the church geek

Countdown to Sunday: A Daily Guide for Those Who Dare to Preach by Chris Erdman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
My all time favorite book on pastoral ministry is the book Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry by William Willimon. Chris Erdman’s work on preaching reads very much like Willimon’s work.

This is the book I needed at this time in my ministry. I’ve done a lot of thinking and struggling over the first three years of my ministry on the place and purpose of preaching. In a world of preaching to meet felt needs, Erdman offers meaningful reminders regarding the centrality of the biblical text and that the essential purpose of the text is to form the people of God.

The book is not a sit down and read through from cover to cover sort of book, but rather an offering of meditations on the purpose and role of preaching within the context of the people of God. Especially helpful are the chapters that offer a glimpse into the way Erdman prepares to preach the text…a helpful and simple structure that any “busy” preacher could easily adapt.

If you are tired of your message preparation usurping the actual intent of the biblical text then this book is for you.


View all my reviews.

ShareThis

I have written here in the past about how over the first couple years of my ministry I switched from primarily being a lectionary preacher to being a sermon series preacher. I made the switch primarily because I was feeling as if there was more energy and creativity when I preached a sermon series as opposed to preaching from the lectionary.

That was true for quite some time, but now I think that perhaps I am swinging in the other direction.

I’ve been finding that with the sermon series, I don’t stick very close to the text. In fact the text becomes somewhat ancillary to the sermon. With the types of topical sermon series I’ve done as of late, the starting point for the sermon is often “What do I want to say this Sunday?” not “What does the text have to say to us this Sunday?”

Perhaps I’m just hungry for some good scripture study and honest wrestling with the text. I realize that there are lots of other ways I could do that, like a sermon series on a particular book, or preaching on a set of stories based on a particular character in the bible, but for now I think I’ll go back to the lectionary and see how that sits with me for a while.

ShareThis

1.) Christine Sine offers an excellent centering prayer.

2.) While we use a prayer of confession in our service every Sunday, I’ve not given much honest thought as to what that prayer might look like for a pastor. The Naked Pastor gets the ball rolling for me.

3.) The ancient spiritual practice of Lectio Divina is becoming popular again as a form of devotional Bible reading. Here is a guide to Lectio Divina as introduced by the African Delegation to the Lambeth Conference.

4.) All I can do is say “Wow!” when it comes to this photo.

ShareThis

Jan’s post this morning stirred up some things I’ve been thinking about for a while now…

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on the Emergent Church and have also been delving into N.T. Wright’s work on the scriptures. As a result, I’m becoming more and more convinced that there is really something to the power of seeing the bible as narrative; as seeing it articulating the story of God’s work in the world and empowering the church in its calling within that story.

For the Easter season I’ve been studying and preaching on the texts in First Peter. Within that letter, Peter helps the gentile converts see how they’ve been enfolded into God’s story. How through the new birth of Israel the doors have been opened for them to enter into the fold of God’s chosen people.

It’s a brilliant move that gives ‘those people who were not a people’ an identity. It also helps them frame their struggles and persecutions within the larger story of God’s work; encompassing their present in what has happened in the past and the hope of what God will do in the future.

All of this has helped me begin to make a little more sense of those passages (especially in Matthew) that point to the ‘prediction’ of events in the Old Testament prophets that have been ‘fulfilled’ in Jesus Christ. In some sense, the early Christians took the themes of the prophets and framed the Jesus movement within the context of God’s work in history.

They enfolded their own story within the context of the much larger story of God’s work in Israel and in history. When it comes to Christians today, I think this has much to say to us. It helps us find our own identity in that much greater story. That is powerful stuff.

But here’s my struggle: Before I began engaging in the emergent church and exploring the scripture as narrative, I read Amy Jill-Levine’s book The Misunderstood Jew. I came away both impressed and convicted by the way the church can mis-read some of the New Testament texts and how they have often been mis-interpreted in ways that have done violence to the Jewish community of faith.

But, at the same time, I can’t see the Bible as telling an over-arching narrative without seeing that story as a comprehensive one detailing God’s continuous work encompassed in both the Old and the New Testament; seeing it as a somewhat seamless story, from the call of Abraham, to the rise of the church, to my own life today.

Maybe I don’t go so far - as Matthew seemed to have no problem with doing - as to use the word fulfillment, but I still in the end lean toward seeing it as a somewhat seamless story. At the very least, the New Testament gives voice to what happened in Jesus Christ by picking up and giving new life to all the shattered hopes and dreams of the people of Israel following their return from exile.

So does the way I see that over-arching story necessarily imply that I am doing violence to the Jewish faith? Is there someway to tell that story that still honors the Jewish faith, that doesn’t say the Jewish faith has been replaced? I don’t know. I’m still working on that, and I don’t have an answer. But at the very least Levine’s book reminds me to be much more careful about the ways I choose to tell that story.

ShareThis

This is another sermon in my sermon series “Faithful Questions.” The texts for this sermon where John 1:1-18 and Isaiah 55: 10-13. Primary sources for this sermon were NT Wright’s book “The Last Word” and Peter Rollin’s book “How (not) to speak of God.“

Today, in many churches before the scriptures are read you’ll hear the pastor say, “Listen now to the Word of God.” After they are read you’ll also hear, “This is the Word of the Lord,” and the congregation will respond, “Thanks be to God.”

We haven’t really developed that particular tradition around reading the scriptures here at Knox. Even so, when we talk about the Bible, I bet most of us think of it as the “Word of the Lord” or the “Word of God.”

When I asked folks for questions for this sermon series, as you might expect, there were a few questions about the Bible. They were along these lines:

* Does God evolve and/or does our understanding of God evolve?
* If so, should our Bible, which we call “God’s word” be updated?

For simplicity and to make an easy sermon title, I boiled them down to this one question:

* Is the Bible God’s “final” word?

To get at a good answer to that, the first thing we need to do is look at the purpose of the Bible. Today, people think of the Bible in all sorts of different ways: Some think of it as:

ShareThis

1.) Try this hermeneutics quiz to see if you are a conservative, moderate, or progressive. I scored a 72 in a slightly different version of this quiz in Leadership Journal, making me a moderate progressive, I guess. HT: David Winner.

2.) A while ago I linked to a site called “Thank God for Evolution.” The Internet Monk provides a fair and balanced review of Michael Dowd’s book. I haven’t read the book yet, but have it on my target list and will be dealing some with the issue in my sermon this coming Sunday.

3.) Adam Copeland points to an interesting story that has been circulating about the integrity of Barack Obama. No wonder why he keeps trying to run such a clean campaign…with the race continuing to tighten, I hope he maintains his ideals but at the same time doesn’t end up paying dearly for them.

4.) Interesting review by Greg Boyd regarding a conversation on the nature of faith and politics between him, Shane Claiborne and Chuck Colson at the National Pastor’s Convention.

5.) Here are 7 mind blowing audio illusions

6.) Finally, here is one photo I really enjoyed this week.

ShareThis

1.) I really enjoyed this little essay by Elin Ljung on Adam Copeland’s blog. It is part of a series on the Bible in which Adam is inviting guest bloggers to submit the essays.

2.) Maybe you’ve seen this already as it’s popped up a few times on the blogosphere, but just in time for lent you can discover which city struggles the most with each of the seven deadly sins.

3.) Here’s another photo that I’ve enjoyed this week.

4.) Jason Byassee offers some thoughts on Bumper Sticker Politics.

5.) Where do you fit on the emerging/emergent map? I think it’s funny that on this map ‘evangelical’ fits right in the center of ‘Orthodox Christianity.’ I wonder what the Eastern Orthodox would think of that? Lots of emergent theology seems more consonant with Eastern Orthodoxy than evangelicalism does.

ShareThis

1.) Tomorrow the Iowa caucuses will finally be over and our phones and doorbells will stop ringing. Charlie LeHardy offers some thoughts on the desire of politicians to shake the hand of every voting citizen in Iowa and how this reflects God coming to us in Emmanuel.

2.) Speaking of the caucuses, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out which candidate to support tomorrow. Sounds like this candidate will put in his name too late to qualify for the caucus, but his book - when it comes out - should be an interesting and revolutionary read.

3.) Internet Monk offers some predictions for 2008; What do you think? Personally I hope #7 is dead on and that the team who accomplishes this amazing feat will be the Green Bay Packers. Well there is always hope anyway.

4.) One of my favorite biblical scholars is NT Wright. Somehow The Wittenburg Door managed to get an interview.

5.) I love this guy’s photography and find this photo to be one of my favorites from his work.

ShareThis

Any former Dubuquers and former students of Dr. Elizabeth Platt out there reading this blog?!?

Do you ever hear or learn something in class and say to yourself, “When am I ever going to use that?” Well, I’m eating my words and can hardly believe it, but part of my sermon on Sunday will be to preach on the suzerainty treaty!

Thank you Dr. Platt for hammering home this insight into the OT Torah that helps frame and make a whole lot of sense out of the bible!

ShareThis

Yesterday we kicked off our fall program: The Bible in 90 Days. This sermon is an attempt to provide an overview of the bible. The sermon text was Psalm 107.

Today I have the somewhat daunting task of introducing you to the bible. It’s a daunting task because it’s almost impossible to summarize a book compiled from so many different sources over such a long period of time; a thousand years or more.

I’ll start off by saying that the bible is not a cohesive book. It’s not like a novel that works itself from A to Z telling a complete story from start to finish. Instead it’s an anthology or a combination of books written and edited by a host of different authors.

It is also made up of lots of different literary genres. There is poetry, proverbs, law, history, gospels, letters, prophecy, apocryphal writings, parables, etc. The Bible is predominately written in two languages; Hebrew and Greek with some in Aramaic thrown in a few places.

Sometimes you hear of the Bible popularly referred to as an instruction manual; a book we turn to figure out how life works or to solve a problem. Now of course, the bible does provide guidance and direction for life, but I’d encourage you to shy away from thinking of the Bible as: “Basic instructions before leaving earth.”

ShareThis

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the problem with reformation/enlightenment/modern Christianity is its inability to live with any tension in its expression of the faith. This is one reason why I find myself struggling against:

* the right wing of our church that wants to establish and enforce ‘essential’ tenets,

* the left wing for all sorts of non-sense like allowing non-believers to become church members, and

* the middle because of its general goal to simply keep peace in the church.

The following example typifies my problem:

This summer I’ve been leading a study group at church. We’ve been working our way through N.T. Wright’s book “Simply Christian,” which has lead to some provocative and what I hope have been fruitful discussions. The other day we got into Wright’s two chapters on scripture and its place in the Christian life.

N.T. Wright does a remarkable and skillful job of balancing between the polarities of human and divine agency in the development of and the church’s use of our scriptures; acknowledging that the Bible is a human/culturally bound book while at the same time affirming the activity of the Holy Spirit in the writing, compiling, reading, and interpreting of this Holy Book.

But this is not the direction most of us are comfortable with; we usually end up aligned on either one of two poles (and I would argue not out of a love for our scriptures but because of all the other agendas we have for the church):

ShareThis

Here is a fascinating look at all the social connections in the New Testament. Surprisingly Jesus is right in the middle of it all…Interestingly some Old Testament characters also are featured quite prominently in this map. Click here for more analysis and information. (HT: boing boing)

ShareThis

When it was still in beta testing and not yet open to the public, I was invited to review and promote a new Bible tool called eBible. At the time, things were pretty crazy and I didn’t have time to review it, plus I was a bit miffed that it didn’t have the NRSV translation in its catalog of bibles.

Today I was searching for a scripture verse. I went to my normal on-line bible search engine and typed in “child, peace.” Results? Nada. Hmmph…

I then jumped over to eBible and typed in the exact same thing. The verse I was looking for, Isaiah 9:6, popped right up as the very first entry along with 1128 other possibilities! The other nine results on the front result page all seemed like very reasonable results even though the exact words “peace” and “child” weren’t found in them. That sure was pleasing!

Clicking on the verse, I found the verse in its context and could scroll backwards or forwards to review both what came before and after it. On other on-line Bibles, you usually get only the verses you ask for and then have to click elsewhere to find the rest of the chapter. Also, clicking on the verse brought up a link to various commentaries (if you are signed in) but it looks like these might just be in the public domain (i.e. outdated! ) or way conservative.

ShareThis

This is Part 2 in a series of posts on the book “How (not) to speak of God.”

I’m currently slowly re-reading through this book, trying to digest it, dialog with it, and let it become a part of me, which is why these blog posts are not coming at great speed.

Chapter 2 called “The aftermath of theology” focuses on the nature of disbelief in the midst of belief. Rollins states the difference again is not so much in what we believe as how we believe it.

The fundamentalist holds a certain certitude that their ideas about God represent the way that God and the world really operate. While the mystic (a term that for Rollins is quite synonymous with ‘emergent’) recognizes that a relationship with God cannot be reduced to how we understand that relationship.

One key idea from this chapter is that Christian theology has often held transcendence and immanence to be polar opposites, while Rollins argues that these necessarily are one and the same using the term ‘hypernymity,’ meaning that God’s transcendence comes by virtue of God’s immanence.

God is blinding presence; God’s revelation is in fact too much information and thus God comes to us concealed amidst revelation. God, therefore, can never be fully known. In fact, God is not an object that we study, but rather is a subject or ‘mystery to participate in, before whom we are the object.’

ShareThis

Chris Tilling has an interview with Richard Bauckham about his yet to be published book “Jesus and The Eyewitnesses.”

I confess that I don’t know much about Buackham. The hypothesis of his new book is that the gospels are in fact eyewitness accounts by those who knew Jesus closely. Though his work supports rather traditional view of the gospel, Bauckham says that much of his argument is “quite fresh.” He uses unnoticed internal evidence from the gospels, recent scholarship about the use of names, and modern psychological research on eyewitness memory.

This one is going on my Amazon wishlist.

ShareThis