Hiatus
By God's grace I have two jobs now (one full-time days, the other evenings and occasional weekends) that I expect to keep me very busy through the end of December. So - with some reluctance and regret - I plan to take a break from writing Pastor's Pages until about January 1st. Please check back in January 2011 when, Lord willing, I'll have the time (and energy!) to write some more stuff.
All good things to all of you,
Paul
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
October 19, 2010: How To Start A Sermon
No pastors that I know of read my blog, but I've decided not to let that stop me from offering a piece of homiletic counsel just in case one of them happens to see this page.
Start your sermons with the word "In" followed by a reference to the Scripture text that has just been read. For example,
"In verse 17 Jesus tells his disciples..."
"In verse 4 St. Paul brings up the topic of..."
"In verse 9 we are told that the wicked..."
"In verse 11 the writer of Hebrews says..."
When these are the very first words out of your mouth after the Scripture reading, they demonstrate a seriousness of purpose to your congregation. They force people to pay attention from the outset, because they send an immediate message that you are not going to waste their time with chatter, meandering introduction, or inane banter. (Some parishioners may be shocked - pleasantly so - that you are getting to your point so quickly.) And such words also help discipline your own thoughts, because they leave you no choice but to focus on the text.
And please, never EVER start a sermon with
"Didn't the worship team do a great job? I tell you, my heart was really blessed..."
"I'm so glad to be with you here in Chicago in February. In San Diego, where I'm from, we never have to scrape ice off the..."
"Shh! I'm a secret agent..." [The literal first line of a sermon I heard years ago.]
"For the last few weeks, we've been talking about..."
"I have a bit of a cold this morning..."
"On my way to church today..."
"A priest, a rabbi and a pastor were on the golf course one morning..."
"This is my first sermon and I'm really nervous..."
"My name is Paul and I'm..." [Who cares who you are?]
When I was in seminary, we were taught to start our sermons with an attention-grabbing introduction. That's all wrong.
Start with the text.
No pastors that I know of read my blog, but I've decided not to let that stop me from offering a piece of homiletic counsel just in case one of them happens to see this page.
Start your sermons with the word "In" followed by a reference to the Scripture text that has just been read. For example,
"In verse 17 Jesus tells his disciples..."
"In verse 4 St. Paul brings up the topic of..."
"In verse 9 we are told that the wicked..."
"In verse 11 the writer of Hebrews says..."
When these are the very first words out of your mouth after the Scripture reading, they demonstrate a seriousness of purpose to your congregation. They force people to pay attention from the outset, because they send an immediate message that you are not going to waste their time with chatter, meandering introduction, or inane banter. (Some parishioners may be shocked - pleasantly so - that you are getting to your point so quickly.) And such words also help discipline your own thoughts, because they leave you no choice but to focus on the text.
And please, never EVER start a sermon with
"Didn't the worship team do a great job? I tell you, my heart was really blessed..."
"I'm so glad to be with you here in Chicago in February. In San Diego, where I'm from, we never have to scrape ice off the..."
"Shh! I'm a secret agent..." [The literal first line of a sermon I heard years ago.]
"For the last few weeks, we've been talking about..."
"I have a bit of a cold this morning..."
"On my way to church today..."
"A priest, a rabbi and a pastor were on the golf course one morning..."
"This is my first sermon and I'm really nervous..."
"My name is Paul and I'm..." [Who cares who you are?]
When I was in seminary, we were taught to start our sermons with an attention-grabbing introduction. That's all wrong.
Start with the text.
Monday, October 11, 2010
October 12, 2010: Ancient Wisdom For Bipolars
In 1373 Lady Julian of Norwich experienced a series of mystical impressions which she wrote about in Revelations of Divine Love. I think her "Seventh Shewing" indicates that she suffered from a bi-polar affliction:
And after this, he put a most high inward happiness in my soul. I was filled full of endless certainty and it was sustained so strongly that it left no room for doubts and fears. This feeling was so happy and so holy and put me in such peace and rest that there was nothing on earth that had the power to make me sad. This lasted only a while, and then my mood was changed and I was left on my own in sadness and weariness of life. I loathed myself so much that I could hardly bear to live. There was nothing to comfort me or give me any ease except for faith, hope and love. And although I knew them to be true, they gave me little joy.
And soon after this, our blessed Lord gave me again that comfort and rest of soul so blissful and mighty in its sureness and delight that no fear, no sorrow and no bodily pain that I might suffer could have taken away my peace. And then the sadness once more overcame my mind, and then the joy and gladness, and now the one, and now the other - I suppose about twenty times.
And in the time of joy I might have said with St. Paul: "Nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ." And in sadness I might have said with St. Peter: "Lord, save me, for I perish."
Twenty mood swings! Poor woman - give her some depakote. Clearly she had a chemical imbalance. A little alteration in the molecules of her synapses might have leveled the mental/spiritual roller coaster and set her on a steady emotional plane.
But there were no mood-stabilizing drugs in 1373, and afflicted persons simply had to make do with the alternating morose and ecstatic brains that God gave them. I suppose that trying to reason well while suffering from bipolar disorder might have been like trying to drive a car whose engine races then stalls. It can be done - but you need God's grace and Solomon's wisdom and Job's patience. Thankfully, the blessed Lady of Norwich had all three. She concluded:
The vision was shown me, as I understood it, because it is necessary to some souls to feel this way - sometimes to know comfort, and sometimes to fail and be left on their own. God wants us to know that he keeps us safe through good and ill.
For his soul's sake a man is sometimes left on his own, but his sin is not always the cause. For during this time I did not sin, so why should I have been forsaken, and so suddenly? Also, I did nothing to deserve this feeling of bliss.
But our Lord freely gives what it is his will to give, and sometimes lets us suffer woe - and both are part of one love. For bliss is lasting and pain is passing and shall come to nothing for those that shall be saved.
And therefore it is not God's will that we should linger over pain, but that we should pass quickly through it to joy without end.
I believe Lady Julian was right. I love her words "it is necessary" (in the original, "speedful") for some souls to feel alternating comfort and desolation. They remind me of Jesus' "it is proper" when John asked him why in the world he wanted to get baptized (Matthew 3:15). It was just the way it had to be. God's best purposes could not be fulfilled otherwise. Some people must suffer emotional woe - not so that they might live in that state permanently, or deliberately milk sympathy from others, or develop perverse pleasure in their own melancholy - but so that (among other things) they might pass through that sorrow to even greater joy in the presence of God.
There is also a place for the frenzied activity of the elated manic. Josh MacDowell wrote his influential bestseller "More Than A Carpenter" in a single sitting in 48 hours. That's something no balanced midpolar person could ever do. And certain elements of St. Paul's life sometimes suggest to me a manic-depressive who never went depressive.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not against mood-flattening drugs for those who need them. In some cases they are as necessary to sustain life as insulin is for a diabetic. I am just saying that there is a place in the will and providence of God for both despairing sorrow and lively exaltation. A friend of mine, who was medicated for a while, said, wisely, "I think I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing." C. S. Lewis would have agreed. In The Pilgrim's Regress, an angel explains to Pilgrim John that the unfulfilled longings of those who fall short of God's glory are not exactly a punishment, because "any liberal man would choose the pain of this desire, even for ever, rather than the peace of feeling it no longer: and that though the best thing is to have, the next best is to want, and the worst of all is not to want." John replies, "I see that. Even the wanting, though it is a pain too, is more precious than anything else we experience."
God bless all you bipolars, who don't quite have the brain that you want. Keep trusting Jesus Christ, and someday you will see fulfilled the lovely words of assurance given to Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
In 1373 Lady Julian of Norwich experienced a series of mystical impressions which she wrote about in Revelations of Divine Love. I think her "Seventh Shewing" indicates that she suffered from a bi-polar affliction:
And after this, he put a most high inward happiness in my soul. I was filled full of endless certainty and it was sustained so strongly that it left no room for doubts and fears. This feeling was so happy and so holy and put me in such peace and rest that there was nothing on earth that had the power to make me sad. This lasted only a while, and then my mood was changed and I was left on my own in sadness and weariness of life. I loathed myself so much that I could hardly bear to live. There was nothing to comfort me or give me any ease except for faith, hope and love. And although I knew them to be true, they gave me little joy.
And soon after this, our blessed Lord gave me again that comfort and rest of soul so blissful and mighty in its sureness and delight that no fear, no sorrow and no bodily pain that I might suffer could have taken away my peace. And then the sadness once more overcame my mind, and then the joy and gladness, and now the one, and now the other - I suppose about twenty times.
And in the time of joy I might have said with St. Paul: "Nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ." And in sadness I might have said with St. Peter: "Lord, save me, for I perish."
Twenty mood swings! Poor woman - give her some depakote. Clearly she had a chemical imbalance. A little alteration in the molecules of her synapses might have leveled the mental/spiritual roller coaster and set her on a steady emotional plane.
But there were no mood-stabilizing drugs in 1373, and afflicted persons simply had to make do with the alternating morose and ecstatic brains that God gave them. I suppose that trying to reason well while suffering from bipolar disorder might have been like trying to drive a car whose engine races then stalls. It can be done - but you need God's grace and Solomon's wisdom and Job's patience. Thankfully, the blessed Lady of Norwich had all three. She concluded:
The vision was shown me, as I understood it, because it is necessary to some souls to feel this way - sometimes to know comfort, and sometimes to fail and be left on their own. God wants us to know that he keeps us safe through good and ill.
For his soul's sake a man is sometimes left on his own, but his sin is not always the cause. For during this time I did not sin, so why should I have been forsaken, and so suddenly? Also, I did nothing to deserve this feeling of bliss.
But our Lord freely gives what it is his will to give, and sometimes lets us suffer woe - and both are part of one love. For bliss is lasting and pain is passing and shall come to nothing for those that shall be saved.
And therefore it is not God's will that we should linger over pain, but that we should pass quickly through it to joy without end.
I believe Lady Julian was right. I love her words "it is necessary" (in the original, "speedful") for some souls to feel alternating comfort and desolation. They remind me of Jesus' "it is proper" when John asked him why in the world he wanted to get baptized (Matthew 3:15). It was just the way it had to be. God's best purposes could not be fulfilled otherwise. Some people must suffer emotional woe - not so that they might live in that state permanently, or deliberately milk sympathy from others, or develop perverse pleasure in their own melancholy - but so that (among other things) they might pass through that sorrow to even greater joy in the presence of God.
There is also a place for the frenzied activity of the elated manic. Josh MacDowell wrote his influential bestseller "More Than A Carpenter" in a single sitting in 48 hours. That's something no balanced midpolar person could ever do. And certain elements of St. Paul's life sometimes suggest to me a manic-depressive who never went depressive.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not against mood-flattening drugs for those who need them. In some cases they are as necessary to sustain life as insulin is for a diabetic. I am just saying that there is a place in the will and providence of God for both despairing sorrow and lively exaltation. A friend of mine, who was medicated for a while, said, wisely, "I think I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing." C. S. Lewis would have agreed. In The Pilgrim's Regress, an angel explains to Pilgrim John that the unfulfilled longings of those who fall short of God's glory are not exactly a punishment, because "any liberal man would choose the pain of this desire, even for ever, rather than the peace of feeling it no longer: and that though the best thing is to have, the next best is to want, and the worst of all is not to want." John replies, "I see that. Even the wanting, though it is a pain too, is more precious than anything else we experience."
God bless all you bipolars, who don't quite have the brain that you want. Keep trusting Jesus Christ, and someday you will see fulfilled the lovely words of assurance given to Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
October 5, 2010: A Small Comfort
Can I offer a small word of encouragement to you who lament that some part of your life is unfulfilling?
It is a small encouragement, I admit, not earth-shaking - but at least I think it is helping me this morning. It is simply this: your disappointments and sorrows may keep you from saying things that come across as arrogant, clueless, or unsympathetic.
Last night, for minimum wage, I paced the mattress department alone at Sears for four hours. No customer came. The shift did not begin well - my poor wife called to say she had locked her keys in the car in Cicero (I've done that at least four times myself - once with the car running!),and I was unable to go help her.
She got a service to jimmy the lock for $35 and arrived home late, and tired. We texted back and forth. I said my good news was that I hadn't experienced any challenges at Sears that I couldn't handle. She asked if that meant it was dead, and I said yes, but I was trying to put a positive spin on it. She wondered if working in mattresses at Sears could be an act of worship, and I said, "Yes, a very languid-paced, Puritan-style worship."
The single mom who trained me at Sears struggles to pay her last month's rent. Her wages are garnished, and her old shoes are falling off her feet. She worries about leaving her 8-year-old son to a babysitter who is recovering from heroin addiction. She also worries about the hours her son spends in the car with her drunk ex-husband on weekends.
That's all background. This morning I listened to a sermon by Mark Driscoll, and it was pretty good. But he sure made me wince when he mentioned that he owned 40 pairs of shoes, which, he said, were a lot fewer than his wife owned. (The odd thing is, he didn't say it in a spirit of self-condemnation, like, "What's the matter with me? I'm turning into Imelda Marcos!" - but was simply explaining that he had to spend a lot to make himself look good for his wife.) He spoke contemptuously of cheap wine: he will only drink the more expensive stuff. And he gets his hair cut every 2 weeks. (This last point made me think about how I stretch meager resources by spacing long intervals between haircuts. As I hand a coupon to a stylist at a national chain, I say, "Please cut my long hair very short so I don't have to come back here for 6 months.")
When poor people listen to Driscoll, do they say in their hearts, "Oh, blow it out your ear, you indulgent rich punk"? I don't know. I do know that a struggling single mom who owns one pair of bad shoes is unlikely to be much inspired by a man who commends himself for owning 40.
That is why I say that your current sorrows and lamentable experiences, whatever they are, may perform the good service of keeping you from saying stupid things, unintentionally hurtful things. When I was 24 I said aloud, in a mixed a group of missionaries and missionary-trainees, that I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in North America. A wise older missionary simply asked me if I had ever actually lived overseas, and I said no. Later, when I arrived home after four and a half years in the (mostly hot and unpleasant) Third World, I was so grateful to be back in the wonderful U S of A that I felt like kissing the ground. Boy was I an arrogant jerk at 24. I just didn't know what life was like.
You are sick, perhaps? You have a bad spouse? Your house is facing foreclosure? Your children are no good? Salvage this small (I said it was small!) comfort: God has put a lock on your tongue that renders you incapable of uttering clueless inanities that only pour out of the mouths of people who haven't suffered much. He has equipped you with sympathies that you, being human, could learn no other way. Maybe someday you will use what you have learned to comfort the afflicted. In the meantime, at least you'll be kept from saying the kinds of things that make them wince.
Can I offer a small word of encouragement to you who lament that some part of your life is unfulfilling?
It is a small encouragement, I admit, not earth-shaking - but at least I think it is helping me this morning. It is simply this: your disappointments and sorrows may keep you from saying things that come across as arrogant, clueless, or unsympathetic.
Last night, for minimum wage, I paced the mattress department alone at Sears for four hours. No customer came. The shift did not begin well - my poor wife called to say she had locked her keys in the car in Cicero (I've done that at least four times myself - once with the car running!),and I was unable to go help her.
She got a service to jimmy the lock for $35 and arrived home late, and tired. We texted back and forth. I said my good news was that I hadn't experienced any challenges at Sears that I couldn't handle. She asked if that meant it was dead, and I said yes, but I was trying to put a positive spin on it. She wondered if working in mattresses at Sears could be an act of worship, and I said, "Yes, a very languid-paced, Puritan-style worship."
The single mom who trained me at Sears struggles to pay her last month's rent. Her wages are garnished, and her old shoes are falling off her feet. She worries about leaving her 8-year-old son to a babysitter who is recovering from heroin addiction. She also worries about the hours her son spends in the car with her drunk ex-husband on weekends.
That's all background. This morning I listened to a sermon by Mark Driscoll, and it was pretty good. But he sure made me wince when he mentioned that he owned 40 pairs of shoes, which, he said, were a lot fewer than his wife owned. (The odd thing is, he didn't say it in a spirit of self-condemnation, like, "What's the matter with me? I'm turning into Imelda Marcos!" - but was simply explaining that he had to spend a lot to make himself look good for his wife.) He spoke contemptuously of cheap wine: he will only drink the more expensive stuff. And he gets his hair cut every 2 weeks. (This last point made me think about how I stretch meager resources by spacing long intervals between haircuts. As I hand a coupon to a stylist at a national chain, I say, "Please cut my long hair very short so I don't have to come back here for 6 months.")
When poor people listen to Driscoll, do they say in their hearts, "Oh, blow it out your ear, you indulgent rich punk"? I don't know. I do know that a struggling single mom who owns one pair of bad shoes is unlikely to be much inspired by a man who commends himself for owning 40.
That is why I say that your current sorrows and lamentable experiences, whatever they are, may perform the good service of keeping you from saying stupid things, unintentionally hurtful things. When I was 24 I said aloud, in a mixed a group of missionaries and missionary-trainees, that I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in North America. A wise older missionary simply asked me if I had ever actually lived overseas, and I said no. Later, when I arrived home after four and a half years in the (mostly hot and unpleasant) Third World, I was so grateful to be back in the wonderful U S of A that I felt like kissing the ground. Boy was I an arrogant jerk at 24. I just didn't know what life was like.
You are sick, perhaps? You have a bad spouse? Your house is facing foreclosure? Your children are no good? Salvage this small (I said it was small!) comfort: God has put a lock on your tongue that renders you incapable of uttering clueless inanities that only pour out of the mouths of people who haven't suffered much. He has equipped you with sympathies that you, being human, could learn no other way. Maybe someday you will use what you have learned to comfort the afflicted. In the meantime, at least you'll be kept from saying the kinds of things that make them wince.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)