A Sinner By Any Other Name

I've read "Evangelism Without Additives" by Jim Henderson for the class I'll be taking at Houghton College this coming week. It has been both challenging, encouraging, and dismaying.
One of the most thought provoking things about the book is the challenge to our vocabulary. The author says it's time to get rid of descriptions of people who are not Christian that non-Christians might find offensive, such as "the lost," and "non-believers."
I see his point, and most of the terms we use don't even reflect the Biblical text. The problem is that the Biblical terms are much more potentially offensive. Reading the book I found myself trying to come up with positive words that did not reinforce the us/them mindset. I began to congratulate myself for coming up with "beneficiaries (of salvation)" and "potential beneficiaries."
But then I turned to the Bible and discovered that to Peter and Paul my neighbors are "enemies of the cross of Christ," and "sinners" and "the ungodly."
What is a disciple of Christ in a pluralistic society to do?
What words should we use, do you think?

Ancient Anger in the Mouths of Milquetoasts

These are the readings for this coming Sunday. It's a hard thing to preach on and probably no easier sitting in the pews. The hard Psalms are inspired scripture. We can not dismiss them as David's personal ramblings on a bad day. We have to do something with them, but we have to be so careful.


Call to Repentance
Revelation 3:19 (page 1917)

Call to Worship
Psalm 47 (page 885)

OT Reading
Jeremiah 17:12-18 (page 1201)

NT Reading
James 5:1-9 (page 1884)

Message
Ancient Anger in the Mouths of Milquetoasts
Psalm 109:6-15 (page 950)

Readings for Pentecost Sunday

Remember to wear red this Sunday as we celebrate the incalculable gift of God's Holy Spirit.

May 11, 2008 Pentecost Sunday

Call to Repentance
Hosea 10:12 (page 1407)

Call to Worship
Psalm 126 (page 967)

OT Reading
Isaiah 62:1-7 (page 1159)

NT Reading
Hebrews 12:12-24 (page page 1877)

Message
Living Out of a Suitcase
Acts of the Apostles 1:4-5 (page 1690)

Fishes and Loaves

This Sunday, the Sunday of our Annual Meeting, I'll be preaching on what it means for us to have a drenched altar; what it is our altar's drenched with, and why it's so important that it stay that way.

We're a little church with lots of strikes against us. And that's exactly how we want it.

During this time of glossy megachurches and their ambitious aspirants it takes a real effort of the will to be the sort of church where God's activity could not be mistaken for anything else.

Other churches, hearing that there are hungry masses, put in a bid on the catering job. They invest in chafing dishes and cloth napkins. They come up with an enticing menu. They make sure the drinks are cold and the chicken parmesan is hot. The servers in their uniforms know what to do so that things go smoothly. There will be compliments to the chef.

We, on the other hand, hearing the same report simply go to the Master, not with a bid, but with our lunch. What happens with the few fishes and loaves is, ultimately, up to him. It is primarily our job to turn them over.

Call to Repentance
Romans 12:3 (page 1763)

Call to Worship
Psalm 144 (page 978)

OT Reading
Judges 7:1-8 (page 383)

NT Reading
Acts 1:1-14 (page 1690)

Message
Our Drenched Altar
1 Kings 18:16-39 (page 557)

John Wesley Part 1 - From the Burning

I would urge you to consider this brief video from "Under the Stairs Productions." It tells the story of John Wesley, the founder of the movement that gave rise to the denomination to which our church belongs.
Knowing more about our heritage gives us a better idea of our direction and mission.
I'll be posting the next two parts next week.

Bi-vocational Ministry

Tomorrow might prove a big day in the life of the church. Of course, that's true every Sunday and we would do well to remember it. You can't make a habit of coming into the presence of the Consuming Fire and not keep in mind that one of these Sundays we might get seared.
But tomorrow in particular we will be having our Annual Meeting and one of the things we will be discussing is the possibility of changing my employment status with the church. Right now, in order to make ends meet, I am having to work full-time outside of the church.
The board is considering increasing our salary to some extent so that I can drop down to part-time employment and go on state health care.
I don't think that full-time employment at the church is realistically an option, at this point.
I can't stress enough how important it is that we as a church pray through this and study Scripture to see what it tells us.

Some points to consider in no particular order:

1. Relying on the church for personal income is a risk, but you can't really think of it that way when it's an act of obedience.

2. From talking with mature saints, I suspect that North Chittenden Wesleyan has never had a full-time pastor in its considerable history (unless Charles Dayton was full-time).

3. I know that other bi-vocational pastors in this church's past have had successful ministries and been comfortable in retirement. Some of their outside work has included working for the road crew, working for the fish hatchery, and doing local farm work on a per diem basis.

4. Working at Barstow Elementary has been a wonderful (and fruitful) connection with the community and they have proven to be a generous and accomodating employer.

5. In theory, having a bi-vocational pastor should result in a more active (and even bi-vocational) congregation. Full-time pastors can lead to passive flocks.

6. There are some serious obstacles to ministry and threats to the pastor's health when he is required to work the second shift for forty hours a week, while trying to pastor, parent and pursue ordination.

7. The employment status of the pastor has an effect on people's perceptions of the church. It would be ugly of us to take steps toward having a full-time pastor so that our affluent, highly educated neighbors would possibly think better of us. But, on the other hand, people in and out of the church will be more likely to ask the pastor for pastoral assistance when they can do so without feeling that they are being an imposition on an already stressed schedule.
And taking these steps, as with improvements to the building, sends a visible signal to our community that we are a vital fellowship whose devotion is bearing fruit.

8. No one would be more directly affected by any change in employment status than I would be, and no one is more confused about what to wish for than I am. It would be nice to have my mind made up, but it's also nice to know that I can be pleased with any outcome.

9. God is faithful and we have good reason to believe that he loves our church.

Songs for Sunday

These are the songs the worship team selected a few weeks ago when I thought I would be preaching on the idea of deliverance in the Psalms. Now I think God is having me go in another direction for the message, but the songs are still good and we'll see if Providence is better at song selection than we are. That's been the case in the past!

The opening choruses will be the Chris Tomlin tune "Enough," and another chorus, "Good to Me," that I believe we've sung before. There is a post below to a video that will familiarize you with "Enough" if you're not sure how to sing it.

The first hymn will be "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah." This wonderful hymn was hurt in the estimation of some by its use in "The African Queen." But, written by William Williams it became an anthem of the Welsh revival in which Williams was saved. He went from being a college student on his way to a career in medicine to being a preaching, singing evangelist because he happened to hear someone preaching in a churchyard. Within a short time of having written this hymn it was being sung by thousands of Welsh believers in soccer stadiums throughout Wales. Our version of the hymn is a translation from the Welsh.

The prayer hymn will be Decide This Doubt For Me. To listen to a version of the song go to http://www.redmountainchurch.org/rmm/b-sides/b-sides.html. This will take you to the site of the church whose music ministry team came up with the music for the hymn from the 17oo's by one of England's greatest poets.

And the closing hymn will be "I Know Whom I Have Believed," written by a Daniel Whittle, some time after his experience as a POW in the Civil War.

One of this Sunday's Choruses

I would encourage you to watch this video if you are unfamiliar with the song, both to help you figure out how it's sung and, more importantly, why we're singing it.

Having a Grasp of Things

Concerning tomorrow's sermon:
Modern assumptions about scientific materialism shape our thinking in ways we hardly know. Scientific materialism limits reality to the strictly natural and material, and limits our knowledge to what we can observe about the natural and material. (That's a crude definition.) The funny thing is that modern science is convinced that by reducing and compressing the landscape of reality and then narrowing and limiting the means by which we might know anything about it we have actually advanced our understanding.
Science offers things like cell phones, genetically modified organisms and satellites as evidence for this advancement.
1 Cor. 1:19-20 (ESV) For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." [20] Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
So here's a question that might serve as a partial antidote to the wisdom of the wise that infects us all to some degree: Who has a better grasp on things?
The scientist says that the conditions for fire are fuel and a means of ignition, but that water will inhibit or prevent fire and that some materials are simply not flammable.
Elijah demonstrated on Mt. Carmel that while all of that is predictably likely, none of is true.
So, who has a better grasp on the nature of nature? The scientist with his rules or the wild-eyed prophet with his shocking exception.
Or consider the scientist who states with confidence that when a rock is struck by the end of a stick being swung by a person with moderate force, the wood will make a sound and bounce away from the rock. Moses, however, demonstrates that the rock will produce sweet water as a result.
So who has a better grasp of nature then? The thirsty scientist, or the well satisfied primitive?
The scientist says that there is no connection between snakes and walking sticks. Moses demonstrates that the one may turn into the other. Moses had a very literal grasp on the nature of snakes so that we might reasonably presume that he knew more about snakes than any herpetologist alive today. I know of no herpetologist who can turn his snake into a staff.
The scientist with his mystical faith in gravity and his worship of the supposed laws that govern matter in its liquid form says with confidence that water will always obey gravity and flow downward to a level. Moses and the whole people of Israel made a sham of that conviction when they crossed the Red Sea on dry land.
Moses had a better grasp of the natural world than any meteorologist or physicist or oceanographer alive today. He understood that it was a miracle that the water was piled up for him on either side and restrained there for a time. But it seemed like a reasonable sort of miracle, coming from the God who also miraculously stores immense amounts of water in large, nebulous containers apparently floating some distance above the earth. We call these containers clouds.
It's a miracle that water feels wet every time we touch it.
I would challenge you to make an effort to weed the scientific materialism out of your mind so that you can think like a Christian about the world around you. If you do, your cell phone will still work, I think. But you might find some unusual things happening to you or occurring to you.
You might find yourself, like Peter, walking on the water instead of sinking under it.

chris tomlin - how great is our god

This is one of the songs that we'll be singing this Sunday. Listen to Chris Tomlin explain how he wrote the song and then listen to him explain how to sing it.

Songs for Sunday the 27th

This Sunday we'll be starting out with three choruses. How Great Is Our God, Shout To the Lord, and Wonderful Maker were selected because, in addition to being energetic and worshipful, they help us focus on God's might as demonstrated in his sovereignty over nature.



Check out the post above which features a video of Chris Tomlin performing the song How Great Is Our God.



Our first hymn will be All Creatures of Our God and King, written by St. Francis of Assissi, who loved nature, but loved nature's God even more. The version of the hymn that we will sing is slightly different, musically speaking, from the familiar version in the hymnal.



The prayer hymn will be For the Beauty of the Earth, written by Folliot S. Pierpoint.



And the concluding hymn will be I Sing the Mighty Power of God, by Isaac Watts, who included it in a volume of hymns and poetry written especially for children. Though he had no children of his own, Isaac Watts loved children and so gave us these words to sing that say something to and about God with simple directness.



(Here's another song from the same volume, as found in One Year Book of Hymns, by Robert Brown and Mark Norton:



Let dogs delight to bark and bight, for God hath made them so.

Let bears and lions growl and fight, for so their natures go.

But children, you should never let such angry passions rise.

Your little hands were never made to tear each other's eyes.



Amen and amen!)