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How Does Truth Affect You?

May 30, 2011 in Preaching with 12 Comments

“I have long felt that, whereas I stand foursquare on the evangelical faith, I have no patience with those people whose supposed fundamentalism consists in watching for heresy and indulging in wicked self-satisfaction because they have an idea that they alone ‘hold the truth’–hateful expression! Whereas in many ways I agree with their theological position I abominate their spirit.”

G. Campbell Morgan (1863 – 1945)

It seems some things don’t change. His words were true then and still ring true today. May our journey of truth always be driven by a passion to include and not alienate others.

Further Discussion On Daniel

May 4, 2011 in Preaching with 2 Comments

I talked about Daniel this week at Ironman (our men’s morning Bible study) and wanted to use this post as a landing page for further study for the guys that were interested. I hit on the idea of co-illumination and learning to see God’s truth all around us, especially where we’d least expect it.

As John Van Sloten put it, “If all truth is God’s truth, and all beauty is God’s beauty, then certainly all great guitar riffs are God’s great guitar riffs, and all great scientific truths are God’s truths. All truth in all of creation, including humanly created culture, is God’s truth.”

So where do you see God’s truth?

If you are interested in studying more on this topic I would recommend the following:

Disassembling Your Faith

March 15, 2011 in Preaching, Spirituality with 4 Comments

Disassembled CameraDisassembled Clock Radio

I love these two pictures. On the left is a disassembled camera and on the right is a disassembled clock radio (click on them to see a bigger version). They elicit two responses from me:

  1. Anxiety – Can you imagine taking all these pieces apart? More importantly, can you imagine trying to put them back together???
  2. Encouragement – I like seeing visually that things make sense. There is no “magic” when it comes to either device.

Continue Reading…

How Do You Define a “Deep” Sermon?

January 14, 2011 in Church, Preaching with 21 Comments

In the Christian Church world there is a topic of conversation that comes up nearly every time a church is critiqued. How “deep” is the preaching?

It sounds like a great question to ask. But it isn’t. It isn’t because it becomes something that people hide behind and use to couch their own biases and opinions. If I don’t like a sermon then I’ll tell you it wasn’t deep enough. I may even go so far as telling you that it was shallow. But it is probably more a reflection on my opinion and less a reflection on the content of the message. Yet I wonder how many people have left a church under this disguise?

Now I know that some of you may be thinking: “Aren’t we supposed to critique sermons like this?” The answer is no. You are supposed to critique a sermon to see if the content aligns with Scripture. Not that it met your own personal expectations for how you like to listen to someone talk about the Bible.

Consider this, how do you define a deep sermon? Think of the following criteria that could (and does) get used to make this analysis:

The Art of the Finch Kiss

October 24, 2010 in Preaching with 2 Comments

Here are the videos from this weekend along with some of my quotes I used.

“They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.” Oscar Wilde

There is no cruise control when it comes to healthy relationships.

“Most of these studies have focused on display behaviors that characterize pair formation or mate choice — all these processes that interest people working on the evolutionary aspect of sexual selection. We forgot to think about what was going on after pair formation.” Clementine Vignal, sensory ecologist

1 Corinthians 13:1-8a

“But Paul is plainly saying—look at his words—that it is love that does these things, not us, and that what we are to do is to ‘pursue love’ (1 Cor. 14:1). As we ‘catch’ love, we then find that these things are after all actually being done by us. These things, these godly actions and behaviors, are the result of dwelling in love. We have become the kind of person who is patient, kind, free of jealousy, and so on.” Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

1 Corinthians 7:13-16

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but looking outward in the same direction.” Anoine de Saint-Exupery

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” Bruce Lee

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