I was only two for four on my picks for the Final Four. UNC lost in OT, and A&M was a point short. However, check out the third comment from that post. Congrats, Randy, for getting all four!
We’re also not having much luck guessing the date of our granddaughter’s arrival. She was due the 19th, but we’re still waiting for THE CALL . . . .
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Here’s perhaps the biggest change in my understanding of preaching through the years.
I used to think that I was supposed to make scripture relevant. It’s an old book speaking to a modern world. Now, however, I see that this is too low a view of scripture and too high a view of our “modern” world.
Now I see my job as inviting people to enter into the world of scripture — a world that is hauntingly familiar and yet mysteriously dissimilar.
The key is imagination. I think I’m to help people (including, of course, myself) imagine what a truly human life might look like in light of Easter. What might a gospeled life look like?
I used to flatten scripture, I think. It became a sermon source of rules and regs. It was full of insightful points waiting to be made.
Now as I get to live inside the story world of the Bible, I realize even more why one could say that the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword.
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When I agreed to spend an hour in the dunking booth for our youth group’s Mexico missions fund-raiser, there are three things I didn’t know:
1. How cool Saturday would be with overcast skies;
2. How frigid the water would be; and
3. How many kids would have “unlimited” bracelets, allowing them to throw as many times as they want.
I have a great picture of one of our third graders holding up all ten fingers — to represent the ten times he dunked Preacher Mike.
I need to thank Randy Harris, who offered to pay for the first 50 throws by any of our ACU students who wanted to dunk me. I heard a couple of our students mumbling something about the first exam as they fired away.
Please don’t worry about me. Hypothermia lifted after a water-heater-emptying shower.
Preaching is a wonderful journey. Thank you for inviting others to accompany you as you discover more about the great mystery of God.
The dunking booth sounds cold! You are a brave adventurer!
Mike, I love hearing you preach. Always have. Unfortunately, since I don’t live in Abilene, so I only get to hear you a few times a year.
I think someone needs to share photos of the dunking booth!!
Thanks Mike - it is amazing to read Scripture almost from memory - and catch brand new lessons/ideas/yearnings. I’m reading Acts - and I keep seeing the Holy Spirit over and over again.
Call me Mr. Obvious - but I believe this could be a first if we have the same schools playing for the national title in football and basketball twice in one school year - Florida and Ohio State. Congrats Randy - you are master of us all.
It’s good to hear Highland still believes in full immersion baptism. It’s just to bad their minister waasn’t baptized earlier! ; )
Is this what is called an “oral” exam? The dunking booth, that is.
My thoughts on Final Four basketball–Go Lady Vols!
Peace.
What a wonderful refuge, living inside the story world of the Bible. Walking and talking with Christ and the disciples. Being shipwrecked with Paul- now that was cold water!
Steve is a wise man.
Go Lady Vols!!!
I do hate that we have to play an SEC team before the final. I do like that we could have 1/2 of the Final Four from the SEC. Especially the two that could be representing since I am for UT and my sister is for LSU. Makes life fun in our house.
One time way back when I was in High School on a chorus trip we “rolled” the minister’s house and our car broke down. I would be very afraid of what might happen if I dunked the minister in cold water.
Haven’t we all flattened the scriptures?
The reason “The Secret” is best known for being “out of stock” at local bookstores is because the world is clamoring for hope. Why didn’t it find it in Christianity? Because we took the light out of its socket so we could inspect the finer details of the wiring.
Society is willing to give their devotion to the light….but not to the ornate lampstand and its well-decorated shade.
That frigid water must have been keeping you awake all night (if your posting time is correct)! Or else it was waiting for THE CALL, huh!
A great question - what a gospeled life might look like. I’ll look forward to reading everyone’s responses.
The first thing that pops into my head is the hope we have because of Easter. And this hope impacts us to the very core affecting just about every aspect of our day to day lives.
Spending time talking to someone who does not yet know this hope will remind us of the difference a gospeled life makes. I know I take Easter for granted; I grew up in a community of faith. For which I am thankful, but still I do not fully appreciate.
Steve, I’m with ya on the Lady Vols!! But I’m grieving OU Women’s loss to Ole Miss!
Mike,
I like to think of preaching as a “dunking booth” Part of my job is to get people up on the seat of the dunking booth. Another aspect of my job is to allow God to use me and my limited skills and passions to throw my best ball. But it is the Holy Spirit’s job is to hit the target and drop them into the Story of God. When people come up to me shivering with excitement and sharing their “I didn’t knows…”, the enemy lies me into thinking that it was me that brought them into the chilling waters of God’s Word, but when I step back a few steps in prayer, I am gently and wonderfully reminded by God, “Joel, you don’t have that good of aim!”
I love your view of scripture as story in which we should be immersed, rather than rules and points that need to be extracted. I much prefer this style of preaching and teaching.
I’m sure some are dissatisfied with this: this isn’t USEFUL enough! Just give me a list of practical applications for use in my day-to-day life. But I think that approach just does violence to the text because…(a) everybody’s lives are different, so you would only be speaking to a limited section of the audience, (b) everybody’s spiritual quests and theological issues are different, and you will not be answering everyone’s questions, and (c) as you’ve said, that approach takes all of the dimensionality out of the text. It lets you be in command of the text rather than God.
The other half of this view is that those of us who listen to preaching have to be ready to reflect, wrestle, and encounter God. We can’t simply sit back and file away three points for reference later in the week. We must join you in a search for the living God within the text.
Having lived in both Memphis and Gainesville, I had hoped that it would come down to those two teams. My wife is from Gainesville and I went to UF so it is obvious who I am hoping will win.
There is a richness in preaching that goes beyond interesting or thought provoking points that are in the text just waiting to be made. There is a total life transformation that is waiting to take hold of the lives of people as we walk with them through the pages of scripture. You do it well.
For years I’ve said that we need to set aside our cultural baggage and personal agendas as much as possible and look into Scripture for what it really says. This is easier said than done. Just recently my entire perspective was changed radically by the insights of NT Wright into the life and vocation of Jesus. Over a decade ago my spiritual life was shaken even more deeply as I discovered that my dogmatic “faith-only” Calvinism wouldn’t pass muster Scripturally. Often it is a shock to gain these better, deeper understandings of the world of Scripture. I’ve always been improved by the experience, though.
Mike I saw one of our oldest members , Grandma Ruby and our youngest members a 3 year old hit the mark Saturday and drop Preacher Mike into the water. I sat on a dunking booth once and I can appreciate the cold. Thanks for your willingness to be a volunteer for the kids.
OK, because I have long lost my taste and use for three-points-and-a-tidy-conclusion preaching, I’ll bite. What precisely distinguishes the outline of such a sermon from an outline of the kind you folks now prefer?
tantalized qb
Waiting…..waiting….waiting
That’s good stuff Terry Rush. Maybe you could fill in for Mike here some this summer? I hear the pay is marginal, but the benefits are great.
And you do it so beautifully, Mike! PTL! For the gift of preaching He does pour through you each time we hear you!
Coping - It’s just a tough and exciting for us that wait for a great grandbabe, isn’t it!
But it’s funny: you could be dismissed from a pulpit for poor preaching, for instance, failing to preach sermons that “translate” Scripture and make it relevant.
I’ve not yet heard of a church that fired its preacher for failing to convert them, to transform them, to lead them in “gospeled” living. Imagine that scene: a group of elders approaching a preacher and saying, “We’re sorry, Preacher So and So, you just aren’t pushing us enough, you are calling us to the difficult radical changes that Christ calls us to. We’re going to let you go…”
Mike, it sounds like you have moved from the left to the right (brain). How do you teach or grade “a world that is hauntingly familiar and yet mysteriously dissimilar”
I too have been in a dunking booth, however, I had a water cannon. It helped even things out.
I sat in the car waiting for Sam and was cracking up watching you.
I’m going to re-publish your comment, Terry Rush. Really, really well-said.
Amy and Terry,
I have hope and do not believe in the resurrection. I have hope and believe that I will only return to the dust from whence I came.
I do not need some Easter myth to give me hope. I just need people committed to being honest and decent.
If seems very discouraging if one is honest and decent only becasue of Easter.
Country Fred - I am not trying to be funny here, but if you’re HOPE is that you will return to dust, then what is the negative?
A question, Mike.
If there’s a pool on Miss R’s arrival date, may I have after midnight, beginning April 2? I know, it’s a long way off, but just a hunch. So early April 2 is my date for her arrival pool.
GKB- seldom is a preacher really dismissed because he did not preach well. Sure, that may be the excuse, but it is seldom even that noble. Sadly it is much more common for the reasons to be petty but packaged as something else. Siburt’s class on conflict in churches is great on this topic, by the way.
Mike- perhaps instead of you waiting on THE CALL, your granddaughter is waiting for y’all to show up for the grand entrance.
Fred,
You said, “If seems very discouraging if one is honest and decent only becasue of Easter.” I can only speak for myself, and the truth of the matter is that the only things good and decent about me are from Jesus. I am pretty hopeless without him, and I am hopelessly in love with him. It is hard to explain, but I depend on the power of the Holy Spirit constantly. I can’t imagine anywhere else hope can be found than in God.
Mike,
Very, very good comment on preaching. You said much in a few brief paragraphs.
I’m thinking April 1 - easy to remember.
GKB…In our early marriage we moved to a town where the previous preacher left quickly, without explanation…and we later learned he was approaching the teenage girls sexually. There was a lot of unrest in the congregation, naturally, and after we’d been there about a year my husband was told by an elder, “You have turned this church around. You have brought us back together and challenged the congregation to get back into the Word. You have made us refocus on the mission Christ gave. However, when you preach the truth, even in love, you make some people mad…and these people have money, so we are going to have to let you go.” We knew who these people were (about 10 or 12 out of a congregation of nearly 300)…and within two more years their marriages had fallen apart, and most of them had left the Lord completely.
Beaner,
“then what is the negative?” That my life was wasted when I do return to dust.
Hope that answers it. Didn’t really understand your question though.
Amy,
Where do good things in atheists come from? I think you choose to be honest and decent or you don’t.
What is all this Easter business? I’ve always thought we celebrate the resurrection every first day of the week. Where is the command for an annual celebration? The same question could apply to Christmas.
Country Fred,
I guess I meant that hope is a positive to me, and just returning to dust sounds more like a negative to me.
Also, if you are only returning to dust, then you won’t know if your life was a waste or not, so what does it matter?
Finally, what prevents you form doing whatever you want in this life, if there is no reward/punishment (or whatever you want to call it) in the next one? I’m just trying to understand because atheism to me makes about as much sense as Christianity does to you. I honestly want to know what keeps you from being an animal? What gives you your “moral code”?
Chris, I think we are using the term “Easter” to mean the resurrection, which is what we celebrate and what gives us hope every day (not just April 8). The annual celebration started with the Passover, which is why Jesus was in Jerusalem when he was crucified. So, it remains a sacred day to be celebrated, wouldn’t you say?
Fred, I agree that atheists do good things, too. You’re right in saying that we all have a choice in being honest and decent. But still, our righteous acts are like filthy rags in the light of God’s holiness.
We all sin, both followers of Jesus and atheists alike. Would you agree with that statement? I would also like to hear from you about the moral code question Jeanna raised. And how your beliefs compare with ours regarding our sinful state and need to be made holy through Jesus’ blood. Does sin matter to an atheist? I hope my tone doesn’t sound argumenative, I just want to know what you think.
Mike, are we hijacking your blog? Do you even care with that grandbaby on the way?
That was supposed to be a number eight up there, not sure where that emoticon came from!
Country Fred,
Hope is a curious word. I’m guessing that your hope is defined by not giving up. My hope depends on my giving up.
In addition, honesty and decency without truth are truthfully dishonest and indecent.
If one can “flatten” scripture today, consider what the people under the Law of Moses could do. Just a bunch of “rules and regs…..”
Troy,
“In addition, honesty and decency without truth are truthfully dishonest and indecent. ”
Don’t get it.
Country Fred,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Without truth, which exists without consensus, honesty and decency are a matter of perception. How else can Chavez be praised for giving away heating oil in the US, while robbing his own citizens? Or, why is Akmadinijad a hero, to some, for denying the Holocaust? Or even our beloved Oprah, who expressed an exacerbating concern for slave children in Africa, while during a 15 minute segment, she made enough money to buy the freedom for each and every one of them. If truth were exposed and accepted, people like these couldn’t exploit the natural inclination of others to see the best in them, in order to further their agenda.
The question remains, as Pilate once said, “What is truth?” Were you there when the earth was formed? If not, then we’re even. Now, we can only go by the evidence that exists. You choose to put your trust in science, which cannot agree on how the great pyramids were built, or even if eggs are good or bad for you. I’ve chosen to rely on ancient scriptures, the account of eyewitnesses, faith, and common sense. Jesus said, of himself, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life…”. For me personally, my benchmark for honesty and decency, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.