The Bible and Missions

     Helen Montgomory was more than an author. She was a public offical, missionary, scholar, political activist and preacher (Rochester Regional Library Council 2000). Living at the turn of the 20th century dramatically effected her worldview, especially in the area of justice. I think this plays a large part in her perspective on the Bible and Misisons. She spent most of her life on missional projects and her education, culture, and gender must have made the missioal motifs of justice, God’s heart for the oppressed, and the nations leap off of the page.

     Her thesis is clearly claims that the Bible is concerned first and foremost with God’s mission (Page 7). Her thesis goes so far as to claim that when one reads the scriptures, “the missionary message is inescapable.” (Page 7)

     Montgomory remains true to her predominant modern culture by presenting a well constructed linear presentation to support her thesis. She shows the reader what she will say in outline form (Page 5-6; 52-53) before each chapter. As she begins to unpack her arguments she opens with definitions of various missinal motifs and key concepts (Page 8). Her prose is lively and it conveys the feeling that she strongly believes in what she’s writing.
     Then she gets to work. In he following secsions she highlights in broad strokes the missional motifs in the major sections of the Hebrew Bible. She strengthens her claims by admitting that she cannot mention every motif and every example because there are too many for a brief treatment. This concession only helps her declarations because it makes the reader wonder how many other examples there are to support her thesis. Montgomery repeats the same pattern for the Christian Testament in the second section, organized first by section or genre and stopping at various high points of each book.

     I must respond to Montgomory’s thesis as directly as I can. To put it bluntly, She had me at Goethe. Her diction and writting style was thoughtful, but not too thick to take down. I did make liberal use of the dictionary feature in my PDF reader though. To analyze this book after the ML 520 seminar is not much of a fair fight. I came into this assignment with some strong preconcieved ideas, so I must admit my bias.

     I was particularly drawn to her treatment of Micha where she highlights his distaste for as she calls it “formal religion” (Page 35). Working in a Mega Church causes a tension inside me as I reconcile my weekly activities. I want so badly to make sure that I’m pleasing the Lord, but the seduction of performing or working to make things look good is an easy pattern to fall into. This book is familiar to me, but she highlighted something new to me in the previous sections. I never consicously considred that most the Hebrew prophets wrote about cultures similar to mine. I knew it, but the reality never sunk into my heart in a way that got my attention.Taking Micha’s words to heart, I am asking God to continually “purify” my religion and make it an offering that will please him.

     This book will compliment shifts in living and thinking Marie and I are already attempting to make. We converse about what kind of children we think God wants us to raise and what kind of family God wants us to become. My preaching and teaching topics are also more missional in the kinds of words I use. Many of the topics are the same. However, I approach them from a different perspective of God’s mission. For a while, I will use this book as a resource for preaching. When I’m preaching on a text, I’ll make sure to glance at Montgomory’s comments about it, as to avoid proof texting or justifying my mission (Page 7).

References Cited

Rochester Regional Library Council: Western New York Suffragists. 2000. “Helen Montgomory” http://winningthevote.org/HBMontgomery.html

Gadgets that are helping with youth ministry

Here are a list of programs, apps, and gadgets that I've been using for youth ministry lately. I hope they help you too.

Do you do presentations for your sermons? I like to, but Power Point gets so old.

• Check out Prezi, it's great. I love the nonlinear style of presentation as the "camera" pans across the canvas. It's free, and even more free if you have an .edu e-mail address.

• I also discovered Keynote furring my Fuller classes. It made a little bit more sense to me than power point. The animations are pretty sweet as well.
  
  

• Another good option is slide rocket. This, like Prezi is a web based presentation software. I really like the google app for it. 

• Finally, this note taking software coupled with the getting things done method is making sense of my life. For anyone who is spinning a lot of plates, I highly suggest Evernote. It syncs across computer and laptop formats and can be organized through a tagging system instead of folders, which I prefer. Another great thing about this powerful tool is the price: FREE!

What's Cookin'?

A few years ago (2003) I went to Rob Bell's Poets//Prophets//Preachers conference about the art of writing a sermon. The core idea of the conference was, "becoming the kind of person who has something to say."

Before attending, I was terrified of preaching, despite doing it for nearly 3 years prior. The idea of not scripting out every word of a sermon, lesson, or teaching intimidated me so much because I came from an acting background. I thought somehow the words mystically came to the preacher during the teaching moment.

I learned that isn't true and in one of the last sessions we talked about the concept of 'radar.' This concept simply put is collecting ideas in a reliable format that is easily accessible and reviewable. Just think, if you have/find/see one idea a day and capture it, you have 30 ideas! After a while those ideas start to connect with each other. I have tons of files from conversations I've had, movies I've watched, ideas that came to me in the shower, and so on and so forth. This discipline helps my creative rhythm so much. Sitting down on Saturday night to write a sermon for Sunday morning is no way to live. I'm just not wired like that.

What sort of process do you use for collecting teaching ideas? Once you get good ideas, what sort of organization method do you use in preparing the material you are going to teach on?

Video Updates

I apologize for the complications with the videos I've been posting lately. I'm learning to blog from my phone for better youth ministry updates. The issue should be resolved by next week!

Today I'll be putting the finishing touches on a presentation I'll be giving tonight at Shoreline Leadership College based on Gordon Fee's book, Reading the Bible For All It's Worth.  We're trying to equip people for significant ministry in our community. So many are hungry to get into the "meaty" stuff of the Bible. I could never go into all of this book in one session. Tonight's class will be an introduction to Hermeneutics and then an example of how to do it with the book of Ephesians.

Sneak Preview

I'm speaking in "big church" tomorrow night. I'm showing this video and tying it to Philippians 2.

Instant Competition from 50YearPlan on Vimeo.

I am SUBVERSIVE.

A couple of years ago I came across a book called, The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson. I've read it several times since then. From this book, I've taken three words to shape the kind of person, the kind of pastor I want to be. Perhaps they will challenge you to rediscover the way of Jesus too!

The three words that have changed my life are:

1. Unbusy
2. Subversive
3. Apocalyptic

We'll get to unbusy and apocalyptic later. I remember Mark Steele saying once that comedy is subversive in nature. I had to look up the word because that's the first time I'd ever heard it. For me it means something close to revolutionary or counter cultural. I want to be subversive and you should too because followers of Jesus are for the most part, out of place in western culture. For too long, people who follow Jesus have been placed on the shelf alongside other innocuous and irrelevant pieces of western culture. We live in a universe that is breaking down. Pain, disorder, and entropy are normal and I believe that the followers of Jesus are supposed to be the subversive presence of Jesus in our world. 

Jesus was subversive by telling stories that challenged the cultural norms of his day. I'm working under the assumption that pain, disorder, and entropy are our cultural norms. He called out leaders for hypocrisy. He challenged the Roman way of life with the kingdom of God. He stirred the pot, but not merely for the sake of controversy. He was hellbent on the rebuilding and restoration of His father's creation, and we should be too. 

How can we be a subversive presence in our communities that compel people to receive Jesus' love for them? If we are to convince them that there is a better way, how? The methods available to us are not political, militaristic, or big shows of power. How can our lives come close to resembling something that is even close to Jesus?

Communion

I really enjoy our Shoreline tradition of communion on the first Wednesday of every month. We bring all of our children's and youth ministries together the the adults for a night of worship songs, a few brief thoughts about communion, and then we take the elements together. The band is represented by ministry to every age at shoreline and we also take a moment to highlight people who serve in various areas of our church. Tonight I'm the one offering up a few thoughts about communion. It's not a full fledged 30 minute lesson or anything, but such an important moment deserves some thought.

As I began to reflect on this ancient sacrament of the Christian Church I thought back to how it was first explained to me.  The first time I remember taking communion was at our wonderful Wesleyan church in Park, Florida. My mom took a moment out of service to explain to m Pinellas y why we take it and what to do before, during, and after taking the elements. Any awkwardness was further alleviated by the method our church took it. Once everyone had the elements, the pastor would give instructions on when to eat and when to drink . We literally ate it at the same time. It was such a holy and sacred moment, even recognizable by a nine year old. I knew communion was something people should treat with reverence and awe.

In college, I wondered for the first time, "why bread? Why wine?"I knew that the world was broken. Humanity needed a savior and a way to approach God. I knew that God loved his creation so much, but "eat my flesh, drink my blood?" Really?  Was Jesus merely in need of a quick object lesson at dinner? Did he decide to create the holy sacraments out of thin air?  Of course not, but as a westerner I had no understanding of the deep subtext going on at the last supper and of all the meaningful layers of God's plan communicated through this ceremony.

Tonight I'll talk briefly about ancient near eastern contracts and the bloodpath God instructed Abraham to make In Genesis 15. In this passage we see God using a form of contract that would have been very familiar to Abraham since the narrative is set in the ancient near east. Slaughtered animals from the herd,  flock, and birds were placed on either side of a trough. The parties entering into a contract or covenant would walk through the path as a way of saying, "if I break my word, you can walk through my blood like this." Imagine if we had this sort of thing as a part of our wedding ceremonies at Shoreline! Abraham sees this and gets scared to death because he knows that there is no way he can keep up his end of the bargain with God. Abraham knows that he will fail God. So God in the form of a pot on fire, walks through the trough a second time.

What an incredible setup for the eucharist! Humanity did break the covenant, many times the last time I checked. Thankfully God walked through a second time. He did more than just walk through, God spilled His own blood to renew the covenant between Him and his creation. Our sins are more than covered, we have been more than merely forgiven. Through Christ's sacrifice, God has made and is making us whole!

That is why, "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."

Closet Tongue Talkers Unite!

Few subjects conjure up strong images and opinions as Speaking in Tongues. I’ve personally found that using my prayer language is incredibly beneficial. That being said, I’ve still had a back and forth/up and down relationship with this aspect of my spiritual journey. If there exists an island for theological misfits, I belong there. I’m fortunate enough to belong to a family with Assemblies of God grandparents, Southern Baptist “Step” Dad, in addition to being raised in a Wesleyan Methodist church and schooled at Oral Roberts University. I’ve heard both ends of the spectrum from people I respect very much. Some say you are less of a Christian if you don’t, some say you are less of a Christian of you do. Of course, neither is true!

I came across this sermon podcast last week and found it to be an incredibly helpful review. Pastor Ed Gungor takes a look at this topic from a gracious perspective. Please give it a listen. It’s not long. Let me know what you think.

Onramp To Discipleship?

Here is our first attempt at making discipleship tools more available to our youth and young adults. Our hope is that these videos encourage our community towards real relationships with people that will help them grow.

Memories

Ok...so this is a wee bit lame...but I want to see what you guys come up with. Make me laugh or cry...or ignore...whatever.

Leave one memory that you and I had together.
It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember.
Don't send a message, leave a comment on here.
Next, re-post this as “memories" in your notes and see how many people leave a memory about you.

Book Flood

I've been going through a dry spell when it comes to reading. Part of me really misses the time I had in Japan to absorb so many ideas from books and pod casts. My grandmother gave me some book money, so I went wild on Amazon's used books. Thanks MIMI!!!!!! I've eyeballed most of these since Rob Bell's Poets//Prophets//Preachers conference in 2004. It's taken me since then to get through his suggested reading list. I'm a little more than 3/4 through it.

Here's what I bought.

If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Phillip Gulley

Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel by Brian McLaren

Exodus: The Traditional Hebrew Text With the New Jps Translation

Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler

Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Sketches of Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim

Men's Prayer Breakfast

One of our junior high voluntees spoke at the men this morning and it was so great. Kevin is a great man, great youth worker and a great father. I wanna be like him!

Today he spoke on the importance of being connected to Jesus and not looking back at our old life. It is an honor to serve with this guy.

How I misjudged Joyce Meyer

I'm pretty skeptical of televangelists and politicians. When I found out that Joyce Meyer was going to be speaking at the INTEGRITY Leadership Ministries conference I was a little confused, but I also have a bigger distrust of the media. I thought I'd just listen to her for myself and I was not prepared for what she had to say.

She gave a passionate call to action in the area of social justice. She encouraged local churches to address the CAUSES of poverty, slavery, and the sex trade (human trafficking).

I was prepared for her informal style and some nuggets of wisdom from her many years in the ministry. I didn't think I'd be challenged and moved to act.

I am a fan now...not an uncritical one though. In the future, I will not be as quick to offer my opinions.

Craving Pity

In the morning we are continuing our teaching series on how to get along with families. We took a couple of weeks to talk about parents and this week we will focus on how to get along with siblings. Cain and Abel seemed like a good place to start for this one. The only thing I'm going to teach them is not to compare themselves to their siblings. I'm also going to tell only children to listen up because they need to learn not to compare themselves to others too. I picked up Biblical Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin to brush up on the story and to get some extra commentary on the story.

I appreciated his observation of Cain never saying that he was sorry. He never even responded to G-d's rebuke. Rabbi Telushkin connected that with a quote from Isaac Bashevis "People who don't show pity to others, crave it for themselves."