The Lutheran Zephyr

Sermon prep: A Face-to-Face God

On the front page of Saturday's Washington Post is a nice piece about a local Boy Scout troop that recently had eleven of its members earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Such a feat is unprecedented, scouting leaders say.  I know from my experience in working with youth that Eagle Scouts are few and far between.  One reason is that achieving the rank of Eagle Scout requires a ton of work.  And another reason is that, well, scouting really does not have a strong appeal to today's teens.  From the article:

Scouting has rarely been cool. But in a world of iPods, traveling soccer clubs, 24-hour cable television and Wii, Boy Scout oaths and three-finger salutes seem more than a little dated.

I love the contrast between the "cool" of contemporary culture and the "not-so-cool" of scouting - it is the kind of contrast that we in the church face as well.  In my experience the church too often complains about its declining cultural stature while responding in two counterproductive ways:

• becoming inflexibly entrenched in "traditions" that are nothing more than cultural legacies from the 1950's, or
• poorly appropriating the coolness of culture - marketing glitz and multimedia - in hopeless attempts to appeal to a new generation. 

Neither strategy will get us anywhere.  But perhaps we can learn from this troop of Boy Scouts.  Why did these eleven teens choose to make time for anachronistic scouting oaths and three-finger salutes at the expense of Wii and soccer clubs? 

As you read the article you sense that these eleven boys - whose misbehavior and tantrums when they first entered Boy Scouts gave leaders little hope that they'd achieve anything - formed a shared identity and built a bond that kept them together and helped them achieve what would have seemed impossible a few years ago.  This group stuck together not because of the appeal and entertainment value of video games, iPods, or any other wizbang technology gadget.  No.  It was much more simple than that.  They had scouting, and they had each other.

The meat of any group endeavor - be it religious, civic, or of a hobby interest - is in the face-to-face sharing and meaning making that happens when people come together around a common interest. What makes a scrapbooking event memorable and meaningful is not necessarily the completion of a project, but the sharing and interaction that took place during the evening.  The baseball games that I love to attend are much more meaningful and memorable if I go with someone, someone with whom I can share in the ups and downs of a dramatic game.  Experienced alone the game is just not the same.

So too with faith.  Faith is best shared and experienced in the simple face-to-face encounter with others and with God.  The glitz of websites and videos, or the intentional shape of curricular and devotional materials can be helpful tools, but they are no substitute for the personal encounter with God and each other (see my recent post My First Nooma Video).  Perhaps we need to focus less on the tools and the techniques of our ministries, and more on the meat itself - the face-to-face encounter we share when we gather as the Body of Christ, and the Face of God that is revealed to us in those encounters.

In this Sunday's Psalm (Psalm 27:1, 4-9) we read:

"Come," my heart says, "seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, do I seek.

In the Gospel text for Sunday (Matthew 4:12-23) Jesus comes face-to-face with Peter, Andrew, James, and John, calling them to be disciples.

In the Epistle (1 Corinthians 1:10-18), Paul contrasts the eloquent wisdom of the world with the foolishness of the cross.  We are not in the business of worldly eloquence, he says, but in a calling of Christian foolishness.

Face-to-face, personal, authentic encounters with God and with each other might run counter to the wisdom of technology and multimedia marketing tools.  But it was to a simple invitation, offered face-to-face, that Peter, Andrew, James and John responded.  And it is with just a morsel of bread and a splash of wine that we encounter God, face-to-face, at the Table. 

The simple stuff of a face-to-face God.

Stations of the Cross for Lent

As I'm exploring the possibility of using The Stations of the Cross as a possible Lenten discipline, I share with you all two resources:

The Way of the Cross, in This Far by Faith (page 97) - eight stations based on events recorded in the Bible, with suggested hymns and helpful notes.  For you who subscribe to SundaysandSeasons.com, click here for a direct link to this liturgy.

The Way of the Cross, in The Book of Occasional Services 2003 (page 56) - includes all fourteen traditional stations, and has helpful notes.

Leading Worship & Fatigue

Those of you who know me know that I pour myself into worship and preaching.  Worship truly does get at my emotions, from the way I deliver my sermon to the enthusiastic (and quite audible) "Awesome!" that came out of my mouth after the bell choir played Sunday morning, to the awe I experience at declaring, "the body of Christ is given for you."  For better or for worse my passion, personality, and energy come out in my preaching and worship leadership (I wrote questioningly on this topic about a year ago in this post: Wearin' My Madonna Microphone).

Well, there's a problem to pouring myself into the tasks of worship leadership and preaching.  Every time I preach and lead worship at two morning services, inevitably I am "on" for the first service but am a bit flat and faded at the second service.  I'm talking here about how I hold myself, about my affect.  I simply put so much of myself into the first service that the well is a bit drier by 11am.

At the first service the cadence and timing of my sermon is usually good, my voice is strong and crisp, I hit the notes on the kyrie, and I am attentive to the various worship assistants - lay reader, communion servers, acolyte.  However, at the second service about 90 minutes later, fatigue has set in.  My face and speech are less crisp, my cadence and timing has slowed, I invariably flub part of the (rather easy and routine) kyrie, and I am less attentive to cuing the worship assistants, if necessary.  I'm not a train wreck at the second service, but compared to the first service I am a bit more labored and less spirited.

None of this has to do with the content of worship, with those decisions that are made prior to Sunday morning - the manuscript of the sermon, the arrangement of the liturgy, the announcements to be made, the prayers to be said, etc. etc..  The "stuff" of these two services is the same, but my delivery and demeanor are quite distinct at each service.

Does this happen to you?  What do you do?  What should I do (apart from seek a first call that has only one service)?

Advent Worship with Jesus Jones & Dada

I tried something new today.  I preached using new (to me) techniques and multimedia tools. 

I made light use of our digital projector to display two images, and lyrics to two pop songs from the 1990s.  I also played the songs to open and close the sermon.  And I also stepped out of the pulpit and preached part of my sermon from the altar, the baptismal font, and the pews.

It was probably the only Lutheran church today to hear Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" and Dada's "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" proclaimed as part of the message.  My favorite part was when, immediately following the early '90s Jesus Jones song, the congregation sang "Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying," a tune from the 16th century.

To read the sermon, click here.  An incomplete collection of my sermons - good, bad, and otherwise - can be found here. 

Images for 1 Advent

I love Google Image search. 

I share these pictures with you in preparation for Sunday's sermon on a text that speaks of end times, the return of Christ, and the so-called rapture.  Enjoy!

Sermon Evaluation Ideas?

What do you look for in a sermon?  What do you expect to get out of a sermon?  How do you evaluate whether that sermon you just heard was good, faithful, and/or meaningful (or not)?

Would you please let me know?

Next month the members of my internship committee will start evaluating my sermons.  I don't particularly care for any of the sample sermon evaluation forms that are in the internship manual.  So I drafted a new evaluation form, borrowing from those forms and from other sources.  Please check out my draft sermon evaluation form, give me some feedback, and let me know what you look for in a sermon.

Thanks.

Faith & Online Gaming - My Internship Project

At my seminary - and perhaps at all the Lutheran seminaries - interns are required to develop some sort of ministry project.  From the internship manual:

The purposes of the internship project are twofold: (1) to provide each intern with an opportunity to initiate and to organize a program new to the life of a congregation or agency, and (2) to encourage each student to develop additional expertise in a specific area of ministry.

Projects are to be conducted in one of five areas of ministry: lay ministry, evangelism, social ministry, ecumenism, or stewardship.  They also provide an other box.  That's the one I checked, though my project could easily fit into the rubrics of evangelism or lay ministry.  Here's a brief description:

Real Faith in a Virtual Reality: Exploring the Intersection of Faith and Online Gaming
Through a series of events at church and in members' homes, this project fosters a conversation between the church and the world of online gaming

1. to introduce the church to the phenomenon of online gaming; and, more importantly,
2. to help Christians who are online gaming fans reflect on this hobby in terms of their faith, for the purposes of critically integrating online gaming and faith, tearing down the wall that too often segregates our experience of faith from our experience of fun.

For the entire Internship Project Proposal, click here.

The thing is, I don't know much about online gaming.  I don't own an XBox, a Nintendo, or even an Atari or an Intellivision.  This is new territory for me, but I'm sure that the church should be involved with this phenomenon.  And I'm blessed with a congregation that has many members - youth and adult - who are gaming fanatics.

This should be fun.  I begin the project in earnest after the New Year.  I'll keep you updated.

PS.  I still intend to post notes about my Dark Side of Luther class, and some past sermons.  I'll get to it.  Soon.  I hope.

All Saints, All Souls, and the Return of Christ

I'm preaching this Sunday, when we at St John's By The Gas Station - along with thousands of Lutheran congregations around the world - celebrate All Saint's Sunday.  I find myself a bit confused by the festival of All Saints in our Lutheran practice.  On this day we remember our loved ones who have died in the past year - "saints" - who have gone before us.  Yet we hear a Gospel text of blessings and woes that reminds us of our callings to live as "saints" today.  And in the proper preface for the day we recall the "witness of the saints," who with the choirs of angels and the hosts of heaven praise God's name.  It seems to me that our Lutheran practice of All Saints refers, even if in muddled fashion, to three kinds of saints - the exemplars of faith who have gone before us, other departed souls, and living saints today.

This sounds a lot like the three expressions of the Church my friend Derek outlined two years ago in a wonderful post, Musings on All Souls.  He writes (bullet formating my emphasis):

Traditionally we spoke of the

• Church Militant (all of us living folks here on earth still slogging away),
  
• the Church Expectant (those who have died and are generally hanging around waiting for the resurrection), and   
  
• the Church Triumphant (those souls who are already participating in the fullness of God and who are – even as you read this – interceding before the throne of God on behalf of us poor slobs).

This way of describing the church corresponds to the Church's traditional manner of honoring and remembering the departed over a span of two consecutive holy days.  On All Saints Day (Nov 1) the Church honors the Church Triumphant, the capital 'S' Saints, those faithful models of the Christian life who have departed and are interceding on our behalf (ie, St Francis, St Anthony, St Catherine, etc. - all those Saints the Reformers threw out with the Church's bathwater).  On All Souls Day (Nov 2), the Church commemorates the Church Expectant, the faithfully departed, ie, our friends and family who have gone before us.  Today, however, we in the Lutheran Church throw them all together in one day, All Saints Sunday.

We do not use the language of the Church Expectant or Church Triumphant these days, and indeed making a distinction between the two riles our protestant and modern insistence that we're all saints (God forbid that we lift up exemplars in the faith!).  On this topic, Derek again writes:

I think that the current protestant attempt to recover the saints in general and All Saints in particular has really wrecked the church’s sense of All Souls. As you probably know, the standard early 21st century protestant take is that everybody gets to be a saint. Yeah, I know there’s *some* theological basis for that…but where does it leave All Souls? If we’ve already celebrated all the baptized yesterday, who were we celebrating today? All the non-Christian dead? I mean–in one sense, yes, since we are celebrating literally all souls but… The way to recover it, as far as I can see, is to draw the line and say–look, yes, we’re all saints in one sense but in another sense some people really did do an exemplary job of showing forth the love of Christ in their lives. These people really should be held up as exemplars and as intercessors.

Too often All Saints Sunday becomes a sort of shared funeral service to remember loved ones who have died.  Whereas such a remembrance is important and should take place, I think we Lutherans can benefit from focusing on the capital 'S' Saints  every now and then, as models of the Godly life and exemplars of faith.  Oh how talk of a Godly life rankles us!  Just ask most seminarians how they feel about Vision and Expectations, our church's statement on clergy conduct!  But that's the stuff of another post.  More on topic, we Lutherans should further explore our understanding of the Church Triumphant, those Saints who praise God's name in eternity and - perhaps even - intercede on our behalf.  (I teeter on believing in the intercession of the Saints.  See my post, The Company of Saints, written last year during my 9-month residency as a hospital chaplain.)

Finally, one of the reasons I resonate with this three-fold description of the Church is that I have a hard time believing in heaven the way most people talk about it - that upon death, one's soul shoots up into heavenly paradise like a rocketship heading toward the moon.  Rather, I understand the afterlife in a "Church Expectant" way.  I see in Scripture an understanding that while some exemplars in the faith indeed ascend to our Father in heaven - Elijah and Stephen, for example - most of us will die and rot in the ground, waiting for the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.  Not the sweetest sounding thing, but that's what I see. 

A strong belief in a universal afterlife of heavenly paradise weakens our church's expectant hope for Christ's return.  If we all just go to heaven upon death, why bother believing in a second coming or a resurrection of the dead?  What need is there for any other work of God?  For death initiates a period of waiting, a season of Advent, for the return of Christ.  In death we are not separate from Christ - for Paul in Romans teaches us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus - but I do not believe that we are automatically whisked away into heaven, either.  There is a waiting.

And so I wish that we Lutherans would celebrate the All Saints and All Souls holy days in their intended fashion, as a way to lift up those Saints as exemplars of faith, join with them in praise of God, and (perhaps, yes) ask for their intercession on our behalf (again, see my old post for my thoughts on this), while also remembering and praying for those beloved souls who have gone before us and who are waiting - indeed, as we here on earth are waiting - for Christ to come again and bring us to eternal life.

Quick Life Update

I love what I do

I can't imagine that it will somehow get even better when I'm ordained and serving as a pastor, but right now I'm loving my work as a vicar - a full-time seminary intern - at a congregation in Northern Virginia.  It's been quite a journey.  Five years ago I graduated from seminary with a Master of Divinity that I wasn't sure I'd ever use, regrettably estranged from the Candidacy Process and unsure of my future.  What a difference five years - and therapy, good friends, a loving wife, and a great pastor and congregation - can make.  I give thanks to God for my internship and for the various people who helped me get here.  I can't remember ever feeling happier and more fulfilled than I do now.

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Baby coming soon

Our third child - our first boy - is due on November 12.  If I were a betting man I'd wager that the kiddo is coming early, but what do I know? 

My wife and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary earlier this month.  For four of those years she has been either pregnant or nursing.  I don't know how she does it.  I think it's time we give this whole baby-making process a break . . .

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AB(three chapters of the)D

My wife - who blogs sparingly over at Ecclesia Crucis - is making amazing progress on her PhD dissertation.  She is "ABD" (all but dissertation), but last week sent the introduction and first three chapters - 178 pages - to her adviser.  Only three chapters remain, with the goal of cranking out one or two before baby arrives. 

Jess is a PhD Candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary in the Practical Theology department.  Her research and dissertation examine adult faith formation, particularly the ways in which congregations welcome and assimilate new members.  In this regard, she is looking at ELCA congregations that have recovered and adapted the ancient practice of the catechumenate for the catechesis and formation of new members.  It is fascinating and exciting stuff, and at times I struggle to keep myself from blogging about her findings and insights.

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Exhaustion

I'm tired.  I'm two months into my internship and am feeling the fatigue of parish ministry.  Add to this fatigue the fact that our girls are not sleeping well at night, the dissertation push, the baby anticipation . . . I'm tired.

But I'm happy.  And that's all that matters.

The Dark Side of Martin Luther

This week's adult Sunday School topic is: The Edgy and Dark Sides of Martin Luther; or The Things Martin Luther Said that Make Us Squirm. This is the sixth in a seven week series on Lutheranism* that I am teaching at my internship congregation, St John's by the Gas Station.  I hope to have the class break into small groups - I've averaged about 40 people in the class - to wrestle with various nasty Luther quotes about Jews, Muslims, the Pope, the peasants, and other classes he assailed at times in his ministry.  This is not meant to beat up on Martin Luther.  Rather, my goal is twofold:

1. Expose the class to some of the nasty things Luther said and help them contextualize and appropriately critique Luther; and,
2. Use these nasty quotes - along with the many wonderful quotes I've used in previous weeks - to discuss our relationship with Martin Luther.  Just because Martin Luther said something, do we as 21st Century American Lutherans believe it?

I am still developing this class - ie, I've got nothing so far.  If you have any nasty Luther quotes to share or insights into the topic, please share here!  Thanks.

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* The topics for the full seven-week series are:

1. Intro to Lutheran Theology;
2. Spirituality of Luther (guest speaker);
3. Some Lutheran History (Mosaic video);
4. Lutheran Worship & Sacraments;
5. Daily Faith;
6. The Edgy and Dark Sides of Martin Luther; and next week,
7. Why America Needs Lutheranism (& Vice Versa).