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Preaching Today Interview

                                           I was interviewed today by Craig Brian Larson  of Preaching Today.  Also being interviewed was Colin Smith, the Senior Pastor at Arlington Heights Evangelical Free Church. Colin seemed like a great guy (with a cool English accent) and it sounded like the church he is pastoring is doing terrific - they are running five services, including a video venue over 2000 in attendance. And he gave me a copy of his book Ten Keys For Unlocking The Bible, so he must be a good guy!

The topic for the interview was "How to Redeem How-To Preaching".  I have to be honest, when Larson e-mailed me and asked if I would do the interview I wasn't even sure of a definition for "how-to" preaching.  After swapping a few e-mails he said that the narrower definition is a style of preaching that always gives step by step formulas for how-to fix anything.  That is not us.  Just two weeks ago we did a whole BIG IDEA on "What To Do When The Mountain Doesn't Move" where we talked about the mystery of unanswered prayer.  We certainly didn't have a how-to that would solve that mystery.  But as we talked about a broader definition that meant the message would always be relevant to life...that was definitely us! 

I think the part of the intent was to have Colin take up the cause of expository preaching and that I would take up the cause of how-to.  I think instead it turned out both of us saying that no matter if you start with the text or start with a topic that it has to have application or be "earthed" as Colin put it. 

As I was thinking about the interview, here is something I offered up.  They come to you courtesy of myself and Tim Sutherland, the leader of our teaching team at CCC and the NewThing Network.  These are four questions that we almost always ask regarding any talk we craft as a team:

Question #1:  "What?" - This is simply asking what is it that you are talking about.  This is an important question because it is very easy to talk about more than one thing.  We have followed Haddon Robinsons teaching of always sticking to one BIG IDEA.  The BIG IDEA is how we answer the what question.

Question #2:  " So what?" - The second question is asking so what makes this topic such a big deal that people ought to pay attention to you.  What are you going to say in the next thirty minutes that warrants the attention of hundreds of thousands of listeners.

Question #3:  "Now what?" - This question is the application question.  This question will generally  be answered with something you want people to do, think or feel differently after hearing this talk.

Question #4:  "Where is Jesus in it?" - We want our teaching to always be Christo-centric and by asking where is Jesus in this talk we never leave out the obvious.

I'm Done Being a Christian!

I no longer call myself a Christian.  I no longer try to convert people to Christianity.  I’m done with that…it has been ruined.  It’s not so much because the title is wrong, but because as a label it has now come to mean something far different than what it means to follow Jesus.  Being a “Christian” has been reduced to the expectation of nice-ness. How pathetic.  How boring.  How easy. How insignificant. And even that expectation of nice-ness doesn’t have to be fulfilled because the greater expectation is hypocrisy – the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not live out.  Who would want to be that!?!

I am a Christ Follower.  I follow Jesus.  And I follow Jesus step for step as His Spirit moves me and His community called the Church.  When Jesus steps, I follow. When Jesus speeds up – I increase my pace.  When Jesus slows down – I slow down.  The direction, the speed and the entire velocity of my life are determined by moving at the speed of Jesus Spirit.  Simple.  Clear.  Not easy!

A Good Rant by Tony Campolo

I'm always a sucker for a good rant by Tony Campolo.  How can you not get a little adrenalin rush when you hear someone say things like: 

"What should you buy for someone who has everything? Nothing! But we just came through Christmas, and you didn't have the guts to pull it off, did you?"

"Your Presbyterian denomination is dying - losing its young people - not because we've made Christianity too hard for them, but because we've made it too easy."

"Youth was made for heroism, not pleasure,...Jesus calls people to die to self"

"When did Christianity cease being dangerous?  That's when it ceased being Christianity."

If you want more, check out Todd Rhoades Monday Morning Insights.  Comments?  Critiques?  Reactions?

"Mountains Do Move!"

"Mountains do move" was how the e-mail begin.  I just got this e-mail from a guy at CCC in response to the series we are doing Impossible Is Nothing.  The whole series is dealing with Matthew 17:20 - "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."  I wish I could tell you this guys whole story; but trust me it was a total God-thing!  That did remind me of a couple  "mountain-moving" stories that happened just this morning that were even more amazing.  I was speaking at our Romeoville campus on "How To Move Mountains" .  At the end of my talk we had a communion time where we asked people to write their personal mountains (that they need God to move) on a post-it note.  Then we asked them to come forward and post them on a giant poster titled "faith" and then take communion.  It was very cool moment.  After the service a guy in his 20's who was at CCC for the first time came up to Tim Bakker our Romeoville campus pastor and said that he wanted to be baptized.  Tim said, "great, what brought you to that decision?"  The guy said, "Well, God has just really been working on me".  And right behind him is his mother who begins to cry.  They both turn to the guys Mom and she says, "you know those prayers we posted in faith...my prayer was that you would decide to get baptized!"  I love it!  I had another guy, Ron come up to me after the service and tell me that he wrote down his twin sisters name on the post-it because she has become a sort of recluse, hiding from the world and her problems.  He said that right after he posted the prayer, took communion and sat down that his cell phone rang. It was his twin sister on the phone crying and saying "Ron, can we talk...I got to talk to someone."  He's going over to see her today.  Mountains do move!

Pastors Practicing Too Much Possiblity Thinking?

Some recent research by the Barna Group tells us that that pastors are very optimistic.  In fact, they are so optimistic that they might be making things up!  In an article titled, Surveys Show Pastors Claim Congregants Are Deeply Committed to God But Congregants Deny It! it says that pastors claim that 90% of the people who attend their church would say that their relationship with God is the most important priority in their life.  But when these church attenders were asked only 23% said that their faith was the most important priority of their life.  I know I'm a pretty optimistic guy and I like to see the glass half full, but this is ridiculous.  What's your take?

The Doctrine of Limbo is in ... Limbo!

It sounds like the Catholic Church is re-thinking the doctrine of limbo (the idea that there is a place not quite with God but certainly not Hell for those infants that are not baptized) Check out the essay by David Van Biema, Life After Limbo in the January 9th issue of Time Magazine.  Rev. James Martin who is a priest and also the editor of a Jesuit publication America said, "I've rarely baptized a baby where limbo has not come up, at least as a joke."  So without the fear of babies going to Hell it sounds like this could impact the practice of infant baptism.  Interesting.  Thoughts?

Merry Christmas.

More Evidence Of A Good God

Packers Suffer Worst Loss in 25 Years, that was the AP headline today!  The 48-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens was the low point of an awful season for the Packers (3-11), who absorbed their most lopsided loss since (a drumroll please!)a 61-7 defeat at Chicago in 1980.

Bears in first place, Packers in last place...don't tell me there is no God!

What Are You Going To Do With Your 77.6 Years?

U.S. life expectancy has hit another all-time high — 77.6 years — and deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, the government reported today. In fact, life expectancy in the U.S. has been rising almost without interruption since 1900

Want to know what 77. 6 looks like?  Ted Newland (see picture) is 77 and believes there is no excuse not to work out everyday.  Gotta love it!

For me, the news that I have a little longer to live than I thought brings to mind the most important question of my life:  What are you going to trade your life for? (I know the grammar isn't the best, but i find the question very compelling).  Since this question first hit me in college I have believed that everyone of us is going to be a martyr and will trade our lives for something.  We will all die for something - all at once OR one day at a time over a lifetime.  So, what are you going to trade your life for?  This may be the most important question we can ask ourselves.

A New Take On The Prosperity Gospel

After all these years of teaching that the prosperity gospel is not exactly theologically accurate...along comes a study from MIT. According to Jonathan Gruber of the economics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Doubling the frequency of attendance at church leads to a 9.1 percent increase in household income, or a rise of 5.5 percent as a fraction of the poverty scale". If you want more, enjoy this story from ABCNews.