Imaginative Reading and Building A File

One of my favorite seminary classes was called Imaginative Reading for Creative Preaching, taught by then President Neal Plantinga and Professor Scott Hoezee.  I loved it because we read all kinds of wonderful books and talked about them with an eye to preaching.  We also had to collect quotes and observations from our reading as a start to a file.  I dreamed that as a pastor, I would be a voracious reader and my file would grow quickly.
But once I was a pastor, I didn’t read as much as I thought I would.  I was busy with meetings, answering e-mail, writing sermons, visiting people, and many more tasks.  One of my regrets about my first years of ministry is that I didn’t better protect time to read widely.  When I did read, I didn’t take the time to note those passages and themes I should save for later, so my file stayed about the same size.  On my list of things-I-want-to-do-better the next time I’m a pastor is read widely and be disciplined enough to add to the file. 

Perhaps you are wondering why it is important for me to read as a pastor.  Neal Plantinga has taken his thinking about this topic and discussions from classes and seminars he has led and crafted them into a new book called Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists.  The premise of the book is that preachers should read widely because it helps us gain wisdom, improve our use of language, interact with new ideas and people, and find the best material for sermons. 

I studied English for my undergraduate education, and once I was in seminary I realized that all that reading and discussing and writing I did had taught me to do most of those things.  I had entered Tennyson’s grief at the death of a friend in his poem In Memoriam A.H.H.  I had grappled with stereotypes in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.  I experienced Hester Prynne’s guilt and shame in The Scarlet Letter.  All of those experiences make me a better pastor, preacher, and person.
Reading brings me great joy—I love getting to know new people through a novel or seeing things in a new way from a poem.  Thankfully, Plantinga says to enjoy it.  “Good reading generates delight, and the preacher should enjoy it without guilt.  Delight is a part of God’s shalom and the preacher who enters the world of delight goes with God” (pg. x).  Plantinga’s blessing and exhortation in this book really encouraged me to be more intentional about reading and the less delightful (but important) process of recording some of my discoveries.   

At the same time, I have figured out some practical tips of what works for me which makes me much more motivated to do it.  First, the question of what to read.  My problem is usually having too many books to read at any particular time, but I often try to rotate through novels, non-fiction, and poetry.  Plantinga suggests “Just one novel a year?  And one biography?  And one-fifth of a book of poetry by one poet?  And a weekly visit to the website of Arts & Letters Daily to find out what the best journalists have been saying?  Not a bad plan, I think” (pg. 42).  Sounds doable, doesn’t it!  Plantinga offers a “Selected Reading List” at the back of his book to get started from.  Another way I like to select great books is from the Recommended Reading List for the upcoming Festival of Faith and Writing.   

When I am reading, if it is a paper book I have small sticky tabs that I place at the place on a page where I find something interesting.  Then, when I finish the book I go back through and if it still seems like something I want to save, I put it into the file.  (I picked up that tip from an interview Plantinga did for the release of his book.  Don’t ask how I had forgotten to ask him what his method is when I had the class with him.)  If I am reading on the Kindle app on my tablet, I highlight parts I want to save.  Then, when I am finished I go to my online Kindle account where you can see all of what you have highlighted.  Anything I want to save gets copied and pasted into my files.  Both of these methods have been working really well for me!

I keep my file in Evernote, which is a free software.  You can create multiple notebooks with various notes in each.  The best part is that I can tag each note with topics (love, grief, forgiveness, etc.).  Then when I am looking for something on a theme, I check out what I’ve tagged with it.  There is also a really convenient web clipper, which makes it really easy to save blog posts and online news clippings very easily.  Keeping my file in Evernote has been a key to actually using this system; I started out doing it differently and it was too much work.  (For the record, Evernote has no idea who I am, I just really like their software.)

I’m really looking forward to the day when I’ll be preaching regularly again and be able to use my file my often.  It is a great feeling to know that I am investing time now that should pay off in the future.  And now I’m off to Burma in a young adult novel I just started called Bamboo People. 

Trouble and Grace

"The world is Trouble...and Grace.  That is all there is."

So concludes Henry Smith in Gary Schmidt's young adult novel, Trouble (pg. 296).   Trouble tells the story of Henry's family's failed attempts to avoid Trouble, and how they find Grace instead.  The Smith family is old money in Massachusetts.  They live in a home that has stood strong for 300 years.  Henry's father always said, "if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you" (pg. 1). 

You know when that is the first line of a novel, their existence will soon change, because Trouble is lurking just around the corner in this world.  Trouble does come and it changes the family forever.  I don't want to spoil the novel for you, but Trouble comes in the form of cars, history, prejudice, arson, love, and death.  The family discovers you can't actually avoid Trouble.  It is everywhere, whether you like it or not.

But as they live with the Trouble, the Smith family also finds Grace.  It turns out to be harder to see and more nuanced than their initial reaction to Trouble: just saying everything is "fine." Grace means making hard decisions about who to love.  Grace means doing things the hard, but right, way.  Grace means taking a hard look at each other and seeing the truth.  It comes in with a whisper, and it changes the Smith family.  In the end, Henry finds Trouble and Grace are all that's left.

Trouble and Grace.  These are also the two words that frame the method I learned to preach.  In

seminary, our basic preaching textbook was called The Four Pages of the Sermon.  The four pages are not literal, but four figurative moves of a sermon (an outline of sorts).  In this method you start by discussing the Trouble in the text and then a parallel Trouble in the world.  Then you move on to the Grace in the text and Grace in the world.  Some of my classmates hated this method (and some of the non-preaching profs weren't that fond of it either), but I found that it worked well for me, especially as I got started.  I'll freely admit it works much better with some types of texts than others--as I preached through the Sermon in the Mount this year I preached very few strict four page sermons.  But even when I use an alternate structure, these rhythms of Trouble and Grace remain.  

The Bible is full of Trouble and Grace. Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless, and God gave them a son.  The writer of Psalm 46 felt like his world was falling apart, and trusted that God would keep him safe.  The foolish man built his house on the sand, and the wise man's house stood strong.  Like the Bible, our lives are full of Trouble and Grace. God brings hope in the midst of dashed expectations. God keeps us safe despite the chaos of our world.  God helps us to build our lives on God.  Even if our lives seem full of one or the other at a particular time, when we think about a congregation, it is inevitably full of both.  Someone who just lost their job sits next to someone who just got promoted.  Trouble and Grace.  And God working in the midst of both.  Sometimes God's Grace is presence with us as we walk through times of Trouble, and sometimes Grace means God removes the Trouble.

For the Smith family, God is present with them through Trouble (although they don't articulate that in the novel).  And God brings them Grace.  That's one of the reasons I have found the rhythms of the Four-Page Method helpful: "The world is Trouble...and Grace.  That is all there is."

Personal Photo at Lake Michigan Recreation Area, June 2013

Don't Worry?: A Sermon Excerpt

Sometimes, sermon texts are a struggle.  Sometimes they are confusing and it is hard to understand what it is really trying to say.  Sometimes we don’t like what the text says.  Then there are the texts that are fairly straightforward to understand, but hard to apply in life, like the text I had to preach on this past Sunday: Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus’ words on not worrying.  It was a sermon (like most sermons) I had to preach to myself first.  I liked how it turned out, so I am sharing part of it here.

Jesus is not saying that these things of life are not important.  He doesn’t say we should go without food or clothes or a job or home.  And Jesus doesn’t say that we won’t have any trouble in the world.  But he does tell us how to respond to the troubles and the worries that come.  Jesus says we can quit worrying about our lives.  We can quit worrying.

Then he gives us two pictures of why we don’t need to worry.  First, Jesus says look at the birds of the air.  They don’t plant or gather crops.  They don’t put food away in storerooms.  But your Father who is in heaven feeds them.  Aren’t you much more important than the birds? 

Think about the birds that are coming back to Michigan right now.  They aren’t planting food, but they are busy creatures.  They are out finding food.  They gather materials and build a nest.  They will soon be laying eggs and caring for them.  After the eggs hatch, they have to bring food for their babies and help them learn to fly.  There are lots of things that birds do in life.  But God takes care of them.  God controls the sun and the rain.  He makes the plants grow that birds need to eat.  God watches over the birds.  God provides for them.  And God says that people, created in God’s image are worth much more than the birds.  If God takes care of the birds that well, he will take care of us even more. 

And then Jesus gives another picture.  He says look at the wild flowers.  They don’t have to work or make clothing.  But those flowers are more beautiful than the best dressed people in the world.  I was so happy this week when the daffodils finally bloomed.  Look at how bright they are.  After such a long, long winter they finally bring a bit of spring.  They don’t have to put on make-up or buy expensive clothes to be beautiful.  They just are. 

But they don’t last long.  It is supposed to get hotter this week, and I think that by a week from now, these flowers will be wilted and starting to get brown.  Even though they have a short life span, God made them beautiful.  If God cares so much about making the flowers beautiful, won’t he take care of you and me, too?

“Your faith is so small,” Jesus said.  Maybe that’s another way to say: “Your God is so big.”  God created the world.  He made the sun and earth and birds and flowers.  God created us.  And God takes care of the world.  He cares for the sparrows.  God watches over the flowers.  And even more so, God cares about us.  Later, in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus says, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But not one of them falls to the ground without your Father knowing it. ³⁰He even counts every hair on your head! ³¹So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31, NIrV).

God cares for us.  God knows the number of hairs you have on your head.  God knows when the little sparrows fall to the ground.  And God loves you much more than the sparrows.  We don’t need to worry, because our big God knows us and loves us. 

And God has shown that he is faithful.  Over and over again in the Bible, God made promises to people.  And over and over again, God kept his promises.  God promised Noah that the whole earth would not be destroyed again by a flood.  God kept that promise.  God promised Abraham that his family would be as many as the stars in the sky.  God kept that promise.  God promised David that a member of his family would always be king.  And God kept that promise in Jesus.  God promised that he would defeat sin and Satan.  God kept that promise.

And so we know that God will keep his promises to us.  God makes promises to us in baptism.  God promises that we belong to God, that we are his children.  God promises that we have died to our sin and risen with Christ.  God promises that he will be with us always.  God promises that nothing in life or in death nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of God.

Thanks be to God!

Sparrow photo by Paul Stein, used under a Creative Commons License, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapkap/415668818/

Daffodil photo by Ian Britton, used under a Creative Commons License, http://www.flickr.com/photos/freefoto/3370278750/

Rainbow photo by B.J. Bumgarner, used under a Creative Commons License,  http://www.flickr.com/photos/homer4k/263070945/

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: For Life's Journey

This is my sermon text for our Old Year's service this evening.  We will think about how God, the maker of all things--not the gods of the hills--kept us through all the situations we have faced in the past year, and how we can trust that he will do the same in the year to come.  Tomorrow, it will be my traveling prayer as I set out on a pilgrimage of my own.

Psalm 121

A song of ascents. 

Mt. Tai in Tai an, China, where I lived for a year.  This is a holy mountain in China, where people go to pray, like the culture surrounding the psalmist.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

In the Least Expected Places

One thing I’ve discovered about being a pastor is that I start thinking about the next church calendar season well before it actually arrives.  Advent doesn’t start until Sunday, but I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of months now--planning a sermon series, doing initial research about Luke 1, working on our liturgy, making sure that someone got candles for Sunday. 

We will be preaching through Luke chapter 1 over the next four weeks.  This Sunday I'm preaching on the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth from Luke 1:5-25.  Along with the text, this poetic and musical retelling of the story has been in my heart over the last couple of weeks.  This song is by a band called So Elated on their Christmas album, The Bewildering Light (follow the link to get the album legally for free at noisetrade!). 

Jerusalem and the holy temple filled with smoke
Zechariah shuns the news from the angel of hope
Stuck behind an incense cloud of religion and disappointment

God keeps slipping out of underneath rocks 
in alleys off the beaten path
Open both your eyes.

Prophets and kings and poets can contribute their work
just like eggs in a nest are alive with the promise of birds
But the Lord of Creation will not be subjected to expectation

God keeps slipping out of underneath rocks 
in alleys off the beaten path
Open both your eyes.

Elizabeth, barren, her knees black and dirty like coal
her consistent prayers float to the sky and revive her soul
God we will wait though we don't understand your redemptive story

God keeps slipping out of underneath rocks
in alleys off the beaten path 
Open both our eyes.

I love the reminder that “the Lord of Creation will not be subjected to expectation.”  I have expectations, and hopes, and dreams, but God who created heavens and earth doesn’t fit neatly into those boxes.  But that doesn’t mean God is absent, because often we see glimpses of God where we least expect it, “in alleys off the beaten path.”  God came to Zechariah and Elizabeth in the middle of their dashed expectations, and he did something unexpected in and through them. 

And my prayer for myself and for you this Advent, especially while we are in those places where God isn’t doing what we expect, is that our response will be like Elizabeth: 

Elizabeth, barren, her knees black and dirty like coal
her consistent prayers float to the sky and revive her soul
God we will wait though we don't understand your redemptive story.

Image by Nick Thompson, http://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/1356007875/, November 30, 2012.  Used under a Creative Commons License.

Word and Deed Revisited

I preached on Colossians 3:1-17 on Sunday.  The final verse says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.^”  This has been a key verse in my life for a long time.  I appreciate its call to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, whether that is studying, or teaching, or administrating, or preaching, or visiting.  And I both appreciate and am challenged by its emphasis on both word and deed. 

Last summer I reflected on what it meant for Madison Ave to be a “word and deed” church.  And that’s something I’ve been reflecting on this summer, too.  Hope, like many rural CRC congregations, is strongly a word church.  I am known as a preacher, and people appreciate my sermons.  The church expected me to preach and lead worship, and so I did.  I am thankful for the preaching experience I have gained.  But I have also really missed being able to serve in a ministry of deeds, as well.  I have missed being a part of the neighborhood events and have missed the sense that the church is an integral part of the community.  I have missed the sense that we are “making the most of every opportunity” in the ways we interact with “outsiders” (Col. 4:5, from my sermon text from this Sunday).

Different people come to their life of faith with different emphasis, and different churches have different strengths and images of what their congregation is.  I have learned this summer that holding word and deed in tension is really important to me.  I won’t do well in a church that doesn’t care about the community around them.  And although I will miss Hope, at the same time I am looking forward to MCC’s ministry in the community.

On the Holy Spirit

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The work of the Holy Spirit in preaching and worship has amazed me again and again this summer.  There is really no good way to describe it.  I faithfully research, pray, write, ponder, edit, and practice sermons, but it’s the Holy Spirit that gives a sermon wings.  It’s the Holy Spirit that gives me the words, but also the Holy Spirit that prepares hearts to hear it and applies it to each person’s life specifically. 

And the Holy Spirit often has taken threads of various parts of the service and gathered them together into one.  Yesterday, we heard from a group of young people who came back Saturday evening from a SERVE trip to Las Vegas about their “God moments,” many of which touched on the poverty they had seen and how blessed we are.  The children’s message was about how corn is planted in fields because one stalk by itself will get blown over by the wind.  I preached on Colossians 2:6-23 about false teachings that hold us captive and the freedom we have in Christ.  Two of the false teachings I identified were consumerism and individualism.  I didn’t know what either of the previous parts of the service would be like, but they all came together, thanks to the Holy Spirit.  It’s both humbling and comforting to be able to rely on the Holy Spirit and to expect things you weren’t planning to happen!     

The Preaching Journey

Preaching has been a long journey for me.  I came to seminary not wanting to preach.  I had a nagging suspicion I might be good at it.  But I didn’t want to be good at it.  It seemed so pastorly (yes, I made up that word) to preach, and I didn’t really see myself as a pastor.  During my first preaching class, we had to give the introduction to a sermon.  I have never been so nervous in my life—not when I went to Taiwan by myself as a 17 year-old, not when I did contract negotiations with the vice president of a Chinese university, not even when I started seminary.  I was pretty bad, that first time around.  It was an outer sign of an inner battle I was having, questioning what my calling was and if I was really cut out for seminary.  I remember one Sunday that winter my pastor preached on something (the sad thing is I have no idea what) and then we had a time of individual prayer.  I remember that I let go of what I wanted (to not preach) and said yes to following God, even if it meant preaching.  When I had to preach the conclusion to a sermon a week or two later, I was much more relaxed.  One of my classmates said I should get the “most improved” award for that class. 

And then I preached in the next class a couple of times.  It was still hard.  Both times I was ready to sit down when I was only about half-way done.  I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it.  Then I started preaching in churches.  It was difficult and scary.  I agonized over those first sermons.  I practiced them a lot.  But I got a lot of encouragement from my listeners.  Their words helped me to keep going.  To keep writing new sermons.  And the more I have preached, the more it has grown on me.

I came here this summer okay with preaching, but not being really passionate about it.  I expected to enjoy other aspects of pastoring more.  But a big part of what the church expects from me is a good sermon, so I’ve been spending lots of time sermonizing.  And it’s been fun to preach in the same congregation consistently.  Once again, this congregation has been very encouraging.  Even some of the (apparently) hard-to-please members have been supportive.  I feel like I am finding my voice—I don’t have to be super dynamic, have the congregation in stitches, or be preaching off the cuff.  I can be gentle and thoughtful.  I can be a manuscript preacher because I care for my words (and several people have commented on that).  That is one comment I’ve especially appreciated.  I loved studying and teaching English and my first year at seminary it felt like that part of me didn’t matter and wasn’t useful, since I had to learn a new language of theology.  Today I am thankful that I can use the English part of me, and that I am finding congruence within myself. 

This journey is a testament to God’s grace in my life.  He has worked in ways that are surprising and terrifying.  I am grateful for the privilege of immersing myself in God’s word and sharing it with God’s people.  I give all glory and honor to him for the woman he has made me to be.

Shaking Our Fists, Or Why I'm Humbled and Grateful

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Yesterday I preached on Psalm 13, a sermon entitled “Shaking Our Fists.”  The essence of the sermon was that the psalmist was so angry at God that he was shaking his fists at God, and we too have occasions to shake our fists at God.  God gives the psalmist and us the freedom to shake our fists at him, so that we can process our pain with the context of God’s covenant relationship with us. 

As I’ve mentioned before, this church has many reasons to mourn and shake their fists at God.  I was scared to preach this sermon.  This is only my second sermon to this congregation and I wasn’t sure how far I could go.  I wasn’t sure how bold I should be with naming the hurts of the congregation.  But I felt in my spirit that this message must be brought and that I needed to name things.  So I did.  I would imagine that some people went home uncomfortable.  Some might have even thought I was totally wrong (although none of them told me to my face so far).  But several people said this was exactly the sermon the congregation needed to hear.  One of the pastoral elders, whom I have quickly come to greatly appreciate, told me after the service that there is a history of people stopping coming to church when hard things happen to them because they aren’t happy with God and there isn’t room in the worship to be angry.  His comments reminded me of Prof. Nydam (pastoral care professor) saying that every worship service must have space to be sad, because that’s life.  The elder also said the previous pastor, although much loved, didn’t/couldn’t go there.  Put all these factors together (with an immigrant culture of making do), and people don’t feel the freedom to lament.

I look back at yesterday and I am profoundly humbled and grateful.  I am humbled that God would take my words and use them to speak his words.  I am humbled that even when I feel like my words aren’t good enough, the Holy Spirit still uses them.  I am humbled that God called me to this place for a purpose that I didn’t know (and probably no humans knew)—to walk with this congregation through the darkness and to acknowledge its presence. 

And I am grateful that God is using me here, but I am also grateful for all of the work God has done (and is doing) in me to equip me for this work.  I have heard over and over that to be able to walk with people through pain and grief, you must be connected to your own heart and able to grieve your own losses.  It is a testimony to God’s grace in my life that since I was in high school I have learned to express my emotions to people instead of my dog (loyal and patient as she was).  I am thankful for friends that have encouraged me to speak my heart freely to them and God.  I am thankful for friends that have listened to my stories of loss and disappointment and helped me to grieve.  I am thankful for Professors Bosma and Nydam who taught me about lament and equipped me to share this freedom with God’s people.