Divorce, T.S. Eliot & a great story about India

This week a well-known pastor couple has called it quits. They are a pastor couple in that they “co-pastor” their church, one of the largest churches in the US.

They are calling it quits. They are not quitting the ministry; they are quitting their marriage. Both will apparently stay in the ministry. One of them will continue leading a media-empire and the other will lead the church from what I can tell. I do not want to be judgmental. I do not what to name them. I do not know these people. I have caught them on Christian television from time to time and I have seen their faces in Christian magazines, but I do not know anything about their lives, the marriage, their spiritual life. I do not know much of their preaching emphasis, but it appears to be in the “God-wants-you-wealthy/success-in-life” media-saturated vein. And now they are getting a divorce. What the heck?!?

This news has got me wondering…

How will the Pentecostal/charismatic community respond?

Does this look like the Church that we read about in the New Testament?

Is marriage sacred anymore?

Would I choose ministry of my marriage?

Do I love my wife like Christ loves the church or do I love the church like Christ loves my wife?

When will the media-driven, success-in-life, get-rich-with-God’s-help message lose it grip on American Christians?

When will they (we) start reading the verses in the Bible that we don’t have underlined or in a “promise book” or on a refrigerator magnet? (Verses like “Life doesn’t exists in the abundance of possessions.”


I haven’t had much time to blog this week, because I am getting ready for three sermons this weekend. I am preaching two at a youth retreat in Florida on Friday night and Saturday and I am preaching my regular Sunday morning service at home. Not complaints…I love it, but it has kept me busy.

I was reading some of the works of T.S. Eliot this week. Eliot was an American-born poet who later became a British citizen (a “subject”). He was friends with noted agnostic Bertrand Russell, but did not follow Russell in a denial of the Christian faith. Eliot came to Christ in 1927 and remained an Anglican until his death in 1965.

I read his poem Ash Wednesday which is a wonderful reflection on repentance. One line in the opening paragraph was particularly thought-provoking for me.

Why should I mourn the vanished power of the usual reign?

The “usual reign,” the reign of self, the reign of conscious control….should we get upset when its power has yielded to Another? Why should I feel internal turmoil when I feel the hands of providence leading me down an unknown path? God is leading me by the Holy Spirit down a path of servant hood and self-sacrifice. I am no longer leading. I am being lead, by Hands of another. They are good hands, strong hands, trustworthy hands.

I was thinking of that line when I got the following email from a member of our church. It tells the story of Dr. Charles McCoy who saw the power of the usual reign vanish. He was ready for retirment from the ministry in the US, when God opened up a new ministry for McCoy as a missionary in India. What a moving story. Here it is:

THE REAL MCCOY
Let me tell you a very “humorous” story. It’s about a seventy-two-year-old Baptist preacher named Charles McCoy. McCoy was pastoring a Baptist church in Oyster Bay, New York, when at age seventy-two he was mandated by his denomination to retire. A lifelong bachelor, he had cared for his mother for as long as she lived. In his spare time he had earned seven university degrees, including two Ph.D.’s—one from Dartmouth, the other from Columbia. But now, at age seventy-two, he was being forced to retire from the ministry.

He was depressed. “I just lay on my bed thinking that my life’s over, and I haven’t really done anything yet. I’ve been pastor of this church for so many years and nobody really wants me much—what have I done for Christ? I’ve spent an awful lot of time working for degrees, but what does that count for? I haven’t won very many to the Lord.”

A week later he met a Christian pastor from India, and on impulse asked him to preach in his church. After the service the Indian brother asked him matter-of-factly to return the favor. Since he had preached for McCoy, would McCoy come to India and preach for him? McCoy told him that he was going to have to retire and move to a home for the elderly down in Florida. But the Indian insisted, informing McCoy that where he came from, people respected a man when his hair turns white. Would he come?

McCoy thought and prayed about it and decided he would. The members of his church were aghast. Dire predictions were made. The young chairman of his board of deacons summed up the attitude of the congregation when he asked, “What if you die in India?” I love McCoy’s answer. He told him he reckoned “it’s just as close to heaven from there as it is from here.” He sold most of his belongings, put what was left in a trunk, and booked a one-way passage to India—his first trip ever out of the United States!

When he arrived in Bombay, he discovered to his horror that his trunk was lost. All he had were the clothes on his back, his wallet, his passport, and the address of missionaries in Bombay he had clipped from a missionary magazine when he left. He asked for directions, got on a streetcar and headed for their house. When he got there, he discovered that while he was on the streetcar his wallet and passport had been stolen! He went to the missionaries who welcomed him in, but who told him the man who had invited him to come to India was still in the U.S.A. and would probably remain there indefinitely.

What was he going to do now? they wanted to know. Unperturbed, McCoy told them he had come to preach and that he would try to make an appointment with the mayor of Bombay. They warned him that the mayor was very busy and important and that in all the years they had been missionaries there, they had never succeeded in getting an appointment with him. Nevertheless, McCoy set out for the mayor’s office the next day—and he got in! When the mayor saw McCoy’s business card, listing all his degrees, he reasoned that McCoy must not be merely a Christian pastor, but someone much more important. Not only did he get an appointment, but the mayor held a tea in his honor, attended by all of the big officials in Bombay! Old Dr. McCoy was able to preach to these leaders for half an hour. Among them was the director of India’s West Point, the National Defense Academy at Poona. He was so impressed at what he heard that he invited McCoy to preach there.

Thus was launched, at age seventy-two, a brand new, sixteen-year ministry for Dr. Charles McCoy. Until he died at age eighty-eight, this dauntless old man circled the globe preaching the gospel. There is a church in Calcutta today because of {94} his preaching and a thriving band of Christians in Hong Kong because of his faithful ministry. He never had more than enough money than to get him to the next place he was to go. He died one afternoon at a hotel in Calcutta, resting for a meeting he was to preach at that evening. He had indeed found himself as close to heaven there as he would have been at his church in Oyster Bay, New York, or in a retirement home in Florida. It was incongruous—an old man, waiting to die at age seventy-two, leaving everything he had ever known and preaching around the world. That’s funny! But funnier still was the surprise of God’s grace, completing the incongruity of this old man. May we all know this quality of humor in our lives as we wait!

Taken from "Keep on Laughing, Genesis 18"
a sermon by Ben Patterson (www.directionjournal.org/article/?639#6)

Adapted from Franklin Graham, with Jeanette Lockerbie, Bob Pierce, This One Thing I Do (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1983), pp. 115-21.

New Cornerstone Church Website

After much work this summer we have gone live with our new church website. http://www.cornerstoneamericus.com/
I can't say enough good things about our web designer Blake Matthews. He did a great job. Here are some of the features.

In the SERMONS section you can listen to each Sunday morning message online. (We are looking to upgrade our sound equipment to get a better quality sound online.) You can download sermon notes when available. You can also click a link to subscribe to our iTunes podcast. Whether you have an iPod or not, you can download iTunes for free, which will allow you to get the podcast. (Click here to download iTunes.)

BTW, I also have icons on this blog under "my sermons" that will take you the AUDIO MP3 section on the Cornerstone website or to our iTunes podcast.

The site also has a direct link to our event calendar which is an off-site web calendar. Along with that is a direct link to our flickr page that has our pictures. The picture on our website directing you to flicker is Jimmie Bratcher from Kansas City. He will be back at Cornerstone on October 24th for a concert. More on that later....

There is a direct link back to my blog. I am using this instead of a "about the pastor" on the Cornerstone site. Each of our major ministries has a section. Including our Men's Fraternity that is starting in a couple of weeks. Clark (who is the guy on the far left on the Men's Fraternity page) looks a bit stoned, but maybe he was just blinking.

I guess that is just about it. There is more on the site, but I will let you do some exploring to check out the rest of the content. If you like what you see, don't tell me. Email a friend. You can do that from the site by clicking the Tell-A-Friend link at the top right.

We have a few more bugs to work out on the site, but for the most part we are good to go.

My wife went to NYC and all I got was this GREAT T-Shirt

Jenni got in late last night from her trip to Manhattan. She and her sister were in NYC for four nights and three days. It was a much deserved mini-vacation for Jenni. She enjoyed the trip and came back with this cool Bob Dylan T-shirt for me. This was far better than the cheesy “I [heart] NY” shirt that most of the tourists buy.

By the way, I took this picture with the built in digital camera on my new laptop…sweet!

We had a great weekend with David Hartman from Shevet Achim, a ministry in Israel that connects Jewish doctors with Muslim children who need heart surgeries. We did an interview/sermon with him Sunday morning in our church and then he preached at a friend’s church in Arabi, Georgia last night. David is involved in an incredible ministry in Israel. You can listen to the interview on the NEW Cornerstone Church website. We are going live this week, so I am now advertising the new site. Go to: www.cornerstoneamericus.com/sermons

We will have our iTunes account set up soon, so you can start getting our podcast downloaded weekly…..sweet!

We are getting ready to launch our Men’s Fraternity at the church next month. MF is a men’s small group that includes large group study and small group time where men can “man up” on each other. Our study for this year will be “The Quest for Authentic Manhood.” We will be meeting at 7:30 am Sunday mornings (not sweet), but it will be good to call the men together so we can challenge each other to grow up and be a MAN! My slogan through the launch of Men’s Fraternity is going to be – Don’t be a sissy! Join the Fraternity!

Sweet!

I am continuing my study of 1 Corinthians this week. I am preaching from 1 Corinthians 4 this Sunday. I just read that we (as church leaders) are “the scum of the earth” (1 Cor. 4:13). Nice text. It really shoots holes in all of that “positive mental attitude” talk in the church. This verse would make a great leadership study for pastors in America. Instead of twenty ways to attract new people to your church, how about “Twenty Reasons Why We are the Scum of the Earth.”

Well, I might look like Robert Ford, but I feel just like a Jesse James.
Bob Dylan, “Outlaw Blues” (1965)

Saturday Night Reflections: Laptops, Element Church & Gay Lutherns

I have been a single parent for the last couple of days. Jenni has been in NYC with her sister on a weekend getaway and I have been home living a poor man’s bachelor life. It is no good. Jenni deserves some time away. She rarely has a chance to travel without the boys, so I am happy (ok….sort of happy) for her. Here are a few highlights of the week...

New Laptop
This week has been a bit of a blur. I haven’t done much reading, because I have been spending most of the week transferring data and programs to my new laptop. I got a Sony Vaio. It’s nice. It weighs less than three lbs and folds up less than 1 ½” think. I wanted a laptop that was extremely portable. I was able to get this at Circuit City on sale, plus I got it last weekend when Georgia was having a tax free weekend on clothes and educational supplies (including computers). I am getting use to Microsoft Vista. I like the desktop gadgets.

Element Church
I did listen to some messages yesterday from my friend Erik Lawson at Element Church in St. Louis. Erik planted element church in 2005 and eighteen months later they have become the fasting growing church plant ever in St. Louis. He has a great vision and is building a great church. They are bulging at the seams in their rented facility and they were praying about a new facility in the West St. Louis area. Through a series of miracles, they were given an old mall, some 50,000 sq. ft. of space and $1.5 million dollars to renovate it. Holy Smokes! What a story. You can hear the entire story in a message called “Time to Build.”


New Cornerstone Website
I have been adding content to our new webpage at the church. Shhhh….don’t tell anybody, we are not ready to launch it, but here is a sneak peak: http://www.cornerstoneamericus.com/index.php
I really like the sermon section on the new website. We are setting up a RSS feed for iTunes so that all three of us with iPod’s in the church can download the podcast.

Gays in the ELCA
I was sadden to read this article.

It looks like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is no longer going to discipline homosexual pastors who remain in "faithful committed same-gender relationships." The issue of homosexuality continues to be a cultural lightening rod. I saw that the Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a recent debate sponsored by gay-rights advocates. The cultural debate over the “rights” of homosexuals has spilled over into the church. Surprisingly there are a number of denominations like the ELCA who are debating the issue.

It seems to me that Christians need to do a serious examination of homosexuality in the Scripture. Much of the debate in the church has been sparked by how callously homosexuals have been treated by the church over the years. We should certainly treat homosexuals with love and respect. Regardless of their sexual orientation, they are people created in the image of God and therefore creatures of dignity. The issue is this: Does the Scripture portray homosexual behavior as outside God’s plan for human sexuality or not? We have to be careful not to read our own cultural assumptions and experiences into the text.

My reading of the Scripture reveals that homosexual behavior is outside of God’s plan for our sexuality. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not a person is born gay or not. A person could be a homosexual in that they are attracted to members of the same sex and chose to live celibate. The key issue is whether or not homosexuality is sin. I feel that this is a line in the sand that we have to draw.

That is it for today. Tomorrow morning we are going to have a creative interview with David Hartman from Shevet Achim We are going to talk about what God is doing in Israel. Shevet Achim is a ministry that provides heart surgeries for Muslim/Arab children. They are literally showing love to their enemies. Incredible….absolutely incredible.

The Americus Times-Recorder ran a story on David this week. You can read more about the ministry here.

"Meth Church" on Monday Morning Insight

My "Ten Reasons the Meth Church is Growing Faster Than Your Church" post was featured on Monday Morning Insight (MMI) -- and church leadership blog hosted by Todd Rhoades. MMI is a great resource for pastors. If you are serving in a local church, I recommend that you bookmark MMI and visit it daily.

My post on MMI is here.

I emailed Todd and asked him if he would be interested in posting the “Meth Church” in his Friday postings. He normally posts funny spoofs or other humorous articles on Fridays. I told him that posting my article could be the prize for getting the Al Mohler/alcohol discussion up over 100 comments. A week or so ago, a bunch of us got into an online discussion on MMI concerning whether or not pastors should drink alcohol in moderation. I rallied the troops to get us to 100 comments which is not easy to do. Anyway, I took Todd’s posting of my article as the “prize.”

Thanks again Todd!

Sacred Space

I am preaching through 1 Corinthians and in preparation for 1 Corinthians 3 I have been doing some thinking about sacred spaces, particularly in reference to corporate worship. Our church is known for its casual atmosphere on Sunday morning. I like it that way. I want it to continue, but I have been thinking how we can maintain that casual, warming, accepting atmosphere and yet recreate the sacredness of the sanctuary.

The Scripture says we are God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16). Not “you are God’s temple” but “y’all are God’s temple.” It is true that the Holy Spirit dwells in each Christian, but that is not the point of Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 3. The context of the verse is the problems of divisions in the local church. By saying “y’all are God’s temple,” Paul is meaning that you all as brick’s in God’s building are the building in which God dwells. God is holy and will only dwell in a sacred space.

How can we work to recreate sacred space, a holy place for God to dwell?

Sacred space can easily be lost.
Culturally we, in the Western world, have lost a sense of the sacred.

The Poet/prophet writes:
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not muchIs really sacred. ~ BD 1965

So much of the evangelical world has bought into the pragmatic/market-driven/commercialized/slick produced/plastic/consumer/materialistic values of the Western world and it has eaten up our sacred space. I guess, I want it back. I want to reclaim sacred space…holy places to find God, see him, behold, gaze, worship, reflect…

I need sacred space.

Not Americanized sacred space

Not Evangelical-ized sacred space

Not charismatic-approved sacred space

Not emotionally-hyped sacred space

Not sacramental sacred space

Not ancient sacred space

Not emerging sacred space

I need sacred space

I don’t need the label and the prefabricated set of values that goes with each of the above sacred space. There is some that each of these traditions has to contribute, but I am not looking for the latest fad in “planning your worship service.” I want to join with others in the pursuit of God, to jump headlong into the cosmic pursuit of the illusive God.

I need sacred space.

Here are ten elements that I think are necessary in reclaiming sacredness. I am going to offer them to my congregation Sunday morning.

Humility :: a recognition of God’s greatness and our smallness

Sobriety :: a solemn focus on the presence of God

Contemplation :: a gazing upon the beauty & mystery of God

Confession :: acknowledging personal sin against God

Repentance :: rethinking and re-living for God

Brokenness :: feeling God’s sorrow regarding our personal sins

Openness :: allowing the Holy Spirit to penetrate our hearts

Earnestness :: loving God with all your strength

Willingness :: ready to do what God asks

Communion :: eating the bread and drinking the juice in memory of Jesus

Happy Birthday Jenni!!!

This is a birthday blog for the shmoopy.
She is 32 today.
I told everyone in home group last night that she is 22.
She looks 22.
I look 42.
I have been in her life for 18 birthdays (I think).
She only gets more beautiful over time.

She is my best friend.
She is my companion.
She is my constant supporter.
She is my part-time dream killer.
She is my partner.
She is my lover.
She is my cheerleader.
She is a covenant woman.

Covenant woman,
Intimate little girl
Who knows those most secret things of me
That are hidden from the world.
You know we are strangers in a land we're passing through.
I'll always be right by your side,
I've got a covenant too.

And I just got to tell you
I do intend
To stay closer than any friend.
I just got to thank you
Once again
For making your prayers known
Unto heaven for me
And to you, always,
So grateful
I will forever be.

Bob Dylan
“Covenant Woman”
Saved
1980

Who is the God of the Sermon?

I finished reading Christian Preaching: A Trinitarian Theology of Proclamation by Michael Pasquarello and he has got me thinking about the nature of preaching.

Pasquarello is a professor at Asbury and I took a doctor of ministry class with him called “The Trinity and Preaching.” This book grew out of some of the material he presented in the class. The class was one of the best that I took at Asbury. One of our assignments in class was to look through our last six months of sermons and list the title, the text and the “god of the sermon.” In doing that I realized that the “god” I was preaching was not always the God of the Scriptures. I even preaching one entire message and never talked about God. I was convicted.

That class was a few years ago, so I was happy to revisit Pasquarello again. I find his book stirring and at times he left me uncomfortable. I questioned some of his conclusions, but felt over all, that his message is clear and timely. Preachers of the Church are called to speak within the context of the Trinity. That is to say, our purpose is not so much to be relevant and practical, but faithful and worshipful.

If you could create a “theology of preaching” spectrum and mark “relevance” on one side and “faithfulness” on the other, you would find Pasquarello on the far side of “faithfulness.” By contrast, I would say you would put Ed Young Jr on the side of relevance.

[relevance] ---------------------------------------------------------[faithfulness]

By “faithfulness,” Pasquarello would say not just faithful to biblical truth, but to doxological ends and Trinitarian grammar. Don’t get lost in all this theological jargon…there is good stuff here!

According to Pasquarello, the end purpose of preaching is doxological, which means it should lead people to worship the Triune God. The Scripture is our text, but the words of Scripture have to be used in the context or grammar of the Trinity. The life of the Triune God forms the rules that keeps us from using the Scripture to serve humanistic and consumer-driven goals. The point is that we can use the Scripture to meet the needs of consumers and cut God out all together. This is the danger that Pasquarello sees in getting carried away with trying to be relevant and practical in our preaching.

I agree with him, but I think he takes his point too far.

I am thankful for Pasquarello for helping me to see the importance of preaching as worship and the Trinity as the rule of faith guiding my preaching of the text. These concepts have really changed who I am as a communicator of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, I see two distinct areas that are missing in his book.

1) A desire for “relevance” is necessary in the transmission of the message we preach.
2) The goal of preaching is both worship and helping people.

Let me explain:

1) Relevance does play a role in preaching. It just has to be factored in at the right place. It seems to me that Pasquarello is only interested in faithfulness to the text and the God of the text. This is the “why” of preaching. He does little to talk about the “how.” The why has been neglected in popular discussions of Chrisitan preaching, but you cannot seperate the two in my mind. Preaching is something that you do; it has an inbreed methodology to it.

I agree that relevance in the wrong place can lead us away from the Triune God. We begin with the truth of Scripture within the rule of faith (the Trinity), but we have to transmit that message using some kind of language. We want to use language that is culturally-conditioned so that the receiver can understand. The expected interpretation of that message by the receiver is (hopefully) orthodoxy: right thinking and right living and right praise.

If we begin with relevance. If we approach the text with “Where can I find something in the Bible that will be relevant?” – I think we give into to consumer mindset and leave the receiver with “personal satisfaction” that has little to do with the triune God.

2) Worship is not the only goal of preaching. We also do want to help people. This is where I struggled with Pasquarello a lot. I felt that he was right in where he was going in the book. I kept thinking….yeah all of our preaching should lead to worship….we don’t need to give people any practical advice for living….just lead them to God… I have heard (and read) similar ideas from a lot of the Reformed guys like Ware and Piper. The is true, but it is a classic case of reductionism. Yes we should lead people to worship in our preaching, but that is not all…we also need to help people where they are.

We are called to love God with heart/soul/mind and strength and so yes we preach in order to lead people into worship, into communion with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but we are also called to love our neighbors – and therefore we are to preach in a way that is human, that does help people with the issues of life.

God is holy. Therefore we preach in a way that leads people to marvel and stand in awe as they worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But God is also love. Therefore we preach in a way that leads people to receive the numerous blessing that God desires to bestow.

Bottom line…
Pasquarello’s work is needed and helpful. It helps communicators in the church to counter-balance the opposite extreme as evidenced in the consumer-driven, technique-guided, "worship of relevance" in popular evangelicalism. I am a different communicator because of Pasquarello and for that I am thankful. His work is a bit on the academic side. He does include sermon manuscripts as examples, but there is little in terms of personal anecdotes. If you have the time to plow through this book, I would say go for it!