (called an exegetical paper) and hand that into the professor for evaluation or grading. Some of them become quite proficient at this process. Then they come to the preaching task (or to Homiletics Class) and they attempt to follow the same pattern they learned in their exegetical class. Inevitably, it fails as a sermon. The reason is simple but profound. You can't write a sermon for the eye. It has to be written for the ear.

Sermons are experienced by listening to them. How you express things in writing and how you express them in speaking are not nearly the same thing. How your mind processes things verbally and how it processes things visually are totally different processes. You can do very well with the written word and very poorly with the spoken word. A great example of this is Thomas Jefferson. Without question, Jefferson is one of the greatest writers of all time. His words have inspired generations. However, he was such a poor speaker that he never personally delivered a State of the Union address or an Inaugural Address. He wrote them but never delivered them. Others read them. It was not because he was bashful. Jefferson was not a public speaker. He could write for the eye but he could not speak for the ear. They are two different specialties. Oh, how I wish more preachers understood this concept. Too many of them try to preach to the eye. Too few know how to speak to the ear.
If you want to change how you preach, begin here. Change your process of communication. Listen to the Word (don't just read it) and Preach to the Ear (not just to the printed page).