Author: 8062923

“Double Indemnity:” How to Visit a Church Like an Insurance Adjuster

In today’s blog, you will be receive insights in how to visit a church like an insurance adjuster. In my insurance adjusting career handling all sorts of serious claims across the US, one of my favorite reads was Don Winslow’s “California Fire and Life” –

“Jack Wade was the rising star of the Orange County Sheriffs Department’s arson unit, but a minor scandal cost him everything, except his encyclopedic knowledge of fire. Now working as an insurance claims investigator, Jack is called in to examine a suspicious claim …”

Waving my author wand in a circle three times, I empower you, reader, as “Church Claims Investigator” to prepare you evaluate the claims made by the next church you visit. Can you sniff through the assertions of a church to determine whether this group is a safe match for you and your family? The insights given below will likely raise questions in your journey:

  1. Rule one: ask lots of questions
  2. Rule two: there is no bad question.

Your first assignment begins now …

… Your First Visit

… Begins with the worship bulletin. Below is an example of a church we have visited frequently. The first step, do a survey of the balance between men and women serving in the church. In the bulletin below, count how many men are listed in the bulletin compared to number of women. In a second pass, count how many females are serving in leadership roles, versus watching babies in the nursery, serving coffee or working as office receptionist.

The yellow highlights in the bulletin below show how the church sends the message that female leaders are welcome here:

This Sedona church exemplifies balanced leadership. Note that the Senior Pastor even prints his cell phone in the bulletin to foster communication and transparency within the congregation.

Before you attend the church, you can visit its website’s leadership area. We visited another prominent local church a few times. Below is their website today. Let’s click on this and see what you can observe compared to the example of the United Methodist Church bulletin above:

Upon clicking “Leadership” –

Blurring out the faces and descriptions, you get the picture that males run the church. A review of their doctrinal statement would support that white, straight males run the church.

Who is valued?

In light of who holds the senior leadership positions, whose voice will be heard? Who is relegated to support roles simply due to their gender?

I rewrote this blog to attempt to give it more a PG-13 perspective, redacting some severely toxic church leaders who made the local news. The tools given to you in this blog, will give you more freedom and fulfillment in your church journey.

Should you find yourself attracted to a male led church, I respect your decision and pray God blesses you. Please do your homework to determine how this male domination extends to the life choices of you and your daughters.

Example – We visited a local church. All the pastors and elders were male. The women sat at a different table from the men. Women were groomed to have a career under the protection of their husbands, meaning no career of their own. For example, a woman could work in the front office of her husband’s insurance agency.

Divorcees were second class citizens and grown children of divorce were suspect. Gay people have no place at the table. Home school is promoted to advocate separation from sinful society. And, now, most troubling, church discipline is to be administered from the pastor down in the church.

The top down church discipline means that the pastor doles out discipline he sees fit in a tight chain-of-command over the elders, the elders over the church members … the husband over the wives. In essence, this church attempted to create a male dominated plantation style of leadership, where any dissent was met with threat of shunning and possibly corporal punishment.

OPEN WINDOWS

Your assignment is to visit a local church of your choice. Begin with the website. Visiting the church: Where are the women in leadership? The people of color? Are gay people welcome? Divorced people? Does their doctrinal statement read like a multi-paged single spaced Manifesto? A sample “Manifesto” copied below is one of three “Affirmations” from a church website which serves as church “twin language” relaying that the church holds to the similar code of “submission, allegiance, and protection.” In particular, these like-minded groups hold that women need men to protect them from their own life choices and decisions. Male control of finances can limit life choices such enrolling in a college course, clothing and beauty purchases, selection of friends, and education of children. It’s hard to escape when you can’t buy shoes for the journey. Children, likewise, fall under the same “discipline and protection.” Buzzwords I highlighted in red: allegiance, we have nothing good in ourselves, controlled, vulnerable, we submit, through the roles he has called us, we seek our own good when we seek the good of the body, protection and guidance, respective roles, God’s sovereign will, honor and obey, we submit.

The conservative dogmatic diagram below is widely circulated on social media to show how male “protection” runs downhill –

An excellent blog on this can found at “How Sexism in the Church Almost Ruined My Life.” Jennifer Martin subtitled her blog “A Supposedly Feminist Website.” The diagram describes a trickle down theory from the males in power. Women sheltered under this protection find a world in which they want for nothing. The man provides their financial needs and shields them from pressures of having a career. However, when a controlling or abusive man enters this world, he discovers his own gated entertainment park, where no man can question his exploits and no woman has a voice. A woman’s protected world of quilting, crafts and cran-apple pie becomes a prison walled by the cage of protection and reinforced by the complicit advice and silence of the male elders and pastors.

To suggest that women don’t need men to protect them from their own life choices upsets the entire testosterone filled male compound. I like the old Baptist motto, “It’s not how high you jump; it’s how straight you walk.” Or as Jesus said, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” John 8:36. For those who are trapped in a faith group described above, there is hope for you to escape and begin anew.

-Thucydides, Athenian historian and general. 5th Century BC.

36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

John 8:36

You are Valued,

Pastor Jim

Homework: In “Bishop: Daughters Should Be Uneducated So They’re Not Smarter Than Husbands” (October, 2019), Patheos.com cited Bishop Edir Macedo who argued, “Daughters should not be allowed to seek out higher education because if they do they will be smarter than their husbands.”

Men, you need to come back to your proper state of being so God can give you the right kind of woman to marry. I wouldn’t recommend you marry these educated women with these degrees; they don’t make for good wives and mothers.

Evangelical Bishop Madedo

Take a moment and consider what you have learned in today’s blog and apply it to Bishop Macedo’s teaching on the education of women.

  • What is the “right kind of woman” in today’s church?
  • What does your church education program teach about the role of women? Do you have women leading adult classes? Or, do women teach only other women and children, lest “they have authority over a man.”
  • Why do educated women threaten some men?
  • What is the implied purpose of higher education of women?
    • To fulfill her dreams and ambitions?
    • To find a worthy husband who can care for her needs as a homemaker? This propagates the belief that behind every successful man is hidden a woman owned by her husband. Of course, this is all done under the guise, “The woman needs protecting” and “I, the man, must protect her from herself.”

This propagates the belief that behind every successful man is hidden a woman owned by her husband. Of course, this is all done under the guise, “The woman needs protecting” and “I, the man, must protect her from herself.”

Pastor Jim

Great Preaching: (Final Cut) Run!

“If I was ever going somewhere, I was running!”


Now you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!

Forrest Gump

As we discussed in parts I and II, you have spent time in your “thin place” seeking the heart of God. You have walked in the light of God’s Word as revealed in your living situation as you visited the “flight line” of your people. Now Sunday’s coming! In today’s blog, we will discuss how to run with your sermon come Sunday!

A few years ago, we visited a local church one Sunday where the pastor wore shorts and sandals, something like you would wear to a barbecue. We sat pretty close to the front. The worship service start time came and went. An elderly woman from the senior home next door timidly asked,”Excuse me, Reverend, my watch shows that it’s time to begin.”

The pastor stared her down and snapped, “Not according to my watch.” And continued to saunter around like he had no place to be. When he did realize it was time to start, he walked over to the choir room, snapped his fingers, whistled and commanded the choir out of their hiding place, “Come on, let’s go!”

Needless to say, my wife and I gave the pastor an “Irish Goodbye.” We stood, said nothing and walked past a few not too surprised deacons as we exited the service. As I still drive by the retirement home, I think about those captive old-timers who have no other choice but to endure Sundays there.

Head to Heart

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

Archilochus (Frequently credited to an anonymous US Navy Seal)
Archilochus

Or as heard from sports coaches, “You play like you practice.” The movement of a sermon begins in the head then moves to the heart. Assuming you have a two or three page outline or manuscript of your sermon, Saturday night is the time to read aloud the Bible passage two or three more times and practice looking at the people while reading the phases. Listen and mark for emphasis.

There is a huge difference between writing for reading versus writing for speaking and hearing. This is a pitfall of many a sermon. Pen in hand, read your sermon aloud as though you were preaching it. Edit for sound effect. Does your text translate well to the ear? If not, mark it through as you go. These edit notes are for you. 

Recommended format for preaching notes: Two columns with text 14 point

The two columns allow room for emphasis and edit notes. The 14 point font size make for a quick use in the pulpit if you need to fall back to notes. One way to preach without notes, its to uses notes as a security blanket, like the harness used for rock climbing.

For years I have used used a presentation binder with vinyl sheet protectors.

Allant”The Graduate Collection” Professional 3 Ring Business Card Holder Book. Swapped out the card holder sheets with 8.5 x 11 inch sheet protectors. This binder has front pocket for the bulletin.
Front and back view allows for easy reading of your edit notes. You can put your Bible passage with emphasis and pause notes for reading in the service.

If you’ve ever lost a page of sermon notes or mixed up the order, you can thank me later. If you preach enough, you will surely lead a service in a windy cemetery or under a busy ceiling fan and watch your notes blow away like leaves on a autumn day … an unnerving start of your message.

Sod’s law: ‘When you toss a coin, the more strongly you want heads, the more likely it is to come up tails’

Applying Sod’s Law, a best practice is to email yourself Sunday’s message and formatted Bible passage. Should you forget or lose your binder, you can either print the copy at church or use a smart phone or tablet to download your copy.

First Contact

Now you have moved your message from your head to your heart. Your outline or manuscript is captured both in your binder and in the cloud. Your first contact at the church on Sunday can set the tone for the rest of the services.

Arrive early with expectation – Something is happening here. God is with us! This is not a show or a game. It is encountering the presence of God.

Do a quick walk around campus. Ask the custodian to check that the coffee is on and that the restrooms are open and well supplied. Applying Sod’s Law, the day you think you have your best sermon will be the Sunday with no paper in the restroom. You will be the first to hear of it and asked by your elder deacon to personally restock it now.

Do a mic check. use new batteries. Your sermon is worth it.

Prepare for technical difficulties. The best sermon can be tanked with when the projector bulb fails at the start of your service. Expect technology to fail you and roll with it. In my last church, the sanctuary’s video and sound control booth was caged in another building. A tiny speaker broadcast to the operator what was heard in the sanctuary. During one funeral, the facility manager was recording the service and running the slide projection, when an audio feedback filled the sanctuary with a heavy-metal like screech at the level of a jet aircraft. I made a visual gesture to the camera that remained unseen. I had no choice but to announce to the grieving congregation, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” As I stepped out on the sidewalk, I saw the facilities manager looking back at me out of the other door. My sign language confirmed – “Pull the plug!”

Check in

Check in with your musicians. Your music and choir members are your fellow ministers. A moment sharing a smile and good word breeds goodwill that will continue through the service and beyond. Tell them how glad you are to serve with them. Praise your choir leaders for their choice of music and song.

In contrast, avoid any hint of accusing a musician with a pastor’s righteous indignation, “I didn’t approve the choice of that song, and I am striking it from the bulletin today. Don’t you ever do this again without my approval.” Word of these pre-service arguments will squelch the spirit of your choir and worship team.

This would be good time to return to your office and pray for the people. Sunday mornings before services are not the time to be on-call for listening to the woes and complaints of church members. You want to be listening to the voice of God.

Look ‘Em in the Eye and Tell ‘Em What You Got!

The first step of preaching to the people 
... is that you must like the people.

People have the innate ability to tell whether the pastor likes them. My first piano accompanist’s father was an Episcopal priest. His wife used to pray for him that”the people would like him, so that they would like his message.” Too many clergy treat other staff members, music people and church members as obstacles in the way of their message.

You may say, “Jim, how could that be true?”

  • The answer is do you actively listen to your people?
  • Do you welcome their opinion of value?
  • Do you promote and encourage them?

One of the values of working a separate career as an insurance adjuster is learning how people desperately need encouragement.

Eye Contact

I once knew a pastor who shook hands with the people as they left church. But you learned that as he shook your hand, he looked down the line for someone he didn’t want to miss. Your eyes are the handshake with the congregation.

Make eye contact for a few seconds before your begin the service.

Make eye contact for a few seconds before you begin your message.

Make eye contact for a few seconds when you want your people to get the point.

Are you with me or have you gone home yet?

Crossing Over … barriers between you and the people

Pews corral in the people.

Aisles isolate the saints.

Pulpit cages the clergy.

The banister quarantines the choir.

I knew a Catholic priest who, during funerals, would step down from the chancel and put his hand on the casket on level with the people as he spoke to the congregation and family about what a wonderful wife and mother she was. The steel casket and flowers formed a separation layer, but the pastor’s touch made a human connection crossing the barrier.

One effective Baptist evangelist I knew mastered crossing over. This evangelist held a concurrent career singing country music in Branson, Missouri. His voice resonated like a combination of Marty Robbins and Elvis Presley. At the close of one service, as he called the people to the altar, he stepped out from behind the pulpit, crossed the front isle, stood on the first pew and made eye contact with those seated on the back row of the packed church. He appeared like a sea captain on the bow of some ancient ship peering through the fog in search of land.

The people streamed forward to recommit their lives to Christ as they realized that, even hidden on the back rows, God knew all about and cared for them.

You may not stand on a pew at your next service, but you might try walking up into an isle. A word of caution: crossing over does not replace “flight line” visits with your people during the week. A pastor’s “flight line” includes the home, hospital, surgical center, care center, golf course, camping trip, retreat, conference, fraternal organization, mission trip, workplace and entertaining in your home.

A pastor’s “flight line” includes the home, hospital, surgical center, care center, golf course, camping trip, retreat, conference, fraternal organization, mission trip, service project, workplace and entertaining in the home.

An example – Karen served as a Senior Deacon. Her late husband, JD, would join Karen and me at her private care home for home Communion. As part of crossing over ministry, the church recorded its services on DVDs and provided home players to be delivered on home visits. Here you see the ripple effect of a crossing over ministry that involved, the choir, musicians, pastors, church staff, and visiting pastor. These types of ministry extends the impact of your preaching and ministry beyond the four walls of your church. Not shown is my trying to diagnose a stubborn DVD/TV connection. In this photo, you can see Karen’s joy at the clear picture and sound as she felt part of the worship experience and that her church remembered her.

Trying to shake hands with every parishioner every Sunday, coming in and going out, may actually distract them from their encounter with God. The evangelist described a few paragraphs above ate dinner in a different home each night of the revival where he laughed and prayed and cried with the families. A trustworthy message is built in the home visit and not in the handshake on Sundays. As my wife and I visited over a dozen churches and faith groups in the Verde Valley, we received a few canned welcome letters with no personal visit, with the exception of two young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We can learn something from them.

A trustworthy message is built in the home visit and

not in the handshake on Sundays.

The most effective pastor I knew in using crossing over is Rev. Jud Souers, Pastor Emeritus of The Church at Litchfield Park, Arizona. I have seen him glide like a cat from the chancel out into the isle and look back on the chancel as though he were carrying on a dialogue between the people and God. For decades, he demonstrated the same fluid movement through his golf swing as a member of the local club for decades. For Pastor Jud, the local golf club served as his Jacob’s Well place of meeting the people.

The Lazarus Ending – the sermon that ends … and then ends again … and again

The Lazarus Ending goes like this – The pastor hints that time is late but there’s just one more point to consider. “Oh, wait, I remembered you really need to know … ” Following the benediction and closing hymn of five verses, you’re ready to leave. But wait. “Lazarus, come forth! …” The pastor, out of some need to prove her message was important, gives the people a summary of what she said in the sermon.

This sends the message, “Just in case you weren’t listening the first time …”

Lest we focus too hard on the clergy, for churches that don’t have music directors, you are now set free to sing only a few verses of a closing hymn.

Why are congregations held hostage to singing all 13 verses of Amazing Grace as though some ancient hall monitor demands they sing all verses?

Start White Hot

Listen to a few Johnny Cash songs. They start strong and hot out of the box. Some churches start their worship service like a late opening at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The only think lacking is a number dispenser.

A white hot start would feel something like the introduction of the series Chef’s Table … something is about to happen.

Schedule the Unexpected

In your sermon, give space for the “impromptu moment” for the Holy Spirit to lead and surprise. Expect the Spirit to come down … welcome this. In my first church, in the middle of an evening message. A 6’4″ young man entered the back of the sanctuary and slowly shuffled up the center isle asking aloud, “Can I find God here? … Can I find God here?”

I paused my message, realizing the message came to me. “Yes,” I announced, “You have come to the right place. You can find God here!”

Later I learned that he was a patient of the Arizona State Mental Hospital. His parents told me he would scale the barbed wire fence and wander off into the desert in search of some peace for his soul.

One Easter Sunrise in the main courtyard, church members will remember as I stood to deliver the Easter morning message, all the sprinklers clicked on then off for a half second. Not enough to soak them but enough raise the question, “Will they turn back on?”

I made eye contact with the people and broke the damp silence with, “Well … you done been baptized!”

Leave Them Wanting More

Start Two Minutes Early.

Be Meaningful.

Be Brief.

Save Fill-in-the Blank Notes for the Classroom.

Leave ‘Em Wanting More.

The Gift – take and do

In the sermon shown on Vimeo [password is grace4you], you can see where both pastor and people “crossed over” barriers: the people, in response to my prior sermon calling them to a prayer shawl ministry, crossed over the front isle and placed their prayer shawls on the prayer rail for dedication. In January 2018 I received my own prayer shawl in the hospital during my kidney cancer surgery. The prayer shawl kept me warm and reminded me of God’s presence during those long nights. I am thankful for my cousin, Karen, who first shared with me the prayer shawl ministry of her church. This ministry I shared as a gift with my congregation.

Example of using “Crossing Over” and “The Gift -Take and Do”

What gift will you give to your people that they can take and do?

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1,2

Run!,

Pastor Jim

Great Preaching (Part II): Max Your Understanding in Preaching!

Meet Max! Max Understanding. *


For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. – Colossians 1:9

Too much preaching is a reaction to something rather than addressing insights gained by “spiritual understanding.” It’s Advent? OK, it’s time to rework an old sermon on the birth of Jesus. Offerings down or time for the annual pledge drive?, then work up a not-to-pushy sermon on giving and avoid any texts that speak of Jesus driving the money changers from temple. We can speak of changing the world … as long as this change doesn’t swap our liturgical colors or interrupt our capital improvement drive.

Reactionary preaching is the “astroturfing” of the wild lilies of the field. A predictable form haunts Sunday’s services like a woman who received too many Botox injections. Even churches that began as wild revolutionaries that held services in open fields have turned electric guitars and drums into a loud monotonous chant of the same decibel crunching pitch and meter.
Artificial plastic smiles are frozen on every face without real spiritual movement.


Reactionary preaching is the “astroturfing” of the wild lilies of the field. A predictable form haunts Sunday’s services like a woman who received too many Botox injections – artificial plastic smiles are frozen on every face without movement.

To move beyond reaction to understanding, you need Max understanding! It was 8:00 p.m. on Friday night of Cinco de Mayo weekend when Max, our neighbor’s Border Collie started barking. An hour of barking later, I looked and saw that our retired neighbors were out with the truck and camper gone. At 10:00 p.m. I began reacting, “How dare they go away and leave their dog. It’s disrespectful to the neighbors!” I considered calling their cell phone … if I had it. At 1:00 a.m., Max had barked non-stop for three hours. I climbed in my car to confirm they were gone and shined my flashlight over the back fence in the backyard to rule out another problem.

A fitful night of sleeping in the guest room, with dreams of calling animal control and leaving a nasty letter on the door, I awakened to attend an all-day course in Flagstaff. I returned home only to see that the truck and camper were still gone and as I stepped on the patio — barking. Reaction had run its predictable course.

It was here that God showed me how I went through my life and ministry … reacting in one form or another, allowing circumstance and calendar to drive my life, attitude and message. I then looked at Max with the eyes of understanding and saw the old dog, recently diagnosed with advanced cancer, staring for his masters at the back of their house, where he remained barking in that position for hours. His jaw hung slack and his coat now appeared dull and disheveled. His bark now a weak rasp, barely audible. His normal brisk walk became a slow shuffle back under the deck. I saw no food or water were in sight.

Now, understanding awakened. “What if our neighbors had an accident or illness and could not return or communicate to care for their beloved pet they raised since a puppy?” “What if the grown daughter, who has placed other burdens on her parents, got carried away in her own Cinco de Mayo activities to the extent of ignoring old Max.

Understanding plowed through the brick-like surface of my astroturfed reaction and moved me into action. I cooked two hot dogs and put them over the fence with a pail of cool water and called Max, but he was too weak to come. No barking was heard that night. I was now afraid Max had died. The next morning, I looked off the porch and saw that Max was now walking and no longer panting. The hot dogs were gone. As he took his position again on guard at the back of the house.


Understanding plows through the brick-like surface of our astroturfed reaction and creates a bloom of transformation

When Jesus disappeared as a boy in Jerusalem, his parents found him three days later in the temple:  

Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.
So when they saw Him, they were amazed. Luke 2:46-48 (NKJV)

As you have your Bible passage in hand, and the predictable elements pushing you forward through the calendar of teaching and preaching, take a moment and look through the the Bible passage and the issues beating their drums in your ears.

If you will pause and listen to the the Holy Spirit, you will give your people pails of cool water that will not only refresh them but that they can share with a thirsty world. Your church members in the workplace live in a world built on action and reaction. Imagine the transformation when they learn how to max understanding in the workplace, turning reaction, that breeds more reactions, into transformation.

*The image above is that of our Border Collie mix, Shadow. Tonight as I checked on old Max. The house was still dark. Now there is no barking and no sign of Max. I think of how Max’s owners would feel knowing that their neighbors reached over the fence to their distressed companion with of a pail of cool water and warm hot dogs.

In the next video blog, we will discuss some practical tools that you can use to Max Understanding in your Walk to Great Preaching.

-Pastor Jim

The New Driver

A televangelist and a homeless person both died and stood before the angel Gabriel. Behind Gabriel was parked a golden Rolls Royce. The preacher jumped behind the wheel and declared, “I claim this as mine!”

There was silence in heaven. Then Gabriel decreed, “Yes. It is so!” And commanded the beggar to the back seat. Once the rear door closed, the angel announced to the beggar, “Behold, your driver! He was given years of good things to prepare for eternity as your servant.”

The Preacher’s Crawl

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. – St. Paul 

Preach: Crawl, Walk, Run! is not about how to preach, which is often a personal subject wrapped up in ego. Rather this is a pool of the best resources on 1. how to read the Bible in a worship service, 2. discover your thin-place where God speaks with you in your sermon preparation, 3. tools to prepare you for preaching and 4. launch ideas for your sermon.

Back again with you after after a few weeks delay for a shed wiring project followed by my wife’s surgery. Thanks for waiting – the shed now has lighting and my wife is recovering. This delay stands in contrast to your regimented weeks marked by Sundays rapidly approaching.

I remember attending our sons’s Saturday soccer games in body while my mind was away on Sunday’s sermon. Present in body but absent in spirit. One regret was that I lacked of a healthy crawl toward Sundays’ services.

Worship Plan Book: Your denomination likely has some sort of plan book for worship and preaching planning. If you teach Sunday School, you likely use a teacher’s guide. I have recently used the United Church of Christ Desk Calendar and Plan Book –

Plan books such as these orbit around the Revised Common Lectionary, a three year plan of Bible readings that provide a guide of passages for reading and preaching based on the church year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter Seasons after Pentecost.

You may, such as I, come from a tradition that doesn’t follow the church calendar. You may consider yourself an “expository preacher” who preaches through the Bible verse by verse. My response, “That’s great!… But beware of the instrument that plays only one note.”

In preparing for these blogs, my wife and I visited many churches in the Verde Valley of Arizona – from Methodist to Nazarene, from Community to Seventh Day Adventist. We noticed many with beautiful views but empty parking lots. We also noted a lack of women women participating in the worship services (This will be subject of a future blog … that women’s ministry means more than just the kitchen, the nursery and the coffee pot! Oouch!

In one church, the pastor had committed to preaching through a series of messages as part of a program that came complete with slides. Though we arrived at the service ten minutes late and the pastor baptized some believers earlier in the service, the pastor determined that he could not push the sermon material to the next week. The fill-in-the blanks sermon note acted like grains of sand dribbling down in an hourglass. The pastor’s prepackaged sermon agenda held him in a grip tighter than any liturgical calendar. I must confess that during a merciful break for prayer, my wife and I slipped out before the conclusion. Almost every blank in the sermon notes could be answered by writing the word, “Jesus.”

Enter Your “Thin Space”: Take your worship planner and enter into your “thin space,” a sacred space where you encounter God. For me, I would take my Anglican prayer beads and go on a prayer walk on the top of a limestone bluff, overlooking Wet Beaver Creek on our Rimrock property, home to rattlesnakes, deer and beaver … and and occasional mountain lion.

He restores my soul …

In the shadow of this mesquite tree, I encountered the presence of God

When Moses encountered God in his “thin place,” he said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

In the shadow of an old mesquite tree, I encountered God and listened to the voice of the Spirit.

One guest preacher from we hosted at my first church told me his “thin place” was the altar area of the sanctuary at night. Alone in the church, he would place himself prone before the altar and seek God’s presence and ask for insights into God’s message for the people. His personal insight into his “thin place” has stayed with me 34 years. To this day I don’t think his prominent congregation knew of his practice.

All great preaching and teaching begins with discovering your “thin place” and listening to the voice of God. The Spirit of God will prompt your preaching and worship leading only as it springs out of your own experience with God.

Out of the above encounter, you may ask the Spirit to guide you in your worship and preaching preparation. Be prepared … but be open for the Spirit to change your plans.

Feed Your Staff: Church staff’s planning and production depend on your sharing with them. You may now have a quarter of the year charted, for which your worship leader and office staff will rise up and call you blessed. Your staff can now can select music and live in hopes they might print the church bulletin before Friday. There’s nothing more awkward than the church administrator asking the pastor on Thursday, “Well, do you have a sermon title?” The pastor hears this question as, “You mean with all the hours you had this week, you have no clue what you are saying Sunday?”


“Well, do you have a sermon title?” The pastor hears this question as, “You mean with all the time you golfed this week, you have no clue what you are saying Sunday?”

I have experienced more than one Sunday, where I awakened at 4:00 a.m. with the hopes of finishing Sunday’s message. There’s no worse “agony” of preaching than staring at a full coffee cup and a blank screen at zero-dark-thirty on Sunday morning. Thankfully, those mornings were the exception. I share this to affirm that you are not abnormal to encounter this wild beast.

Internalize the Passage: Now, here is a resource most often overlooked by today’s clergy – the oral interpretation of the Word. First, visit www.Biblegateway.com and look up your passage in New International Version (NIV). Click on the speaker arrow and you can listen to the narrated reading of your passage. Print out your passage and as your listen, make marks on your passage, noting where the reader pauses and how phrases are emphasized.

Now make it yours – Read the passage through as the narrator gave … until you are comfortable with the words. Now practice it and emphasize the passage so that the reading makes the most sense to you. Until you have the passage in you, you will not be able to share it from you. Too many preachers try to talk about the Bible rather than sharing what they have experienced in the Bible.


Too many preachers and teachers try to talk about the Bible rather than sharing from what they have experienced in the Bible.

How many times do you need to read a passage to internalize it? I recommend three times listening while marking from the narrator. Then three to four times on your own. So, let’s say a good biblical reading aloud seven times.

OK, you have crawled by encountering God in your “thin-place,” shared with your staff, and internalized the passage. Your choir leader is sings your praises as she can select music for a full quarter. And your church administrator no longer thinks you are golfing way to much as her bulletin is done by Thursday.

Hold the phone – we are not done. This is “Crawl …” In the next blog, we will “Walk” … putting flesh to the passage that has become part of your life.


How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

– Romans 10:14

-Pastor Jim

Special thanks to my wife, Carol, whose editing fixed issues where I was limited by a growing cataract in my left eye.

The Agony of Preaching

Some helps for preachers and those who hear them

“28  We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” – Colossians 1:28-29 (NASB)  

The word “striving”* in the above letter captures the gnawing reminder that Sunday’s coming! What is the message from God? With all that is in the Bible, the problem is not running out of something to say; it is running on saying something. When I was called to my first church, we held worship services Sunday morning and Sunday night, with prayer meeting on Wednesdays. Throw in Bible studies and church training, and I learned the agony of having something to say versus having to say something. You can’t stand in the pulpit and say, “I’ve been so busy dealing with church property issues, I haven’t thought about God much. So, let’s skip right to the closing hymn and call it good!”

The next three blogs on Preach: Crawl, Walk, Run! is not about how to preach, which is often a personal subject wrapped up in ego. Rather this is a pool of the best resources on 1. how to read the Bible in a worship service, 2. discover your thin-place where God speaks with you in your sermon preparation, 3. tools to prepare you for preaching and 4. launch ideas for your sermon.

The outcome of your sermon and results of your preaching I leave in God’s hands. If this blog has lessened the agony of the process, then I have succeeded.

Related image
Paul before Herod Agrippa  – Some Sundays a preacher can feel the chains of preaching the Gospel.

One of the benefits of having served as full-time pastor in four churches and having attended church as a full-time insurance adjuster is that I have experienced the view from the pew through the eyes of someone who battled through the workweek tied to a computer. The sense of relief and peace just to make it to Sunday. My own fatigue of the work world has given me the eyes of the layperson who makes a commitment of time to attend church. Our appreciation of that time begins with the agony of preaching.

While attending Southwestern Baptist Sunday in Ft. Worth, Texas, we attended South Wayside Baptist Church a few minutes from campus and filled with fellow students. There I began to capture the reality of preaching. Some of the elderly ladies, when the clock struck noon, jingled their car keys as an audible warning to the preacher that he was cutting into their cafeteria time! This particular preacher, by the way, had a nasty habit of considering prayer time as opportunity to correct sagging suit pants and other fashion problems while “all eyes are closed.”

Now that I am part of that cafeteria crowd, I understand the purpose of keys. If you are a layperson in your church, thinking that you should break out the truck keys, then give your pastor a link to this blog. Who knows – you might find some extra cafeteria time!

When I started my first pastorate in 1984, you felt you earned your keep by delivering a 35 minute sermon, with three points and an altar call in which one person walked down the isle. The next day at Piccadilly Cafeteria the minister’s group would ask one other, “Did you have any movement?”

The question, “Did you have any movement?” referred to the practice of church members physically walking down the isle at the end of the service to make a commitment of faith. The question “Did you have any movement?” today speaks more to moving the minds and hearts of believers. What is a symphony without movement?

Make it Meaningful. Make it moving. Move on! Try one moving point shared in ten minutes …without notes.

Let’s crawl, walk and run together!

“Lord, Fill my head with useful stuff, and stop me when I’ve said enough!”

Unknown

*”Striving”- Greek ἀγωνίζομαι – agonizomai – transliterated English “agony”- to strive earnestly, to combat in public games

The Encontré DNA Ministry

The Encontré DNA  Ministry – Finding lost migrant children today. This new work would provide hope for migrant children to be reunited with their families. What is needed are faith groups to work with DNA testing companies and the US Government to make resources, testing and databases online.

jesus as shepherd art

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” – Luke 15