Repeating A Sermon

You may have noticed that in recent weeks there have not been many new sermons on the blog. There has been a variety of reasons:

  • I’ve simply forgotten to post them
  • I’ve repeated old ones.

Last weekend and this weekend, the latter reason applies. Last week, I sat down to write a sermon on a passage I’ve expounded a few times. I struggled all week. Eventually on Saturday I slogged down word after word, having found what I thought was a decent way into the passage. And although by some time gone midnight I had finished it, I was uneasy all day about it. I didn’t have a problem with the content, but it didn’t seem to catch fire. In desperation the next morning, I printed off one of my old sermons on the reading, read it through and scribbled some amendments in the margins. It helped that I was not preaching at one of my two churches, and I felt much happier with it. Certainly it seemed to connect with people.

This week, my feet have hardly touched the ground. It’s harvest festival this weekend; early in the week I looked up suggested Lectionary passages, and settled on one. However, I’ve had no chance for decent, sustained reflection on it. I don’t think it’s right to note down some quick, gut-level scattershot ideas and waffle them into a sermon. I know some people have very quick thinking processes, but one of the things I know about myself is I’m generally a better decision-maker when I take my time. So again, I’m calling up one of my older sermons and amending it for Harvest. I know there are some of you out there who like to read my sermon on Saturday night before Sunday morning worship, even if you’re going to be in the congregation, but I’m sorry, it just hasn’t been possible.

There was a time in my preaching life when I never would have done this. As a young Local Preacher, I once remember my minister saying to me, “When you need to repeat a sermon …”. I told him confidently (well, I thought it was confidently at the time, perhaps it was arrogantly) that I would never do such a thing. I thought that to repeat a sermon was to compromise the prophetic nature of that word to the congregation for whom it had been prepared. That same minister said to me that regular preaching was often more about the ‘eternal’ word rather than the ‘now’ word.

Actually, I think it’s a bit of both. Preaching needs to be rooted in God’s word for all time. Pastorally, this is the food with which the flock is nourished. But it also needs to have an edge for today, for living here and now under the reign of God. So I don’t think there’s any harm in prayerfully taking an old sermon where I have spent time seriously dwelling on the meaning of the Scriptures and retooling it for a new congregation.

I wouldn’t put it like another of my ministers did, when he said he never wrote a new sermon from scratch. He had a good reason: he said that if he couldn’t improve on an old sermon, then there was something wrong with his own growth in Christ. Commendable as that is, I think that’s taking things too far. It assumes you have already covered all the bases, and you just need to find the one that needs finessing this time.

But what do you think? Is it justifiable to repeat a sermon? If so, under what circumstances and in what ways? If not, why?

Over to you.

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Back To Church Sunday

Joy of joys, today was Synod. That day when two hundred Methodists sit on their backsides for six hours, listening to a select few speaking from the front. (It’s not quite that bad usually, but it can be like that.)

Today, our Synod had a theme: ‘The Invitational Church’. This was good for two reasons: (1) we focussed on mission; (2) business items were kept to a minimum (although the Spring Synod is usually the monster for bureaucracy).

In particular, we had a guest speaker, Michael Harvey, founder of Back To Church Sunday. I have never encouraged a church to take part in BTCS, because it seems to me it concentrates on getting that ever-smaller band of people, the dechurched, into our congregations, and overlooks that growing group, the unchurched. In fairness, BTCS can tell some success stories, and I shouldn’t be mean about them. My worry is that it plays into the notion of meeting people in our comfort zone.

But Michael Harvey had one vital gem for all of us today, whatever our perspective on mission. He pointed out that churches ‘eat strategies for breakfast’. We can come up with as many strategies as we like, but they will all fail, because the core reason people to not invite others to church (or engage in mission generally, I would argue) is fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of embarrassment. We use other words like ‘anxiety’ or ‘sensitivity’ but really we’re talking about fear. In other words, the key issue for mobilising the church in mission is attention to the inner life of existing Christians.

What do you think?

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Inculturating A Doctrine Of The Creator And Creation

Regular commenter Pam has sent me a poem from Australia by William Hart-Smith (1911-90) that is based on an Aboriginal creation story. It speaks of Baiamai, whom Pam says

is usually considered an over-arching creative figure whom missionaries could usefully compare with the god of Genesis.

So this already raises interesting questions about how we communicate our faith in a different culture. This practice, though, has honourable precedent, given the near-certainty that Genesis 1 uses ancient myths, particularly from Babylonia, but then changes the theological message. Here, then, is Hart-Smith’s poem:

Baiamai’s Never-failing Stream

Then he made of the stars, in my mind,
pebbles and clear water running over them,
linking most strangely feelings of im-
measurable remoteness with intimacy,

So that at one and the same time I
not only saw a far white mist of stars
there, far up there, but had my fingers
dabbling among those cold stones.

One thing it certainly does, in terms of classical theology, is it seems to speak of a divine being who is both transcendent and immanent. What do you make of it?

And what do you think about using material from other cultures in the service of the Gospel? Isn’t it what Paul did in Acts 17 at Athens, where he quoted Greek poets favourably? What does this say about other cultures? Does it not lead us more thoroughly into the conviction that ‘All truth is God’s truth’?

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Do We Value Prayer?

“Of course we do!” someone may protest at that headline.

But … after one of those manic days yesterday, I just wonder. I was picking music and readings for two services, I had two funerals, Debbie and I visited a mother and her new baby, a hoped-for peaceful lunch time turned into a frantic time of arranging emergency help for someone in dire need, we had to get the children to their annual eye tests, and the sugar fondant coating was Circuit Meeting in the evening. It made me remember those people who value ministers according to their busyness.

How different that is from the concept of being paid a stipend, not a salary, because a stipend is a living allowance that is to free us from want so we can pray. Yes, pray about how we should follow our calling as ministers, but pray.

Oh, we are asked to pray in public worship and include certain individuals in our private prayers, but even that is prayer as achievement, not prayer as waiting or contemplation. The busyness bug even infects what prayer we do practise, or which is approved. Are we really Pelagians at heart, or might we still just about believe in grace?

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Preachers’ Kids

It all started at the end of our holiday this year. “Dad, why do we just go away on holiday in this country when my school friends go to Turkey twice a year?”

A few weeks later it was, “Dad, why doesn’t the church pay you as much money as other people? A minister’s job is very important! You should be paid lots of money! Then we wouldn’t have to think about whether we can afford an iPad or not.”

At the weekend there were three questions. One went like this: “Dad, why do we have to go to church every Sunday when most of my friends don’t go very much at all?”

The next was, “Dad, why do our teachers ask us all the questions in RE lessons, just because they know you’re a minister?”

And at bath-time I got, “Dad, why don’t as many people go to church these days?” Oh yes: I had to explain theories of secularisation to an eight-year-old.

Our children, at the ages of eight and nine, are now beginning to feel how different it is to be the daughter and son of a manse family. Some of it is exacerbated by currently living in the wealthiest county in the country. But it was going to come at some point. So how do we respond?

I used the first two questions to discuss with them what Jesus teaches about money, and why it isn’t the most important thing in life. I hope I got them thinking about the priorities of love and relationships. However, the issue will keep returning, especially here in Surrey.

The question about church attendance was asked by one of the children and answered by the other: “We have to go every week, because Dad is the minister.” I said, “No, we go every week because that’s what Christians do.” I would have liked more time to explore that. On its own it wasn’t an adequate answer.

I sympathised with them over the way their teachers seem to single them out in RE, expecting them to know a lot. I suggested it was possible their teachers weren’t churchgoers, and were looking for help from them. But that just provoked another question: “If our teachers are meant to show us what is true and good, why don’t they go to church?” And that led into the bath-time discussion of secularisation.

Yet it’s not just a matter of asking the questions. It’s about what we model and how we handle the whole consequences of my distinctive (perhaps the old word ‘peculiar’ is appropriate here) calling.

So I thought I’d throw this out for discussion: what are the best ways to raise preachers’ kids? I especially don’t want church to put them off. They can’t help but realise at times that not everything about church is nicey-nicey. All that alongside peer pressure around here, based presently on financial lifestyle implications.

Over to you!

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A Christian Letter To A Politician

Can I live up to this?

Dear Politician:

I’m writing to let you know that I will not attack you personally if you run for office.  I will not make disparaging remarks about you or your family.  I will not call you names.  I will not put bumper stickers on my car that insult you.  I will not attack your supporters and label them as one thing or another.  And even if you attack an opposing candidate personally because he disagrees with your stance on a particular issue, I will not do the same.  Even if you disparage, stereotype, or categorize me because I vote for your opponent, I will not trade you insult for insult.  Instead, I will choose to bless and pray for you and your family.  I will choose peace, encouragement, and building up instead of war, insult, and tearing down.  I will extend grace, love, and mercy.  I know that you are someone who matters to God and for whom Christ died on the cross.  In this regard, you are just like me.  God seeks after your heart just as he does mine.  These are just some things I needed you to know.

Kellye Fabian

Via Scot McKnight; originally appeared at Kellye Fabian.

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The Inner Life Of A Christian Leader

The late Steve Jobs famously insisted that the same design standards be applied to those parts of an Apple product that no consumer would ever see as were applied to the outer parts, which gained admiration for their style.

Something similar is true of the Christian, and certainly of those of us called to the daunting task of leadership in the church. Gordon Macdonald makes a similar point in a recent book, using a similar analogy:

David McCullough’s book The Great Bridge tells a fascinating story about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, which arches the East River and joins Manhattan to Brooklyn.

In June 1872, the chief engineer of the project wrote: “To such of the general public as might imagine that no work had been done on the New York tower, because they see no evidence of it above the water, I should simply remark that the amount of the masonry and concrete laid on that foundation during the past winter, under water, is equal in quantity to the entire masonry of the Brooklyn tower visible today above the waterline” (italics mine).

The Brooklyn Bridge remains a major transportation artery in New York City today because 135 years ago the chief engineer and his construction team did their most patient and daring work where no one could see it: on the foundations of the towers below the waterline. It is one more illustration of an ageless principle in leadership: the work done below the waterline (in a leader’s soul) that determines whether he or she will stand the test of time and challenge. This work is called worship, devotion, spiritual discipline. It’s done in quiet, where no one but God sees.

Macdonald’s book is appropriately called, ‘Building Below the Waterline: Shoring Up the Foundations of Leadership‘. The quote above is from the introduction (page 1). By the end of the first chapter he’s making the large claim that almost all Christian leaders agree that they need to carve out one to two hours a day for this work of nurturing the spiritual centre.

There seem to be some other books in recent years that take a similar tack. Ruth Haley Barton’s ‘Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry‘ is one. Pete Scazzero’s ‘Emotionally Healthy Spirituality‘ and ‘The Emotionally Healthy Church‘ are two more. In the last few decades, Eugene Peterson and Henri Nouwen have been voices callng in the wilderness, pleading with us to take this seriously, rather than concentrating on the latest techniques and plans to grow your church. Might it be that at last their cries are being heeded?

So – two questions:

1. What do you do to nurture the hidden parts of your spiritual life?

2. Are there any other authors and books you recommend on this subject?

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Guest Post: Andy Mellen, Facing A Different Future?

I can’t recall ever hosting a guest post before, but this approach seemed both worthwhile and important. Andy Mellen is the co-author with Neil Hollow of ‘No Oil in the Lamp‘, a Christian response to the Peak Oil crisis. About three years ago, I heard Sam Norton give a theological lecture on Peak Oil in Chelmsford, and his blog Elizaphanian is a useful source of informed comment on the problem. Because I had had my eyes opened by that experience, and because I am not myself a scientific specialist in this area, I was only too willing to host a piece on this subject.

Over to you, Andy:

Our ideas about the future tend to be conditioned by our experience of the past, so if you were born in a developed country sometime in the last sixty years, it’s likely that you have experienced a rising standard of living, with increasing comfort and convenience.  Yet we only need to look back a few generations to see how much has changed, and how much we take for granted:  We flick a switch, assuming that electricity will be there to light up the bulb.   We expect to be able to travel long distances quickly, in comfort and at reasonable cost.  We think nothing of sitting down to a meal whose ingredients have been transported across the globe to our table.  These things and many more besides have become basic expectations – and as Christians living within a modern, developed country, we share them.  Whilst we may bow our heads and give thanks for God’s provision at the start of a meal, in many other ways we take the conveniences of modern life for granted.

We might expect the future to look something like a continuation of the past, but what if that isn’t possible?  It takes an enormous amount of energy to make the modern world work.  The average household is using more energy today than at any time in the past.  Globally, use of oil, coal and gas has at least almost doubled since 1970.  The unfortunate thing is, there aren’t unlimited amounts of these commodities to fuel our lifestyles way into the future.  In fact the most critical energy source – oil, which provides 90% of all transport, is already beginning to decline.  So what does this mean?  Well, it’s complicated, but also surprisingly simple:  The good news is that nobody is saying we are going to suddenly run out of oil.  The bad news is that declining oil production will cause us a host of difficulties in the years ahead.  Experts predict a two-stage process: firstly high energy prices (which we are already experiencing) and eventually actual physical shortages.  High prices are already giving the global economy a headache, and straining the finances of households.  Actual shortages would provide an enormous challenge for society, the economy, food supplies and much more.  A smooth transition to green renewable energy is what some people are hoping for – others are looking to science for the answer – new forms of energy, maybe hydrogen?  Unfortunately, no technology is in a position to do for us what oil does today.

So what can we do?  Is it a case of waiting for the Prime Minister, the UN, or someone else to take action?  So far, despite credible voices speaking up, very little attention is being paid to this problem at Government level.  However, at the grass-roots, in communities across the UK and increasingly across the world, something very interesting and exciting is happening.  It is something called Transition.  You may not have heard of it unless it is happening in your area, but the Transition movement is fast becoming the most positive response to the problems of resource constraints and climate change.  Although it may sound a bit wacky and alternative, the heart of Transition is a very simple idea:  we need to move away from oil dependence and instead build resilience into our households, communities and the local economy.  Just how this plays out is different in every community, but the places which have embraced the concept are already starting to reap the benefits in terms of a more vibrant local economy, stronger community and reduced energy use.  So far, I know that many Christians are individually involved in these initiatives, though I have not heard of any church becoming directly linked to Transition.  Yet many of the qualities of the Transition movement overlap with what we might call “kingdom values” – concerns we see in the Bible.  Three spring immediately to mind:  Stewardship of the earth (humankind is given responsibility for the earth in Genesis 1), the principle of justice is seen throughout the Bible, (and particularly in the writings of the prophets, from Amos to Zechariah) and the principle of simplicity as espoused by Jesus, (most tellingly in Luke 17: “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”).  The church in the past has shied away from engagement with environmental issues for fear of contamination with “new age” philosophies.  But it seems to me that the Transition movement offers an opportunity for Christians and the church to engage with something good, wholesome – and urgent.

Andy Mellen

(For much more detail on this whole area, see my book ‘No Oil in the Lamp‘ published last month, or check out the ‘No oil in the lamp’ page on Facebook)

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Covenant Service Sermon: Body And Mind

Finally getting back to posting sermons. My church at Knaphill holds its annual covenant service today, where we renew our promises to God. Here is the sermon.

Romans 12:1-2

Henry Gerets was the American padre appointed as a chaplain to those Nazis who were put on trial at Nuremberg after World War Two. It was not a job he wanted. His only son had been killed by the Germans in the war, and so you can imagine his feelings towards these evil people.

But eventually he accepted the post. He went to Nuremberg, and he set about visiting every notorious Nazi held there. Gerets went from cell to cell, sharing the Gospel with men who were about to pay for their crimes by being hanged. Some went to the gallows, proudly defying the God of whom Henry Gerets spoke.

But some got down on their knees, and begged for mercy.

And mercy is a fundamental quality of the Gospel. ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy,’ says Paul in Romans 12:1. It is the mercy of God that has brought us to this Covenant Service. We, too, are the ‘tax collectors and sinners’ beloved of Jesus and brought into his Father’s presence by grace.

In fact, it’s better than ‘mercy’. What Paul really says is, ‘in view of God’s mercies’. How many of us have known God only to be merciful once to us? Is it not our testimony that God is merciful to us over and over? Like the author of Lamentations, we know that his mercies are ‘new every morning’. Mercy upon mercy, grace followed by more grace, love poured out over more love – is that not the God of the Gospel?

And we come to make our promises today ‘in view of God’s mercies’. Paul has given his readers eleven chapters about God’s mercies. We know many years of God’s mercies. In view of all he has done for us in Christ, we offer ourselves.

How are we going to do that? Paul says it’s going to take all we are and all we have. He calls us to make two responses – one with our bodies and one with our minds.

Firstly, then, our bodies:

‘offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship’ (verse 1)

‘Sacrifice’ – for Paul as a Jew, this is the language of worship. It is appropriate to use our bodies as expressions of our worship. Some Christians do this quite naturally. They may do in set liturgical ways such as kneeling for prayer. I have to say, that I have found that simple bodily act of kneeling for prayer in, say, an Anglican church has been a profound reminder for me of my need to be humble before God. Similarly, I remember asking one Anglican friend why she signed herself with the cross before worship. She told me it was a particular reminder to herself that the Cross was the reason she could be in worship at the first place. It therefore prevented her from approaching worship casually.

Some Christians, especially those of a charismatic of Pentecostal spirituality, use their bodies more spontaneously in worship, perhaps most notably when lifting their hands in praise. It is, of course, an ancient Jewish practice to lift up holy hands to God in the sanctuary. It is mentioned in the Psalms. The Jewish tradition is more to raise hands in intercession, whereas the charismatic-Pentecostal style is more about praise. It’s as if to say, ‘I am already lifting my voice to God in praise. What else can I raise as a sign of how much I want to worship God?’

One thing that strikes me about prayers in worship and before worship is that a common theme is this: ‘Lord, we thank you that we are free to worship you in this country.’ Now that’s a laudable sentiment, and we should not take that freedom lightly. But I wonder whether it morphs for some of us into, ‘Thank you, Lord, that we don’t have to pay a price in order to worship you.’ Because if it does, then we have lost sight of the fact that worship is a sacrifice, and that surely means it will cost us something.

How, then, are we going to offer something costly with our bodies as an act of worship to God? It may not be in terms of persecution, but if worship costs us nothing then it is barely on the level of a hobby or a pastime. They probably cost us more than worshipping our God of mercy does.

That cost may come for some of our more elderly and frail family in the physical effort it takes to be at worship, and to participate. Their faithful commitment to worship is something the rest of us will only understand when we get to their age and condition.

But of course this is not all about Sunday services. This call to use our bodies sacrificially in worship is also about our expression of devotion every day. Think of how the old marriage service contained the promise, ‘With my body I worship thee’ – it says, ‘With my body I honour you’ in the modern service. is that not what we are to do? God created our bodies. They are not empty shells for the ‘real person’. They are part of who we are. Tomorrow morning, you will see there are ways in which you can make a physical effort with your body as a way of honouring God. There will be something you can do that will be ‘holy and pleasing to God’ with your body.

I’m sure you have little problem with the idea that worship is ‘holy’ – that is, it is something we set aside for God’s service. When we do something that is specifically for our Lord – whether it is explicit or implicit – the fact that we have made it for him means it is holy.

But what about the idea that Paul tells us here that this offering of our bodies is ‘pleasing to God’? Will you just take a moment to reflect on the fact that we can give God pleasure with what we offer him? Our images of a solemn, severe old-fashioned Headmaster God need tempering with these words. Right now, I believe God is looking forward to what we can offer him. Why? Because it will be what Paul calls here our ‘true and proper worship’. That is, when we have reasoned how we should respond to the mercies of God, it will become apparent that the offering of our bodies is an appropriate response.

Let us each think this morning, especially as we renew our covenant promises: how are we going to offer our bodies in worship to God?

Secondly, our minds:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Verse 2)

This may sound like a negative question to get into this point, but bear with me: what do we think the effects of sin are? I would suggest that we have underplayed the effect of sin upon our minds, because our society has for the last three hundred years placed such value upon the powers of human reason. We sometimes overlook the effect of sin upon the mind. So, for example, we rightfully laud the achievements of scientists, whose use of their minds have brought wonderful benefits to our lives. But we miss the way scientific minds have been used to bring terrible harm to our world – nuclear weapons, environmental damage, climate change and so on.

I suggest we are all like that. Our minds are capable of great things, but they are also corrupted. They are as much affected by sin as any other part of us. Earlier in the epistle, Paul spoke about the ‘unfit mind’ (1:28) and that is what we have. So our minds need renewing, because as Christians we are not finally to be part of this sinful age but of the glorious age to come, the kingdom of God.

So if we are grateful for the mercies of God, we shall submit our minds to the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. What does this renewal of our minds look like? We get some idea when we realise that the end product, according to Paul, is that we ‘will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will’. In other words, having renewed minds is not a matter of just reading a list of rules and following them. That is what machines and computer programs do. It is impersonal. No: the renewed mind can ‘test and approve what God’s will is’. That implies personal involvement, a journey of discovery.

And so I suggest to you that the Holy Spirit renews our mind not by filling them with rules but with the mind of Christ. The Spirit shows us more of Christ – his person, work and teaching. This becomes the matrix by which we are guided into evaluating what the will of God is. We are involved in working out what that will is – it isn’t simply dropped into our empty minds.

How, then, do we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s renewing work in our minds? Well – if it means getting in touch with the mind of Christ, then yes, this is another time when I need to urge us to engage in those spiritual disciplines that soak us in the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament and especially the Gospels. It may be daily reading of the Bible using Bible reading notes. It may be taking a reading and using our imagination to get inside the story by wondering what our five senses would tell us or how we would feel if we were one of the characters. It may mean taking a passage, looking for the one thing that particularly strikes us and then chewing that over. Whatever methods we use, we need to be as diligent about our Bible reading as we are about nourishing ourselves with food, and we certainly need to respond prayerfully to whatever we have encountered. We shall also do this not only on our own but in conversation and fellowship with our sisters and brothers in Christ. For the mind of Christ will come in exploration with them as well as individually.

And I must also remind you that none of this is a quick fix. In a society that is addicted to instant solutions (so says he whose Internet connection speed is about to double!) the renewal of our minds is a long process. If the old mind is, as I said before, an ‘unfit mind’, then the renewal that makes our minds spiritually fit for the kingdom of God is a long training process, much like the years of training our Olympic and Paralympic heroes of recent weeks have had to follow.

But … it’s worth it. Because this leads us to discern ‘God’s will – his good, pleasing and perfect will.’ Did you notice that? His will is ‘good, pleasing and perfect’. Although our Covenant promise will balance the ideas that some things we are called to will be enjoyable and others will be difficult, it is common among some Christians to assume that the will of God will automatically be hard, if not unpleasant and maybe downright tortuous. Yet Paul says it is ‘good, pleasing and perfect’. Yes, of course sometimes following God’s will can be painful – in talking about our bodies we used the word ‘sacrifice’ – but it can also be a joyous thing. Our faith is resurrection as well as death.

So let us embrace the call to dedicate our bodies and minds to God, in the light of his never-ending mercies. Let us be willing to sacrifice, yes, but let us also relish the thought that discovering his will and walking in it may bring joy not only to our Lord but also to us.

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