a trustworthy statement…
Monday, I had the priviledge of being a part of the ordination of Joey Fink’s ordination; he serves on staff at a Presbyterian church in Wichita, KS, but came to faith and calling through Hope in his younger days. It was a really special an intimate time with them, and I’m excited for he and Nicole’s future in ministry.
During the ordination process, I kept thinking about a passage in 2 Timothy:
It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him;
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2:11-13)
I kept thinking about that idea of enduring. Jeff noted that to endure literally means to outlast what you are facing, and the more I think about it, the more I believe I do a horrible job of teaching endurance as part of the full message of the gospel. 2 Timothy is full of charges from Paul to Timothy, and the call to endure the hardships of ministry may be the most repetitive of those charges:
Faith is hard to have, and true faith will (or must) outlast all that opposes it.
Sometimes we don’t like to think about a life of faith being a call to endure; we’d rather it be a gradual increase of all the things we see to be fair and right for us to have, both materially and otherwise. But life has proven over and over again that it’s never like that in the real world, for Christians or anyone else.
Paul said that these statements are trustworthy. And I love how these statements do not end with a focus on the possibility of failure or denial, but on the faithfulness of God, who cannot deny himself. Those who have lost faith, or maybe feel like they’re losing faith, can rest on this statement: He is faithful. Endure. Outlast. He will not deny those who do not deny him.
If you need prayer in the midst of a tough situation, leave me a comment. I’ll be praying for you.
Learning to Kennel
Over the last two days, I’ve been learning (through trial and error) to crate train Scout. She’s a mixed breed, but part of that mix seems to be border collie, which means she’s smart and learns quickly, and that helps, as I’m not much of a dog trainer at this point. But it’s interesting to read on the dog psychology behind kennel training and how it works.
“Crate training uses a dog’s natural instincts as a den animal. A wild dog’s den is his home, a place to sleep, hide from danger, and raise a family. The crate becomes your dog’s den, an ideal spot to snooze or take refuge during a thunderstorm.”
(taken from the Humane Society’s Website)
Interestingly, the first time I saw a person using crate training, I didn’t understand why an animal would willingly crawl into such a seemingly confining space with such joy. The crate seemed like a small and confining box, a cage that kept the dog controlled. And in some ways, it is that. But to the dog, the crate becomes a refuge, a safe haven, a place of identity and nurturing.
Sometimes I wonder if spiritual disciplines are understood and even experienced in similar ways; from the outside they look confining and controlling, but the depth of identity and nurturing found within them is profound and needed in this world. That perspective is only found as we see ourselves differently. As the dog and not the person (and I use that to illustrate difference, not hierarchy of created order or some form of self-desecration or deprecation). If we have been made new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), we relate differently to the disciplines than the rest of the world…
thoughts?
Here’s a video from the Los Bordos area, where we’ll be going as a team from Hope at the end of July. The food distribute we’re doing in this area can feed families for from 2 to 4 weeks, and provides a great forum for Justin and Ashley to continue to develop relationship with the people in the area as they serve.
If you’d like to contribute to this, drop me a comment and we’ll find a way to make that happen.
VBS, Worship, and the Caught/Taught Debate
This week, I’m leading worship as a part of our Vacation Bible School-esque program here at Hope Church. Each year, our children’s team does an incredible job with designing a program for kids of all ages here. They have a blast, and in the process are taught a lot about the gospel, the mission of God, and worship.
Now I’m pretty sure that this didn’t originate with him, but I heard Tim Hughes once say that worship is something better caught that taught, meaning that the experience of worship often teaches more about worship than simply being told or reading about it. This can be said of pretty much anything: baseball is something better caught than taught (pun!), geometry is something better caught than taught, etc… It emphasizes the experiential over the logical as a tool for learning.
Of course, this sets up somewhat of a false dichotomy and discredits the teaching/study of a subject in general. Teaching (or being taught) is not seen as an experience within itself: I experience being taught in the same way I experience singing a song. It is only the experience itself that is different, not the means of experience.
It also seems to undermine the role of the mind in worship. Worship should involve the whole person, mind, body and soul; and while these may be involved in various ways and degrees, they are all present and active in worship. AND God is concerned with the redemption of them all, so to exclude/emphasize one over the others in something as central to the faith as worship could lead to poor and ill-grounded assumptions about redemption itself.
Perhaps this caught/taught relationship could be clarified through looking at worship as a verb and not a noun, an action and not a subject. What does it mean to worship? Through what we’re doing at VBS, I hope our kids will have caught glimpses of worship through the worship of the people serving in our church, and that those glimpses teach them what it may look like as they grow as worshipers.
The sermon went well yesterday. Each time I preach, I find out how much more preaching I need to do; like anything worth doing, you only gain skills by actually doing it. There may be a podcast link soon, and if so I’ll post it.
With this sermon, I used some of the “skill set” I’ve been developing in seminary over the past few years, and used these things in ways I never had. It’s amazing how training in languages, close reading and contextual understandings bring texts to life (to my understanding of things that is; not in my preaching…haha, I can’t speak to that).
I’m also finding that the one thing that helps me understand things better is drawing visual maps and diagrams of things as I explore them. I know others who mind-map from time to time in their sermon prep (and even just in their personal study), and I’m wondering what other tools some of you may use to help you better understand the structures and development of your thought as you read Scripture. Any thoughts?
Worship Design and Culture, Part 1: Where do we begin?
My friend Chad posited an interesting question concerning the relationship that culture should have in influencing worship design in the local setting. Upon reading this question, I wanted to flesh this out a little, and figured I could begin to do so here.
I bring this up because I am concerned as a worship leader and designer that our congregations, and even more specifically the congregation I serve at Hope, would approach what we do as a congregation with the right relationship with the world around us (and indeed, the world we are a part of). How God interacts with culture matters because it’s the way he interacts with us all. We are creatures of culture, and how God interacts with us in our cultural context matters as we interact with our culture in His name.
Ultimately, I hope to come to a better understanding of what the perspectives on how God and culture relate would flesh out in worship design, and to analyze what we do at Hope and what underlying messages about this relationship we are sending through what we do. So here we go:
Chad bases his question around H. Richard Niebuhr’s five historical perspectives on how God and culture relate to one another:
Christ against Culture. For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.
Christ of Culture. For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit’s encounter with nature.
Christ above Culture. For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.
Christ and Culture in Paradox. For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.
Christ Transforming Culture. For the conversionist, history is the story of God’s mighty deeds and humanity’s response to them. Conversionists live somewhat less “between the times” and somewhat more in the divine “now” than do the followers listed above. Eternity, to the conversionist, focuses less on the action of God before time or life with God after time, and more on the presence of God in time. Hence the conversionist is more concerned with the divine possibility of a present renewal than with conservation of what has been given in creation or preparing for what will be given in a final redemption.
(taken from Wikipedia’s article on Niebuhr)
So here’s question set #1:
Which of these do you see as the most honest (to Scripture) model of how God and culture relate?
Which of these do you see worship in the church most honestly reflecting in your context?
What issues, questions, and thoughts does this initial launch into conversation bring up with you? Are there ways of relating that Niebuhr misses?
"Come, Creator Spirit,
visit the minds of those who are yours;
fill with heavenly grace
the hearts that you have madeYou who are named the Paraclete,
gift of God most high,
living fountain, fire, love
and anointing for the soul.You are sevenfold in your gifts,
you are finger of God’s right hand,
you, the Father’s solemn promise
putting words upon our lips.Kindle a light in our senses,
pour love into our hearts,
infirmities of this body of ours
overcoming with strength secure.The enemy drive from us away,
peace then give without delay;
with you as guide to lead the way
we avoid all cause of harm.Grant that we may know the Father through you,
and come to know the Son as well,
and may we always cling in faith
to you, the Spirit of them both.Amen.
"
“The Father and His Two Sons” by Edward Riojas
I’m starting to look into different art pieces based on the Christian story; there are profound ways that art, iconography, and faith have intersected throughout the ages. This particular painting was one of the first ones that really grabbed my heart when I first saw it.
What about you? What paintings really speak to you?
edit: there’s a great lecture by Riojas on his painting of this work here.
