How do you change the culture of a church?
We talked about this question quite a bit at the ‘Trellis and Vine Workshops’ that Col Marshall and I had the privilege of leading recently in the US. It was an issue that many of the pastors at the workshops felt keenly.
What do you think of the following piece of writing?
The first option is rather than mirroring, imaging, reflecting, showing God we turn the mirror round and we become absolutely enamoured with, infatuated with, ourselves. That is, you get concepts of self-esteem, self-love, and Maslow with his hierarchy of needs said that ultimately our greatest need is what? Self-actualization—to glorify ourselves, to get all we can get, to be all we can be, to do all we can do, to have all we can have. This comes from the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus. If you know the concept of narcissism, it is one who absolutely is enamoured with, addicted to, themselves.
As writing, it is not really very good, is it? The words and ideas are just piled up without any real structure or flow. There’s very little memorable imagery or language. It lacks power.
Truth is, it comes from one of the most popular and gifted Christian communicators on the planet, Mark Driscoll. But it was not written by Mr Driscoll. It’s a snippet transcribed at random from one of his online sermons. The reason it is such bad writing is that it is not writing at all, and was never intended to be.
Now it’s possible to do some editorial magic on this sort of writing. We could tidy it up like this:
The first option is that rather than mirroring or imaging God, we turn the mirror around and become infatuated with ourselves. We love ourselves rather than God. Maslow, with his hierarchy of needs, said that ultimately our greatest need is self-actualisation—to glorify ourselves, to be all we can be, to have all we can have. This is narcissism (which comes from the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus). A narcissist is someone who is enamoured with, and addicted to, themselves.
Does that improve things? Well, a bit. But it is still not very good, and a book full of this sort of prose would be tiresome and hard to read. There’s very little rhythm or life to it.
Such, in my experience, are most books that start out as sermons. They very rarely work, not only because spoken English is not the same as written English, but also because the rhythm, style, diction and method of a sermon is difficult to translate to the page. Even the most electrifying and edifying sermons seem to have the blood drained out of them when they become an article, or chapters in a book.
This is why I was a bit skeptical when Ray Galea sent me a proposal for a book last year, based on a series of sermons he had done in the psalms. “This isn’t going to work”, I mumbled to myself. But it was Ray, and he was both a friend and the author of the very successful Nothing in my hand I bring. So I said I’d read it, and get back to him.
I’m glad I made the effort. The resulting book, God is Enough, has been one of the success stories of 2010. It’s already gone to a second printing, and has done so largely through that most precious of publishing qualities: word of mouth. People who read God is Enough tell their friends. It’s a contagious book.
God is Enough is the exception in books-from-sermons for two reasons. The first is that Ray has succeeded in making the transition from spoken English to the page without losing his rhythm or his voice. It doesn’t take very long in God is Enough for you to forget that you’re reading a book, and to hear Ray’s warm, funny, insightful voice teaching and encouraging you from the Scriptures. It’s an easy and delightful book to read. (Ray would be the first to tell you that this is also due to the excellent editorial efforts of Emma Thornett in our office.)
The second reason the book works is the subject matter, and the way in which Ray approaches it. It’s about what happens when you’ve been a Christian for a while, and the world starts to close in. You find that your enthusiasm and love for God has been displaced by busyness, responsibilities, and a never-ending round of Christian activities and involvements. You suffer some disappointments—perhaps some profound ones. And you start to wonder why you’re doing all this.
God is Enough aims to re-focus our lives on God by looking at how a series of different psalms do just that—focus on God amidst the difficulties and pressures of life in this sinful world. The theme verse for the book is from Psalm 73: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Ps 73:25).
If you haven’t yet read God is Enough, you really should. It will be good for your soul, and will give you yet another useful resource to share with your friends.
Have you seen Mark Dever’s chat with Mark Driscoll and James McDonald about multi-site churches? It’s excited plenty of interweb comment, not least because of the rather vigorous way Dever is set upon by the other two in a kind of jokey, jovial but still half-serious way.
(‘Multi-site’ means planting a new congregation or church service at a new location, but having the lead pastor from the mother church still do the bulk of the preaching, usually by means of a video feed. It’s a growing and controversial practice in US churches. Is it healthy? Useful? Biblical?)
I’ve been thinking a lot about emotions recently. This, of course, may be precisely my problem. I shouldn’t be thinking about emotions; I should just be feeling them. (more…)
I still remember the first time I heard Phillip Jensen preach. It was in February 1981, and I was a fresh-faced, charismatically-inclined young Christian, just down from the country, eager to learn and grow, and ready to take on the world.
After a self-imposed period of reflective meditation in the wilderness (i.e. too absolutely flat chat to even think about posting), I’m back. But not, alas, to say anything profound. I’m after some advice.
I’ve been working on the text of a ‘Christmas tract’ that we (i.e. Matthias Media) are hoping to publish by early November. It’s something for congregations to use in Christmas evangelism, to hand out at Christmas services, to use in Christmas letter-box drops, and so on. When we’ve done this in the past (and we’ve done it most years recently), we’ve tended to have a fairly strong Christmas theme to the tract: bouncing off a Christmas carol, or focusing on the birth of babies, and so on.
This time, I’m thinking of trying something a little different. And I’m after some feedback. Do you think it works? More particularly, does it work as something to hand out over the Christmas season when the name ‘Jesus’ creeps back into our popular culture however briefly. Any suggestions on how to improve it? So without further ado …
It was more than your average laid-back, phlegmatic Aussie could take: for about the 47th time in one day, an American pastor with a warm smile was shaking my hand and thanking me so much for the work I was doing and the valuable contribution Matthias Media was making to their ministry.
Some parents resent being the taxi driver. I offer to do it whenever I can. When else do your teenagers actually consent to sit within 10 metres of you, let alone talk to their friends while you listen? And besides, the opportunity to pay out their appalling music and inflict your own Classic Hits and Memories upon them is too much to resist. (more…)
One of the more fascinating books I read last year had the ironic title The Book is Dead. Long Live the Book. It was a book seeking to persuade me that books are history. (more…)
I was thinking of writing a post on global warming and climate change, but there’s an insistent voice in my head that keeps saying, “No, don’t do it! Tell ’em nuttin’!” (more…)
This is the fifth and final meeting template that I’ve been working on in recent months. (Check out part 1 for the background and the first template, and parts 2, 3 and 4 for the others.)
This meeting pattern is good to insert into the program at least every month to six weeks, in my view. It’s a change of pace—a morning of more extended singing and prayer—an opportunity to pause and give thanks and celebrate God’s goodness. It’s thrillingly called ‘Extra singing and prayer’.
Here’s the fourth in our series of meeting templates that seek to tease what a Christian gathering might look like if it was based on the Bible’s theology of Christian assembly. (See part 1 for a summary.)
Today’s pattern of meeting (which I very unimaginatively call ‘The two-parter’) is especially suitable when the passage/sermon raises a ‘big issue’, either doctrinally (e.g. predestination) or ethically (e.g. euthanasia, work, raising children). Or it could be just a tough passage that requires a bit of extra background and thinking to wrap our minds around. The basic idea is to divide the sermon or teaching content in half to allow extra time either for sketching in background or for teasing out implications. Perhaps Part 1 might cover some essential Old Testament background, while Part 2 focuses on the passage itself. Or Part 1 might involve the exposition of the passage or topic, and Part 2, a more extensive discussion of its practical implications.
Parts 1 and 2 of this little series contained some basic templates for a 75-minute Christian gathering. This third variation is especially good for those occasions where the content of the Bible passage or sermon is relatively simple and straightforward, but contains a powerful challenge with numerous implications for our lives. It has the sermon quite early in the meeting, followed by a more extended time for prayer, reflection, discussion and other things (such as celebrating the Lord’s Supper together).
This can also be a useful pattern to follow where the sermon is longer and more demanding, but is not amenable to the ‘two-parter’ template (which is part 4, to follow).