Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop, with my laptop, Bible, moleskin journal, a pen, and some books I've been reading.  I've only been a preacher for 4 months and I'm already a cliche.  I've been in ministry since 1996.  I've spoken countless messages over the years (mostly to adolescents) and I was reminded of something today that maybe I've always known and always practiced, but hasn't been at the forefront of my mind lately.  I don't just preach to the smiling mom in the front or the sleeping grandpa in the back or the talking teenager to my right.  I'm also preaching to myself.  When I spoke for years in youth ministry I would take the things that I learned in my own life and try to speak that wisdom to my students. This is why I think it is so important for youth ministers to have a healthy spiritual life and take time for themselves.

There is this tension I've been feeling every week when I preach.  How can I inspire or encourage a congregation to something bigger, something better, something more divine, if I myself have that same struggle?  Honestly, I've decided that I need to hear my own sermons.  I hope and I pray that taking that perspective won't create some kind of hypocritical stance, but rather this solidarity with the church.  I long to glean things from scripture and the word.  Let's face it, I will never be perfect enough in any area to preach as if they need it and I don't.  We need it.  So I will preach to myself and to my church for the sake of God and His kingdom.

I've been reading Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley. Most of what I'm thinking is because of this book.  So here are some things I'm thinking about as I put together my sermon each week.

1.  How is this text/topic affecting me?  -am I living this way and what questions is it churning inside me?

2.  How will this text reach my audience? -What questions are we as people asking about this text/topic and about life in general?

3.  What can I share with the audience that can give us direction and help change lives?  This is truly a Holy Spirit movement of the sermon and the preparation of the sermon.  This is where the covering of prayer becomes crucial

We are moving together as a community of faith!  The entire worship service should be forming us into a type of community that is moving along the journey, joining God in the work he is already doing.

May God bless this cliche and the preaching of His word.

    This is our world.  Whether we like it or not, it is what it is.  We live in a world where there is illness, deception, suicide, and murder.  The world we live in is filled with heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer.  The world we live in has unfaithful marriages, greedy bankers, and shifty pedophiles.  The world we live in has desperate people who have been bullied to a point of insanity or have let substance abuse take control that the thought of living is unbearable.  The world we live in has people who would rather kill and destroy than reconcile and submit to one another.  It is a place where a man can open fire on a defenseless crowd or bomb a building full of unsuspecting people.  Whether we chose it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, this is our world.

     How do we go from a world, where God says it is VERY GOOD, to a world where we cry daily, “Maranatha!  Come Lord Jesus!”  The problem began where sin entered the world through the beginning of mankind and continues today.  Too many times we define sin as the things we do wrong that are against God’s rules or will.  That is a portion of sin.  The actual word in Greek means to “miss the mark”.  But are we missing the mark of the rule or are we missing the mark of what it means to live for God? Obviously, Adam and Eve broke a rule.  Obviously, we break rules often (God’s and otherwise).  However, what if sin is just as much a state of being as it is an action.  What if the action is actually the manifestation of where we are with God in general?  Maybe sin is being distanced from God and the God-life.  Maybe sin is being and thinking and acting more human than divine.  I’m not trying to say we are divine, but we are in a relationship with the divine.  We often lose sight of that and forget whose we are and why we chose God in the first place.

 If sin is a choice, then so is holiness.  We get up every morning and live our daily life making constant choices to choose God.  And sometimes we don’t.  Those are the small pictures.  The small pictures make up the big picture.  The big picture is as a general rule of life; we choose God.  Both reflections are needed.  I would hate for us to get so caught up in the daily that we lose sight of the lifelong journey.  I would hate for us to get so caught up in the big picture that we forget what the daily call of God can do within our lives.

One of the biggest problems with the brokenness of this world is that the innocent are always affected along with the guilty.  Just think about those in scripture who either lost their life or their city or their fortune, simply because evil was present.  Today is no different.  Innocent people are affected by the guilty.  God doesn’t think this is good!  And everyone who experiences pain and tragedy isn’t evil or far from God.  It is not people’s individual sin that wreaks havoc in the world.  It is the overall evil that exist in the world…a spiritual battle where evil is trying to push the divine out of the picture altogether.  It is not a fight over us as if we are that important, but rather it is a fight around us and even if we don’t want to believe it, the battle is affecting us and we are in this for God and His kingdom purposes.

God hates evil and it cannot be in his sight.  Therefore God longs just like we long for the end when He will restore every piece of creation to better than its original state.  He longs to make the grass greener, animals livelier, and humans divine.  It will come in the end, but until then we live for God on this journey surrounded by brokenness with exclamations that He, God, is VERY GOOD and MARANATHA, COME LORD JESUS!  We must live in the now, and for the not yet! 

On this July 4th I’ve been thinking about our nation and the Christian Faith.  I have had some thoughts that I would like to share briefly.

Free to Assemble and Free to Worship

In the country that we live in, we are free to assemble as a church or religion and we are free to worship whoever we claim to be our God.  I thank God that we have this type of freedom.  However, even if we didn’t just like China we would find a way to worship and assemble even if it is unlawful.

My thought today was even though we have this freedom, if we the church do not break free from our comfortable walled-off settings of worship in order to go out and do the Kingdom business of God we are still in great bondage.  Satan seeks to lie and manipulate.  So strives to make us so thankful to have a place to worship that we won’t ever leave it to actually make a difference in the world around us.  So we must be careful to not allow our freedom of religion create a slavery of complacency.

Americans and Christians

  We are Christians who live in America

This is a great country that I appreciate, respect, and love.  I take pride in our flag, our soldiers, our forms of government, and our bond.  However, I am not a Christian because of America.  I am not an American because of Christ.  This may seem like a no-brainer, but sometimes we really do confuse the two or better yet act as if they are synonymous.   I am an American because I was born in America.  I am a Christian because I choose to do my best every day to live in the Kingdom of God and follow my savior Jesus Christ.  There are Christians in other countries.  They don’t follow Christ because its easy or in order to become good citizens.  They follow because he saved them and they wish to live for the Kingdom.  Being a good American doesn’t make me a good Christian.  Being a good Christian won’t make me a good American.  They are not synonymous, although since our country was founded by Christians there is quite a bit of overlap.  Enough said I think!

True Freedom

True freedom comes at a cost.  Freedom from the tyranny of other countries has cost our nation many lives.  Those lives were not lost in vain.  They died so that we could have certain unalienable rights.  We should honor those that have fallen, those that have suffered, those that have sacrificed, and those that have supported this country.  We honor these because of what they have done in the name of freedom for our country.  I honor them because without them I could not live the life I live in the United States of America.  I am thankful!

There is another freedom for which I’m thankful; a freedom from sin and death.  I deserve the sentence of death due to my own sin and brokenness.  However, I have been freed from that bondage because of what God has done IN me, Christ has done FOR me, and the Spirit has done THROUGH me.  It also has come at a great cost.  One I can never pay back.  One that is ultimately not owed.  Christ didn’t die so we could work our way into His grace.  He died that we might have grace immediately and life abundantly. 

While I enjoy, appreciate, respect, and live in both freedoms only one will last throughout all time and in any place…Freedom in Christ!  It is the freedom in Christ that taught our forefathers of this nation how to fight for its own freedom as a country.  I live in the unshakeable Kingdom of God that extends freedom to all who enter and live.

Last Word

I pray that as Americans we can see all people who reside in our country as Americans.  Not only those who have realized “The American Dream”, but with the eyes of Christ we can see all races, all economic levels, both genders, and all that express their American freedom the way they choose as Americans.  More importantly I pray we can see them as people who have a story and that are on a journey that will one day, if they haven’t already, intersect with God and us so that we can continue to build on the great story of God and His people.  With global eyes we will see that Christianity is stronger than one person, one church community, one nation and also see that America’s freedoms are something we can appreciate and celebrate.  Now, let’s go join God in His work and celebrate the Kingdom!