A recent voicemail left on my cellphone. Translation underneath.
“We need another balloon…Can you please bring another balloon from church…Thank you Daddy. I love you”
Best voicemail ever?
I love this time of the year when “Top Ten” lists of ________ emerge. It is especially interesting this year because we are closing out the ‘00′ decade.
Yeah, it’s pretty self-centered to post a personal ‘top ten’ list of the decade. But, it is my blog. So, for those who are interested here are the ten things that I believe will be the most significant events in my life and the life of my family over the past decade. No world events will be included. This list is strictly personal. Because it would be nearly impossible to order these events, they will appear in no particular order.
Traveling to Israel - In January of 2000, as a junior in college, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel. While it was just a few weeks in duration and I did tire of looking at piles of rocks, those experiences have formed and shaped how I read the bible. It’s all so much more real to me. Plus it was pretty cool to celebrate my 21st birthday by eating an ice cream cone from Ben + Jerry’s on the streets of Jerusalem’s Ben-Yehuda market.
Olivet Nazarene University - I attended, and graduated from, Olivet Nazarene University. It’s a small, private, Christian University. While there, I was blessed to learn from some really great teachers. And, I was able to worship and learn with Dan Boone – a pastor/teacher who continues to shape my understanding of ministry. Developed some really great friends, made mistakes, tried, failed, new people, new experiences, broke a collar bone, chased by campus security, and, most importantly, fell in love with Shari.
Mentorships – One of the great things about the educational setting was the opportunity to learn from those who had been there and done that. I miss those built in opportunities. I am very thankful for Tim Gates, Dan Boone, David Busic, and Rob Prince.
Marrying Shari – May 18, 2002. Magic. Just typing out the date takes me to that day in vivid detail. The church full of people. The tulips. The prayer with my friends before the ceremony. Seeing Shari for the first time (beautiful!). The knot in my throat. The one big anxious gulp right before I walked out on stage. My heart racing as I saw her walk down the aisle. The kiss. I love her and am amazed that she loves me.
Kansas City / Nazarene Theological Seminary - Two weeks after we were married, Shari and I moved to Kansas City. We were friends with some people who would be coming, but at the time that we moved, we knew no one. But that quickly changed. Kansas City became for us a place of deep friendships and life altering maturation. We grew up in Kansas City – fell more deeply in love with each other and with God, learned about a family budget, learned how to communicate with one another. learned how to trust God and how to trust each other. My coursework at NTS was great and formative. But the life experience was what made my time so valuable. Whenever we get a good excuse, we travel back to Kansas City. And it really does feel like a pilgrimage back to a sacred place for a sacred time in our lives.
It’s the season of Advent. This Advent we’ve chosen to focus our attention on the theme of light entering darkness in a series called “Love’s Pure Light.” This week, our teaching was centered around Isaiah 9. We specifically noted how love’s pure light invites a joyful response.
1. Joyful, Joyful – Traditional. “Melt the clouds of sin and sadness / Drive the dark of doubt away / Giver of immortal gladness fill us with the light of day.”
2. The Hand That Holds The World – Starfield. “No greater joy is there than this / to know for what we’re meant to live.”
3. Advent Candle Reading
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the Peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7)
Joy is at the heart of the journey through Advent to Christmas: Joy in the knowledge of what God has done throughout the ages, joy in the realization that God is able and that God does change things for the better, joy in the assurance that God can enter into our lives no matter what our situation may be.
In this new light we give thanks to the Lord. With joy you will draw waters from the wells of salvation. We will rejoice in the Lord always.
4. O Come All Ye Faithful – Arranged for a band. “O come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.”
5. Fairest Lord Jesus – Arranged for a band. “Beautiful Savior, Lord of all the nations / Son of God and Son of Man”
6. Infant Dedication – Our church prefers to dedicate one infant at a time rather than a service of many dedications. We ask the congregation to join with the parents in committing the child to God.
7. Offering / I’d Need A Savior – “You’re the wonderful counselor”
8. Message
9. Passing the Peace
10 Sing A Song - In an effort to tangibly experience joy, during the passing of the peace we dismissed the parents of our preschool aged children so that they could bring them in to worship with us during our last song. The preschoolers were give some accessory percussion instruments and joined me on the stage and were free to play/dance/jump around. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Thanks to the band, musicians, vocalists, congregation, and children. It was a joy to worship together.
There is a whole lot of info on the internet that can be utilized for worship planning. This post is geared toward collecting and documenting helpful resources. Your input and your links would be greatly valued.
What are your favorite resources?
In literature, a plot is a casual sequence of events. It’s a storyline. A story has a structure – the way in which the elements are arranged.
The act of corporate worship tells a story. As Mark Galli says:
“Worship is not a once-upon-a-time story we merely watch others perform. We are the characters in this story, actors in the divine drama whose opening and closing has been written by Jesus Christ himself.” (Beyond Smells and Bells, 13)
When we participate in worship, even if we don’t understand 90 percent of what is going on – where else do people stand and sing together – we recognize that the story we’ve concocted for ourselves is really small and that we are being beckoned to enter a drama that is epic in scope.
Each Monday I’m going to retell the elements that helped our local church tell this story.
(Via the Kyria Blog)
It’s been really well documented that Christians, especially the Christian Church, has an image issue. But what if Jesus had really good PR? For what and as what would we be known.
Lauren Winner recently offered 21 characteristics that – if we all are faithful now – the world will say about Christians by the end of this century. In other words, she hopes that the average person on the street in the year 2092 might think of these qualities when asked what Christians are like.
They are:
1. Be peacemakers.
2. Be expected to be the first ones to show up when disaster strikes.
3. Rest, because they know they’re not the ones in charge.
4. While resting, reconfigure their work.
5. Live well in their bodies, whether by their diet, their sex lives, or the clothes they wear.
6. Practice boredom. They will not succumb to the “fetish of the new or the cult of novelty” when it comes to their faith.
7. Be truth-tellers, even if the answer is “I don’t know.” Even “authenticity” and confession can be a pose.
8. Practice silence in small and big ways, including in solitude.
9. Live in communities where everyone has access to power, and everyone can and will share it with others.
10. Live in communities where women can do anything.
11. Go to church with the people they live near.
12. Persist in making Kingdom demands. This means taking the same request to God, over and over!
13. When we think about God, we think about what needs to change next. This is largely informed by Tozer: what we think about when we think about God is the most important thing about ourselves.
14. Eat fewer strawberries. We will tread lightly on the planet and not risk the energy and harm to our planet just so we can have strawberries in January.
15. See ourselves as small characters in a larger story. As Winner’s colleagues at Duke suggest, a “saint” can fail in a way that a “hero” cannot, which opens the doors to ideas like forgiveness and new possibilities of God.
16. Lament. (“We don’t do this well. Jews do it a bit better.”)
17. Throw good parties. Afterall, we’re here to practice for the heavenly banquet!
18. Not gossip. This means talking about someone who is not present. Period.
19. Have unity without obliterating diversity, and that’s because of the Trinity.
20. Understand something about grace (despite our 19 wonderful attributes above).
21. Describe reality and the spiritual sacraments in such a way as to “make mouths water and hearts hunger.”
Good list. What would you add?
Generally, churches do a pretty good job celebrating Christmas but have difficulty with Advent. What’s the difference?
“Advent” literally means visit, coming, arrival. Adventus for the latin crowd. 20 plus days beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas day characterized, not solely by joyful celebration, but by longing, and anticipation. Historically, Advent is not the season to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the manger but to long, in three specific ways, for the coming of the Savior.
1. The ‘Second’ Advent
The spirituality of Advent calls for an expectation of the second coming of Christ when the powers of evil will be fully exposed by the light and when the earth will be fully restored. Evil, regardless of what printed ink or flickering pixels say, is not the final word. The season of Advent forms us into a people who thoroughly believe – not just with our minds – that the evil of this world is ultimately doomed. The ultimate word in history is the triumph of God’s kingdom.
2. Anticipating Christ
Advent is more about “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” than it is about “Joy To The World.” It is a longing for redemption. The cries of God’s people enslaved by the Egyptians longing for Exodus; the hope of the exiles that one day there would be a Messiah who would restore a people and a land; that the systemically evil empires and tyrannies of our world will be brought to light by God’s justice; during advent we joyously wait the coming of the King.
3. It’s Personal
As we long for vindication from an evil world we remember that we, too often, contribute to the evil in the world. Advent calls out to us to consider what in our life needs to be redeemed while compelling us to commit it to the one who has come to set the prisoners free. True conversion is a turning from one way to another.
This year (2009), the season of Advent begins on November 29. May you be convinced that tomorrow can be different than the evil-filled world of today; may you hopefully expect the coming of the King; and may those places in your life that are dark be filled with a great light.
I’ve written about it before but I’ve been deeply influenced by the work of biblical scholar N.T. Wright. It started with The Resurrection of the Son of God, which would be a good thing to read if you desire to preach on Easter Sunday, and most recently showed its face in Surprised By Hope. Wright’s gift is articulating complex concepts in simple yet profound ways.
Each Wednesday I’ll share a quote that I find rather thoughtful. If you’ve read him, feel free to share a quote in the comments.
“Worship is nothing more nor less than love on its knees before the beloved; just as mission is love on its feet to serve the beloved.” – For All God’s Worth: True Worship And The Calling Of The Church
Three quotes for reflection that provide glimpses of a remedy for gluttony.
“Remedies for gluttony begin at the Eucharist. One sets aside all other food and drink for that bread and wine; there one’s hungers are redirected true and straight, to Christ. Healing for the body and the promise of its resurrection may be found there, the deepest nutrition…Around the table one finds sisters and brothers, friends in a family that is not born of any blood but Jesus.” – William Stafford
“Fasting reminds us of our need for God, our dependency on God, our humanity. Fasting heightens our sensitivity to God in a world that is bent on numbing us to spiritual things. Fasting causes us to feel in our gut the hunger of the world around us.” – Dan Boone
“‘Give us this day our daily bread‘ reminds us that our longings for bread, and all that it symbolizes, are not to be shunned as though they were of themselves evil. Of course a genuine glutton must repent of desiring, and grabbing, more bread than is wise or good…But if we truly pray this prayer, with due weight to each clause, we are taking the first steps from the chaos of our normal interior life toward an order and a clarity which will let the joy come through to the surface.” – N.T. Wright
