Then I went to college and heard: It’s your responsibility as the preacher to make you audience be interested. You’re not lecturing, you’re teaching. It’s your job to engage them, take them on the journey and see exactly why they need to listen, and how it applies to their lives.

And I agree. I think perhaps the tradition these days is to let the word speak for itself. Preachers can become so lax about how to engage their audience, they just get up there and tell you what they know.

And then I read this – and I probably needed to hear it:

http://yingyee.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/when-the-sermon-is-bad/

²⁴ “This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the LORD,
who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,

²⁵ who foils the signs of false prophets
and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
and turns it into nonsense,

²⁶ who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’
of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be built,’
and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’

²⁷ who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,’

²⁸ who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,”
and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.” ‘

¹ “This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:

² I will go before you
and will level the mountains ;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.

³ I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

⁴ For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.

⁵ I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,

⁶ so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other.

⁷ I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.

⁸ “You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.

⁹ “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’
Does your work say,
‘He has no hands’?

¹⁰ Woe to him who says to his father,
‘What have you begotten?’
or to his mother,
‘What have you brought to birth?’

¹¹ “This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?

¹² It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.

¹³ I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness:
I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city
and set my exiles free,
but not for a price or reward,
says the LORD Almighty.”

I heard a sermon on this passage today, and it was really helpful. Without going into all the details, the main idea is that it is written to Israelites in exile in Babylon, waiting for God to redeem them. And God says “don’t worry, I will act, look at what I’ve done in the past” and “don’t worry, I have control, even over Cyrus [Persian ruler who eventually overruns Babylon]“.

To them, this would have been shocking and offensive – that God would use a non-Israelite to bring them back. But, it’s an encouragement to know that God has sovereign control, even over his enemies and over those who we would never expect to be part of his greater plan. But it’s also a slap across the face – when we think God isn’t doing it the way he’s supposed to, and that it’s not working out for us, and that he really should be acting in another way…. that God is actually in control, actually sovereign, and actually wiser than we can imagine.

I know that for me when times get tough, or things get crap or a bit hard, when someone is incredibly ill but remains hard of heart, or ministries which you’ve slaved over for years have fallen apart, or someone you know suffers terribly, or when you try really hard to start something but doors just keep closing… I just turn to GOd and say “what the hell are you doing about it?” … that’s my response. I’ll admit to it. And I know God is wiser than I could possibly imagine, and that I’m never really going to see the big picture, and I should just trust Him instead… but it’s hard, and I’m working on it.

In church history today we learnt about what happened after the evangelical revival and how evangelicalism began in England, and it’s opposition, the Tractarians (i.e. the ‘High Anglicans’). There was also some Latitudiarians around (those who so focussed their faith on moral issues & politeness that they ended up practically abandoning the bible) … yet we so easily boxed them in.

I wondered to myself whether or not people of the day really thought in their hearts the things that we ascribe to them. So many generalisations I wonder if we lose history itself by doing it. And I wonder what box I would be put in…

I thought I considered myself evangelical… and I do. I hold true to the word of God contained in the Bible. It is my final authority, and the word is powerful. The extreme of that, I suppose, is that evangelism therefore only needs to word to be proclaimed, and not lived out as an example… but I don’t think that extreme represents any evangelical I know. I’ve always been a believer in the importance of witnessing faith, especially in a post-modern context when people want to know that faith works, it more than makes sense, it actually works for life. If anything, I’ve leant more towards this focus and only been recently more challeneged to think about how to turn this into gospel conversations – sure, living it out may plant the seed, you can’t expect that someone else will do the sharing of the gospel.

Anyway – I don’t like being put into a box. And I don’t think we should do it to anyone else either. Sure, it can be helpful [I mean, I just boxed a whole generation of people into 'post-modern' and decided how to evangelise them] but when it comes down to it, we’ve gotta make the effort to know people for who they really are, and for what they actually think - you might surprise yourself with what you find.

Actually, this whole year at college has had me thinking. I suppose, I’m learning a lot at college, and it’s a huge blessing, but it’s incredibly difficult to grasp how what I’m learning will influence my ministry. I’m learning very interesting facts about 1st century Judaism, and the history of theological understanding of the trinity, information about the various places to which the epistles were written and details of Hebrew storytelling (along with lots of questions being answered with ‘I don’t know’) … but when it comes to the faces I see on Sunday, and the youth group I lead, and the discussions I have, and the meetings I go to about Mission Action Planning… it’s hard to see where it fits.

And now that I’m starting to think seriously about what to do next, it’s really getting me confused. I’ve learnt so much, and I’ve realised that I have some skills, and some passions that I didn’t have before I started.

And to add a spanner in the works, this week, I started leading a group of people from church in “6 steps to talking about Jesus”. Most of the group is aged over 60. There are only 2 of us younger than 60 – me and a guy whos about 4 years younger again. We had our first session this week and it was incredibly challenging. I’m in an environment, and come from a ‘history’ of groups which milk the text for all it’s worth…. but I found that this group, despite the fact we had two passages to look at and very clear questions on the page, just wanted to talk, and share their experience and frustration. I’m not even so sure that we got the main point… and i found it incredibly difficult to keep us on course.

How does my study prepare me for that? How is what I’m learning equipping me to teach people or tell people about a faith that works? I don’t doubt that I’ve grown closer to God this year, or learnt to appreciate Him for who He is more, or learnt new skills in how to read the bible more carefully and fruitfully…. but how does it translate? How do we communicate with every day people who need faith that works? How do I serve the other members of my congregation week to week, Sunday by Sunday?

…. i just don’t know.

Here it is: hopefully, I’ll remember to do this for the next 6 weeks…

http://internetfootprints.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-it-wrong-to-procrastinate-by-doing.html

In particular, I learnt so much more about this:

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen 2:18, NIV)

I have often assumed, and been told in fact, that the problem here that needs to be solved is that although Adam has God, he needed another human because this relationship wasn’t sufficient. And that idea always comes as a surprise, rightly so, because it makes no sense that Adam would need anyone else when he has such free access to God, and is created for relationship with Him. And yet, we just run with it, because we can’t really make sense of everything, and that seems to work because then God sends him a naked lady.

However, perhaps the answer, is in the answer. What I mean is, maybe we can understand it more clearly when we realise that God sends him a helper – someone to help him undertake the task. He can’t do it alone, he needs someone else. [I mean, it's pretty difficult to subdue and fill the eart all alone, let alone do all the tending and tilling of the garden]. So the woman is there to help him in his work. This is not inferior, the only other time a helper is described in Genesis is when it is referring to God [ who you really couldn't class as inferior to anyone].

Therefore, we can assume that the marriage relationship, is not about intimacy, or sexual satisfaction, it’s about getting the job done together. Although the task has changed a little [from tending and tilling the garden, to restoring people to God], it remains all the same.

Thus, we can’t submit to the “religion of coupledom” – that which says the ultimate goal of life is the relationship, and that relationship and intimacy will solve all my problems and satisfy me entirely – because these things can never be true. Instead, relationship is about working together, to bring glory to God – everything else is just a benefit.

Anyway, I found it engaging. Perhaps, because I’m in peak sermon analysis mode, there were a few things I was a little disappointed by, but overall I was challenged. Here’s the things I learnt and need to think about some more:

From William Taylor:

1) You’ve gotta keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus is the centre – and not just the “he died to save us from our sin” part – but Jesus is the exact representation of the being of God. I need to think about who He is and what he’s done

2) Our world, and the people in it, are totally depraved: blind, enslaved, dead, in darkness. This is how we need to see them – that is what they are.

3) Jesus came to brin eternal life, not polictical, material or charitable solutions. Jesus is not in the self help business – you cannot say to a corpse “help yourself” – he didn’t come to make like better or easier, but to save those who are lost.

4) God saves through his word. We should re-instate it as a priority in our lives, we need to bring it to people who need it (evangelism shouldn’t take on the mantra “preach the gospel, and if you have to, use words” – words are exactly what we should be using). If you have a gift of word ministry, you should use it, because that’s how God changes lives.

From Matt Chandler:

1) Jesus came to reconcile all things to himself – not just some, all. The Christian life is more than just about ourselves. “God’s will goes far beyond cleaning up our moral hiccups”

2) marriage is santification on steroids – being married means you realise how selfish you really are.

3) God designed us exactly the way we are – down to every physical characteristic, every wacko personality trait, every hobby and sports and work – and placed us in a specific time and place to carry out his work. How could we ever be bored when we know this is our God-given purpose

4) Everything you currently own will most likely be in the trash, buried under more trash within ten years

5) Jesus is rutheless with our hearts. There is no part of your heart/mind/life that he will not demand – and you can’t hold back, or ignore his authority or barter with Him.

So when you put William’s point 4 and Matt’s point 5 together with a consecreated elbow of a trusted other, you get a little bit of a challenge.

The main challenges I got from the lecture:

• The Holy Spirit truly is a ‘person’ of the trinity, not a force to be reckoned with or manipulated, but a person, in His own right, acting.
• The Holy Spirit’s role is to connect us to God, and to connect God to us. He is the intermediary, He is the one at work in me, revealing God to me, and He is the one through whom I connect to God. It’s fascinating stuff. But I should be thankful to the Holy Spirit for the work He is doing in me, because without Him, I could not and would not know God. His role is purely self-effacing, always pointing away from himself.

I suppose to some, these are both fairly obvious and well known, and in truth, I have come across these ideas before (more so the first than the second), but it was really helpful to dwell on them further, and gain a biblical perspective (and look at the historical perspectives) of the Holy Spirit, his person and his role within the trinity.

We start with Descartes, trying to figure out how it is that we know things [mmm... epistemology]… and his solution “I think, therefore I am”  and building his wealth of knowledge from there using human reason. Thus bringing in a high level of skepticism – questionning what we know – using observation and reason.

Then there is the hero of modern physics – Issac Newton. He used observation and reason to deduce his 3 laws of motion (among other things) to demonstrate that the world is merely a predicatable machine. No matter how many times you drop the apple, it will fall to the ground. Thus God becomes the mere “divine maintenance man” – designer of the machine, and occassionally looking it to tweak it, but apart from that inconsequential. Newton started a period of confidence in the regaularity & predictability of creation, thus making God irrelevant.

John Locke comes along and applies this new scientific method to all other areas of life: religion, society, economics, politics…. However, Locke’s reason tell him that reason is only able to be achieved by white, middle class, educated males and must be enforced upon the lesser masses. This begins “Deism” – scientific method is applied to all ares of life, and optimism about the human condition & the power of human reason grows. But this view of the world is mechanical (i.e. predictable), functional (i.e. intends the greatest good for the greatest number) and arrogant (i.e. it assumes that it knows best and is infallible)

Voltaire comes to England during the height of Deism, and thinks it’s wonderful in comparison to the restrictive & oppressive French regime he has just left. He radicalises it and brings it back to France and it quickly takes hold of intellectual life in Europe, and becomes a factor in the French Revolution.

… It was interesting to note that these scientific developments about the predictability of the world have all been undone now that we have discovered the unpredictable, irrational and random nature of the sub-atomic world. It seems as though post-modernism is the reaction to this new realisation that the world is not as we thought after all.

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