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April 14, 2013 5:05 pm

Christian heptathlon

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by    in Lists

We like sport. We just put our own twist on it. Here’s what the Christian heptathlon looks like (with links to the event that was the inspiration for it).

athletics

Photo: AdamKR, reused under CC License

  • Bible hopping: quote as many separate and short Bible verses as possible to support an argument. Bonus points for quoting non-standard verses, especially genealogies or the minor prophets. In this contest, speed is of the essence: you do not want whichever passage you’re using to support your argument to actually speak to your listeners directly. Careful, some passages may trip you up, so never stray far from your usual turf.
  • Triple point: write any talk or sermon in a three-point structure. Bear in mind that these points should not be considered in any way that would allow anyone to continue after your work; and that if a four-point or two-point structure were better suited to your argument, such a work would be disqualified.
  • Javelin: use your talk, sermon or other document as a way to attack The Others – be it in terms of theological viewpoint, or in terms of societal issues. Current issues are disqualified, particularly shortly after schisms, where such attacks are far too easy. The Baptists made a commendable effort in 1689, but this effort was not homologated due to the circumstances at the time. You may wish to train by defending your church as opposed to other churches, and move on to a dissing of low/high churches (delete as appropriate) before mocking other doctrinal points.
  • Conceptual hammer throwing: talk about predestination, transubstantiation, cessationism or any other particularly heavy theological topic without explaining what it means, and with no other reason than that you like the sound of your own voice on that matter.
  • 1500s run: only use one theological reference from the 16th Century to inform your thinking – usually the Puritans. Also exists in other eras (100s run is particularly popular these days)
  • Sermon throw: make your sermon as far removed as possible from the text from which you’re meant to be preaching. This sport is commonly confused with the practice of throwing the sermon as far as possible from any form of relevance to the audience’s lives.
  • Service marathon: make sure everybody is keeping their Sunday holy by keeping them in church a minimum of 6 hours. Techniques include: readings which span many chapters; repeated verses and/or instrumentals and/or wo-ohs in hymns and worship songs; organ voluntaries put in the middle of the service; and, most easily, sermons with a minimal length of oner hour. Fringe improvements can be made by making sure that no one knows when their part is – this technique is particularly helpful with dramatised tellings of Bible stories.

Athletes competing in these will be checked for inhalation of incense.

—

In these especially, the first will be the last.

Add your own!

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4 comments!
April 7, 2013 2:27 pm

Four steps to discipleship

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by    in Liturgy,Sermons

Today was my second sermon ever. I mentioned last week how I found I was struggling more than with my first sermon. Before going out to preach, I still wasn’t 100% happy with it; but after having said it, I am actually finding it better than my first sermon. Anyway, here, you can listen to it, read it (although I did ad lib a bit). But as it is long, I’ll provide a summary too.

sermon2

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Sometimes, we are locked in the cage of our own worries: fear of failure, or of what others might think, stop us from acting. And so we try to shut out that fear, going on with our lives as though there was no way to go out of that cage. That’s where the disciples are at the start of the Gospel reading, before Christ appears to them: fear-stricken, behind locked doors. And then something happens that transforms them into the bold apostles who stand up before the Sanhedrin, saying “We must obey God rather than any human authority“.

The transformation happens in this house, in this upper room, when Jesus appears to the disciples. And it has four steps:

1. Receive the risen Christ – and lean on him in all that we do. I cannot stress enough that he is already there, in our midst, even behind locked doors – no matter how many times we go back and lock the doors again. Our part in it is to recognise his presence. And that can be done through pausing, looking around us, praying, drawing near for communion, seeing Christ in our friends. But Christ needs to be the unquenchable source of our discipleship: because if we follow something else, that something will run out.

2. Receive his peace. That follows naturally from step one – as we know that Christ who defeated death is on our side; although sometimes it doesn’t feel quite like that. Again, pause, and make sure you receive Christ’s peace before rushing out. I think that in giving us his peace, Christ unlocks the door – if we run out too fast, we might hurt ourselves quite a bit.

3. Receive and embrace his command, which is simple: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. We are to model Christ in our discipleship – be real imitators of him, and that means doing everything out of our love for God and for others, and in a spirit of submission – even when our will goes against what is asked of us.

4. Receive the Holy Spirit: we are not alone in this action!

I think that we each tend to focus on one step rather than all four. But they are equally important, and sequential. You can’t embrace God’s command without first receiving Christ and his peace – that would not be a race of perseverance.

If we follow all four, though, we will run that race to the end, with boldness and with peace. That’s why the liturgy goes: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. We are to go beyond the church’s confines, but we are to be assured of that peace. And the response grounds this action in Christ: “in the name of Christ, amen.”

Peace be with you.

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5 comments!
March 31, 2013 3:20 pm

The Anecdote

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by    in Uncategorized

Next week, I’m preaching for the second time (you can listen to my first go here). And while one would assume that the experience should make it easier and less daunting, it doesn’t. There are many circumstantial reasons for this:

  • a lot less prep time (“only” 2 weeks’ notice this time round)
  • I don’t have the excuse of it being my first time as a safety net
  • The lectionary falls on Acts. Which is great, but it was a lot easier to just go with the message already spelled out in the Epistle last time (using the Gospel passage as a hook into that). This time, the sermon can take a fair amount of directions, and it’s a bit harder to pick one and stick with one.

Crucially, though – I have been given advice. It came in two forms: one was on the back of a conversation (of which, in fairness, I probably only remember the least useful bits!), and was given relatively independently of the passages: that I should pitch the sermon in the context of Easter. Because that’s “where people were going to be”. Probably great advice, the only issue is, I’m not quite sure what that means: after Easter Sunday, should we consider people to be on the road to Emmaus? Or further along the road, with the resurrection properly sunk in? Or should I wait until the Ascension for that*? Should I preach to both Peter and Thomas called Didymus?

anecdote

Photo: THOR, reused under CC license

The Joke, The Anecdote and The Three-Part Structure: the Trinity of sermon-writing?

And as I’m trying to weave the church calendar into the sermon, I’m also reminded of the various pieces of advice that are, seemingly, valid for all sermons. You find them in books on sermon-writing (among which the two David Day ones are very helpful). That there should be a joke, and an anecdote, to pepper the whole tedious business for our yawning congregations. Thankfully, though, the abuses of the practice of The Joke, which ended up unrelated to the sermon, have been put to light and it seems that this is far less common now. I think the same goes for the anecdote.

Writing the sermon, I was scratching my head, trying to think of an anecdote to tell which was fitting to the sermon, but finding I probably do not have any to offer. This was a real block to the writing process. Once I realised that I didn’t need an anecdote as such, I was freed to let the sermon flow.

There is a real risk in giving rules about what sermons should include: that we end up seeing  helpful rules as a compulsory system, and that The Anecdote becomes The Joke: forced, stale, and potentially worse, what people focus on and retain from the sermon. I would even argue that if it does not come naturally into the sermon, that is, without trying to fit one in, then an anecdote is detrimental to the quality of the sermon: it makes it bitty at best, self-contradictory at worst. (But yeah, if it does fit in naturally, then it makes the sermon all the more powerful and relevant!) So maybe there will be one in my sermon, but I don’t aim to include one at all costs.

Dead to rules, alive to the Bible

Despite this, I do believe one of the rules of sermon-writing should be upheld and observed at all times: preach from the text (rather than from a hypothetical point you’re trying to make). That rule can be applied, because it influences the entirety of the sermon, not just one part of it or its structure. And because it directs us to a source, it helps us avoid Bible-hopping.

I thought I had nothing to say about these two passages. Then I started to write, trying  to explain what was happening in either of the passages, and what was surprising. And a mini-structure  for the sermon just appeared. That’s what preaching from the text means: letting it guide you on a journey whose destination you don’t quite know yet.

This complete dependence on Scripture explains why it is so daunting to preach: these are powerful words we are wielding. And I hope I always tackle preaching with that same fear – that I never become blasé about what I’m preaching from. But at the same time, it is incredibly reassuring: because Scripture supports our preaching; and, relying on it, there’s no way to go terribly wrong!

—

* That said, I love the church calendar, and love using it. But that’s for another post!

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6 comments!
March 24, 2013 5:39 pm

Value in simplicity

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by    in Liturgy

There are a few modern worship songs which annoy me because all they seem to say is “I’m a Christian” over and over again. Not only are modern worship songs formulaic (and include a lot of woh-ohing), they also feature a lot of repetition. At the other end of the spectrum, most hymns are wordy and can turn into a contest as to who can use the largest amount of words to describe a rather simple thing. Or spend an entire song to ask a question which can be answered with a single word: no.

simplicity

Personally, I tend to favour hymns (whether modern or ancient), because in the variation of lyrics, I can feel their flow and progression towards the resurrection. In that, they play their part in accompanying us in our worship, starting from simple description of facts and progressively including us – a bit like the “This is our story” eucharistic liturgy. That’s how, when they explode into the victory being won, that victory is truly ours.

But the issue with hymns is that they don’t let up. If I don’t know the hymn, I don’t quite have time to take in what I’m saying. The mind and soul are sometimes left trying to catch up with the lips. And by the time they have caught up, the liturgy is about to continue, without much time to actually own what we were singing. The same applies if we sing a song with simple lyrics but a complicated structure, where boredom takes over at the tenth special electric guitar riff.

Halfway between lyrical complexity and musical fanciness, though, there are songs which can only be described as simple. Take the Taize song “Oh Lord, hear my prayer“; or the African song “Hakuna wakaita sa Jesu“, meaning “There’s no one like Jesus”. Both of these have simple lyrics which get repeated – without fancy additions. The repetitive pattern, finally, allows the mind and soul to catch up with the lips, and the statement that there is no one like Jesus becomes truly our statement, rather than a trite, quaint little thing better left for Sunday school.

There is a true value in simple songs. And singing a song that just keeps on repeating itself is nothing to shirk from, or to compensate for with fun riffs or drum solo. Leaving enough time for the simple statement to gather momentum and weight, with no distractions or shame, leads (for me) to a deeper form of worship. And I absolutely adore it.

So here’s my suggestion for you: next time you worship, pick a simple song. Or simplify one by using simply the chorus. And sing it over and over again until you feel it is yours. Then finish with a moment of silence.

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8 comments!
March 17, 2013 4:13 pm

Signposts to heaven

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by    in Liturgy

In our church, we use this piece of liturgy (which, apparently, comes from the Iona community):

Make our congregations places of radical discipleship, and signposts to heaven.

signpost

Photo: Lairich Rig, reused under CC License

Radical discipleship means at the same time more and less than what may be ascribed to it. But that’s not what I want to focus on today; it’s the second half: “signposts to heaven“. I only recently realised the depth that this prayer contains. Here are a few thoughts on it:

Signposting means being visible. It means that our congregation needs to be put on a lampstand so that it is visible to others. Simply in being visible, we can be an encouragement to others, in the same way that a signpost on the side of the road can encourage people and let them know they are on the right track, and that the destination in fact exists and is known to the congregation.

Signposting is to somewhere. Far from being an end in itself, the church and the congregational aspect of church life in particular, is only a place to grow. If your going to church is simply part of a stable pattern – if you’re not experiencing growth, then you might just be pausing at the signpost, catching your breath. And the signpost, the congregation, is a safe place to do so, because you will know which way to move from there. But if you’re not expecting growth, then you may be doing it wrong.

Signposts have some information on them. There would be little point in having a signpost with simply a multitude of arrows (if even that!) without anything written on them. Just look at the photo: doesn’t the arrow pointing towards us look odd? Let us be bold in proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom; and (to use another bit of the same piece of liturgy) in expectation that the best is yet to come, be truly Christ-like.

The signposts in the liturgy are to heaven. It means that our congregations should evoke heaven to people: that in our churches, people should be reminded of heaven. That means that God should be visible in the way we live: it’s not just about being nice and spurring each other on to be better people, it’s about becoming, congregationally, Christ-like and allowing Christ to shine through us.

A final thought on this issue: it is a prayer for congregations. It doesn’t go Make us signposts to heaven, although that might also be a good prayer to say. It asks more, and demands less: it asks for unity in individual humility. It asks that together, we make up that signpost for others; and to do that, we all must point in the same direction. But it does not seek our own glorification as individual disciples, or demand that we get an instant revelation of heaven so that we can individually point in the right direction (and usher in those who clearly have had a distorted vision).

One thing’s for sure, next time I say this prayer, it will have taken on a much deeper meaning.

Do you have a prayer you particularly like?

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