1^st Sunday in June (1 Corinthians 12,13,14 and Luke 21:1-4)

June still remains the “wedding month”. The church, however, is losing its status as the “wedding place”. More and more couples are planning “destination weddings”. They are incorporating their wedding into their vacation plans: traveling to exotic or romantic places and recruiting a minister or religious leader to officiate at the place of their choosing. The honeymoon was once the afterthought of the wedding; now the wedding is the afterthought of the honeymoon.

Nevertheless, if the Bible is read during the wedding ceremony, the most common scripture will still be 1 Corinthians 13. The emphasis will be placed on loving being “patient and kind”, and “not insisting on its own way”, and “believing, hoping and enduring all things”. The emphasis will not be place on “seeing in a glass darkly”, or “becoming an adult and giving up childish ways”. Pagan weddings are filled with confidence and certainty, even though they usually end in divorce; and they are surrounded by childhood fantasies and dreams, even though the couple is already pregnant with their first child.

The fundamental disconnect of the Gospel and the pagan wedding is that the love defined by the Gospel is anything but romantic. Paul is not writing about the love between a man and woman, but about the love between a Christian and God. That love is defined not by relativities, but by absolutes. Christians loving God means absolute trust, absolute surrender, absolute confidence, even in the face of radical evil; God loving Christians means absolute grace, absolute mercy, and absolute acceptance, even in the face of sin.

Christian love for other people in the world means that Christians first and foremost offer Christ. Christ is the pearl without price. Christ is the means through which anyone can participate in the “absoluteness” of God’s love.

It matters little when you get married, or where you get married. What matters is that Christ be at the center of the marriage.

Team Meditation: Luke 21:1-4

Giving It All You've Got 

Boundaries are a good thing.  Or so we're told.  And I suppose it's a good thing to know what's appropriate and what's not; when to tread and when to remain motionless; when to speak and when to be still.  But when it comes to ministry, boundaries have been erected in uncertain places.  Take the widow's example in this week's reading.  And therapist worth her/his salt would point out that she obviously didn't have a good sense of boundaries.  And pastor worth their MDiv would conclude the same.  Our sense of self-preservation demand that we take care of ourselves first and foremost - and current wisdom certainly agrees: "If you don't take care of yourself first, you can't effectively take care of others" and "If you don't love yourself first, you can't love your neighbor."  In fact, those who have these boundary issues are often mislabeled co-dependent. 

Over the years, more and more ministry leaders have bought into the world's boundary philosophy.  Don't take ministry home, mind your hours, church at church and home at home are all recurrent themes we are taught in seminary and in turn both teach and model to the faith community.  Never mind that's nothing like what Jesus taught.  Instead of retrieving one or both of the mites to return to the widow, he commented that she had given it all she had.  When the devoted son wanted to bury his father, Jesus "heartlessly" replied to get over it and get on with it.  And he made that harsh pronouncement that if anyone didn't give up everything they had, they couldn't be his disciple (Luke 14:33).  Look after others' interests before our own needs is a tough pronouncement that's contrary to the wisdom of both popular and church cultures.

Where do you draw the line? 

Where did Jesus?

Bill T-B

Worship Theme: 1 Corinthians 12-14

WARNING: This week's Worship Theme is focused on a particular micro culture: Men.  If your church is like the majority of churches in North America, finding this particular micro culture within the walls of your church is becoming increasingly difficult.  In fact, according to Barna, the fastest growing micro culture within the realm of the de-churched is men.  We are leaving the church in droves.  There are lots of reasons for this, but probably the primary one, if truth be told, is that the current church climate does a better job at talking the language of women.

Guys watch guy movies because they reach down and touch the root of our biology.  As John Eldredge points out, there's a masculine core within men that cries out for and an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to win (okay, every woman reading this has winced - but read Eldredge's Wild at Heart before passing judgment).  Want to get a man excited and ready to charge the gates of hell to rescue the perishing?  Then don't read 1 Corinthians 13 and relate it to wedding vows.  In fact, if you read "The Love Chapter" aloud in church, you'll probably lose the interest and attention of 98.9% of the men sitting in the pews.  Why?  Because we don't relate.  It's why we'd rather watch Harrison Ford in Patriot Games than in Sabrina.

And it's why you should preach 1 Corinthians 13.  But not as Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Marriage but was Too Much of a Guy to Ask.  Instead, read it just like Tom suggests above.  This is a description of the "love" that God has for us and that God expects us to return.  It's about sacrifice.  It's about protection.  It's about trust.  And ultimately, for us guys, it's not about sports' metaphors or even pandering to our masculine needs.  It's about a vision of love that inspires us to the willingness to give it everything we've got - right down to our own death on the cross.

Bill T-B

Worship Design

Reaching the guy in the pew in the contemporary church has become a challenge.  Gone from the hymnals are all those rousing guy-inspiring songs like Onward Christian Soldiers only to be replaced with Jesus, You Are Beautiful to Me.  If following Jesus is supposed to give us a full and meaningful life, why is it that when we scan the faces of the men in our sanctuaries, mostly they just look bored.  Where's the adventure in the faith?  Where is our quest for a holy grail?  Men need something to live for - and that only comes into focus when we figure out what we're willing to die for.  Our scripture passage this week could present that very reason - if presented right.

Consider opening the worship with guy-music.  Leave Jesus, Meek and Mild for some other Sunday.  This week choose songs that inspire and/or get the blood pumping.  Consider Victory Chant; Lord, Reign in Me; or even Onward Christian Soldiers (you can find it in a hymnal marked "antique").   If you're daring, consider some secular songs like Knockin' on Heaven's Door or if that's too risky, try Amazing Grace sung to the tune of Knockin' on Heaven's Door.  Then show a clip that shows what you're going to be talking about - before you read 1 Corinthians 13.  Consider showing a clip from Ransom.  In this flick, Tom and Kate Mullen's son is kidnapped and the villains demand a ransom.  Tom (Mel Gibson) is convinced the kidnappers have no interest in sparing the boy, and so in a daring announcement, he goes on television and offers the ransom to anyone who will take out the evil doers and return his son.  Use the clip of Gibson making his television announcement.  Alternatively, you could use the trailer from John Q.  Here, John Quincy Archibald takes matters in his own hands when he discovers his son needs a heart transplant and his insurance company won't cover it.  Either of these will not only get the interest of the guys, it's pretty much what we'd want to do deep inside.  And it's pretty much what Jesus did - he put his own life on the line in the name of love.

The key to reaching this micro culture is to speak to the emotions - not the touchy feely ones, but the near-dormant need today's guys feel deep down inside that is yearning to be released.  The need to have a cause greater than even life itself.  The church has far too long asked the men of the church to chair committees and teach Sunday school instead of asking us to brave ship wreck and viper strikes on our quest to rescue the Macedonians who are pleading for aid.  This week, offer the men of the church something worth dying for so that they can live.

Bill T-B

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2^nd Sunday in June (Micah 6 and Luke 10:25-37)

Today there is a story on AOL about a Harvard research project that “proves” that happiness peaks at a $40,000 income. Of course, by the time you read this, inflation will have increased the amount and contextual indicators will have changed the definition of “happiness”. Indeed, we are left wondering just what the criteria for “happiness” should be. The bottom line, however, is that there is more happiness to be gained increasing your personal income to $40,000 than there is in earning the next $40,000, $1 M, or even more. Presumably you have enough money to cover the necessities for survival, an enough left over to be generous toward friends and have a little discretionary money for yourself.

The Bible wrestles with this question a great deal. How much is enough? At what point to I count myself a success? When can I reasonably conclude that I (and my family) are OK?

The Bible cannot answer that question, because it is the wrong question. If wealth were the measure of happiness, the answer must paradoxically be “always” and “never”. People can be happy no matter how little money they have; and people will never be happy no matter how much money they have. There is a connection between happiness and wealth … but it is not about my happiness, and it is not determined by the accumulation of wealth.

It’s really about the happiness and wealth of “the other”. Who is “the other”? Anyone who is not yourself. The more you give to others, the more you can make them happy. The more you invest in the justice for others, the happier they will be. The more you invest in kindness to others, the happier they will be. The more you invest in humbling yourself before others, the happier they will be.

It’s a pretty good bet that the actions of the Good Samaritan made the man beaten on the roadside happier; it probably made the innkeeper happier. But did it make the Samaritan happier? The Bible does not say. Perhaps it made him happy; perhaps when the Samaritan got to his own destination and didn’t have enough money to buy dinner he felt miserable.

Could it be that happiness really isn’t the point? Perhaps all Christians should ever seek is to be faithful?

Team Meditation: Luke 10:25-37

"Who is my neighbor?" asks the scribe, looking to justify himself. 

"Who is my neighbor?" asks the chemical manufacturing company looking to build the next plant in El Salvador.

"Who is my neighbor?" asks the television programmer choosing the fall lineup.

"Who is my neighbor?" asks the church board as they look at the results of a local demographics study that reveals their affluent, though declining, Anglo church is suddenly located in a community of economically challenged ethnic diversity.

The decisions we make affect more than ourselves - but know that they will affect you deeply.  The last thing the scribe expected Jesus to say was that his neighbor was the heretical Samaritan scum.  The last thing the chemical manufacturer wants to hear is that the world is their neighbor - and that they will be held responsible for the environmental clean-up from substandard safeguards.  The last thing the television programmer wants to hear is that their neighbor is the six-year-old who will be watching Jackass - The Movie during primetime and will set their house on fire copying one of the stunts.  And the last thing the church board wants to hear is that their neighbor is the family who lives in a one bedroom apartment across the street - the undocumented Latino woman with four children and her husband who has turned to alcohol because he couldn't find work enough to feed his family either in Mexico or in the U.S.

We live in a society where we don't know our neighbors - and most of our churches have to use a demographic report to discover who lives in their changing community because they've maintained a cozy   separation from the people who actually reside in their neighborhood.  Reaching out to that neighborhood can be painful.  It may mean we have to give up our preferences for hymns (or praise music) in order to reach the real neighborhood.  It may mean we have to share our sacred space with people who don't look like us.  Or act like us.  Or eat like us.  Or even speak the same language as us.  It may even mean that they get to use the building at the high holy hour on Sunday at 11 o'clock. 

Like the Good Samaritan, we may have to give up some of our hard earned cash in order to rescue the perishing around us.  It may not make us happy, but it may help us become faithful.

Bill T-B

Worship Design: Amos 6

For the average person in the pew, Christianity plays only a minor role in their work-a-day world.  Decisions they are faced with, conversations they have, dilemmas they must solve all come and go without so much as referencing their faith.  Now, this might be okay for those folks who have so internalized their faith's core beliefs that all their words, thoughts, and deeds well up from solid spiritual center.  But for the average person in the pew, faith is an addition to life, not the center. 

Amos' words are a direct address to each one of us in our vocational life.  He reminds us that amassing a fortune is not the point.  Paul warned Timothy that many in the faith fall into temptation and are trapped while pursuing riches (1 Timothy 6:9-10).  Amos' words pretty well spells out the temptation to put profit over people in detail.  Cheating the customer, lying to cover it up, oppressive practices, and then going to church, putting a check in the offering plate, and rationalizing their behaviors away.  And how does God respond?  Keep your money.  Don't bother coming to church.  What God's really interested in is a faith that dictates ethics and morality.

Religion is faith put into practice - whether at church, at home, or in the workplace.  It's meant to do more than inform our behavior, it's meant to mold it.  This week's passage provides a context for asking the question: "Are your decisions motivated by your faith or by your profit margin?"

To bring this topic home, consider using the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  The clip to use is the one towards the end of the movie when Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is about to be arrested after his Cousin Eddie kidnaps Mr. Shirley, Clark's employer.   Shirley then goes into an explanation of what happens when an employer looks only at the bottom line rather than at the way their actions affect others.

A different clip to use, one that highlights difficult, but integrous decisions, is found in the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance, again towards the end of the movie, when Rannulph Junah (Matt Damon) accidentally bumps the golf ball and calls a penalty on himself.  This scene generates a good bit of drama as a number of folks, including the referee, try to convince Juhah to not call the penalty.  Again, a great scene that illustrates difficult, but encouraging ethics.

Bill T-B

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3^rd Sunday in June (1 Peter 2 and 5; Luke 13:31-55 and 18:9-14)

1 Peter 2:4-6  ⁴ Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious;  ⁵ and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  ⁶ For it stands in scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame."

I’ve been making frequent trips to Washington DC for ongoing consultations with several churches. I always stay downtown. The summer holidays have certainly attracted tourists. They walk among the imposing buildings, gazing up at the historic monuments, remembering fallen heroes, and exclaiming over the larger life images of great presidents. Everything is huge. The buildings are tall, the doorways are broad, and the stone blocks are enormous. I suspect that is what Rome must have looked like to visitors like Peter in the first century AD. Peter visited Rome at the end of his life. He would die there. But first I think he would have been as impressed with Rome as we are with Washington DC today. They called Rome the “Eternal City”, and Washington DC has something of that feeling. It looks like it is built to last forever, and just walking the grand boulevards makes one feel important.

No wonder the epistle writer chose the metaphor of the cornerstone to talk about Jesus Christ. He is the Eternal One. Walking with Jesus is like walking in Rome … and more. It is like being incorporated into the most imposing, magnificent structure. You are not just a tourist with Jesus. You are a part of Christ. It makes you hold your head high and feel like nobility. You are a part of a great Kingdom … a truly eternal city. Rome fell and one day even Washington DC will change. The pyramids were the wonders of the world, and yet even they have crumbled. But God’s Kingdom really is an edifice that will last forever, and Christ is the cornerstone. You can be a part of it all. The real thing.

Team Meditation (Luke 13:31-55 and 18:9-14)

Remodeling Time

It's a general contractors axiom that building a home from scratch is less costly than a complete remodel of an existing home.  I think the same may be true of our spirituality as we might surmise with a look at the passage about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  Here are two men who approached the Master Builder from very different starting points.  The Pharisee, who probably had a strong foundation for his faith, called on the Master Builder to clean his windows - but he was so arrogant that he didn't notice the floor joists were rotten about to fall it.  On the other hand, the Tax Collector didn't even have a building permit when he approached the Master Builder for a whole new house beginning at the foundation.

The personal cost to both men to have their hearts put right was going to be high.  However, the Tax Collector was starting from scratch.  The Pharisee is more like us - or perhaps we're more like the Pharisee.  We already have a foundation - and it's probably a pretty solid one.  We've been through Christian education for years.  We've been a part of the church for decades.  But we also may have lost the ability to see the flaws, since we live here day in and day out - remodeling hearts like these can be quite expensive.  At a minimum, the costs include the surrender of ego and pride.  It may include the loss of personal preferences and the slaughter of sacred cows.  It could even lead to a devaluation of our own self-worth and visions of indispensability.  In the case of Jerusalem, it would cost them their Temple, their traditions, and even their city.

However, as costly as remodeling is, it's important to remember that it's a lot less expensive to do maintenance than it is to do a major renovation.  Putting off the leak in your roof today may cost you a new ceiling in your life tomorrow.  Where in your life do you need the Master Contractor to work?

Bill T-B

Worship Design (1 Peter 2 and 5)

Something Greater than Yourself

John Maxwell has said that if you meet a self-made man he hasn't made much.  It takes more than just yourself to succeed, by any definition of success.  In business it takes teamwork to accomplish Job 1.  In church it takes teamwork to carry the message of the Gospel to the world.  And in life it takes parents, relatives, friends, mentors, and a host of others to be all that we can be.

But people will fail you.  The church is imperfect.  Businesses go bankrupt.  And success is not only elusive, but fickle.  You may achieve it one day and lose it the next.  It seems that nothing lasts forever.

Except the Kingdom of God.  That's the only sure bet.  The Temple was torn down and with the exception of a small bit of a protective wall, not one stone was left standing upon another.  Rome fell and all we left are ruins.  And as grand as the monolith and edifices of our nation's capital, even these too will one day fall (I think of the final scene with Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes as he "damns them all to hell" when he sees the three-quarters buried Statue of Liberty (probably not a clip I'd use, but it would have a great impact if you congregation can take the language).

The good news is that we can be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  Indeed, we're invited to be a part of the Kingdom of God as holy priests.  We're invited to get in on the "ground floor," so to speak, of this structure and to become one of the living stones that building this everlasting community.

One of the micro-cultures in our society are those who find themselves suffering from low self-esteem, though I almost hesitate to call this a micro culture.  This week's worship design offers a look at how you might reach into this culture.

There are a couple of media opportunities to bring this message home to this micro culture.  First, consider using the clip from Titanic where the captain is describing the unsinkability of the ship - a reminder to all of us that nothing on earth is impervious.  Or perhaps the clip from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when the earth blows up - a stark reminder that really, nothing on earth is impervious. 

One rather startling option could be to sing the song God of Wonders from Integrity's iWorship DVD (vol. 1) and then follow that with the clip from Hitchhiker's.  This sets up a conversation between the permanence of Kingdom and the transience of life as we tend to experience it.

If you have the ability to create a PowerPoint or Video show, you might want to consider using Pink Floyd's Brick in the Wall as a launching point for discussion.  Many in this culture are convinced they are just that - just another brick in the wall.  Peter, of course, offers a much different perspective and may open a conversation with those in this culture to see themselves as a living stone in the Kingdom rather than just a brick in the wall.

Bill T-B

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4^th Sunday in June (Matthew 28:16-20 and Acts 18:24 – 19:41)

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave the disciples (and the church that they would grow) a “great commissioning”. A commissioning is a sacred task or quest, a great project or purpose, the fulfillment of which would be the very essence of their identity. That quest had three parts: 

• Make disciples of all nations;
• Baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
• Teach people to observe all Jesus taught and demonstrated.

Jesus didn’t prescribe any particular tactics to accomplish this great commission. And he clearly did not assume it would be easy or trouble-free. He simply promised “I will be with you always”.

Whenever people are given a great responsibility, they are usually given certain kinds of support. We are often given a strategic plan, but in this case there is no particular plan to make disciples, baptize people, or teach others. We are often given a training program, but in this case there is no course or curriculum. We are often given a “hot line” in case of emergencies, but in this case there is no phone number or website. We are given something more valuable. Jesus himself will be there, never leaving our side, helping us to fulfill our commission. It is not that Jesus will be there “in principle” or “in theory” or “in memory”. He will be there in reality. We are not expected to be experts, only apprentices. He will take the lead.

Team Meditation

It's been said that when we, as Christians, get hung up on the "how" to do the Lord's work, we've moved from obedience to obstinace. Most of us were raised in a culture that taught us if we could just understand all the parts, we could solve any problem no matter how complex. And so, when we come up against a difficult task, let's take evangelism for instance, we want to know everything we can about it. We study it, dissect it, and profess that we don't know "how." And so we don't.

So we might as well study the book of Acts to learn "how." This week's passage is a fine representative sampling of the whole of the book when it comes to this study. There we learn that Apollos didn't have a grasp on even the basic doctrine of baptism. But that didn't stop him from sharing the Gospel powerfully. Then there were the believers in Ephesus who hadn't ever heard of the Holy Spirit. But in two years time, they and Paul had managed to share the Gospel with such fervor that all the Jews and Greeks in the province had been exposed to it. There were healings by hankies. And a riot or two where the Gospel was defended.

Do you see the pattern? It's clearly there if you'll just read the words carefully. See it? No? Well then, you've seen the pattern. It isn't our abilities that get the Gospel spread. It's our intentional availability to the movement of the Holy Spirit. It's setting out with the intention of sharing the Gospel and then being available when God begins to move mountains in people's hearts. Available to speak. To act. To open our mouths and letting God's word speak through us.

Intentional availability. It's how the East was won. Perhaps it's time for the West to catch on.

Bill T-B

Worship Design

Want to make an impact this week on the congregation? Then bring every book you have or that you can get your hands on about how to do evangelism, how to invite your neighbor, how to be a missional church, how to grow your church, etc. and place them on the altar before the worship service. If you're like most of us, you'll have brought quite a stack of your "How To" books. This sets the stage for what's to come.

When Jesus gave his final instructions to his faithful few, he simply told them to get out there and be a witness (Acts 1:8). He left us with few instructions and a single promise. (1) Make disciples; (2) Baptize them; and (3) Teach them to practice what I taught. And the promise was to walk alongside.

In our Modern world we've spent a lot of time and effort in deciphering what Jesus meant by this. Exactly "how" did he want us to do this? How should we be a witness? How do we make disciples? How do we baptize them (dunk, sprinkle, pour)? How do teach them?

And so we design tire swings like Chris Alexander suggested and often never quite get it done like the "user" wanted. It's interesting that all of those books you've put on the altar have been written in the past forty years or so. If you do a search for really old evangelism books, you won't find too many. And if you look at the ancient writings of the church, there is even less about how to do evangelism. Instead, the early church seems to have simply expected every Christian to make the most of every conversation (Colossians 4:5-6) and every good deed (1 Peter 2:12) so that they'd be ready to share the reason for their hopes (1 Peter 3:15).

But "how" we want to know? Jesus didn't tell us how. And surprisingly, neither did Paul or the other New Testament writers. They mostly told us to be available, to get out there and walk the talk. Oh, and be confident that Jesus would be out there walking alongside of us.

The apprenticeship model. The side-by-side model. The "I'll open up the doors for you, you walk through and we'll go together" method of learning. It's not about all the books. It's about going. It's about being. It's about obedience regardless.

To get the point across this week, you may want to use the cartoon above (make sure you cite the source). The cartoon has been widely modified (what the kids wanted, etc. - see http://jacobsen.no/anders/blog/archives/images/project.html for example). Additionally, using the pile of evangelism books on the altar will make a nice visual point - especially if you compare all those works to the evangelism instructions in the Bible.

Additionally, you may want to use a video clip from Starwars (#4, i.e., the original - hmm, this could get confusing!) when Luke is in training to become a Jedi knight. Use the scene where he's learning to use the light saber but won't surrender - he's so caught up in the need to know and in the how that he has difficulty allowing "the force" to guide him. In our case, of course, the Force is the Holy Spirit who opens the doors for us to walk through when we're available (see the Team Meditation for more).

Bill T-B

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