Busy, Busy, Busy

This week I am slammed with papers due, Greek homework, and writing a sermon for Sunday. My desk accurately portrays what my week looks like...a lot going on. Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to write some blogs once I complete my sermon.

God Bless,

Jason

Do you tailor Christianity to fit your needs?

Tailored Jesus?

I read this interesting article a few days ago titled "More Americans tailoring religion to fit their needs". I have been thinking about the concept of tailoring Christianity to our needs, and have been wrestling with the question of how much do we ignore difficult parts of the gospels because they don't fit our version of Christianity. My OT professor, Dr. Danny Carroll, challenged us in class yesterday that far too often in westernized Christianity we often cling to our theology too tightly. He suggested that even when we hit verses that disagree with our theology, we allow our logic to trump the scripture. We twists the scripture to support our own theology rather than allowing scripture to reshape our logic. I was challenged to continually try to allow the scripture to be the basis for my life rather than my own ideas. If you want to check out the article I have posted the link below. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the question of how much do we tailor Christianity to fit our needs.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-14/america-religious-denominations/50376288/1


Blessings,

Jason

Preaching

This morning I once again had the opportunity to preach at 1st Reformed Church here in Denver, CO. I was a little nervous about preaching on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, especially when the lectionary text I chose was focused on forgiving those who have wronged us. Thankfully, God is gracious and gave me the right words to say! I spent most of this week reading commentaries, reading Bibles, writing out ideas, praying, and writing my sermon. I spent the better part of Friday and Saturday holed up in coffee shops trying to finish my sermon. I experienced writers block Friday and thus ended up not finishing the sermon until Saturday at about 12:30p.m. This left me with a lot less time to practice than I had wanted, but God is good and everything went well.

I preached on Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant. I challenged the congregation that there are three things we can learn from this parable.

(1) We are sinners,
(2) God gives us grace,
(3) By extending forgiveness to those around us, we can truly experience the grace of God in our own    lives.

I had a blast preaching, and I am really beginning to enjoy the routine of preparing and delivering a sermon. If anyone is interested in seeing my manuscript please just let me know, and I can e-mail you a copy. I tried to video my sermon but the battery on my flip camera died.

I want to end this post by sharing a funny story that happened while I was getting dressed this morning for church. Sometimes our ability to laugh at ourselves can be just what we need to release some tension and calm our nerves. I had put on my slacks and dress shirt and decided that I should wear a tie. Now I only know how to tie one tie knot, and I have been using this exact one since the 9th grade. The only knot I know how to tie is the half windsor knot, it goes something like this,

Well this morning I decided that I wanted to use a different tie knot since you know, I am preaching and should be well dressed and have the perfect knot for my tie. I decided I should google how to tie a full windsor knot, as they project power and confidence. I read a step by step instructional online and even watched a video. I knew that now I was ready to tie my tie. I tied it while watching the video and when I was done I just laughed. There was no way my tie knot projected confidence or power! I showed Amy and we both laughed pretty hard. I know you are dying to see what my knot looked like, good thing I took a picture.

Needless to say, I don't think I have mastered the full windsor knot. I ended up just trying my good old half windsor knot, and I don't think anyone at church noticed or cared. Hope you all had a great weekend, God bless!!

I'm preaching on Sunday!

Sermon Writing at it's best!

Why is preaching still important?

(St. Paul preaching in Athens)

I have been thinking a lot lately about preaching in the North American Church and questioning why I have such a deep passion for it. As I was driving home from visiting a new coffee house(St. Mark’s Coffee House) on Saturday night with Amy we began to talk about preaching in church, and how I was excited to hear one of my favorite professors preach at Mission Hills Church the next morning. I was excited to hear this particular professor preach since he is the main preaching professor at Denver Seminary. This got me thinking and talking with Amy about my passion for preaching and how I hope to one day be a very Godly and impactful preacher.  

I have really felt that God has been giving me more of a desire to preach throughout this last year. I haven’t really been able to put my finger on why this is or what this means for my future as a pastor, but I have definitely been interested in the idea of a preaching pastor However, while talking with Amy I realized that part of the reason I am passionate about preaching is due to the fact that I am passionate about reaching people for Christ. I want to see people live more authentic and Godly lives on a daily basis. It hit me that as a pastor one of the main areas you are allowed to speak into people’s lives is through your sermon on Sunday mornings. Sure you will get lunch with people in your congregation throughout the week, but the majority of people will not have time or seek out meetings with the pastor during the week. 

I believe that most of the people who do seek out additional time with pastors are often those who have a good relationship with the Lord. I realized that I want to preach because I want to inspire people to grow closer to the Lord. I want to challenge people to think through what they believe and be able to articulate it clearly. I want to teach people to understand the Bible clearly and to recognize the importance that the Bible still has in our lives today. And most importantly, I want to preach because I want to serve God whole heartedly with my gifts and talents, and I believe this is an area he has gifted me in and is continuously cultivating in my life.

As I look towards beginning another semester of school in the fall I am trying to be wise with my time off this summer. I am reading some books on preaching, I bought the videos from a conference on the art of preaching and I am watching some podcast of impactful preachers. My prayer is that through spending the time researching, reading and listening to preachers I will be able to cultivate the gifts God has given me. If you have any suggestions on books to read related to preaching or preachers to listen to I would welcome any and all suggestions. God bless.

How to preach to the masses?

     I have been thinking a lot lately about how one can most effectively preach in a typical church setting. How does a pastor convey the truth of scriptures in such a way that the congregation is not only captivated, but moved to action. For many years I have sensed that  whatever pastoral role God is leading me towards will involve preaching. I have a deep passion for preaching and believe that it is an important and useful aspect of our church worship services. Despite my belief that it is still crucial to our growth as Christians, I also believe that there are many preachers who lack inspiration and passion. The question for me is how do preachers allow their sermons to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, passionate, Bible based and meaningful to the point that listeners are moved to live more authentic and Christ based lives? Is this even possible or are my expectations too high?  
     This week I am back in Seattle visiting family and friends, which also means figuring out where Amy and I want to worship on Sundays. Last Sunday we visited my good friend Mark's church and really enjoyed their small, intimate service. This morning we decided to worship at the church I grew up in (which is always a mix of emotions for me) and worshipped with Amy's parents. The pastor who preached was a woman, in here late 30's, who at times sounded more like a stand up comedian than a pastor. I know that it is difficult to preach, especially in front of hundreds of people, but I find as I study the art of preaching it becomes more difficult not to critique the sermons I hear. All in all this women preached a good sermon and I listened attentively to the entire sermon, however, 8 hours later I can barely remember anything she said. Why is it that we can spend hours of our weeks preparing sermons, stressing out over if our illustrations will be effective and preach our hearts out only to have the congregation leave unchanged.
     I have within me a burning passion to be more effective as a preacher. I don't know what this will look like or how I will achieve this, but I am determined to someday, by the grace of God, inspire people through my preaching. I hope and pray that God will use my words to pull people closer to Him. If we, as the Church, are to bring people to Christ and help others understanding the living hope we have in Christ, we must tirelessly search for the most effective ways to reach people, including how we preach the word of God, which must be the foundation for all else. I am excited to use some of my free time to study the art of preaching. I plan to read a couple books about this topic, listen to some amazing preachers and look at the style and techniques of their sermons and watch some videos from a conference on preaching. Hopefully I will find the time to continue writing out some of my thoughts about this topic here on my blog as I continue to work towards one day becoming an effective preacher.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17