Christian Education in the Post Pandemic Church

Revelation 2:29
29 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” 

Over the past three years, Carol and I visited over 20 churches in the Verde Valley of Arizona. Conservative – liberal, Baptist-Lutheran, instrumental-noninstrumental, independent-denominational, contemporary-traditional. We learned that churches have acquired a progressive spiritual hearing loss. They have become tone deaf to the needs of the people and lost the ranges needed to stay in tune with the Holy Spirit moving in the world.

This week I came home with a milestone of senior living – hearing aids. My hearing aid provider gave me two assignments: 1)Wear them and 2)Listen to and identify the sounds. Then report back on the experience in a week. He detailed how a lady described the sound of something like cats running on her roof. The audiologist was both perplexed and concerned that perhaps some creature was loose on her roof. Further listening revealed that the sound only occurred when the drier operated. Opening the drier door, she found loose bouncing objects were her roof cats. “That would be a senior moment,” I thought and that “Not an experience I would confess.”

Later that day, after dinner, my turn came. I heard the sound of the scraping of a vinyl record (for those who remember vinyl) when the needle hits the end of track while the record is still spinning. “Sshhh …. sshhh … sshhh.” I set off down the hall in search for the record – looking and turning my ear. It was coming from our tiled hallway. Then it matched my steps … It was my steps! I was dragging my bare feet in a senior shuffle. The Mummy wearing hearing aids. My wife chimed in, “I told you you’ve been dragging your feet!” Now with my new hearing, I am resolved to march like a drum major in a parade and “Pick up those feet!”

Imperceptibly, today’s church has fallen into the shuffle of a listless movement toward no perceptible direction. It is movement without meaning, one step ahead of a fall, wrapped up in its own agenda like the Mummy.

Lon Chaney, Jr. – The Mummy

Audiogram of the Spirit

I ran a Logos Bible software analysis and found this Audiogram of the need for Spiritual Hearing in the church.

Your Scrabble word of day is “epiphonema.” Legendary newsman, Walter Cronkite’s closing line was “And that’s the way it is.” He never intended to use this line but stumbled into it when his producers pressured him to cut time. Jesus ended his teachings with “He who has ears, let him hear.” The Spirit of Jesus, in Revelation, continued the same sign off in His word to the churches.

Or as the late evangelist, Bob Mussmon (Lancaster, PA), would stop mid-sermon and say, “Are you still with me, saints, or have you gone home yet? … Hello? … Hello?” That was his epiphonema, an epiphany but of words.

A City on a Hill … Creates a Steep Driveway

Along our journey to 20 churches, we visited churches situated on hilltops, with vistas that embraced the red rocks of Sedona. These churches sat on highways by which tens of thousands pass each year. Certainly these beacons of faith would stand and icons of spirituality. What we found were churches isolated by their own location. Jesus did not teach “Go sit in a city on a hill.” He taught his disciples on the shores of Lake Gennesaret, in Galilee, how to be present, visible among the people to whom you minister.

Strangely churches become protective of isolation on the hill. “We can’t host an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in our church; we found some cigarette butts in our parking lot last time we tried that.” Churches in isolation can be identified by their “one stringed instrument.” One church used a xylophone as their instrument of worship. Nothing wrong with a xylophone or a Marimba band banging out a relaxing Caribbean mix. Sunday after Sunday … the same instrument, such as a xylophone, will eventually sound like a record needle stuck in a track.

Assignment: Listen to the sounds in your church this Sunday. What are your xylophones? What one step can you take this month to come down from the mountaintop and add some variety? Where can you leave your isolation and be present with people? Perhaps the topics below will open stuffy ears.

ABT – Always Be Teaching

In 1920, on the heels of the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Sunday School Board hired Arthur Flake as its Sunday School Superintendent. Using his principles, the Southern Baptist church became the largest protestant denomination in the United States. Facing post-pandemic declines of 30 percent, the Southern Baptists are rediscovering Flake’s Five Principles:

Know the possibilities. Flake advocated surveying the community to determine what persons might be prospective Sunday School members. Goals were established based on real actionable information.

Enlarge the organization. Flake advocated expanding the organizational structure in anticipation of growth; not just in response to it. Upon encouraging every church to have a class for babies, I’ve heard the same response dozens of times: “But we don’t have any babies.” And you never will if you don’t enlarge the organization in expectation that you will!

Enlist and train leaders. A growing organization must have leaders who are properly enlisted and adequately trained. The typical Sunday School will need to enlist and train about 15 new leaders to staff five new classes that will result in a growth of 50 in attendance.

Provide space. To start new classes or groups, you’ve got to have leaders and a place to meet. To start five new units, you’ll need five “spaces.” Not necessarily rooms. Not necessarily at the church.

GO after the people!  The other four steps don’t matter if you don’t do this one. That’s why Flake started with a survey that produced real names and addresses. Enroll people in the classes.

From Lifeway Research

Samaritan Spoken Here

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." - Matthew 11:15

No, I don’t intend to offend but, like an ear adjusting to hearing aid’s new sound, it will take adjustment while your church’s spiritual mind adjusts and embraces some new highs and lows of ministry. Ready to hear? … Or have you gone home yet?

Pastor Jim

We can take Flake’s Formula and apply it, beyond Sunday School, to the church’s ministry and mission as a whole:

Consider the Possibilities

Before Sunday comes, visit that modern Nazareth melting pot – your local Walmart. These are the people of your ministry. Watch them come and go, how they act. What are their ages? What are their needs? Jesus himself ministered by “Walking Around” and turned on his spiritual hearing.

Who has been ostracized? Disenfranchised? Who is in need? Ask your key leaders to watch the local news nightly for a week and ask, “Who is in need?” and “Where are they hurting?” Gather together on Sunday and discuss what you can do as a church to meet those needs?

In my last church, we learned that local churches, offended by the Boy Scouts’ position on gay and transgender leaders and scouts, broke their ties with the organization and ended their use of church facilities. Our church reached out to the orphaned troop and offered use of the facilities.

One memorable experience I had was shoulder deep in mud with two colonels from Luke Air Force Base – one over F-16 training and the other head of F-16 maintenance. We nicked a church water line on a son’s Eagle project and the three of us lay shoulder to shoulder in the mud trying to locate punctured line. The pergola was erected, the Eagle badge awarded, and a lasting imprint of the church’s positive impact in the community remains.

Our church combined its Confirmation class with the Scout “God and Country” badge. We invited parents to sit in the class. Church membership was not required. This created a wonderful dialog in faith between Scouts from various faith groups.

Enlarge the Organization

Hide it under a bushel? No!
I'm going to let it shine
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, all the time, let it shine.

This is the decision to act on what the Spirit is telling you. If you hear God’s direction in a ministry, it’s imperative to gain the agreement and support of the pastor and key church staff and lay leaders. This does not mean you have every detail worked out or that you have a 5 year pro forma business plan for your church board. Rather, “We have heard God’s voice and agree to step in this direction.”

Enlist and Train Leaders

For our DIY (Handyman) Ministry, we enrolled participants on via sign-up sheets. We began the work day with breakfast burritos and training stations for what projects we tackled that morning. We fed them, we trained them, and we always stopped on or before the agreed time.

Our DIY Ministry’s projects included: installation of entry ramps for seniors, home plumbing repair, painting, church pew repair, dusting, and church painting.

Pastor Jim’s Maxim: “Never train without providing snacks and drinks.” In one large wedding I did, the bride and groom wanted to greet each of the hundreds of guests before any snack, food and drink were served in the hall. Following the service, I changed out of my robe, greeted the co-officiating pastor and meandered to the reception hall. The atmosphere was that of a morgue. People sat stone-faced across each other at round tables. I elbowed my way into the kitchen and begged a glass of iced tea before departing the hall.

“More iced tea, please?”

People have a nervous energy and need something in their hands or to eat and drink in group settings.

Provide Space

The enclosed carport of the old parsonage became the thrift-store, selling high quality second-hand goods with proceeds going to missions. As executive pastor, I not only bought my own treasures but found that “thrift store ministry” created a fellowship that revolved around meaningful service.

What little work was required in enclosing the carport and air conditioning the same, has been rewarded seven-fold over the years.

Please don’t be offended when I tell you churches can be stingy! Stingy with their space … hoarding of their resources.

Consider for a moment all of the real estate that churches sit on in the Phoenix metro area. These properties are used once a week … for an hour. Meanwhile, as pandemic eviction moratoriums expire, families are thrown from their homes. Rents are beyond reach, requiring nearly more qualification than a home purchase.

How can the church be involved in a housing ministry, Habitat for Humanity or senior apartment construction? (Not a rhetorical question. I don’t have the answer for your church). Historic Los Arcos United Methodist Church, in Scottsdale, built its own senior apartments directly next to the church, operating under a separate church sponsored incorporation. In the Phoenix metro area, if a senior moves to an apartment 10 miles away but can’t drive, she might as well live in a palm frond hut in Paraguay. Isolation and loneliness are real and present dangers for seniors. The senior apartments continue to serve while the Scottsdale church faded into history like those churches of Revelation. I felt privileged to have served in the Desert Southwest Conference with Rev. Tim Lusk, an insightful pastor of this church.

 “Los Arcos United Methodist. Built 1063 – 1966 and designed by Cartmel & Rossman.Derivative of the work of the great Mexican architect-engineer Felix Candela, a true innovator in thin-shell paraboloid concrete structures of the time.” – Walt Lockley
Hacienda De Los Arcos, Scottsdale, AZ

Hear and Go!

What is the Spirit saying to your church? To you? Perhaps that word will transcend the footprint of your church today, reaching far into the future. Spiritual ears, like hearing aids, are of no use unless worn. One example in practice was Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, Clarkdale, AZ, who heard God’s whisper to provide new sports shoes for community children returning to school. Last Sunday they invited children present to lay hands on the shoes while the congregation, in a responsive liturgy, blessed over seventy pairs !

-Pastor Jim

“Overstuffed Sunday”: Situational Awareness

It was Christmas Cantata Sunday. The congregation felt the energy of the choir and orchestra guests visiting from a local university. The choir stood on both sides of the church and launched the worship experience with rendition that would give Handel chills. As the pastor processed in to start the service, she didn’t see a shadow following her threatening to devour the benefits of the visiting musicians and choir.

Image from Tony Hughes’ blog “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”

What could possibly, with the orchestra, visiting musicians, choir turn the sanctuary into a “shark tank”? The truth -the pastor brought her own shark into worship experience. Her own attempt to prove that she does effective work as a pastor provided the fuel for her lack of her situational awareness that may shorten her tenure at the church. {Disclaimer: Today’s blog is a composite of experiences over the last twenty churches visited. This does not single out any one male, female or a particular church or denomination. It is a common problem.}

Following the the enraptured choir processional, the pastor that Sunday marched the isle with a full manuscript sermon, a children’s sermon, a notated sharing of prayer requests and pastoral readings through the cantata. After the congregation sat, the pastor rattled through a whole page of church announcements.

Tony Hughes, in his blog “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory” wrote, “So, how do sales people manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after they’ve done so much good work to develop an opportunity and establish value? 

How do pastors miss the cue? In the above worship service, the pastor failed to notice that the orchestra stopped smiling during the pastoral announcements. While the congregation appreciated the naming of Brother Smith’s upcoming hernia repair and the Sister Mary’s holiday depression, the orchestra sat stone-faced.

During the pastor’s children sermon to three children, the orchestra and visiting choir sat as silent observers. Pastor and her assistant spelled JOY out of candy canes then asked the children to explain what the letters meant. The kids answered, “Joy?”

“Yes!”, said the pastor, explaining that each child will receive a chocolate candy cane. Then pastor answered a child who asked, “Do these candy canes really taste like chocolate?” “Yes, they taste like chocolate.”

The pastor held a girl’s hand as she walked the child back to her pew. Upon arrival the girl did not want to be seated; so, the pastor shuffled the girl forward on isle to be seated with the pastor. Meanwhile, the choir and orchestra sat silent.

Finally, the announcements, children’s sermon and prayer requests over, the orchestra launched into a Christmas medley of classic hymns with the choir. On the front row, unseen by the pastor, the lead violinist smiled in the joy of worship. We waited so long in the service to see that smile.

Why do pastors lose their off switch?

The Apostle Paul wrote, “I have the right to do anything,” you say–but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”–but not everything is constructive (I Cor 10:23 NIV).

Pastors have Not Learned the Art of Reading Their People

Pastors learn to read their sermon notes so they don’t get lost, but they’re not taught to read the congregation so the people are not lost.

Pastors learn to read their sermon notes so they don’t get lost, but they’re not taught to read the congregation so the people are not lost.

Let’s do a mini-survey. When you last attended church, did the pastor’s animated slide presentation (15 slides and a 12 Bible passages) stop when the point was made and the congregation was moved or did he plow on to the last slide? At that point the sermon turned dry as an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey.

This process of “covering the material” is the clergy version of “You can’t leave the table until the plate is empty.” This leaves everyone staring blankly and wondering when will it end? This is why in other blogs, I have been adverse to “fill-in-the-blank notes” as they guarantee attempts to “cover the material.” As. St. Paul said, “Not everything is beneficial.”

The next culprit – slide presentations lend themselves toward “material covering” sermons. If your goal is “material covering,” save it for your quilting ministry. Over the last half-dozen churches we visited, the pastors have quoted from ten to twelve different Bible passages as though quantity will prove that the pastor said something that stuck.

Pastors Lack the Directed Attention for Those Off Task

You may say, “Jim, I know I’ve been covering material. I don’t know what to do to engage my people. I can see their eyes glazing but what can I do?”

Bruce H. Wilkinson, Founder of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, wrote the forward in Dr. Howard Hendricks’ “Teaching to Change Lives.” One day in seminary Bruce tested the master professor — he just stared out the window.

Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive

Dr. Hendricks, rather than just “covering the material”, walked out from behind the desk.

Wilkinson stared out the window.

Dr. Hendricks drew terrific charts and told jokes. Lots of jokes

Still Wilkinson stared out the window.

Finally, three minutes into this, Dr. Hendricks ran down the aisle and screamed, “Wilkinson! What on earth are you looking at?”

Wilkinson apologized but didn’t tell Dr. Hendricks about the “little experiment” until years later. I recommend “Teaching to Change Lives” as an excellent tool for pastors.

Secrets of Directed Attention

My wife, Carolyn, is a retired elementary principal of an excelling school and a former orchestra teacher. She said the master teachers know how to speak to the class while tapping their nails on the desk of a child who is “looking out the window” or opening the book of a student to the correct page while talking with the class about the subject. The master teacher directs attention through their awareness of each child in the room and that child’s needs.

Permission

Pastor Jim gives you permission starting this Sunday …

… Permission to end your sermon at the height of learning

… Permission to use only three of your fifteen Bible verses

… Permission to leave your people wanting more of God and of your message.

At the beginning of your service notes write, “Read the people.” Arrive early in the Sanctuary and begin reading by what the atmosphere is telling you. Is the air conditioning set right? New batteries in your microphone (because you know the old-timer at the sound booth likes to run batteries until they die – with your sermon)? Paper in the restrooms? Coffee urns full? Creamer and sweetener stocked?

In the mid-service, “Read the people.” Are they with you? Are you dragging every verse out of every hymn as though you are leading a funeral dirge?

Mid-sermon and in your notes write – “Read the People.” Plan an “impromptu moment” in every service in which you give God room to work rather than just your “covering the material.”

Pause before you begin your sermon … Read the people. Are they ready? Are you ready? Give a moment of silence before you launch.

Mid-sermon and in your notes write – “Read the People.” Plan an “impromptu moment” in every service in which you give God room to work rather than just your “covering the material.”

Think back to your childhood when you watched “Superman,” “Batman” or “Lost in Space”- episodes which all ended with cliffhangers … “To Be Continued!”

Take your people reading skills to the next level. At your welcome booth, give your church guests a two part perforated response card

Take your people reading skills to the next level. At your welcome booth, give your church guests a two-part perforated response card –

Scan the QR with your smartphone to try the survey Pastor Jim wrote to help pastors read their people. Caution: Don’t read the responses on Mondays. Learn from them and share with your
worship leaders.

“You know, I’m just vanilla … but remember … vanilla is the world’s favorite flavor!”

Dr. C.W. Brister, Christian Ministry Professor

Vanilla Extract

You may say, “Jim, is there hope for me and my teaching or preaching?” Looking back, I have made every misstep described above. I remember my first day in Christian Ministry class with Dr. C.W. Brister, Chair of Pastoral Ministry at SWBTS seminary. When I sat in a chair to the side and just behind the professor in the packed classroom, he asked me to move to a chair within his line of sight. Dr. Brister, gentle-spoken and slow-paced, said, “You know, I’m just vanilla … but remember … vanilla is the world’s favorite flavor!” A few weeks later as I walked late to attend chapel at max capacity, a most dynamic voice spoke over the narthex speakers. The voice coaxed and prodded the students, like a lifeguard tossing a life preserver. As I opened the door, to my surprise, as guest preacher that day stood Mr. Vanilla! Dr. Brister that day held each seminarian captive in his line of sight and let me know there was room even for me in God’s service.

Just Vanilla,

Pastor Jim

Hint: If you try the SurveyMonkey.com free version of a “Church Experience Feedback Survey,” turn multiple responses to “ON” and no limit to responses. Create a SurveyMonkey.com account and copy our “Church Experience Feedback Survey” questions to set up your own survey. Change your settings as described below. This will allow multiple responses from the same device – great for a kiosk.

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 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.