Post #126 Poets, Prophets, and Preachers: Day 3, Session 1

Day 3 Session 1
Rob Bell, "Fumbling around with your radar"
Ways to prepare for the sermon.

Rob talks about radar, buckets, chunks, and marinade.

"The worst thing for a pastor is to sit down on Saturday to a blank screen."
How do we get started and not have a blank screen?

There is "having to say something" and "having something to say."
What would it be like if every time you got up to teach you really were excited about having something to say?!
What if it had the chance to interact with the Spirit for a month, 6 months, or a year?

Radar
All around us, everywhere, all the time, everybody....vs. 9:00am office hours.
Genesis 28 When Jacob awoke...God was in this place and I am just now aware of it.
God was already there, we just showed up

We must be tuned into the presence of God and his work in creation. It must be on our radar.

We prepare for the sermon in two ways: through life and through the text.
Through life: when we see, hear, or otherwise experience something that might show God, we must write it, clip it, take a picture, save it, ask for it, get it, tear it out, store it, mark it, and remember it....with NO edit button.

Through the text: when we read the text, we should memorize, inhale, look at key words, focus on location, culture, concepts, stories, time, pictures, actions, and connections. Understand Greek and Hebrew texts. Understand what else has happened in this location. Understand the specific time in human history.

If you run into dead-ends, at least you have 7-10 minutes of material about what the passage DOESN'T mean!

-If you could not use any biblical or religious language...
how would I describe the text or illustrative material...to a child, to an alien from space, without using any words, with only drawings or pictures, with only actors?
-What is the thing behind the thing? What is the mystery behind the mystery? What is the truth behind the truth?

Is there a way to act, perform, show, do, ignore, circle around the idea or hand it out?

Those things on our radar end up in buckets (a collection of loosely connected material).
-one bucket per idea/fragment/insight/sentence
-review buckets once a week
-no pressure, no time frame
-revisit regularly
-be intentional and pay attention
-look for material for series
-some buckets grow
-if isn't hot, drop it
-there is a difference between accumulation and arranging

Once you have buckets that start to mean something, they become chunks: pieces of a message, an illustration, story, picture, or thought that you plan to actually utilize in a message.

Once you have several chunks, you allow those chunks to marinade for as long as possible. They marinade in the Spirit. They soak up the flavor of God and they enhance each other's flavors.

"The worst thing for a pastor is to sit down on Saturday to a blank screen."

Post #125 Poets, Prophets, and Preachers: Day 2 Session 4

Day 2 Session 4
Rob Bell
"The Fig Tree and the Failure of Language or Why some sermons work and others don't"

-A sermon has an engine...this is the "why?"
-A sermon also has an energy source...this is the "what?"
-A sermon comes from a specific place...this is the "where?"

When we give a sermon, we must ask ourselves...
-Why are we saying this
-Why do they need to hear this
-Why should they care
-Why do I care

What is the spark, impulse, insight, or twist that has compelled you to say these things to these people at this time?

A sermon circles around...
-a moment
-a movement
-a mystery

Matthew 21 - the fig tree and the temple
-fig tree symbolizes the religious establishment; cursing the tree would be similar to burning a flag today.
in this passage, the sermon would focus on the moment.

2 Kings 5:15 "Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel."
-there was a cultural concept that deities were localized, they lived only among those who worshipped them.
-in verse 18 Naaman explains that when he returns to his master, he will be required to bow down in another god's temple. He asks that Elisha's God would forgive him.
-does Elisha curse him or tell him "you must stand for something or you will fall for anything"? No...
he tells him to "go in peace."
this is movement, it is the movement of one man's (Naaman's) spiritual conflict.

Here is another example of movement:
In Genesis 27 We see Jacob pretending to be his brother. When his father asks who he is he says, "I am Esau."
Then, in Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles with God (or an angel of God) and is asked "What is your name." Jacob responds by claiming his identity. "I am Jacob."
This is movement.

One more example of movement:
Matthew 7:6 Pearls before swine.
In order to understand the passage, we must look at the previous text. Check the context.
7:1 Do not judge...
6:25 Do not worry...
Judging others is controlling others through negativity or oppression.
Just like refraining from worry is entrusting ourselves to God's care, refraining from judging others is entrusting them to God's care.
There is a movement. If we start at one point, we must back up to see where the story has been.

Psalm 1 "do not walk...do not stand...do not sit." = movement within the passage.

Philippians 1:6 "...He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
This passage has a connection to the creation story.
Philippians - began Genesis - beginning
Philippians - a good work Genesis - it was good
Philippians - competion Genesis - completed
What is the connection: the God who created the universe and all of life within it is big enough to care for you.

This is mystery. We cannot understand the enormity of God, but we can understand his care for us.

Revelation 4 gives us insight into the "psychology of worship"
We gather together to recognize that we are not at the center of the universe. It reminds us of our proper place in the cosmos.

Let's talk about the parts of a sermon:

Everything in a sermon is related to everything else in the sermon.
In order to understand those parts,
-name the parts
-know the parts
-be aware of the parts
-feel the parts
-step outside of the parts

Where does it begin, where is it going, how does it get there?

parts of the sermon:
reading the passage
information
story
questions
picture
rant
action
insight
observation
statistic
declaration
invitation*

If we only use one or two of these parts we are going to lose, wear out, confuse or put the listeners to sleep.

* a note about the invitation. It does not necessarily have to be an alter call type of invitation. It may simply be an invitation to do, trust, step out, step up, help, pitch in, or give.

"The sermon is like sausage...or the law...if you love it, respect it...but don't watch it being made." - Rob Bell

Rob tells a short story about an editor who said that every once in a while, he could take off the editor hat and just enjoy the manuscript. The reason is because he realized that he was in good hands.This is where we must bring our listeners: into a realization that they are in good hands.

During the sermon, we must be aware of:
speed
intensity
tension
pacing
tone
posture
arc

- beware of openers that overwhelm. An opener that takes the breath out of everyone is hard to overcome. An opener is actually ineffective if the rest of the sermon cannot overcome it. "don't let your best moment in the message to be in the rear view mirror."
-there are no rules to a sermon, except "know what you are doing."
-use a story board to outline the sermon. it can make it easier to remember

The best storyteller knows what to tell, what not to tell, how to tell, how not to tell, when to tell, and when not to tell.

A sermon creates a place that allows people to find themselves in it.

a great sermon must be,
Focused yet open
Said yet unsaid
Defining yet imagining
Resolute yet unresolved

Let's talk about parable: they work because people remember stories!
The parable of the prodigal son is really the story of the forgiving father.

A-B-C-D-------------------K-------------------P-Q----->
A sermon should meet everyone where they are and invite them to the next step.
We can't expect a "B" to move to "K" without first moving to "C, D, E, and so on."

Rob then tells a story:
Three disciples are walking home after a lesson with their rabbi. The first turns to the others and apologizes for monopolizing the time. He realized that the rabbi had been speaking directly to him. The second interrupts and apologizes to the others because he realized that the rabbi had been speaking to him. The third interrupts and apologizes because the rabbi had been speaking to him. Each would swear that the rabbi's message was specifically for him but the rabbi's message had actually spoken to all of them.

This is the challenge before us: Give a message that speaks to everyone as if only to them individually.

Post #121 Poets, Prophets, & Preachers: Day 1

What follows are a collection of my notes and thoughts from the Poets, Prophets, and Preachers conference in Grand Rapids. Some of these will seem very cohesive and coherent. Other parts may seem disconnected or confusing. As a preface, you should have been here. (They are apparently recording the seasons in order to make DVD’s for sale later, so you have that going for you.)

Poets, Prophets, and Preachers

Session 1, Sunday Evening

Rob took the stage and immediately asked the question, “What would the average person on the street say when asked to describe a sermon?”

Unfortunately, the response would probably not be “empowering, inspiring, revolutionary, and challenging.”

Much more likely you would hear, “boring, lecture, patronizing, or irrelevant.”

With such negativity towards the art of sermon, why would anyone want to give a sermon?

As the world becomes for virtual (twitter, facebook, blogs) people will eventually crave personal interaction. We will eventually be drawn to “actual reality.” This is good news for those who have a message to give. People will crave real conversations, in real settings, with real people.

A lot of people seem to believe that a sermon only exists in order to be evaluated.
Some people see a sermon as pure propaganda.
Others see a sermon as a burden, and anchor that weighs them down and ties them up.

Why would anyone want to give a sermon?

Sometimes, when we give a message, we might think, “this is going to be the best one yet. It is going to blow them away.” Then, once the message has been given, we only get crickets in response.

Other times, we think, “Oh man, this one bombed. I really stunk it up today.” Then someone responds, “that was the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”

Rob explained that often, people in our churches will want to go back to “the way we used to do it.” Or they might say, “great job, that was like the old Rob.” How can we move people forward if they are focused on the past?

Ezekiel 4
9 "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel."

This is actually describing a sermon. Zeke is told by God to “go into the public and do something very specific.” Giving a sermon is going and doing. It is not merely saying.

In a way, the sermon is:
Performance art
Guerilla theatre
Actions that evoke

Sermon is:
A witness,
If you don’t share it,
Speak it,
Tell it,
Point to it,
Express it,
Preach it,
You’ll spontaneously combust.

Jeremiah 20
“…his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

Jeremiah 2:14
“14 Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder?”
This is not the way God intended things to be. Jeremiah has to let the people know this.

Mark 1:15
5 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Sermon is:
A call to return
An invitation
A fresh word
An implicit critique
The first punch

Isaiah 52
1 Awake, awake, Zion,
clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust; rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your neck, Daughter Zion, now a captive.
3 For this is what the LORD says: "You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed."

Sermon can be subversion
-there is another story.

Luke 4
“28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”

Sermon is
Provocation
Loaded language
A warning

Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” actually evoke such a response from it first listeners that they rioted.
We have to be willing to take the bad and the good when we preach/teach.

Acts 17
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."

Göran Kropp – Mt. Everest Journey Wikipedia Article
If you do things that have not been done before or seen before or heard before you will get funny looks, angry letters, or worse. But you might get inspiration, truth, lights, revolution, excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, dedication or even better.

Words can create worlds:
“In the beginning, God created…” “The Word was God and the Word was with God…”
Our words can show new worlds to people.

Sometime we have a series of seemingly unconnected thoughts and ideas. Trying to connect them is like “tying the clouds together.”

Sometimes the best sermon we can give is to tell someone, “Tomorrow does not have to be a repeat of today.”

There are layers to crafting a sermon:
Theological
Conceptual
Practical
Personal

Transformation happens when talks start talks.
The leader is often looked at to have the last word on a topic
It is more helpful if the leader has the first word and starts the conversation.

Post #19 On the Importance of Emotional Health...

On Sunday, Michelle and I heard a message about the importance of emotional health, specifically in regards to our service and love of God and others. The pastor spoke on two passages: one from the Gospel of Mark 12 and the other from Exodus 18

28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, Of all the commandments, which is the most important? 29The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. –Mark 12:28-31

13 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening 15 Moses answered him, Because the people come to me to seek God's will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws. 17 Moses' father-in-law replied, "What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone." –Exodus 18: 13-18

Take time to chew on these passages. Think about how our emotional health effects our relationships, our families, our jobs, our ability to serve God, and our ability to love God and other people. We often read the passage from Mark and glance over it because this passage seems simple: "Faith is not about legalism, it is about love."

The part that gets overlooked (even in the message that we heard on Sunday) is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." The key is that we are expected to love ourselves: not in some self-centered, egocentric pride, but a kind of love that respects, protects, and nurtures. We are expected to take care of ourselves; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in that same way, we are expected to take care of others.

Post #18 East of Eden...

Rob Bell's book, "Jesus Wants To Save Christians," begins with the story of the first family: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. After Adam and Eve sinned against God things began to move further away from God's original intention. They left the garden, not only the literal example of God's intention for humanity, but a symbol of God's Shalom and love and perfect plan.

Later, Cain became jealous and angry towards his brother, Abel, because Able provided a more favorable offering to God. In his jealousy and anger, Cain killed his brother.

Rob picks up this though,

As a result of the murder, the text says, "Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden."

East of Eden.

There is a place called Eden, a paradise, a state of being in which everything is in its right place. A realm where the favor and peace of God rest on everything.

And Cain is not there. He's east of there.

And he's not only east of Eden, but in Chapter 4 of the book of Genesis, the text says that he was "building a city."

It's not just that he's east of where he was created to live, but he's actually settling there, building a city, putting down roots. The land of his wandering has become the location of his home. And then several chapters later, the Bible says that the whole world had one language and a common speech "as people moved eastward."

The writer of Genesis keeps returning to this eastward metaphor, (Genesis 13:11-12, 25:5-6, 28:10-22, 29:1) insisting that something has gone terribly wrong with humanity, and that from the very beginning humans are moving in the wrong direction.

Many times the behavior of religious people is perceived as antithetical to God's intentions. Anger, racism, sexism, exploitation and greed are not the ways of God. However these same behaviors and attitudes are often at the center of people who claim to know God best. This has to change. We need to move back toward Eden.

How does religion play a role in moving us further east?
How can religion help move us back to shalom; back towards a more whole existence?

Mars Hill Conference: Isn't She Beautiful Part 1

Today was the first day of the conference and I am trying to take it all in. Rob spoke for 2 and a half hours this morning. Then we had a Q&A session with Rob and Don Golden (the lead pastor, i will talk about that later). I just finished a workshop on narrative theology. The basic idea is that we are a part of a greater story of God's redemptive process. This is a perspective that begins in the creation of a good world. This is much different than the idea most of us grew up with that focuses on the fall instead of God's good creation. What follows are some of the things I wrote down. Out of context they might seem incoherent, but I hope you get the gist.

From Rob's talk this morning:

Paul explains the idea of the Eucharist in Colossians chapters 2, 3 and 4. The Eucharist is what we more commonly call communion. There is a sense that Jesus was telling his disciples not just to do a ritual of eating, drinking, and remembering, but to also give themselves as a sacrifice.

There is no life without death, there is no feeding without a broken and poured out sacrifice.

Is this instruction for a ritual or a command for us to give our lives for others? Break yourselves open and pour out yourself out so that others may be fed and have life.

The Church: the only organization that exists for its non-members.

Jesus' body is the Church. The Church is God's gift to the world.

How are we a Eucharist for these people, in this place, at this time?

What works for "megachuch X" might not work for "small church Y." Bigger is not necessarily better, it just means more. And more just means more problems.

Imitating a "program" is just taking a shortcut so you don't have to wrestle with the difficult questions of really being the Church.

Our gift to people is in not pretending that we have it all together. Or gift is in the middle of pain, suffering, oppression, questions and doubts that we can stand in front and say, "me too."

If someone was fed, someone had to do the feeding.
If someone was blessed, someone had to do the blessing.
If someone received, someone had to do the giving.

From the workshop:

The issue with viewing the Bible as a self-help book or an owner's manual is that we only look to it when we have a problem.

Seeing the Bible as a story allows us to see from a perspective that makes us want to find ourselves in it.

We often have a theology rooted in "the Fall." What is we center our theology on Christ and in Creation?"

When we root our theology in Creation, we long for a New Creation.

The Cross was a symbol of empirical violence, oppression, and hatred that became a symbol of peace, freedom, and love.

Defending what you believe (an apologetic) is only as effective as the way you present it. The best apologetic s love period.

From tonight's teaching:

There's a box?

There are two types of creative people. One says, "look how innovative and creative I am. I am really outside the box." The other says, "There's a box?"

The art of creative ministry is being able to see God in everyday moments.

There are several "arts" to doing "box-less" ministry:
1) The art of tension
2) The art of elimination
3) The art of turning the edit button off
4) The art of expulsion
5) The art of space
6) The art of risk

How arrogant are we to limit God's revelation to us to our time table. We cannot dictate that God show up only during out "study time." He is ALWAYS present, we just need to wake up to it.

Mark Twain: "If I had had more time, I would have said less."

You cannot force creativity but you can provide the opportunity for creativity.

To do this (ministry) you have to be willing to stub your toes and fall down, even if it is in front of others.

Not everybody will appreciate you or your risk. You will have critics. You DO NOT owe them anything.

For every fundamentalist you offend, there will be someone who says, "Wow, now I am listening."

I am excited about tomorrow's schedule. I will post on it when I get home.

I will put all of these thoughts in a better format when i get home.