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Podcast Recommendation: 5 Minutes in Church History

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Busy running around today, I caught up on a podcast I had subscribed to a while ago and am happy to recommend it to you.  It’s 5 Minutes in Church History with Stephen Nichols.  
Why?
1) It’s only 5 minutes.
2) It’s insightful.
3) It’s practical.
4) It’s useful knowledge for Christians to know.
5) It’s opening and closing intro song is cool. 🙂
Check it out.  I hope you find it helpful too…

Dangerous Calling Email – DVD Session 10 Review

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Here’s my email to the elders/deacons of Crestview on 11/5/13:

In last week’s email, we reviewed session 9 of our DVD curriculum with Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling series.  Today, I’m wrapping up the brief review of these final sessions with a summary of session 10.  Session 10 was entitled “Removing Pretenses.”  The major Scripture Tripp engaged was 1 Peter 5:6-11.  He unpacked what pretenses were and got into some main points:
·      We will blame situations or people for the separation we may have between our public ministry and our private lives. 
·      We all experience a loss of awe and feelings of arrival, but can fight these temptations by:
o   Remembering your place: humble yourself under the mighty hand of God
o   Resting in God’s care (He cares for you)
o   Taking the war of ministry seriously
o   Resisting (evil), no matter what
o   Trusting God’s sanctifying grace
Some questions:
1)    What is a pretense?  How do we use pretense to make ourselves comfortable with a separation between our public ministry and private lives?
2)    What changes would you like to see in your church ministry culture?  In yourself?
3)    What perceptions about yourself or ministry have changed as you’ve worked through this material?
Applications:
·      Which action do you need to be more mindful to incorporate into your life and ministry: humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God; resting in God’s care; taking the war of ministry seriously; resisting, no matter what; or trusting God’s sanctifying grace?
·      How can we build a healthy and effective culture of ministry together?

I trust these sessions have been good for us as a leadership team.  I’m going to do 2 more emails and then wrap up for the year.  Hope you have a great week living out these truths.

Review of Alec Motyer’s Preaching…

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Here’s a review of Alec Motyer’s book Preaching?: Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching:

I’m happy to give a very favorable review to Alec Motyer’s Preaching.  For one, as a pastor in a local church with responsibilities to preach each week, I find that any encouragement I can get to refine this skill is helpful.  On a deeper level, though, because of what I believe about God’s Word, preaching isn’t just a ho-hum, random activity for me.  Each week, I want to communicate the message that God has for His people.  It’s because these dual realities exist that I give a favorable review to Motyer’s work. 
This book is readable; it’s accessible.  The book doesn’t read like a heady expositional preaching textbook (which can be helpful, as well).  The content is laid out in an engaging way.  You almost anticipate what the next chapter should be and Motyer delivers the content that’s needed in light of the importance that goes with the work of preaching.
Another thing I loved was how each chapter is thoroughly Biblical.  There are numerous illustrations from the Bible itself.  It’s almost as if this book is a thrilling Biblical theology of expositional preaching at times.  As God’s Word is held out to help the reader, connections are made to the act of preaching.  It seems to me that this methodology allows the Holy Spirit to help teach us how to go about preaching through the Holy Spirit given gifts of this author.  This makes this little book of preaching of great value to the preacher as it flows out of our Bible reading.
Finally, the book ends with that grand capstone: Christ.  There’s a tension each preacher feels in wanting Christ to be seen and glorified yet realizing that each specific text might not explicitly call for a Gospel appeal.  Motyer makes some helpful inroads for helping preachers navigate this tension. 

So, for these reasons, I commend this work.  It will be helpful for pastors seeking to honor God in the preaching event.  It will assist lay leaders in understanding the importance of the preaching text.  And, for all, it will help us marvel at the grace that’s give by our great God in communicating through the medium of His Word.  

LRC Email – Anyone, Anytime, In Any Gap, Anywhere

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Here’s my email to Leadership Reno County Alumni for 11/4/13:

Been racing through the KLC’s Leadership Principles the past few weeks offering a review/reminder of the important things that define our activities of leadership.  Specifically, we’ve spoken of the gap that exists between our reality and where we’d like to be and seen how it’s not so much authority (which can be helpful/necessary at times in providing protection, direction and order) but engaging in the activity of leadership that will help us make progress.  Today, is the simple reminder that anyone can lead anytime, anywhere. 
You see when it comes to the gaps of our current reality and where progress needs to be made, we tend to default, I think, in letting the experts handle things.  We like to offer up all kinds of solutions on Facebook, coffee meetings and a host of other venues, but rarely do we get our skin in the game.  And, yet, this is what is necessary for progress to be made in the gaps of your world.  Anyone.  Anytime.  Anywhere. 

Today, what steps can you take to make progress?  What conversations, diagnoses, interventions or considerations could you pursue to help make progress on the matters of life that you face?  You can engage in an act of leadership today where you are.  This is a core defining principle that we believe.  So, why not engage in something in someway at sometime and see if it doesn’t help us make progress in those areas we care about deeply. 

Weekend Recap – All Things New

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My 11/3/13AM sermon, All Things New from Revelation 21:1-8, is now online.  The sermon sought to unpack and give encouragement from the realities of the new creation that will fully and finally be realized in the lives of believers someday.  I think there was a lot in this passage for unbelievers as well as pressing applications for believers to engage in.

Hope it’s encouraging and beneficial for you.

Halloween – Mocking the Darkness

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On the cusp of the customary All Saints Day
The Christ-i-an kinsfolk made mocking display.
These children of light both to tease and deride;
Don darkness, doll down as the sinister side.
In pre-post-er-ous pageants and dress diabolic,
They hand to the damned just one final frolick.
You see with the light of the dawn on the morrow,
The sunrise will swallow such darkness and sorrow.

(HT: Tony Reinke)

DC Email – Review Session 9

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My email to Elders/Deacons of Crestview on 10/29/13:

Thanks for the hard work last Tuesday, men.  For the next two weeks, I’m going to review the Dangerous Calling DVD sessions so that we can keep pressing on to application.  Session 9 was entitled The Danger of Separation.  Tripp read Ephesians 6:10-20 on spiritual warfare.  His key points:
·         One of the dangers of arrival is that you become comfortable with a disconnect between who you are in public ministry and who you are in private. 
·         Spiritual warfare is being waged in the little moments of life within our hearts. 
·         Since all of life is ministry, we are always in the role of ambassadors of Christ.
Following up on this, Tripp asked:
1) What are possible disconnects that may exist between our ministry persona and who we are at home, with family or in private?
2) What are some possible reasons why someone would become comfortable with a disconnected life?
Some applications:
·         Are you doing things you would be embarrassed for your brothers and sisters in Christ to know about?
·         If your spouse honestly wrote down 5 character qualities that described you at home, what would she write?  What 5 qualities would your children write down?
·         Is the culture of our church safe for those in ministry to confess sin?
·         Would you be quick to judge and condemn, or will you be quick to seek God and begin the process of restoration and forgiveness?

I hope as you consider this session that fresh grace comes to your life…

LRC Email – About the Gap (Another Take)

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My 10/28/13 email to Leadership Reno County alums:

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been talking through how we go after our toughest challenges, suggesting that it takes a different kind of behavior.  You might be mindful of a current problem or reality facing us and see areas in which progress could be made.  We call this the gap.  And, this gap requires an act of leadership.  And, my bigger contention last time was that it’s not so much about the authorities we can get in place as much as people engaging in activity, after all leadership is an activity, not a position.
Here’s a different angle today and it’s relevant as we are gathering people for our 2014 Leadership Reno County Class.  Maybe you’ve been reading my Monday emails and wondered what in the world I’m talking about? While I talk a lot about competencies like Diagnosing the Situation, Managing Self, Intervening Skillfully, or Energizing Others, you may want more.  Even if you’re alumni of Leadership Hutch or Leadership Reno County, you might benefit from a refresher in this curriculum we’ve been using since the Fall 2009 class. 
If so, you are invited and encouraged to apply for Leadership Reno County…even if you previously participated in our program. The curriculum changed in 2009 reflecting a state-wide initiative of the Kansas Leadership Center to help us make better progress in the gap.

I can tell you as one who benefited from this curriculum that it’s helped me in all parts of life.  By continually seeking to apply these competencies and principles, I feel like I’ve been able to make progress on issues as I engage in acts of leadership.  If this is something you might be interested in, please contact Kris, Lynette or me, and we’d be happy to answer any questions.  Thanks for your consideration in this and we hope that by engaging in acts of leadership through better behavior, we can make progress on those issues we care about deeply.

Weekend Recap – Comfort for Future

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My 10/27/13AM sermon, Comforted by the Future from Revelation 20:1-15 is now online.  In this sermon, I sought to give encouragement for perseverance based on the lessons we learn in this chapter on the millennial reign of Christ.  I hope the prospect of future realities leads you to live in specific ways, too.  We don’t know these things just to know them.  We are blessed, in Revelation especially, as we read, hear and keep the things we read there.  I sought to encourage the “keeping” of these things in this sermon.  I hope it’s encouraging to you.

DC Email – Preparation, Personal Worship, and Fearing God

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Here’s my email to the Elders and Deacons of Crestview on 10/22/13:

Today, we’re reviewing chapter 13 in Dangerous Calling on “The Danger of Arrival”.  (Paul) Tripp is pressing hard on us and how we go after preparing for our ministry responsibilities at the expense of private, personal worship.  He writes: “The lack of a meditative, Christ-centered devotional life in many pastors is not just the result of the seemingly unending demands of ministry; it is also the product of arrival. I am convinced that when busyness intersects with arrival, one of the first things that goes is private worship. Perhaps it is a combination of fear and gratitude that drives us to our knees and into communion with Christ each morning. It is when we face who we are and the fickleness of our hearts that we feel the need to have our hearts recaptured morning after morning. It is when we reflect on the fact that sin is not always a horror to us but sometimes appears positively attractive that we want to run into the protective arms of our Lord again and again. It is when we consider the dangerous temptation of this fallen world that we will want to get help for the battle day after day. It is fear of our own weaknesses that drives us to the Savior for strength. It is when we fear the power of the foolishness that still remains in us that we are propelled to daily seek the wisdom that can only be found in the pages of Scripture. A humble and holy fear is a major part of what propels a consistent life of daily personal worship.”

I think this nicely relates to our Sunday evening study on Seasons.  Crawford Lorritts said that men consistently need to be learners, growing more and more, but they also need to be repenting, looking more like Christ consistently.  I hope this resonates in you today and you run after God, because you will find Him when you seek Him with your whole heart.