Preaching

Preaching as Profession

Christian Buckley — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:47:49 -0700

When Did Preaching Become Profession?

I have a history degree and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence. I am a published Christian author by Moody and have chaired a national Christian non-profit. But I didn’t go to bible college or seminary. Does that preclude me from preaching?

In the past several years I have felt an increasing call to perhaps move into preaching. Those that I have mentioned it to have said, “But you didn’t go to seminary? You are not ordained.”

Disheartened I have frequently just accepted the response sheepishly.

I continue to come back to the idea and wonder to myself, “When did preaching become a profession for which school, rather than God, qualifies you?”

I venture to say most evangelicals will know little of Dr. Martin Loyd-Jones but I have found his story quite moving because he was not a professional preacher but rather a medial doctor when his call came. This is a great interview with him:

VIDEO LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-MBHKREsS8&feature=related

Others like CH Spurgeon never went to bible college and yet he was clearly gifted as a preacher.

I don’t have the answer but this question continues to concern me.

Any help?

From Vincent Van Gogh to You

bo.white — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 02:00:00 -0700

Before Vincent Van Gogh was a master painter, he was a missionary to the poor in Belgium. Strangely, part of my own journey that involved working for an organization named 'Food for the Hungry' involved my own reading of Van Gogh's letters and his story. He makes sense to me. Maybe he will to you and in him, you may find new color that you didn't notice before.

Prior to succumbing to melancholy, Van Gogh was able to preach and in 1876, he preached a sermon based on Psalm 119:19. Below are his closing remarks from that message:

"Has He not brought us thus far, have we lacked anything, Lord we believe help Thou our unbelief. I still feel the rapture, the thrill of joy I felt when for the first time I cast a deep look in the lives of my Parents, when I felt by instinct how much they were Christians. And I still feel that feeling of eternal youth and enthusiasm wherewith I went to God, saying: "I will be a Christian too." Are we what we dreamt we should be? No, but still the sorrows of life, the multitude of things of daily life and of daily duties, so much more numerous than we expected, the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over, but it is not dead, it sleepeth. The old eternal faith and love of Christ, it may sleep in us but it is not dead and God can revive it in us. But though to be born again to eternal life, to the life of Faith, Hope and Charity, – and to an evergreen life – to the life of a Christian and a Christian workman, be a gift of God, a work of God – and of God alone, yet let us put the hand to the plough on the field of our heart, let us cast out our net once more – let us try once more. God knows the intention of the spirit. God knows us better than we know ourselves, for He made us and not we ourselves. He knows of what things we have need. He knows what is good for us. May He give us His blessing on the seed of His word, that He has sown in our hearts. God helping us, we shall get through life. With every temptation he will give a way to escape.

Father we pray Thee not that Thou shouldest take us out of the world, but we pray Thee to keep us from evil. Give us neither poverty nor riches, feed us with bread convenient for us. And let Thy songs be our delight in the houses of our pilgrimage. God of our Fathers be our God: may their people be our people, their faith our faith. We are strangers on the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us, but may the love of Christ constrain us. Entreat us not to leave Thee or refrain from following after Thee. Thy people shall be our people. Thou shalt be our God.

Our life is a pilgrim's progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture: it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right-hand side a row of hills appeared blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and its yellow leaves, for it was in autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain far, far away, on the top of that mountain is a city wherein the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, or figure in black, that makes one think of St. Paul's word: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions and the pilgrim asks her: Does the road go uphill then all the way?"

And the answer is: "Yes to the very end."

And he asks again: "And will the journey take all day long?"

And the answer is: "From morn till night my friend."

And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing – sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow and he thinks of two old sayings that he heard long ago – the one is:

"Much strife must be striven
Much suffering must be suffered
Much prayer must be prayed
And then the end will be peace."

And the other is

"The water comes up to the lips
But higher comes it not."

And he says:

"I shall be more and more tired but also nearer and nearer to Thee. Has not man a strife on earth? But there is a consolation from God in this life. An Angel of God comforting man – that is the Angel of Charity. Let us not forget her. And when each of us goes back to the daily things and daily duties let us not forget that things are not what they seem, that God by the things of daily life teacheth us higher things, that our life is a pilgrim's progress, and that we are strangers on the earth, but that we have a God and father who preserveth strangers, – and that we are all brethren.

Amen.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us forever more.

Amen."

-bo

Preach the Gospel Always. When Necessary, Use Words: Part 2

Mark Russell — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:11:47 -0700

A while back I wrote a blog post on the often cited quote, “Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words,” which is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

The blog addressed a difficult and challenging relationship of Christian proclamation aka word vs demonstration aka deed.

One inquisitive reader raised the following questions:

1) Jesus seems to prioritize his teaching ministry over his “deed” ministry at various points (e.g. Mark 1:35-39, 3:7-19, 4:1-2 and the parallels in the other synoptic gospels).

2) Jesus seems to describe the ‘self-sacrificial’ life of following him to ‘adhering to his words,’ and doing so is for his sake (which is equated to the gospel’s sake) in Mark 8:31-38.

3) In commissioning his followers, Jesus does not command them to “do good works,” but only to “make disciples” by means of “baptizing” and ‘teaching them all that Jesus commanded’.

4) There aren’t any blanket imperatives in the Bible to “do good works” in a context of evangelism. There are plenty of imperatives to do good things, and good works seem necessarily incidental to those imperatives as a matter of Christian living. But it seems that even in those moments which might suggest a prioritization of works over words or even an equivalency of works and words (e.g. Ephesians 2:10, James 1:19-27, James 2:15-26), the author is subordinating ‘works’ to teaching on ‘faith’ and ‘grace’ (Ephesians 2:8-9, James 1:18, James 2:14). A person comes to faith (through grace) in the New Testament only ever by the Word of God preached and explained (cf. Romans 10:10-17).

These are good questions and I believe represent why so many Christians struggle with fully embracing the integration of word and deed. To further explain my position I’d like to briefly respond to the four questions:

1) Does Jesus prioritize his teaching ministry over his “deed” ministry?

If we look carefully at Jesus, we see the perfect integration of word and deed. I would go so far as to say that Jesus would not even be comfortable with that categorization.

The Mark 1:35-39 passage shows Jesus in prayer, then he goes to preach and at the same time drive out demons. Driving out demons is a form of deed ministry. Thus even in this “preaching” text I really don’t see any prioritization at all.

Furthermore, Jesus was once directly asked for priorities:

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" (Matt 22:35-36).

Jesus famously responded by saying Love God is the greatest commandment and to love your neighbor as yourself is the second. To illustrate what he meant by loving one’s neighbor he told the story of Good Samaritan in which there is no mentioning of proclamation whatsoever but is rather a story that exemplifies faith in action.

Now I do not extrapolate from this passage that “deed” is more important than “word.” But I don’t see how you could possibly come away saying that “word” is more important than deed.

2) Does the equation of a “self sacrificial” life with Christ’s words mean that proclamation is more important than demonstration?

I would actually say quite the opposite. The Mark 8:31-39 passage shows the interdependent relationship of action and words. If you don’t act (deed) on Christ’s words then your faith is pointless. This passage, like many others, demonstrates that word and deed cannot be parsed out as it is by so many in our contemporary culture.

3) Doesn’t the Great Commission elevate proclamation over demonstration?

Again, when looked at clearly, Matthew 28:19-20 shows us the interdependence of proclamation and action. This passage has frequently been distorted to be a purely evangelistic commissioning. That is unfortunate. The call to “make disciples” is much more encompassing than simple conversion or evangelistic proclamation.

These two verses contain several key action terms (deeds) such as “Go” and “obey all that I command.” Both of these again show that action is what should flow out of teaching or other forms of proclamation. One is not more important than the other. They are both vitally necessary and important which is why we should always be focused on doing both!

4) Is teaching priority to deeds?

The final question raises a number of points which might be addressed more fully in another blog entry. However, for now, I would just reiterate that the categories cannot be parsed out so distinctly.

If the Bible makes clear that we should do good deeds (which it does) then why would we feel the need to make sure that teaching or preaching or whatever else is more important. To me it is kind of like saying which is more important: tell my wife I love her or show her that I love her.

Some husbands may answer this one differently but I think I should do both as much as I can. The same is true to the gospel. What is more important to live the gospel through our deeds or share the gospel through our words? We should be doing both as much as we can.

I Got Nothin'

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:09:55 -0800

What do pastors do when Sunday morning is barreling down on them and they realize they have absolutely nothing to say from the pulpit? Women-in-the-pulpit theology aside, I’m awfully glad I will never be a pastor. The burden to create life-changing sermons week upon week must weigh on a man, especially if he is naturally a shepherd, a hand-on-the-shoulder guy, or just rhetorically average.

Inspiration is a tricky cat. If you believe in the Holy Spirit—and I do—you want to believe that God can zap our intellect, give us supernatural insight, and use his Holy Scriptures to shape our teaching. Yet I’m pretty sure God didn’t deem sacred the seven-day cycle of insights, where the Holy Spirit punches his time clock at certain intervals just in time for the church secretary to print the sermon title every Wednesday for the church bulletin. Our church system seems to have nudged out the natural growth cycles of Inspiration and his sister crop Revelation. But here we are in a system where the vast majority of churches operate on the expectation of a sturdy Sabbath harvest, delivered by the local pastor / farmer right on cue.

What if by Friday afternoon that farmer’s got nothin’ but rocks and weeds?

Zadie Smith in her intellectually demanding collection of essays Changing My Mind, believes inspiration happens in two ways. The first comes from absorbing everything you can find—great novels, comic books, the daily news, essays, conversations—in an attempt to allow great thinkers to wash over you in some kind of intellectual marinade. This, many believe, is a legitimate way of boosting inspiration, and some go so far as to suggest that no insight ever happens in isolation. Even that burrito you ate last night shifted your midnight thoughts and led to a new conclusion in your grand idea.

The other, fiercely independent, strategy is to shut yourself off from the world of ideas, fasting, as it were, from the rich foods of books and essays. In this way, you are assured that your inspiration comes from within (or in the case of pastors, from God himself), safe from the plagiaristic temptations of men.

So what would God ask of our pastors and teachers? What would he ask of me, a writer? Should I be looking for objects on the ground from which to create a Found Poem, a musical cover, a refurbished engine? Or should I search only within myself to find the heart of God himself, the mystical union of mind and spirit?

I have no great answer. But the man or woman who spends his life in both realms is better equipped, I think, to discover God’s spirit. God works within and without, using the supernatural and the mundane to push us toward elevated thoughts, both methods working like sun and water to bring a harvest of inspiration.

If I were a pastor (and since I never will be, I find it easy to throw out such an audacious proposal), I would tell my congregation to go home some Sunday mornings. I got nothin’ I would tell them. Go home and write your own sermon today. And if salaries weren’t such a pesky detail, I might also gather ten teachers together, young and old, internet trollers and pensive thinkers, deep philosophers and rhetorical comedians—all wedded to sturdy doctrine—and I would say Let’s all teach this year. Whenever you get a crop, let the rest of know and we’ll let you show up on Sunday. The rest of us will enjoy your food and wait until our sprouts are green.

Now I think I got something.

Websites and Preaching

Jim Elliston — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:03:41 -0800

Some might think the two crafts have very little in common... But I will be the first to disagree. After co-creating Clover as well as having the privilege of attending Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley with Francis Chan as the teaching pastor, I have realized the common DNA that makes great websites and great preaching. Drum roll please...

Caring about your audience.

I know, I know... You've heard it before. Maybe in seminary or from a mentor. The crazy thing is that, for as easy of a concept as this is, very few people actually do it. This is why sometimes in services you find yourself disconnecting with the pastor and thinking about what's for lunch or who's playing the football game at 1PM.

You'll see the same disconnect when browsing websites poorly created. So often in the web world we have programmers or designers who fancy a certain design style or web language, that when creating a site for a certain audience, have failed to ask the question "What is the best way to communicate to my audience?".

I have been reminded of the discipline of designing and programming for your audience for the past 6 years or so since attending Cornerstone Church and sitting under Francis' teaching. Each week Francis conveys the Word of God clearly, concisely, and in the language of the people. He jokes that he's the Dr. Suess of preachers. Maybe it's time there were less PhD's in pulpits and more Dr. Suess'.

I propose the same for website design. It's time that websites are created for people, not programmers. This begins with asking the question, "How do I communicate best to my audience?" Unfortunately, in both preaching and design, our own tastes and bents have a nasty habit of popping up and distracting us from our ultimate goal of communication. But know that when all is said and done, even if nothing is said beautifully, it is still nothing. So keep it simple, and remember your people.

//Jim