Friday Frivolity

While I’m waiting for the Arkansas Razorbacks baseball team to take the field against the corndogs of LSU, I thought I’d waste a Friday afternoon post on a few meaningless points:

The iPhone 3GS arrived today. I don’t have one nor will I get on this year. I’m going to wait until our contract is up and hope that some other carrier gets the iPhone in 2010 because AT&T repeatedly drops the ball. Cellular providers all over the world have done a better job preparing for the 3GS. Why not you, AT&T?

I have no earthly idea who Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag are and I understand that’s a good thing. Jon & Kate, too. I look like such a moron when I read the covers of magazines at the grocery store.

Good News Magazine has a pretty good collection of the voting results on the constitutional amendments United Methodists are voting on this summer.

Man, I love Auto-Tune the News.

Annual Conference Afterthought

I spent some time thinking about the amendment voting at the Arkansas Annual Conference which concluded yesterday. One thing that I am amazed about this morning – and should have been while we were in session – was the implicational ignorance we shared over the amendments covering the worldwide church. The lead delegate, District Superintendent Rodney Steele, had the unenviable position of having to answer nearly every question asked from the floor about these amendments. He did a great job of remaining as objective as he could, but his frustration was written all over his face. When asked for clarification about a wording or what the implications would be if we passed a particular amendment, his answer became “No one knows.” It was an honest answer.

Andrew Thompson wrote at his blog yesterday:

The confused discussion on the Worldwide Church amendments proved to me that their defeat is a good thing. No one was clear on what the amendments, once adopted, would lead to in terms of church structure. And the possibility that we could see increased bureaucracy through a new layer of conferencing was distasteful to people from all over the spectrum. We need to reconcile the differences between the way the American church is treated in the Book of Discipline with the way the church in the rest of the world is treated, but this proposal is not the way to go. These amendments will most probably fail. And when they do, I hope the church as a whole is able to go about the discernment over our ecclesiastical structure in a more coherent way (and frankly, using a proposal that seeks to streamline our hierarchical structure and reduce the complexity of our bureaucracy rather than do the opposite).

Increased bureaucracy. That’s a phrase that should strike fear in the hearts of all United Methodists and cause wailing and gnashing of teeth. Andrew hits the nail on the head – if we’re going to realign and restructure the church, we ought to vote on it after all the studies have been completed and questions have been answered. The only way an “aye” vote should be cast for structural changes is if we have made our connection simpler rather than more complex as Andrew so aptly stated.

Decreasing complexity would go a long way in eliminating the need for any denominational leader to have to say to a body of people “No one knows.”

Arkansas Annual Conference – Constitutional Amendments

Long time, no blog

We are wrapping up our Annual Conference here in Arkansas and just received the results of the Constitutional Amendment voting. I’m trying to listen to reports and awards while typing so I won’t go into detail but you can see the results of the votes here:

Arkansas Annual Conference Constitutional Amendment Voting

It looks like the Worldwide Church amendments were voted down at around a 4-1 clip but I haven’t looked that closely at them. Amendment 1, which was about membership readiness failed at about a 35% – 65% rate. We voted for Amendment 19 which dealt with local pastors having the right to vote for General Conference delegates at about a 86% – 14% rate.

I’m sure Andrew Thompson will have more to say at his blog once he’s had time to visit his family and travels back to North Carolina so make sure you subscribe to Gen-X Rising.

Wednesday is for Leadership – May 13, 2009

I’m going to post the new E-mail series I’m sending to the leaders of the church. I’m posting it here if you’d like to look over my shoulder as I participate with the church I serve in fully devoted lives for Christ:

Every Wednesday I’d like to share with the staff, Church Council, and Vision team some of the things I’ve been learning and what I’ve been reading. It is my hope that we will learn and grow together as a team in order to help our church become what God desires. This is not a private E-mail so feel free to pass it along to anyone you’d like.

Last week I asked you to dream a little and to think about what we might do as a church if we knew nothing could stop us. I hope you spent some time thinking about it – you can always feel free to share with me what’s on your heart. Another book I read last week was Craig Groeschel’s It. One of the passages I highlighted paves the way for the next step in our thinking and dreaming about what God might have us do as a church. Craig writes:

A God-sized vision unifies a church, attracts resources, motivates volunteers, and unites strong leaders.

That’s how important dreams that turn into visions are! If you don’t believe me, check out Craig’s church at www.lifechurch.tv. They dreamed big dreams, asked God to clarify those dreams into a vision, and they pursued that vision with intensity.

I’d like for you to continue to think about what we might do as a church if we knew nothing could stop us. Feel free to talk about this with each other or with me.

I’ll be back in your in-box next week.

May God bless you with enormous dreams,

Matthew

P.S. Bill Hybel’s book (last week), Axiom can be found here.
Craig Groeschel’s book, It, can be found here.

Wednesday is for Leadership – May 6, 2009

I’m going to post the new E-mail series I’m sending to the leaders of the church. I’m posting it here if you’d like to look over my shoulder as I participate with the church I serve in fully devoted lives for Christ:

Every Wednesday I’d like to share with the staff, Church Council, and Vision team some of the things I’ve been learning and what I’ve been reading. It is my hope that we will learn and grow together as a team in order to help our church become what God desires. This is not a private E-mail so feel free to pass it along to anyone you’d like.

I just finished reading Axiom, a book of leadership axioms by Bill Hybels, the founding pastor and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. It was recommended by Bryan Collier, founding pastor and Senior Pastor of The Orchard – a United Methodist Church in Tupelo, MS. Bryan spoke to the Connected in Christ group of which I was a part last week and since I already had this book on my shelf I went ahead and read it. One amazing passage spoke to me and has caused me to dream a little bit this week.

One of the most amazing gifts that God gives people is the ability to think creatively. So when things get stale at a church, it is a fair bet that God is not to blame. Usually it’s that church leaders don’t carve out the time, establish the right environment, and rally the requisite energy to think new thoughts.

“What would we do to advance the kingdom of God if there was nothing to stop us from doing it?”

What if we had no family obligations, no job stresses, no time constraints, no budgetary or personnel or facility restrictions, and no fear of failure? What would we do then? – Hybels, Axiom, 131

I’d like for you to take five minutes and think about what you, personally, might do if you knew there was nothing to stop you. Would you climb Mt. Everest? Would you sail around the world? What would that dream look like if I asked you to consider dreaming about what the church would look like if you were able to pursue a goal if there was nothing to stop you or us from doing it?

The next, reasonable question is, “What do we think it is that prohibits us from pursuing that dream?”

I’ll be back in your in-box next week.

May God bless you with enormous dreams,

Matthew

Preaching Follow up

Yesterday I preached from 1 John 4:13-21. One of the questions that kept popping up in my mind was that if fear has to do with punishment and we are free from God’s punishment through faith in Christ, then why aren’t we taking more risks to love people into Jesus? Risking our feelings, emotions, prejudices, and even our worldviews can be an anxiety creating effort but it is worth it. I shared a passage from the most recent issue of Leadership Magazine that I’ve been wrestling with for a couple of weeks. The passage is part of a conversation with Jim Cymbala and he says:

“The number one sin of the church in America is that its pastors and leaders are not on their knees crying out to God, ‘Bring us the drug-addicted, bring us the prostitutes, bring us the destitute, bring us the gang leaders, bring us those with AIDS, bring us the people nobody else wants, whom only you can heal, and let us love them in your name until they are whole.’”

That’s risky. Last week at a conference I attended I heard Bryan Collier of the Orchard in Tupelo, MS say that it’s hard to convince people to invite the people Cymbala described because we don’t want to deal with their baggage. In other words, we don’t want to risk the time or the effort it takes to love them into Jesus’ name.

So, how do you convince a group of people to take that risk? The fourth question Andy Stanley asked in my last post was, “What is the vision?” If our vision is that we want to be a people who love others in Jesus’ name (I think it is even if not formally stated), then what would our church look like if we risked ourselves to welcome the broken, hurting, and addicted into our church and love them in Jesus’ name?

I’m pretty terrible at closing or applying much of what I have learned from Scripture in the sermon itself, but this vision approach really seemed to work. I saw a lot of uncomfortable people yesterday. I don’t mean that glibly. What I mean is that I saw people wrestling with the reality that if what I said was from Scripture and the Holy Spirit, then things will have to be different. I asked them to think of the person who they avoid at all costs, who makes them angry or anxious when they see that person, or who they would least like to sit next to in church and pray this prayer for that person:

“Jesus, thank you for dying and rising, for saving me from my sin. I pray that you will bring to us ____________, whom only you can heal and change, and let our church love them in your name until they are whole. AMEN.”

I think some folks will pray this prayer and it will be interesting to see what the Holy Spirit does with that prayer.

Preaching Questions

I’m still kind of a Baby Huey in the pulpit but I am dead set on getting better in studying and understanding Scripture and also communicating it clearly. I now have two sets of questions that I think through in the study of Scripture and in how I simply and clearly communicate that in the Sunday sermon. This is the first Sunday I’m trying these in tandem, but I think they are worth sharing for anyone who wants to be the best preacher God has called you to be.

The first set of questions comes from Mark Driscoll’s book Vintage Church. They are six questions that come after the inductive exegetical work of the sermon has been done and I use the first three questions to help me think concisely about the Scripture passage.

1. What does Scripture say? – The Biblical Question

2. What does the Scripture Mean? – The Theological Question

3. What is my Hook? – The Memorable Question

4. Why do people resist this truth? – The Apologetic Question

5. Why does this matter? – The Missional Question

6. How is Jesus the Hero/Savior? – The Christological Question

I’ve mentioned the first three questions at the beginning, but the last three are the ones that really make a difference in communicating Jesus in preaching. It is incredibly helpful to think about why people might buck at the truth in Scripture because they will. What are the reasons they might buck? If you have done that missiological work of “exegeting the community” then not only will you be able to answer that question but also present a loving, gracious, and firm set of reasons why following Jesus is more important than their objections. I’m glossing over the missional question, but it helps us figure out how to live the Scriptures. Finally, I love figuring out how Jesus is the hero/savior. Jesus is the point of everything. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That’s it. When we’re able to point to Jesus being the end-all be-all of everything. There isn’t nearly enough of that in the western church today.

The next set of questions comes from Andy Stanley’s podcast on leadership (you’ll have to search that in iTunes). Once I understand what Scripture is saying to us I have to figure out how to communicate the grand truths of the Bible in a clear way that calls the hearer to greater faithfulness.

1. What do they need to know?

2. Why do they need to know it?

3. What do they need to do?

4. What is the vision?

5. What can I do to help them remember?

I’m only going to comment on number 4 because I’ve not used these question to think through my preparation until this week and I think it is going to be a great question to ask the folks who are listening. The question really turns into a statement, “Imagine what the church or our community would look like if we live in the faithful way Jesus is calling us to in this passage.” I’ll amend this post on Sunday afternoon with an illustration of what I’m talking about, but I think this is huge and ties in closely with Driscoll’s missional question.

I don’t know if these will be helpful for you because I don’t even know how it’s going to turn out for me this Sunday, but I do feel like I have a clear, Scriptural message that will glorify Jesus and make sense to those who come to worship Sunday. I pray the Spirit will preach despite of me and that people will become more faithful to Jesus.

Keller on Idolatry

I’ve been trying to watch the live streaming of the 2009 Gospel Coalition National Conference today and have been inspired by what I’ve heard. Piper always winds me up and his words about “fanning the white hot flame of the Spirit” were convicting as usual. The thing that really caught my attention was Tim Keller’s talk on idolatry from Acts 19.

Keller says that Paul confronts the idols of culture whenever he preaches the Gospel. In Ephesus, the charge was that he confronted the idols so persuasively that it affected the economy of that city. All cultures have their idols and we ought to be willing to confront them where we find them. Keller defined idol as “something so central to life that you can’t live without it.” In other words, if I can’t live without my air conditioning (Lord have mercy) then I’ve made my own comfort an idol. I like the way he put it when talking about his love for his wife and how easily she might become an idol in his life: “If you live for your wife, she can’t die for your sins. I have to love Jesus more.”

Dr. Keller identified three realms of idolatry: Personal, Religious, and Cultural. The religious idols stuck out to me the most. He said they were truth (I’m OK [with God] because of the rightness of my doctrine), gifts, and morality (I trust in my own holiness instead of Jesus). He spoke a word of grace to me in that our numbers, our preaching, our effectiveness in disciple-making can easily become idols yet we must trust in no one but Jesus.

The closing involved reminding us of how dangerous it is to destroy idols because of the push back both from people and from the powers and principalities because idols are the conduits through which they work. Paul risked his life to destroy idols and it cost Jesus torture and crucifixion to destroy them. That’s a frightening thought but we must destroy those idols that keep us from dependence upon Jesus.

Do you know how to take the Gospel to the idols? Are you willing

Technorati Tags: gcnc09, matthewjohnson, idols, theological_interpretation

A Couple of Videos

Annual Conferences of the United Methodist Church will be voting on a slate of constitutional amendments to the United Methodist Book of Discipline this year. There is a lot of debate and discussion about these amendments which makes Annual Conference in a year in which we aren’t voting for General Conference delegates that much more exciting. I want to weigh in on these amendments at some point when I can find the time, but until then you might find these You Tube videos featuring Maxie Dunnam on the amendments interesting.

Serving the Bread of Life

Ellsworth Kalas, former president of Asbury Theological Seminary, once told me “You cannot serve the Bread of Life with emaciated hands.” Too many Christians try to get other people their spiritual nourishment while either starving themselves spiritually or filling up on spiritual junk food. This isn’t an example that I want to set.

I haven’t thought much about Dr. Kalas’ words from almost seven years ago but they came to mind while I listened to Bill Easum last week. He reminded a room full of pastors that our primary focus during the week is “to take care of yourself.” I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought, “Yeah, right. I’ve got meetings, committees, and other responsibilities and you think I should spend more time taking care of myself than on that stuff?”

I almost started crying.

How long has it been since I spent an hour in prayer? How long has it been since I read the Bible not for study purposes but to hear Jesus speaking to me? How long has it been since I took a long walk for exercise? How long has it been since I cared about what I ate?

I don’t like the answers to any of those questions but I now see what Bill was talking about. It’s difficult to be compassionate and patient when you wake up with a tension headache and your molars ground to nothing. It’s almost impossible to offer a word from the Lord to someone when you’ve stopped listening. It’s laughable to talk about disciplines when you look like you’ve been on the Fatkins diet for years.

I paid attention today and I prayed. I read 1 Timothy 1 and it has nothing to do with anything I’m preaching or teaching (not really, I’ll probably remind people that “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”). I prayed not quite for an hour but I prayed and I’ve still got some daylight left. Thanks, Bill.

For the rest of you, are you trying to serve the Bread of Life with emaciated hands? If so, go and eat. Take care of yourself.