James MacDonald pulled an unusual rabbit out of his Easter hat this year. The megachurch pastor preached his Sunday morning sermon on money.

You can view the sermon video here. Start at 2:00 in.

Whatever you think of MacDonald's logic (Easter = freedom, bad money management = bondage, therefore, good money management = good idea for an Easter sermon), is the day the church celebrates resurrection the time to talk finances?

What do you think of MacDonald's connection between resources and resurrection? Appropriate? Absurd? Discuss.

Way back in 1768, a little-known Baptist pastor named Isaac Backus denounced a growing trend in preaching. By his day it had become quite fashionable to read sermons from a manuscript, instead of preaching extemporaneously. This, Backus argued, was an “upstart notion,” a newfangled approach to an old task. And it had two strikes against it. To begin with, “the reading of sermons is a dull way of preaching.” (He didn’t feel the need to elaborate that point; it just is.) Second, and more troubling, reading sermons from the pulpit made it easy for pastors to plagiarize. Though “people may know that their minister reads other men’s works [in the study] yet how can they ever know when he reads his own [in the pulpit]?”

If we stop there, Backus’s warning seems like a sampling from the fat folder titled, “The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same.” Plagiarizing sermons has only become cheaper and easier with the availability of illustrations, outlines, and full sermon manuscripts online. And the secret’s out. Suzanne Sataline published a piece in The Wall Street Journal on the plague of pastoral plagiarism in 2006, which brought the issue into the light. Since then Out of Ur, Tim Challies, Ed Stetzer, the Gospel Coalition folks (and many others) have addressed the issue from a number of angles.

The deeper, more fundamental issue Backus was concerned about was that reading from a manuscript—even if you wrote it—indicated a lack of dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Even though “we” want to identify ourselves as evangelical, Evangelical Christianity has become a battle ground of proof texts. No matter what the particular battle is.

“I’ll see your 1 Tim. 2:12 — Paul not suffering a woman to teach, with Paul lauding the apostle Junia in Romans 16:7, greeting his co-laborers, Priscilla & Aquila in Romans 16:3–4 and 2 Timothy 4:19 and writing of their house church leadership in 1 Cor. 16:19. Winning!”

On this particular battle, Smith writes,

The Bible seems to say many things that can be reasonably read and theologized in various ways. In studying the various sides of this heated debate, one gets the distinct feeling that it is actually the divergent prebiblical interests of the many interpreters—both traditionalist and feminist—that drive their scriptural readings, as much as the texts themselves. That too presents problems for biblicism. But the more pertinent point here is this: apparently smart, well-intentioned scripture scholars in fact do read the same set of texts and come away making arguably compelling cases for opposing if not incompatible beliefs on a matter of significance for Christian personal and church practice. — Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible, Loc. 780–85 (Kindle Edition)

Some might be surprised. Others will say, “I knew it all along. He’s not to be trusted. He’s slid so far down the slippery slope he’s a nanometer from Hell’s Gates.”

What am I talking about? The Bible. Sorry. The Holy Bible.

I don’t believe it’s inerrant.

Inspired? Yes.

Automatic handwriting under the control of the Holy Spirit? Ummmm… I don’t think so.

Scot McKnight notes:

…many Christians grow up with a view of Scripture that it is inerrant, and that means for them – and I speak here of the populist impression – that it is not only true but that is more or less magically true – true beyond its time, true when everything else says something else. Connected to this view of inerrancy is a view of Bible reading that takes a sound Christian idea called the perspicuity of Scripture, that the Bible’s message is clear to any able-minded Bible reader, and ratchets it up one notch so that the Bible reader thinks whatever I see in the Bible is what the Bible is saying. This is my way of saying that one’s interpretations of Scripture become as infallible as the Bible itself, and since everything interlocks, giving in one inch is the first step in apostasy.

I'm blogging semi-live live from the Jacksonville Pastor's Conference and it's the first time I've heard Tullian Tchividjian speak. Here's one thing for certain about Tullian: he's passionate and clear about one thing—the gospel. And for Tullian the good news isn't first and foremost about what we do; it's about what Christ has already done for us. It's not about trying harder and doing more; it’s about trusting Jesus who already told us, "It is finished!"

It's easy to track with Tullian because he leads the major leagues of preaching with more tweetable quotes per minute than any other preacher. (That’s not a criticism or a compliment; it's just the way Tullian communicates. On the plus side, it sure makes his messages comprehensible and memorable.) For instance, consider these quotable, tweetable Tullian-statements:

• “The fire to do for Jesus comes from being soaked in the fuel of what's been done [by Christ].”
• “The only way to set our people free is if we [the preachers] have already been set free.”
• “For far too long preachers have been addicted to moral renovation.”
• “Based on a lot of American preaching you'd think God's primary goal is not worship but behavior modification.”
• “Antinomianism doesn't flow from too much grace, but from too little grace.”
• “The evangelical church is filled with a ton of Christless Christianity.”
•And my favorite: “Preachers have become prodigious in providing practical to-do lists instead of lifting up Christ's finished work.”

I was personally stirred by Tullian's clear focus on grace. Like Tullian, I could go back through my sermon archives and find example after depressing example of graceless, moralistic, try-harder-you-spiritual-sluggard messages. I get tired just thinking about all the pressure I put on people, including myself! Tullian is right about this: if we really get grace, if we really preach grace, it will revolutionize our own lives and our churches. Grace is dangerous and intoxicating, but it will always set you free.

But having said that, I did miss something in his message—and by “miss” I mean that I was left longing and thirsting for something. I wanted to know this: okay, I see what I’m set free from (the Law, judgment, insecurity, condemnation), but what am I set free for? I agree that preachers are way too addicted to moral renovation. But on the other hand, I still want and need Jesus to do a work of moral renovation in my heart. I also want Jesus to do a work of cultural, social renovation in my neighborhood and in the world around me. How does grace lead to all of that? I know Tullian wants all that stuff too; I just wanted him to spell it out (or at least drop some clues)—even in one 40 minute talk.

And I know that I’m set free from the crushing demands of the Law, but I still long for that “Old Covenant” delight in God’s Law. I mean, in Psalm 119 those guys pant, and yearn, and get up seven times in the middle of the night because they’ve been pierced with longing for God’s Law. To them, at least one aspect of the Law represented something beautiful about God’s presence. I want to know how that dimension of the Law fits into my desperate need for grace.

Earlier this year, on October 5th, an influential and visionary leader died. His life forever changed the American experience, and his legacy will be felt for generations to come. An ability to see a future many thought impossible marked his work even as he inspired others to dream of that future. “No” was an unacceptable answer for this man; the status quo was meant to be shattered. Countless people see the world and its possibilities in profoundly different ways because of his passion and drive.

In a strange twist, October 5th was also the day Steve Jobs died.

The first man, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, was pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabaman, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Rev. Shuttlesworth was a catalyst at seemingly every stage of the movement for racial equality: forming the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference, participating in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, joining the Freedom Rides during the summer of 1961, and pushing for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For his efforts, at least three attempts were made on his life. When his home was bombed in 1956, the young pastor boldly claimed, “God made me dynamite proof.”

How many people in your church have heard of Fred Shuttlesworth? Too few, surely. How many sermons, in the Sundays following his death, cited his as a life worth imitating? Not many, I’m afraid. In contrast, I have a hunch that the life and death of Steve Jobs was fodder for countless sermon illustrations in the days following his death. This, I believe, is a missed opportunity. Whatever their many accomplishments may be, our culture’s heroes—and Jobs was that and more to many—should not always be our heroes.

This clip of a sermon by Mark Driscoll has been getting a lot of play. Never mistaken for being soft or indirect, Driscoll shares his concern that too many people are editing God by picking which of his attributes they like and which they'd prefer to discard. "I love you," he says, "and I have to tell you the truth." The real fireworks begin at the 4:30 mark on the video.

It appears the original clip posted by Mars Hill was pulled and replaced by a clip from the same sermon offering more context for Driscoll's statement. You can watch that video about the wrath of God here.

What do you make of Driscoll's approach? Do we need more fire and brimstone preaching today?

"The evangelical world has lost one of its greatest spokesmen, and I have lost one of my close personal friends and advisors. I look forward to seeing him again when I go to Heaven." -Billy Graham

For more on John Stott's influence on 20th century evangelicalism, read Tim Stafford's article at Christianity Today.

I love and hate the book of Job. I love it because it poses challenging pastoral questions—like being tested by God or God’s tolerance for the devil—but I hate it because it challenges my understanding of what it means to have a pastoral spirit.

Most know Job’s story. Satan approaches God for permission to test Job. God says, “Fine, just don’t kill him.” Job loses everything, including his wealth and his children. His wife tells him to curse God and die. And then, as if that weren’t enough, he gets this weird skin disease and tries to scrape it off with broken pieces of a clay jar.

It is in this moment that his friends decide to pay him a visit. They spend a week with him, just being present with him, mourning with him, and providing for his needs—a great example of pastoral care. But after the week has passed, the real reason for their visit becomes apparent. They are there to help Job discover what he did wrong.

The audience knows Job hasn’t done anything wrong. God actually considers Job to be blameless, righteous. But in chapter after chapter, Job goes back and forth with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. He adamantly argues that he did nothing wrong. And while Job’s anger is expressed in truly poetic ways, he never curses God. Job’s commitment to God does not change.

Then in chapter 32 a young, overly zealous Elihu enters the story and takes on the mantel to verbally assault Job into submission. He uses phrases like “I want to vindicate you” and “I will teach you wisdom.” He accuses Job of being more interested in making a profit than pleasing God, among other things. It is only after Elihu stops talking that God finally says something—and what God says breaks my heart.

Every once in a while, a post on a blog that I read elsewhere is so irresistible, I have to share it with you. This one comes from Mike Cope, one of my favorite minister-writers, from his PreacherMike.com blog. He riffs on the recent news story of the flight attendant who lost his cool with a couple of, uh, demanding passengers. And some of the comments on Mike's blog are priceless. We'll share one just to whet your appetite and encourage you to visit Mike's site. But let us read your comments here, too.

* * * * * *

by Mike
Come on — tell me you haven’t fantasized about this before. You’ve preached one last sermon . . . or seen one last patient . . . or attended one last sales meeting . . . or held one more parent conference — and something sent you over the line. You snapped. What do you do?

Here’s one possibility:

On Monday, a JetBlue attendant named Steven Slater snapped on the tarmac at Kennedy International Airport, the authorities said.

After a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch his luggage too soon on a full flight just in from Pittsburgh, Mr. Slater, a career flight attendant, had had enough.

He got on the intercom, let loose a string of invective, pulled the lever that activates the emergency-evacuation chute and slid down, making a dramatic exit not only from the plane but, one imagines, also his airline career.

On his way out the door, he paused to grab a beer from the beverage cart. Then he ran to the employee parking lot and drove off, the authorities said.

Earlier this week, Collin Hansen warned about the growing popularity and risks of using humor in the pulpit. I thought an illustration was called for. Mark Driscoll uses humor frequently, among other communication tactics, to convey his messages. Here is Driscoll employing the most elemental, and apparently biblical, of all comedic genres--potty humor.

I love to laugh. And when I laugh, you’ll hear me if you’re in the same zip code. I have a few all-time favorite comedy TV shows that I can watch over and over again. And I enjoy funny movies, so long as they forego the explicit sexual content.

So why do I often cringe when pastors crack jokes during their sermons on Sunday morning? Maybe the joke’s on me, because comedy has become many pastors’ best friend. Apparently, seminaries may want to consider adding a course in stand-up comedy to prepare their preachers. One church I know recently hosted “Church Joke Sunday.” In lieu of hearing a sermon, a dwindling number of people who actually understand denominational humor laughed about the differences between Methodists and Presbyterians. And during the recent Festival of Homiletics in Nashville, Susan Sparks coached pastors in clerical comedy.

“Close to 200 ministers crowded a classroom at First Baptist, with more hanging out in the hallway for her workshop on bringing humor into the pulpit,” Bob Smietana wrote for The Tennessean on May 20. “She says that humor can help preachers connect with their parishioners, defuse church conflict and deal with an often-stressful calling. To help get her message across, Sparks gave preachers a Ten Commandments of stand-up comedy.”

I don’t suppose there is any way to criticize this approach and come across as anything but dour. So be it. I can’t help but wonder about the health of American churches when comedy is considered a cure. Are we just bored with the gospel? Do we have nothing to offer the broader world except jokes that few outside the church would consider funny? Is anyone aware that the watching world laughs at us, not with us?

Back on May 18, Religion News Service reported that Ted Haggard filed business documentation with Colorado’s secretary of state to incorporate a nonprofit called “St. James Church.” The address listed on the documents was the same as Ted and Gayle Haggard’s home.

Asked at the time if he was starting a new church Haggard replied, “A corporation does not a church make.” Haggard said the nonprofit was established to help him manage the revenue and expenses generated from his speaking and traveling. "There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of people that travel and incorporate in order to manage finances," he said. "That's what I'm doing."

Asked if “St. James Church” might become an actual church in the future, he commented that there was “no way to know the future.”

At a press conference today, Ted Haggard announced he is launching a new church.

In your new book you write, "I cannot convince people to be obsessed with Jesus, and that's why you need the Holy Spirit." When did you come to that realization?

Once you pastor for a while, it dawns on you that nailing a sermon doesn't mean lives will change. Or you'll meet a person who's surrendered everything to Christ, and you'll realize that your sermon wasn't even good and nothing you did caused him to become a believer.

There was a guy who had been in our church for 15 years. One day he told me my preaching hadn't changed him. He said I spoke too much about the "narrow road" and how everyone needs to be radical for Christ. But he said there's also a "middle road" where people like him can do a lot of good things. I was floored by that. He's sat under my teaching for 15 years and he still believes there isn't only a wide easy road and a narrow difficult road, but also a middle road? I've been told many times that my teaching is really helpful, that I make things simple for people to understand. And then you hear something like that.

That's when I remember, I cannot make someone fall in love with Jesus.

So what's the point of all the work, sermon prep, and programs if the outcome is out of our hands?

Some of our toil is wasted, because we're toiling believing that these things change people.

Spring weather means graduation is coming, ushering in a season of new beginnings for students finishing high school, college, and graduate school. After three years of seminary, I’m a master of divinity. At least that’s what the diploma will say. Supposedly I’m now prepared to enter full-time pastoral ministry. If anything, I’m increasingly aware of how much I don’t yet know about God, his Word, and shepherding his flock. Maybe that’s a healthy place to be.

That said, seminary has been an invaluable time of study and reflection. God has laid a foundation of learning that will support me through what I hope will be decades of faithful ministry, if he tarries. At the outset of this adventure, I benefited from the advice of wise pastors and seminarians who counseled me in how to make the most of this time of preparation. I heeded their charge to settle in a local church and invest myself in congregational ministry, immediately applying what I learned. I grew attached to a few professors who made time for students and cared sincerely about my spiritual and academic development. And I resisted the temptation to expect that a few hours of class per week over the course of a semester could teach me everything I needed to know about systematic theology, biblical Hebrew, or counseling.

This article comes from our friends at PreachingToday.com. Check out more on PT blog.

I have a confession to make. I am fed up with hearing people say, "I'm not being fed." While I do not hear it often, the comment surfaces just enough about my preaching and the preaching of others to make me want to scream. Once my emotions settle down, though, I try to discern what people are really saying. In my experience, the complaint "I'm not being fed" is usually a code phrase for some other frustration that lurks below the surface.

This realization hit me a few years ago after observing a strange turn of events. First, a young couple left the church I served for another because (drumroll here) they were "not being fed." I puzzled over this because I felt like I was in a season where my preaching really was connecting Scripture well to the lives of our people. I went through a checklist of possible problems. Had I lost my passion? No. Was I short-changing my sermon preparation? No. Had I slipped into merely talking to people about the Bible rather than talking to people about themselves from the Bible? No. Was I neglecting to preach the gospel? No. Still, this young couple—whom I'll refer to as Brett and Danielle—claimed they were not being fed, and they got involved in a nearby church plant.

A year went by, and I accepted the call to a church in another region of the United States. Then, shortly after my move, I started getting emails from Brett and Danielle. Danielle, a diligent Bible student and a Bible study leader, emailed me with perceptive questions about a Bible passage she was studying. At the end of one of her emails she wrote: "We sure miss your preaching and teaching!" Huh? I thought they were not being fed.

Last weekend I attended Spark, a children's ministry conference near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The theme of the conference was "The Art of Storytelling." I think you'd be hard pressed to find a keynote speaker better suited to speak on that topic than Walter Wangerin. Pastor for 16 years in inner-city Chicago, father of four, grandfather of eight or so, and author of more than 40 books, Wangerin has lots of experience telling stories. And he's good at it—really good. In his two plenary sessions, he touched on a good many things that concern me—the role of the teacher, the power of stories, and the nature of the relationship between art and truth. What I appreciated most was his sense of balance.

You might expect (as I did) that when speaking to a room full of ministers, a person who makes his living telling stories would emphasize how story telling is superior to other forms of teaching, such as catechism or object lessons or memorizing facts. In fact, I've come to expect that perspective at ministry conferences in general. It's become very popular to claim that narrative is more important that systematic theology; after all (the argument goes) Jesus spoke in parables not doctrines, and the Gospels are narratives not bullet points. Fair enough. But Wangerin wanted to emphasize the relationship between story and doctrine, between the imagination and the intellect.

The value of story, for Wangerin, is that it allows people to experience the truth. You can tell someone, "Jesus loves you." That's a doctrine. But if you can tell a story that shows that Jesus loves me—maybe a parable like the Good Shepherd—in which I am invited to associate with a character that is receiving the love of Jesus, then I will experience the love of Jesus.

Our dive into damnation continues with Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church. After explaining our human tendency toward poor self-assessment, and our need to be in a right relationship with God, Boyd says, "I don't know who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. It's not for me to judge.... I can't say, and I don't think anyone can say, that so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, are or are not saved."

Clark, a media technology company that supplies churches, is pioneering holographic technology that can create a life-size, three dimensional projection of a preacher on a platform. Blogger Tony Morgan was given a preview at Clark’s offices near Atlanta. He writes, “Pricing is coming down quickly to the point that I won’t be surprised if we see this technology implemented in churches within the next 12 months.”

Morgan took a photo of himself standing beside the holographic preacher.

What do you think? Like Morgan do you “love these days we live in,” or bemoan the loss of incarnate ministry? If the technology was affordable, would you consider it for your ministry?

**UPDATE**

This week film critic Roger Ebert, who has been unable to speak since cancer surgery removed his throat in 2006, debuted his "new voice" on the Oprah show. The technology uses past recordings of Ebert's voice to construct a digital replication. Whatever he types is read aloud by the computer in a voice remarkably like his own.

The technology is still under development, but if combined with the holographic images being developed by Clark, this could be the solution to the succession dilemma facing many megachurches. Andy Stanley may well be the teaching pastor at North Point well into the 22nd century.

You knew it was coming. We couldn't feature a series on hell without Mark Driscoll. His bold, in-your-face preaching on the subject is a vivid contrast with Erwin McManus' pastorally sensitive approach from last week. Which style is a better fit for your ministry context?

We've heard from N.T. Wright, John Piper, and Tim Keller about the doctrine of hell. What do you make of McManus' understanding of hell and God's character? He seems to echo the perspective of C.S. Lewis who wrote that "The doors of hell are locked from the inside." That's certainly more palatable in our anti-damnation culture, but do you think it's right?

He once planted a church by teaching through Leviticus. He can use a rabbit carved from a bar of soap to illustrate the nature of suffering. Google his name and the term "Sex God" will appear among the top entries.

Rob Bell is the most interesting preacher in the world.

The winter issue of Leadership features a wide-ranging interview with Rob Bell on the art and impact of preaching. His candid answers and down to earth advice for pastors may surprise you. Check out the entire interview at LeadershipJournal.net. Below is an excerpt where Bell discusses the unknown dangers of video preaching.

Your NOOMA video series has been popular. What do you think about the increasing number of preachers and churches using video technology to expand their reach?

It's powerful but there's also a dark side. Video is not church. You put images and music on a screen, and people will listen. But it's also dangerous. You're playing with fire. I think video technology deserves to be scrutinized heavily.

Go a little deeper. What makes video dangerous?

I don't think we know yet what the long-term impact will be on disciple-making. In 10 years we may discover what particular kind of Christ follower is formed by video preaching. I see warning lights on my dashboard. It's unclear what video may do to the ways we conceive of life together.

In the New Testament, there are 43 "one another" passages, and during a Sunday morning service you might be able to practice three or four of them. And as the service gets large, you can probably do fewer. A massive group setting is also dangerous. You can come, sit, listen, and go home and think, I've been to church, even if you haven't practiced any "one anothers." And with video that only gets more intense. I'm not sure that's the direction we want to be heading.

The second edition of our series on hell features John Piper. He's concerned that we're diminishing the centrality and importance of hell in our theology and proclamation. Do you agree?

We're starting a new weekly series on Out of Ur about the doctrine of Hell. Each week there will be a post (video or written) from a church leader on their view of Hell and the role of the doctrine today. Given the diversity of views, and the different ways evangelical churches talk (or don't talk) about Hell, we hope this series informs your own thinking and communication.

March 25, 2010 at Willow Creek Community Church

Early Registration Ends Thursday, January 28
Go to www.catalystoneday.com and use the Rate Code: BLOG for a special $99 discounted rate.

Catalyst One Day features Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel in 4 sessions on the topic of momentum. Leaders in attendance can also participate in a Q&A with Stanley and Groeschel and benefit from interaction around current leadership issues in a unique back and forth dialogue/exchange. The smaller environment allows for a completely different experience than the larger Catalyst events. Register Today. Seats are limited and this event will sell out.

Two things in short supply for nearly every church leader—time and money. Unfortunately both are necessary if we hope to buy and read the numerous books intended to help us in our work. That is why Leadership created the Golden Canon, the ten books of 2009 most valuable for church leaders. The winners were selected by a diverse group of more than 100 pastors and leaders, including our contributing editors, who selected the best books in two categories: The Leader's Outer Life, and The Leader's Inner Life. We hope this list contributes to your development as a leader, and assists you in determining where to invest your finite hours and dollars.

Read more at LeadershipJournal.net.

In response to my recent Out of Ur lament about street preachers, many Urbanites vigorously defended those who take to the streets to preach. I’m used to dissenting opinions here at Ur, but I was surprised by how many spoke favorably about something I’d assumed most Christians found embarrassing

One of the comments that stood out to me came from Anthony Brabazon, an architect and street preacher from Dublin, Ireland. Anthony has attended many different churches since his conversion in 1981, but he considers the Dublin streets his church and the passing pedestrians his congregation. (Here's a video of Anthony preaching on the streets of Dublin.) Having read so many fervently positive opinions about street preachers, I was curious to learn what I had missed. Anthony was gracious enough to answer a bunch of my questions.

What led you to preach on the streets of Dublin?

A few things: Primarily the command of Jesus in the great commission and his promise to be with us. Also, a love for the lost that are not attracted to church and greatly deceived by what the media says about Jesus. In Ireland virtually nobody can explain why the Lamb of God was slain at Calvary. I am also aware that time is very short and the work is very great. Because he went up that hill for me, I can be bold for him. I often think that the first 2 letters of God are GO while the first 3 letters of Satan are SAT!

Here in the USA, there has been an effort to reinvent church so the "unattracted" people will, in fact, be attracted to church. Do you think this is a valid effort, or is street preaching more effective?

In a church, Jesus-focus can shift to church-focus and the message of Ephesians 4—where the work is done by "the saints"—can be filtered out as leadership is elevated higher than servanthood and all works are checked out for approval, leading the saints to clam up and becoming spectators.

‘Tis the season to think about traditions. Every family has its own non-negotiable holiday rituals. If your family’s like mine, you may have competing visions of the perfect holiday under one roof (or tent, or banyan tree—or whatever your family cohabitates under).

In my experience, churches are a lot like families in that way. Each one has its own immutable ways of doing things (and often enough, every member has a different opinion about whether these ways are right or wrong). And this isn’t the case only around the Christmas season. Churches of all types—even the ones that don’t like formal rituals—form all sorts of traditions.

Earlier this fall, I spoke with a pastor who knows a thing or two about the power of tradition—another former theologian—John Calvin. Brother Calvin died in 1564, but given the recent interest in his theology, I thought I’d get his opinion on the role of traditions in the church today.

Url: I just have to ask: did you really outlaw Christmas in Geneva?

No. But I got blamed for the decision. I only wanted people to celebrate Christmas properly—without all the superstition and idolatry that can come with Christmas celebrations.

Every once in a while I find myself preaching for the nod. That’s when we try to hard wire a bit of ego-stroke into a Sunday morning message. We do it a lot, and it’s so easy—insert that small comment, that little aside, or even that main point that we know will appeal to the sensibilities of certain listeners. You know, the left-leaning (or right leaning) political comment. The doctrinal aside that scratches the itch of that person so prone to give up the "Amen" or the vigorous head nod.

Preaching for the nod has less to do with what we see in the biblical text and more to do with what we want people to see in us. And there lies the danger.

The most God-centered, John Piper-esque sermon or community-centered dialogical discussion can be completely me-centered if my intention is to get certain people to tell me, “Good words today, Pastor!” If my intention is to get certain people to see me as sufficiently hip and relevant (or standing against the tide of culture), or progressive (or appropriately conservative), or doctrinally adventurous (or steadfastly orthodox), then I have traded the proclamation of God's Word for the proclamation of myself, regardless of how I dress it up.

And all for that little nod.

Man, it's like a drug—the rush of agreement, of assent, of affirmation. Many of us would sell our souls for it. And some of us do.

A few days ago, Drew Dyck (managing editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com) sent an email to Skye Jethani (managing editor of Leadership Journal) asking to borrow a book by Dave Ferguson. Drew parenthetically commented that Ferguson looked like Edward Norton the actor. That got the ball rolling.

With the help of Drew Dyck, Tim Avery, and others, Skye created a post on his blog of church leaders and their celebrity lookalikes. It was so well received that I decided to post some of the more popular images here. Of course I'm always open to more. Send me your ideas.

Tim Allen and Joel Osteen

Patrick Stewart and Tim Keller

May I vent for a moment? If I stumble onto another blog, article, or conference advertisement for anything having to do with video venues or multi-site models of church growth, I just might lose it. Everywhere I look within our odd little subculture these days I’m barraged by debates and diatribes about the glorious merits or awful shortcomings of venues and sites. On one side are proponents who seem to believe that only really good sliced bread can compete with their innovative ministry models for the title of “greatest thing ever.” Opposing these trendsetters are Marshall McLuhan’s disciples, those who fear the Good News message has been distorted by an unholy medium.

To be clear, I understand the nuanced distinctions between multiple sites and multiple video screens. I get that there are theological concerns embedded within this conversation that bring out the passionate sides of characteristically composed people. To be honest, I’ve followed this debate with some interest and could earnestly argue my own position about these ministry models. But I don’t want to. In fact, at this point I’d rather talk about almost anything else. Here’s why:

What makes a leader? Ideas. Courage. Contact with great thinkers. What makes a Christian leader? Great ideas, courage, and contact with great thinkers shaped by the gospel. So, I offer to you a list of my top ten books for leaders, and none of the titles of these books have the word “leader” or “leadership” in it. Some of these are overtly Christian classics; others are not. These books have the ability to swell the chest, flood the mind, and reshape how we see the world around us – and a gospel-reshaping of these great works can inspire a leader to new levels.

From the classical world, though one could choose all sorts of great works, I recommend a soaking in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, to see how the great philosopher constructed a set of ethics that shaped the Western world. Homer told the story of Odysseus and Virgil in The Aeneid. Homer’s story came into the Roman world and gave to all of us the power of a journey into ideas and ideals, sanctifying place and history. Dante took Homer and Virgil to the next level in his Divine Comedy, and if you follow him all the way down into the inferno, up through purgatory and then climb into the swirling glorious presence of God you will find new dimensions to life’s journey.

Skye Jethani will be presenting at the STORY Conference next week, Url will be blogging from the event, and Leadership's editors will be hosting video interviews with the speakers. Be sure to check out more at StoryChicago.com.

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Professor Splash dives 35 feet into a kiddie pool with 1 foot of water.

When the Republicans went to Washington about a decade ago, their mantra was “we’re going to change Washington, not let Washington change us.”

Nice idea, but it didn’t exactly turn out that way.

David Kuo, former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, noted that after two terms with a Republican administration, the climate was as acrimonious as ever.

Catalyst is here. We'll be blogging for the next three days from the event in Atlanta. While the main event starts tomorrow, today the pre-conference "Labs" will feature multiple tracks and a lot of speakers/leaders. We'll be in and out of many sessions and blogging about the experience. The labs really get rolling after 1pm. Until then, I'll been hanging out in the green room which is buzzing with activity.

I had a great chat with Alan and Deb Hirsch about their upcoming book, Untamed. It's their attempt at developing a missional approach to discipleship. It sounds fantastic, and they're the right people for a project of that nature.

If he hadn’t died from a tainted smallpox vaccination in 1758, Jonathan Edwards would be celebrating his 306th birthday today--Monday, October 5. When Edwards died, at the relatively young age of 55, he was one of the best known pastor-theologians in the English speaking world. Interestingly enough, the Calvinist pastor is making quite a comeback. There’s been lots of talk on Out of Ur recently about the so-called New Reformed movement—folks that are proud to call Edwards “homeboy.”

But would Edwards be proud to claim the New Reformed movement? Well, I just couldn’t pass up the chance to ask him. Using skills learned on my many travels and my finely tuned interviewing skills, I sat down with Brother Edwards to ask him how well he thinks the new Calvinists are representing the old time religion.

Url: So, I’ve read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” You’re pretty intense.
Let me guess: high school English class.

Yep. Some of the New Reformed folks seem to like that hellfire and brimstone stuff. Did they learn that from you?
They might have. I preached my fair share of those sermons. But back then, you had to. Everybody was religious—it was against the law to skip church. So my greatest challenge as a pastor was combating spiritual apathy. I did everything I could to make sure people took their spiritual lives seriously, because it was really easy for them to take God for granted.

Do you think that sort of preaching is still effective today?

Key ideas:

Stetzer--Is multi-site being used to give great communicators a larger audience, or is it being used to raise up more communicators?

Stetzer--Multi-site isn't a big phenomenon in post-Christian settings. It's much more popular among Christians willing to come to church and watch a pastor on a screen.

Hirsch--Any model that makes the people of God more passive is a problem.

In just a few weeks we'll be down in Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference. And we're excited to announce that Out of Ur will be the official blog for the event. We'll be posting throughout the conference with exclusive access to speakers and leaders. If you're going to be there, keep your eyes open for Marshall Shelley, Skye Jethani, and Url Scaramanga. Until then, here's a video from the last Catalyst West Coast event featuring Craig Groeschel.

As I have traveled these past few years, I’ve heard the repetitive refrain from despondent pastors: “I always thought that if I preached a good sermon the church would grow.” I heard it again last week so I thought I’d comment on it along with two other beliefs about preaching. Here are 3 dying myths (IMO) of Christendom about Preaching.

MYTH 1: If You Preach a Good Sermon the Church Will Grow

Many a despondent preacher has discovered that this notion is no longer true. It has become a dying myth in post-Christendom. Nevertheless, it gets reinforced by mega churches who leverage (by video screens, etc.) one or two gifted teachers to build crowds coming to consume a good sermon. These examples are largely drawing on the leftovers of Christendom—people still looking for “good teaching” that is portable and user friendly to somehow improve their Christian lives. I take no offense in ministering to those of us who are still part of Christendom, we need to be fed and nurtured too! I just want all pastors who aim their ministries in this direction to realize the pie is getting smaller and the competition hotter. Anyone still holding onto the premise—if I just preach a good sermon, they will come—and ministering in a post-Christendom context, must either compete or be grossly disappointed with the continued dwindling of his/her congregation.

Having said all this, the “great halls” (stadiums) of preaching distribution will not connect to the lost souls of post-Christendom. Post-Christian people are not attracted to the sermon as the first place to go in their spiritual distress. We must help leaders understand that if you spend 35-40 hours a week in your office preparing a good sermon on Sunday, making it not only theologically competent (which is worthy) but slick, you are ministering to the dying vestiges of Christendom.

The validity of video-based preaching has been a matter of debate on this blog. Some, like Bob Hyatt, are critical of the trend believing it puts even greater distance between the teacher and the taught. In addition, projecting one preacher to many locations may hinder the development of other Bible teachers.

Others believe video is a powerful and useful tool as we seek to carry the gospel into every corner of our culture. It allows for churches to grow more rapidly by removing a common bottleneck in the church planting process--finding a gifted expositor.

In this video, Perry Noble jumps into the fray with his own opinion as to why some church leaders are critical of video-based multi-stie churches. Forget about theological considerations, the development of spiritual gifts, or congregational health--Nobel goes for the jugular. Do you think he's right?

This year's Catalyst Conference (October 7-9) will include a lab track hosted by Skye Jethani, Leadership's managing editor, featuring Nancy Ortberg, Mark Batterson, Reggie McNeal, and Scott Belsky. He will also host the evening “unplugged” lab session with Matt Chandler on Wednesday night.

Some of Out of Ur's other favorite voices will be there as well:

Margaret Feinberg
Dave Gibbons
Shane Hipps
Anne Jackson
Ed Stetzer
Alan Hirsch
and many more...

Learn more at CatalystConference.com, and sign-up soon. Today is the deadline for early registration and your last chance to get the best rates.

Everyone knows that John Piper believes in the supremacy of preaching, but what about augmenting the spoken word with video clips or dramas? In this short video Piper answers that question. Here's an excerpt:

"I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching. And I think that, to the degree that pastors begin to supplement their preaching with this entertaining spice to help people stay with them and be moved and get helped, it's going to backfire.... It's going to communicate that preaching is weak, preaching doesn't save, preaching doesn't hold, but entertainment does."

Piper concludes as only he can--by making light of the issue with laughter while still invoking the possibility of eternal damnation. He says:

"Nobody is going to go to hell because of this...in the short run."

At the end of his lecture and after answering a smattering of questions, the pristine and aged New Testament scholar, Bruce Metzger, asked Doug Moo if he could share something on his heart to the seminary students gathered that day.

With the moral vigor and verbal clarity Metzger was known for, he looked at his audience and simply said, "Stay married."

I can't remember the last time I heard a sermon called "Stay Married," or even a sermon that dealt with reasons to stay married. I suppose we can guess why this is so. At the top of my reasons would be a fear to offend the many - some say as many as 50 percent of evangelical Christians - who are giving money and serving in the church who are already divorced.

Next on my list would be our awareness of those listening to the sermons who are struggling with a spouse who is borderline abusive, or at least a creep. We know well that such marriages will likely dissolve.

Probably next would be that we have family and friends, some of whom are leaders and pastors themselves, who are divorced. I'm thinking we might come up with a half dozen or more other reasons that make us cautious about preaching on staying married. I hope not to offend this audience in what follows but, for the sake of the holiness of the church and the potent witness of a good marriage, I want to offer a pragmatic reason for staying married.

But first a biblical reason.

The final day and a half of Advance 09 built upon the themes started on the first day, brought another talk from Mark Driscoll, and marked the arrival of the Baptists - researcher and author Ed Stetzer, local Durham pastor J.D. Greer, the one and only John Piper, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary president Daniel Aiken.

I'm still not entirely sure what to make of the Acts 29/Southern Baptist connection. I know there's a Calvinist resurgence among Southern Baptists, but they still seem like strange bedfellows to me.

The juxtaposition was clear on Saturday morning. When the worship team from Mars Hill Seattle gave the platform over to Daniel Aiken, I experienced some mental whiplash. The group from Mars Hill offered a loud mixture of Green Day and the David Crowder Band. Then Aiken offered a fine sermon, but in a style and substance straight from an old-school Baptist revival or pastors' conference - complete with the voice inflections that southern preachers have been perfecting for going on a century now. Having served the North Carolina Baptist Convention for nearly a decade, I can understand a fringe of Southern Baptists overlapping with Acts 29, but Aiken is at the center of Southern Baptist life and didn't seem to fit the conference.

A few months back, I noticed that a big conference featuring John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer and others, and sponsored by the Acts 29 Network, was coming to a neighboring city. I don't quite consider myself Reformed enough to be a part of Acts 29, but I signed up for Advance 09: Resurgence of the Local Church anyway. Thursday was the first half day, and here are some highlights and reflections.

Speaker # 1 Mark Driscoll
I guess the way to get a few thousand conference attendees to show up on time is to have Driscoll kickoff the conference exploring the question "What is the church?" He threw a few jabs at emerging church folks, and poked fun at some virtual church, pajama wearing pastors (nothing too serious) before settling down to explore eight aspects of a true church: 1) regenerated church membership; 2) qualified leadership; 3) gather for preaching and worship; 4) sacraments rightly administered; 5) unified by the Holy Spirit; 6) discipline for holiness; 7) obey the great commandment to love; 8) obey the great commission to evangelize. (These points may be covered in Vintage Church.)

Driscoll said that preaching is first priority for a church, and too many preachers are cowards who offer suggestions rather than commands. He noted that the church was birthed with a man yelling and still requires a man yelling. He also quipped that churches should drop Sunday school because it keeps unchurched people away. He got a boo or two, but I couldn't agree more.
Another good line was a warning: "Don't be so creative that you become a heretic. If you have to choose between faithful and cool, choose faithful."

And I cannot remember exactly how he said it, but he said something akin to "leadership without control is not leadership." Still chewing on that one.

For a couple of years now, long-time pastor and theologian John MacArthur has been critical of Mark Driscoll's use of crude language in the pulpit. In the end, MacArthur believes Driscoll has crossed a line, and it's time for him to step down from ministry. MacArthur's comments have ignited a heated debate in the blogosphere (as you might suspect).

At the 2009 Basics Conference last month, another long-time pastor and theologian, John Piper, fielded a question about this debate. Piper, who along with Driscoll, is a card carrying Calvinista, offered a measured and thoughtful response. While strongly disagreeing with Driscoll's language and dismissing the necessity of swearing to be relevant, he does not believe the Mars Hill pastor needs to resign. You can listen to Piper's response here.

In related news, Ed Young posted a video on his blog yesterday about pastors using profanity.

My post from yesterday elicited a couple of comments asking for further information about the Moody Pastors' Conference going on this week. It wasn't my intention to be unhelpful, but I was. So, thanks, Jarrod and PastorM. You asked good questions. Here are my answers.

I saw no Twittering--in the sessions I was in, there were not even any laptops. A pretty low-tech crowd.

As for diversity, I was actually impressed by the racial makeup. Based on my unscientific observation, I would say the Moody conference was more ethnically diverse that Catalyst and NPC. Significant numbers of Hispanic and black participants. I can't say anything about the international makeup--I met a Canadian. Other than that, I don't know.

The majority of the breakout sessions were issues and/or methods focused--how to grow your church, increase giving, responding to homosexuality, etc.

As for the "hidden curriculum," I'd say the difference in Catalyst and Moody could be described like this: At Catalyst, all the talk was about contextualization and mission. At Moody, it was about doctrine and faithfulness. That observation is based on John Piper's presentation on Tuesday night and the audience's response to him.

As for women, no--there was very little female participation. In fact,

Skye and I are at reFOCUS, Moody Bible Institute's pastors' conference, this week. Skye is leading a breakout session, and I'm making the rounds to see what's what.

This is my first time at a Moody event. The last conference I attended was Catalyst (last month), and this is quite a different experience. We haven't made it to a general session, so I can't say much about the difference in content. But this conference is clearly aimed at a different demographic. At Catalyst, I saw more skinny jeans than I'd ever seen in one place before. Here--I've seen no man purses or boy bangs. The standard dress is polos and khakis. And, as the wardrobe might suggest, the crowd skews older.

The breakout sessions offer a little something for everyone. While Skye was talking about his book to one group of pastors, I slipped into to a presentation by Douglas Beaumont. He was talking about his book The Message Behind the Movie, in which he calls Christians to take their brains with them to the movies.

We're looking forward to sessions by Andy Crouch, among others, the afternoon and to John Piper in the general session tonight.

Do you believe in ordination? Or, more accurately stated, do you believe in denominational structures that regulate who is ordained for ministry based on prerequisites, credentials, and education?

Tony Jones, author and a leading voice of the emergent church, has started a ruckus on his blog about the legitimacy of denominational ordination after watching his friend, Adam Walker-Cleaveland, endure a slow and difficult ordination process. According to Jones, Adam has "suffered abuse" through the ordination process of his denomination. Jones wrote:

Few things piss me off as much as the sinful bureaucratic systems of denominational Christianity. When rules and regulations trump common sense, then the shark has officially been jumped.

But what gets to me even more is that bright, competent, and pastorally experienced persons like Adam continue to submit themselves to these sinful systems. They assure me that it's not for the health insurance or the pension. They do it cuz they feel "called." And if I hear another person tell me that they're sticking with their abusive denomination because, "They're my tribe," I'm gonna go postal.

Jones' frustration led him to launch an online petition calling Adam to circumvent his denomination and accept ordination by "the body of Christ."

Our friends over at PreachingToday.com are doing a little research. They're eager to know how sermon preparation differs from one generation to the next--in particular, how do folks under 35 and over 35 approach their sermon prep?

So they've created a survey. It's straight--click some boxes and type in a few names. I just took it, and it only took me 3 or 4 minutes, tops. Plus at the end, there's a little something special for those of you who complete the survey.

Click here to take the survey.

Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Brandon O’Brien, as well as yours truly, will be attending the Catalyst West Coast event April 22-24, and we’d love to connect with a few Urbanites. If you’re planning to be there, give us a shout with your contact info at LJeditor@christianitytoday.com. If you can't find the coin to get to California, you can read updates from the conference right here on Out of Ur.

This is the first time Catalyst has ventured to the West Coast. Speakers will include Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Craig Groeschel, Erwin McManus, Catherine Rohr, and Guy Kawasaki. Learn more about Catalyst West Coast and register here.

Catalyst West Coast will also feature two debuts. First, on April 22, the new network committed to innovation in outreach (currently under the Origins Project name) will be officially named and launched. The network currently includes Dan Kimball*, Dave Gibbons*, Erwin McManus, Eric Bryant*, Scot McKnight, Josh Fox, John Park, Mark Batterson, Margaret Feinberg, Naeem Fazal, Rick McKinley*, and Leadership’s managing editor Skye Jethani.

The other debut will be a completely new resource developed in partnership with Catalyst and Leadership journal. I can’t share the details now except to say that we are very excited about it, and that this new resource will take both Leadership and Catalyst where they have never gone before. Stay tuned.

*Leadership contributing editor

"What the congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image." So says pastor-professor, and poet, M. Craig Barnes, in his new book: The Pastor As Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life (Eerdmans, 2009).

Wisdom needs to be the name of the pastoral game. Wisdom finds its way into the poetic (not as in rhyming and verse), and not enough of us are committed to a life intent on wisdom. I wish more pastors (and Christians) were committed more to wisdom than to success.

How can the pastor get beyond the ordinary, the routine, the boring, the mundane, and the concrete realities that (sometimes, often) numb the joy out of life? What perspective can the pastor find that leads behind and beneath and beyond?

If this is what you are wondering, this is the book for you. The prose is graceful, the thoughts emerge from experience, and the perspective as fresh as it is old: the wisdom of the poet.

What is your caption for this cartoon by Jonny Hawkins?

Winning entries will be published in the Spring 2009 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

Skye and I arrived in San Diego this afternoon for the 2009 National Pastors Convention.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the opening evening of headlining sessions was the variety.

The evening started with a short routine by acclaimed comedian Michael Jr. Michael is a young black performer from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who says he operates by a sort of "comedy accountability." Because he performs in bars, clubs, casinos, and even churches (Michael's a Christian), he says "everything I say in a club has to be clean enough to say from a church pulpit; everything I say in a pulpit has to be funny enough to say in a club." His material tonight drew from his experience becoming a Christian and encountering the Bible for the first time.

I think I was in college when I first saw that title of a magazine that brazenly called itself SELF, and it was so bold it could have been called SELF! Nurtured in a theology that drew its juices from the Bible and influenced by the likes of Augustine and Luther and Calvin, I was taken back by anyone or any magazine that would advertise itself with the word "self." The self, so I was taught, was to die daily (Luke 9:23) or be put to death (Romans 6). In fact, my pastors often spoke of the "mortification" of the flesh (and self).

Nurture, then, put me on my heels when I saw a magazine called SELF and when that sentiment made its nest in Whitney Houston's famous song "The Greatest Love of All." Its clinching words tell us that "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all." Well, yes, I say to myself, we do need to have a proper love of our self ? but how can our "greatest" love be one directed at ourselves? The Me Generation has created what Jean Twenge is now calling Generation Me. Others call it iGen. This value is everywhere; it's the air GenMe breathes; and it has made potent inroads into the church.

Recently I saw a church's website where instead of finding "Pastors" or "Staff" it listed "Personalities." A click-through revealed the "personalities" of these personalities, or at least the "personalities" these people wanted others to see. I don't recall all the details, but I read things about what they ate for breakfast and what they'd do if they weren't doing their church jobs. It went on and on, but I had had enough so I clicked the red X at the top and went to my favorite chair and just wondered awhile.

From "Having Ears, Do You Not Hear?" in the current issue of Leadership.

"As a pastor, I'm not a theology policeman...But if we are part of a community where the Scriptures are honored, I don't think we have to worry too much. The Spirit works through community. Somebody will have a stupid, screwy idea. That's okay. The point of having creeds and confessions and traditions is to keep us in touch with the obvious errors."

To read the rest, pick up the Winter '09 issue of Leadership journal.

What is your caption for this cartoon by Rob Portlock?

Winning entries will be published in the Winter 2009 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

by Url Scaramanga

I would like to thank Mr. Victor T. Cheney for recently sending me a copy of the second edition of his self-published pamphlet titled "Celibacy Guaranteed: For a Safe and Happy Future." Mr. Cheney has asked us to share parts of his pamphlet with you.

From page 3:

There is only one way to be sure of permanently eliminating the sex drive and guaranteeing the purity of our priesthood, and that is to remove the source of the hormone which causes it and the aggressive instinct which is its cohort?. Removal of the testes for the purification of the priesthood is not some new idea or experimental notion; it has been used for millennia. The history of this means of assuring purity is still traceable in spite of the suppression of information on the practice since the First Nicaean Council in 325 A.D.

A cornerstone of Mr. Cheney's argument is Mark 9:42-46:

Next week I'm sending two Urthlings, Marshall Shelley and Skye Jethani, to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. They'll be blogging live from the event October 8 - 10, and mixing it up with 15,000 other church leaders. Whether you’re at the conference or not, be sure to check Out of Ur and add your comments about the speakers, workshops, and frivolity.

Catalyst speakers this year include: Joel Hunter, Mark Batterson, John Burke, Scot McKnight, Matt Chandler, Andy Crouch, Reggie McNeal, Cathleen Falsani, Dave Ferguson, Efram Smith, Seth Godin, Andy Stanley, Ed Stetzer, Craig Groeschel, and others.

As men and women created in the image of God, believers are designed to become like Christ in ever-increasing measure. Effective, biblical preaching taps into this innate longing by helping people envision what God created us to be in Christ. This is the definition of visionary preaching.

Visionary preaching is not content merely to instruct people in the ways of God, or to confront the sin in their lives and the world, or to exhort believers to do better and try harder. Visionary preaching empowers people to pursue God's better future by painting a vivid and compelling picture of that future with words, images, and stories.

by Skye Jethani

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, Batman!

I've been meaning to write a post about The Dark Knight for weeks, but between family vacations and working on the fall issue of Leadership, I've been swamped. I'm a big fan of superhero movies, and this summer I've seen a bunch - Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and the latest installment of Christopher Nolan's fantastic Batman series, The Dark Knight. My companion to most of these comic book movies is a psychiatrist from my church who has a penchant for professional wrestling and shares my follicle failings. (I highly recommend watching fantasy movies with a psychiatrist - it's more fun than applying Freudian dream analysis to nursery rhymes.)

I feel no need to add my accolades for The Dark Knight to those already swirling around the web. (Check out Todd Hertz's review at CTMovies.com.) Instead, I want to discuss an interesting storytelling element of the film that may help explain one of the more mysterious elements of the Bible - emphasis on the word may. (Let's not take a movie too seriously or read overly spiritual themes into it. That only spoils an otherwise good the film and risks diminishing our faith.)

Batman's nemesis in The Dark Knight is the Joker, played by the late great Heath Ledger. Unlike earlier film depictions of the Clown Prince of Crime, Ledger's Joker has no back-story, no origin, no narrative arc. In The Dark Knight, we never discover what would drive a man to dye his hair green, paint his face white, smear a ghastly smile across his cheeks and murder people for the sheer fun of it.

Recently I was asked where theology was headed. I assured my reader that I wasn't "in the know" but that I would hazard a guess or two. First I thought we were likely to see a more robust Trinitarian theology, one deeply anchored in the great Cappadocian theologians like Gregory of Nyssa. But in some ways all the main lines of Trinitarian thought have already been sketched by great theologians like Karl Barth, James B. Torrance and others. With this first idea now set aside, I had a second idea of where theology is going: "The Wright Brothers."

No, not those Wright Brothers, but another set of Wrights (who aren't even brothers, except in Christ): Tom and Chris. Even if they don't map where all of theology is headed, these two scholars and devoted churchmen, both Anglican, do set before us two words that have become increasingly fruitful and I think will be the subject of serious theological reflection in the future. The two words are "earth" and "mission." Each scholar discusses both, but I will focus in this post on Tom Wright's focus on "earth" and Chris Wright's focus on "mission."

Increasingly we are seeing more and more Christians own up to the earthly focus of biblical revelation - the claim God makes upon this earth through his Eikons (humans made in his image). We are seeing a deeper reflection on what it means to participate in the historical flow, in government and politics and society and culture, and we are seeing a renewed interest in vocation and work. One of the more striking elements of this new surge is that theologians who are deeply anchored in the Bible also see our eternal destiny having an earthly shape.

What are your captions for this cartoon by Tim Walburg?

Winning entries will be published in the Fall 2008 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

Conventional ministry wisdom goes something like this: When launching a new church, first analyze the felt-needs within the target area or population. Then construct ministries to address those felt-needs. Felt-needs based ministries will draw people to your church, and simultaneously positively predispose seekers to the gospel message. In this scenario, caring for peoples' felt-needs plays a supporting role in the mission.

What if this conventional wisdom is wrong?

The idea outlined above is what I was taught in seminary, it's what I read frequently in ministry books, and it's what I see practiced virtually everywhere I go. But I increasingly suspect that the theological foundation for felt-needs based ministry may be sand rather than stone.

The biblical rationale comes primarily from the gospels. Jesus, it is thought, performed miracles in order to confirm the content of his preaching. His "acts of power" (the word "miracle" is rarely used in the Greek-language gospels) function as validation for his verbal proclamation. In other words, you should believe what Jesus says because look at what he can do.

Translating this principle into contemporary ministry, we are told that identifying and satisfying felt-needs will confirm and validate the gospel we preach - and hopefully draw a crowd the way Jesus' miracles did. But there are a few problems with this understanding.

This is a highly unscientific observation, but I stand by it: In my scouring of bookshelves in pastor's studies and church libraries, I regularly find volumes from the corporate world about how to be an effective leader and efficient administrator; studies from the humanities about human psychology and sexuality; and manuals from the financial and legal sectors about budgeting, zoning, and liability issues. What I seldom, if ever, find is fiction. And I think that's a shame.

For much of their history, many evangelicals have considered novels to be either immoral or simply a waste of time. (To be fair, there are a good many novels that are both.) But good fiction (an entirely subjective category, I admit) can help a minister better understand the people to whom he or she is ministering - people struggling with doubt, addictions, or questions about calling and vocation. Here's a list of a few novels I think every minister should read, along with a few reasons why.

"To me, the church should not aim to be 'real' as an end. The church is there to proclaim truth. Trying to be hip and cool and real does a disservice to the church. We're not called to be successful. We're called to be obedient, even if they don't come.... If somebody doesn't find you objectionable, I wonder if you're preaching the full counsel of God."

-James Gilmore is co-author of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want (Harvard Business School Press, 2007). Taken from "Keeping It Real" in the Spring 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Is there only one gospel? And what is the difference between the gospel message and the implications of that message? Can we preach one without the other?

In this podcast Skye Jethani , David Swanson , and Matt Tebbe discuss Tim Keller's article in the Spring issue of Leadership, "The Gospel in All its Forms."

To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

Our friends over at Preaching Today have launched a new series on preaching the gospel. They're asking, "Is our gospel too small, or is it too big?" and "What does it mean to preach the gospel in today's culture." They've begun with an interview with Leadership's own Skye Jethani. Below is an excerpt. You can read the entire interview here.

Preaching Today: A number of Christian authors, pastors, and theologians are raising critical questions about our understanding of the nature of the gospel. What do you think has stirred such passion?

Skye Jethani: A lot of passion has been fueled by the angst produced from conversations about how to reach younger, postmodern generations. Two schools of thought emerged from the beginning. One group opted for the conservative approach: we just need to be more relevant, repackaging the same gospel message in a manner or style that's going to be appealing to the next generation. Another group insisted the church needed to go deeper than repackaging the content. They felt we needed to rethink the content. A lot of today's conversations about the gospel were born out of the early tension between the two schools of thought.

What are your captions for this cartoon by Tim Walburg?

Winning entries will be published in the Summer 2008 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

"Today there are many who doubt that there is just one gospel. That gives them the warrent to ignore the gospel of atonement and justification. There are others who don't like to admit that there are different forms to that one gospel. That smacks too much of 'contextualization,' a term they dislike. They cling to a single presentation that is often one-dimensional. Neither of these is as true to the biblical material, nor as effective in actual ministry, as that which understands that the Bible presents one gospel in several forms."

-Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York. Taken from "The Gospel in All its Forms" in the Spring 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Here at Out of Ur we've been hosting a conversation about the themes found in Shane Claiborne's latest book, Jesus for President (part one and part two). As is evident from this conversation, Shane is a guy who provokes a response in those he encounters. Certainly those at the Shift conference who just heard Shane speak about The Scandal of Grace got a taste of this.

Before proceeding, let me tell you how hard it is to summarize Shane Claiborne. The guy is a non-stop storyteller! Stories about growing up in Tennessee attending youth group. Stories about his home in the rough neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Stories about going to Iraq on the eve of the bombing of Baghdad. On top of his stories, Shane quotes incessantly: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King JR, and Dostoevsky among others. Consider this a plea to check this post in a couple hours when we can post some video of this session.

Update. Here are some video highlights from this session.

At the National Pastors Conference in San Diego, our friend at PreachingToday.com, Brian Lowery, got to interview N. T. Wright about his latest book - Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church - and how it relates to preaching. Since we are all in the midst of the Easter journey, his words are timely, challenging, and above all else, hopeful. Here are a few excerpts. Read the full interview here.

Bishop N. T. Wright: [Studying] the Resurrection for an earlier book, Resurrection of the Son of God ? ended up rubbing my nose in the New Testament theology of new creation, and the fact that the new creation has begun with Easter. I discovered that when we do new creation - when we encourage one another in the church to be active in projects of new creation, of healing, of hope for communities - we are standing on the ground that Jesus has won in his resurrection.

"Preachers need to be very careful before claiming they are God's mouthpiece. I think the preacher needs to be suggestive and not declarative. There are times in history when people (like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King) were called with some authority to say, 'This is wrong.' But we need to be cautious."

-John M. Buchanan pastors Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He is also editor and publisher of The Christian Century. Taken from "Biblical Authority & Today's Preacher" in the Winter 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

The pastors who attended last week's National Pastors Convention have now returned to their churches across North America. David Swanson presents his final reflections on the convention and the issues it brought to his attention.

Now that the National Pastors Convention has ended, I'd like to offer my highly unscientific observations about some trends I observed this past week.

In his second report from the National Pastors Convention, David Swanson describes how two Anglican bishops helped him recognize Christ's presence among all the convention glitz and kitsch.

May I confess something? I've experienced a bit of cynicism at this conference over the past few days. Everywhere I look, I see another Christian item for sale. I'm writing this post in front of a TV showing the latest installment of a hip teaching series. Off to my left is a display for the new Narnia movie, and to my right is a recruiting station for Army chaplains.

My cynicism is probably not helpful. But I have nevertheless found myself wondering, "Where is Jesus in all this stuff?" One answer to that question has come in the form of addresses from two Anglican bishops.

If you've already taken the quiz and gotten your score, post your comments below. How well did the quiz describe you?

If you haven't already taken the quiz, now it's your turn. You can find "The Hermeneutics Quiz" here.

Then come back to this page and comment. Let us know what you learned.

And now for something completely different...

Neil Young, who pastors Erindale United Church in Mississauga, Ontario, sent us this inventory of sermon styles in the Great White North.

The Maple Syrup: Boils source material down to about 1/50th its starting volume.

The Mountie: When it's most dressed-up, it doesn't arrest anybody.

The Igloo: Goes 'round and 'round until a final capstone is dropped in.

The Curling: Kind of incomprehensible, but everybody seems to have a good time.

What are your captions for this cartoon by Dennis Fletcher?

Winning entries will be published in the Spring 2008 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

"In the modern world, we tend to reduce the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to simple systems, even when our systems flatten the diversity and integrity of the biblical witness. We reduce our sermons to consumer messages that reduce God to a resource that helps the individual secure a reduced version of the 'abundant life' Jesus promised. And the gospel itself gets reduced to a simplified framework of a few easily memorized steps."

-Tim Keel is the pastor of Jacob's Well in Kansas City, Missouri. Taken from "An Efficient Gospel?" in the Winter 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

As expected, the blog has been abuzz with people's opinions about Scot McKnight's hermeneutical quiz in the new issue of Leadership. Some of the heat is coming from the assumption - primarily by those who have not seen the quiz - that it is a scientific instrument of high precision and accuracy. That was not McKnight's intention when he created the tool. He writes in the introduction:

This quiz is designed to surface the decisions we make, perhaps without thinking about them, and about how we both read our Bible and don't read our Bible. Some will want to quibble with distinctions or agree with more than one answer. No test like this can reveal all the nuances needed, but broad answers are enough to raise the key issues.

Earlier we posted the scores and responses from three Leadership contributors. Today we have another. John Ortberg has taken the Hermeneutics Quiz and scored 68 - on the borderline between Moderate and Progressive. His comments about the quiz are below.

As you read this, the winter issue of Leadership is hitting mailboxes. One of the more provocative features of the issue will no doubt be a hermeneutics quiz created by Scot McKnight. The issue's theme is, "Is Our Gospel Too Small?" To help answer that question, we invited McKnight to develop a simple tool to assist church leaders in diagnosing their own biases and blind spots with Scripture. In the introduction to the quiz, McKnight says:

I'm curious why one of my friends dismisses the Friday-evening-to-Saturday-evening Sabbath observance as "not for us today" but insists that capital punishment can't be dismissed because it's in the Old Testament.

The quiz is comprised of twenty multiple-choice questions designed to surface the decisions we make, perhaps without thinking about them, and how we both read our Bible and don't read our Bible. Here are a few sample questions:

The Bible's words are:
A. Inerrant on everything.
B. Inerrant on matters of faith and practice.
C. Not defined by inerrancy or errancy, which are modernistic categories.

When the babysitter arrived the night before Thanksgiving, she asked of our plans for the evening. Last week it was a concert, and three weeks before that we were headed to dinner and a movie. Tonight, my wife and I were going to?. I stumbled for words to describe Rob Bell's latest tour. I could tell by her eyes that she stopped caring about thirty seconds before I stopped trying to describe the event.

Bell's "the gods aren't angry" tour packed about two thousand souls into Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium for what wound up being a 90 minute sermon.

Bell is a popular writer, speaker and pastor, and I found it easy to see why he's so popular. As a friend commented after the event, "The dude has some mad communication skills." Wearing an all black outfit (save a bright white belt) that could have placed him as a member of Green Day, Bell presented an insane amount of information in a style that held my attention and quickened my spirit.

Fred Smith was featured in the very first issue of Leadership published in 1980. Since then the businessman, Bible teacher, and sage as written more than 37 articles, and his insights have guided thousands of pastors. Fred's definition of leadership was succinct: "A leader is not a person who can do the work better than his followers; he is the person who can get this followers to do the work better than he can." Fred Smith died in August, days before his 92nd birthday.

Fred's wisdom has been compiled into a recently released book, Breakfast with Fred (Regal, 2007). The book also contains thoughts from many other Christian leaders impacted by Fred. Below is an excerpt.

Fred's Observation
Good communication is more than presence, delivery or even content. A truly great communicator understands three important principles.

First, he or she understands that it is crucial to have the spirit of communication. The speaker should be motivated to express, not impress. My friend Dr. Jim Cain accepted an invitation to speak in front of 2,000 key executives about stress. He was preceded at the podium by a renowned cardiologist and a famous psychiatrist who got caught in the competition of impressing each other. When Dr. Cain spoke, he used a simple analogy to describe what the audience needed to know. This distinguished Mayo Clinic physician understood the spirit of communication. He expressed, not impressed.

We live in a dark world. Our hearts long for goodness, beauty, justice, and peace, but they are often hidden behind the shadow cast by evil and sin. This is why preaching is so necessary. Whenever the kingdom of God is proclaimed, it is like a bright burst of light. In those brief moments, the shadows recede and we are given a glimpse of a world behind the darkness. It is a sublime vision that reorders our perception of reality and leaves us hungry for more.

This understanding of preaching, the unveiling of an inspiring vision of God's kingdom, is not the one I've always held. I was formed to think that the primary purpose of preaching was instruction. This view of preaching expects the informed, articulate person behind the pulpit to teach the congregation divine truths and skills. The pupils are then expected to bury these seeds of biblical knowledge away in their brains where in time they germinate into godly values and behaviors, although few people seem surprised when they don't.

In Dallas Willard's V.I.M. model of spiritual formation, he differentiates three parts: vision, intention, and means. Instructional preaching falls under the third component - means. It teaches people the methods through which they can obey Christ. These "how to" sermons usually have clearly articulated, often alliterated, application points relevant to one's life.
I never questioned this "preaching as instruction" view until I stepped behind the pulpit myself. What I discovered disturbed me.

Twenty-five years ago, the film Tron was a revolution - the first movie to use digital animation extensively. But critics almost universally panned the movie. One said, "Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement."

How can preachers avoid that same trap? With our increasing ability to produce "visual delights," can we forget what matters most? How can we use technology to help, not hinder, the proclamation of God's Word? At the most recent National Pastors Convention, we brought together three pastors to discuss these questions. Below is an excerpt from the conversation. You can find the full interview on Leadership's website.

How important is it to use 21st-century technology when communicating the gospel in the 21st century?

Shane Hipps: It's important only if we understand their innate bias, because media are not neutral tools. The media are messages in themselves, and every single medium you use carries a different message embedded in it.

I occasionally use visual media and technology as a crutch to help keep what I'm saying interesting. But when an 80-year-old woman who lived through the Great Depression stood up in my congregation and told a story, she didn't use any technology, and everyone was on the edge of their seats listening to her suffering and what she lived through.

As the medium, she was infinitely more powerful than any technology I could bring.

John Palmieri: I agree, to a point. Trying to more media-savvy than the world around us - that is a battle we will lose. And if I'm just trying to be "relevant," I'll probably miss the mark every time.

"The modern, essentially atheistic mentality despises mystery and considers enchantment and befuddlement an affront to its democratic right to know--and then use--everything for purposes of individual fulfillment. This flattened mind loves lists, labels, solutions, sweeping propositions, and practical principles. The vast, cosmic claims of the gospel get reduced to an answer to a question that consumes contemporary North Americans, though it's hardly ever treated in Scripture: What's in it for me?"

-Will H. Willimon is bishop of the United Methodist Church, Birmingham (Alabama) Area. Taken from "Power Pointless: The way we distill the gospel for presentation can take the life out of it" in the Summer 2007 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

What are your captions for this cartoon by Rob Portlock? We know Out of Ur and Leadership readers will have some great ones on this theme.

Winning entries will be published in the Fall 2007 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

"In most evangelical environments, including mine, we have been overwhelmed with models and programs that are designed for local churches to grow bigger. Unfortunately, most really don't work...Many have also come to define Christianity by a set of beliefs. Churches are concerned that people know a set amount of doctrinal truth, and there is nothing wrong with that. But that set of knowledge is not Christianity."

-Mike Breen serves at Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona. Taken from the Spring 2007 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

What are your captions for this cartoon by Dik LaPine? We know Out of Ur and Leadership readers will have some great ones on this theme.

Winning entries will be published in the Summer 2007 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state.

"If I'm to preach to people effectively, I must be freed from my need for their approval and applause. As long as I am chained to that need, then my preaching will really be trying to fill up something in me that I can never fill."

-John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. Taken from "My Holy of Holies: How all-too-human preachers can prepare their souls to preach." in the Spring 2007 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

"Maybe the central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe the central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe the central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?"

-Mark Batterson is pastor of National Community Church in Washington D.C. Taken from "Preaching with Half a Brain" in the Winter 2007 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

"Modern Christianity has emphasized the immanence of our Savior, but, pushed too far, we are in danger of making the God of the universe little more than our buddy."

-Tony Jones is coordinator of Emergent Village. Taken from "Prayer Beyond Father Weejus" in the Winter 2007 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Monday was a great day to leave Chicago. The wind-chill was thirty degrees below zero and the Bears had just lost the Super Bowl. This week I'm in sunny San Diego for the National Pastors Convention. Although the main sessions don't start until later today, on Tuesday I attended a five hour "Critical Concerns" course on preaching.

John Ortberg, pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, CA, and the author of numerous books with really long titles, presented about preparing the soul to preach. His focus was not simply getting spiritually juiced for Sunday morning, but rather becoming the kind of person that preaching flows out of that pleases God. It was really about character formation.

Part of Ortberg's discussion included a list of the ten deadly sins of preaching. (John said he originally intended to create a list of seven deadly sins, but preaching offered so many temptations that he had to expand the list.)

1. The temptation to be inauthentic
We want to present an image to others that makes us appear more holy, intelligent, or godly than we actually are. In the end this is a foolish pursuit because the truth of who we are will always leak out.

My childhood church had a silver cross suspended in the sanctuary. It was the visual focus of our worship. I recently returned to the church and the cross was still there, but few people notice it anymore. A large screen now hangs in front of it.

We live in an image-oriented culture, and that reality has impacted the way we worship, the way we design our churches, and even the way we preach. But how do we reconcile the discipline of preaching - a traditionally verbal form of communication - with our culture's captivity to images - a visual form of communication?

Next week thousands of church leaders will descend upon San Diego for the annual National Pastors Convention. Marshall Shelley and I will be there to facilitate an open dialogue with three church leaders on this subject. We'll be talking mainly about the use of visuals and technology in preaching - both the dangers and the opportunities. Each of the participants reflects a different ministry setting, but all are committed to faithfully communicating the gospel.

When we ask subscribers what they love most about Leadership, we often hear the same answer: "the cartoons." That's why we are pleased to bring this lighter side of ministry to Out of Ur. Here is your chance to share your wit, humor, and appreciation of life's ironies by submitting a caption for this Leadership cartoon by Tim Walburg.

What captions come to mind for this cartoon?

Winning entries will be published in the Spring 2007 edition of Leadership. Please include your name, your church’s name, city, and state. To be published in the print version of Leadership, entries must be received by February 20, 2007.

"Ultimately, every text is about God. To focus constantly on the how can subtly influence our perspective of Scripture. For example, the awe-inspiring scene from Isaiah 6:1-4 should probably not become a sermon on 'How to Meet with God.'"

-John Beukema is pastor of King Street Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Taken from "When Sermons Are too How-to" in the Fall 2006 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

This month Out of Ur is starting a new feature called "Out of Context." Each week we will post a quote from an article in the current issue of Leadership Journal that may cause you to ruminate, cogitate, or possibly regurgitate. As always, your comments and responses are encouraged.

"I love the statement by G.K. Chesterton who said that we could have a really good argument over whether or not Jesus believed in fairies. But we cannot have any debate over whether or not Jesus believed rich people were in big trouble. There's just too much evidence that he did."

-Will Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church
Take from "Preaching Past TiVo" in the Summer 2006 issue of Leadership Journal. To see the quote IN context click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

What makes a good pastor? In seminary I was told a good pastor knows Greek and Hebrew. Church elders told me a good pastor keeps the budget in the black and people in the pews. In part two of his post, Jim Martin, pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas, continues his thoughts on good pastors (a.k.a. "Jesus Leaders").

We are at our best when we help move men and women toward the kingdom of heaven. Contrast this with Jesus' observation that some teachers of his day seemed to get in the way of people moving ahead toward kingdom living. In far too many churches there is a disconnect between the men and women in the pews and those who are leading the church. How tragic when the church appears to be ahead of the leaders. How tragic when those who lead no longer have a genuine pastoral heart for people. Not so with Jesus leaders. They shepherd people like Jesus.

Pastors have an image problem. Despite the growing number of celebrity pastors on television, radio, and bookstore shelves, the wider culture's respect for clergy has been declining for generations. Jim Martin, pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas, reflects in this article about Jesus' words to religious leaders and how they can help us

The plane was about to take off from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. I noticed the man in the seat across the aisle, one row up, as he began to read The Dallas Morning News. On the front page of the paper in bold letters was a jarring headline. A local pastor had been found guilty of sexually assaulting three women. I watched my fellow passenger as he began reading the story. I wondered what was going through his mind.

Many people are cynical about the church. That's not news. There are many reasons for this cynicism. Some are cynical because of a basic mistrust of the people leading these churches. Some feel burned after learning a leader was living an immoral lifestyle. Others have been burned by placing their confidence in some church leader only to be severely disappointed due to displays of anger, ego, manipulation, etc. In contrast to these experiences, many people today would find genuine Jesus leaders to be quite refreshing.

Lee Eclov thinks people need more than helpful applications in a sermon. Rather than being told what to do in three easy step, Eclov argues that good preaching should teach people how to think differently. In the first part of his post he discussed the "bottom line fallacy." In part two Eclov uncovers the second danger - the practical fallacy.

I only vaguely recall the world of geometry - axioms, theorems, conclusions. I do remember the inevitable question: "Why do we need to know this stuff?" And I remember Mr. Cermak's answer: "Whether or not you use these formulae, geometry teaches you to think logically."

Some preachers are afraid of the question, "Why do we need to know this stuff?" so they try to make every sermon "practical," meaning it is about everyday issues like money or kids. Doctrinal preaching, or the week-by-week exposition of a biblical book appears not to scratch where people itch. People want sermons about things they can use on Monday. Like the sophomores in my geometry class.

But Paul tells us, "All Scripture...is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." All Scripture. All Scripture is practical. It is practical, not because it all addresses everyday concerns, but because it all "civilizes" our thinking.

Many of the largest and "most successful" churches have built their ministries on the value of practicality. As a result, Christians today have come to expect spiritual formation by numbers: 5 love languages, 7 steps to healing, 40 days of purpose. But has our demand for a practical faith paradoxically limited the Bible's effectiveness in our lives? Lee Eclov, pastor of Village Church of Lincolnshire in Illinois, shares the dangers he sees in practical preaching.

Rob, a stockbroker, thought sermons should be 20 minutes. No longer. To him, a good sermon was what others call the conclusion. "Cut to the bottom line," he said. "That's what I expect at work, and that's what I want at church."

Stan, a preacher, didn't see length as the issue, but he was determined every sermon be "practical." He preached on five principles of friendships, six secrets of managing money, and four ways to win over worry. He believed in sound doctrine, but he felt he had to give people something they could take to work on Monday morning.

These men illustrate two fallacies about biblical preaching: The Bottom Line Fallacy and the Practical Fallacy. Both reveal a misunderstanding, not merely of preaching, but of the workings of Scripture.

The New York Times ran the story last week of a high-profile pastor busted for plagiarizing sermons, and his congregation's willingness to forgive him. Trying to explain what led to his behavior, Rev. Jackson says:

"It's a pattern you get into," he said, explaining he was struggling at the time with issues of self-esteem. "It happens bit by bit. You end up using more and more. You're using a little material maybe initially, and then using more. It's really not rational."

In recent years I've been alarmed by how frequently I'm hearing reports of pastors plagiarizing sermons. Clearly, the internet has contributed to the problem. Sermons in both written and audio form are quickly accessible, and the temptation to plagiarize is easier than ever before to indulge. In this regard the sin differs little from the epidemic of internet pornography.

But accessibility alone cannot account for the problem. Just as many believe porn is an unhealthy way of coping with a lack of intimacy, there must be some underlying issue that drives pastors to plagiarize. Rev. Jackson's comments above are revealing. Is a lack of self-esteem among pastors on the rise? And if it is, what is the cause?

In his final post outlining an alternative to expository preaching, David Fitch invites us to think differently about how we respond to Scripture. Rather than three alliterated application points, why not a liturgical response? And instead of preaching that targets the individual's life, why not a communal interaction with the text? Fitch also shares practices at his own church as they move beyond commodified preaching.

3. FROM APPLICATION POINTS TO LITURGICAL RESPONSE
By "liturgical" I mean the activity of responding to God, who He is, what he has done, and what He has said. It is what shapes us into relationship with him. It makes no sense for the preacher who proclaims the Word of God to conclude with more notes of applications and "to do" lists. Instead the Word invokes postures of response: silence, submission, obedience, affirmation in faith, confession, and of course the Eucharistic celebration of participating in receiving the Body of Christ. Slowly I am formed through the faithful preaching of the Word and ever hearing, responding, submitting, obeying, confessing, affirming and acting in faith.

David Fitch is back to explain why he believes expository preaching is a myth that is hindering the full potential of the pulpit. In part one of his post Fitch said expository preaching has led to the commodification of Scripture. As he promised, he's back to offer suggestions for reclaiming preaching from the influence of consumerism.

Two weeks ago I wrote a post on "Expository Preaching." On the one hand, I was surprised with the number of sympathetic comments and excellent discussion that recognized the problem of "commodification of the Word." On the other hand, there were some folk who implied that I was either denigrating Scripture, diminishing the importance of preaching, or making "meaning" unstable so much so that it wasn't worth preaching anymore. To me, these were the very things I was working against by alerting us to the danger of commodifying the Word. And so I promised a second post that would explore how we might preach more faithfully in our times.

1. FROM EXPLAINING TO PROCLAIMING
We will no doubt need to explain some things in the text, but the primary task of preaching on Sunday morning is "proclaiming" the reality of the world as it is under the good news of the gospel that renders all things new. This means our first task as preachers is to describe not prescribe.

The summer issue of Leadership, due in mailboxes soon, will focus on the impact of consumerism on our faith and ministries. To get the conversation started, in this post, pastor/professor and regular Ur contributor David Fitch discusses how expository preaching can make Scripture into a commodity that people consume. You can read more about Fitch's critique of consumer driven ministry at his blog, The Great Giveaway.

There is a myth surrounding expository preaching among North American evangelicals. It goes like this: if the preacher follows the text more closely in his preaching, both he/she and the congregation will stay true to the Word of God. No other agendas or human wisdom will slither into the preaching. Implied is, if the preacher but applies the exegetical historical-critical skills learned in seminary and studies the text in its original language, (s)he can arrive at the meaning of the text all by him/herself. This is the mythology I believe is behind expository preaching in the evangelical world.

Why do I label this a mythology? Well first of all, the historical-critical method in the hands of individuals has not yielded a singular meaning as "intended by the author" in over 100 years. Instead what we have is thousands of commentaries on the Bible that present numerous unresolved options for interpreting practically every verse in the Bible. Historical-critical exegesis hasn't generated more unity over Scripture; it has generated less.

Most people spend a significant part of the week looking at screens; television screens, movie screens, computer screens - in fact, you're looking at one right now. But traditionally Sunday morning was not a screen-time. Then came PowerPoint. First the hymnal was replaced and now many churches are substituting 3-D preachers with 2-D digital projections. Shane Hipps, Lead Pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, Arizona, has written a new book that asks us to explore the implications of new technology on our ministries. Below is an excerpt from The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church (Zondervan, 2006). To get more background on Hipps' understanding of how mediums impact our message be sure to read his previous post.

One of the increasingly popular initiatives in the North American evangelical church is the use of multi-site, video-venue worship services. This is a model where multiple congregations are sprinkled throughout a city or campus, but one preacher is piped in to each gathering via video. Its proponents argue such a method offers the best of both worlds - you don't have to commute, you get to worship your way, and you don't have to sacrifice great preaching.

I was visiting a church recently on the day they were launching their multi-site service. I watched the sermon live, while two other gatherings in other parts of the city watched via a large projection screen. It was a stellar sermon by an extraordinarily gifted preacher well-known in the Christian subculture. But the most striking feature of the sermon was that his message was being directly contradicted by his medium - the video venue.

In this final installment of his interview on hell, Brian McLaren provides more insight into how he understands the teachings of Jesus, and offers five suggestions for rethinking our traditional understanding of hell.

Let me offer five suggestions on how we could re-approach this subject by looking at the Scriptures in a fresh light. After all, my opinions aren't worth two cents compared to what the Scriptures actually say. First, I'd suspend the common assumption that every time the word judgment occurs in the Bible, it means "going to hell after you die," or every time the word save occurs, it means "going to heaven after you die."

Second, I'd encourage people who say, "Well, what about Matthew 25:41?" or some other specific passage to also pay attention to the reasons those passages give for people experiencing those negative consequences. Jesus never says, "If you don't believe in a particular theory of atonement . . ." or "If you don't accept me as your personal Savior by saying the sinner's prayer . . ." then you'll experience the lake of fire. That's not what he says. I put a table in the book that tries to help people attend to what the texts actually say, and in case after case, they simply don't say what many Christians commonly say they do.

In part one of this post, Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo tried to deconstruct the traditional evangelical view of hell. Here, McLaren continues to outline his view as neither universalism nor an exclusivist understanding of hell. And he pushes us to reconsider the questions we pose versus what Jesus really says.

McLaren: Tony [Campolo] and I might disagree on the details, but I think we are both trying to find an alternative to both traditional Universalism and the narrow, exclusivist understanding of hell [that unless you explicitly accept and follow Jesus, you are excluded from eternal life with God and destined for hell].

Tony is presenting the inclusivist alternative. The fact is, many people who claim to be exclusivists are actually inclusivists and they don't know it. For example, if you ask them if they believe all babies who die before or shortly after birth go to hell, they'll say no, that children who die before the age of accountability are included in Christ's saving work. They'll say the same for people who are mentally incompetent, and so on. So really, strict exclusivists are rather rare.

My approach is a little different. Although in many ways I find myself closer to the view of God held by some universalists than I do the view held by some exclusivists, in the end I'd rather turn our attention from the questions WE think are important to the question JESUS thinks is most important.

No contributor to Out of Ur has elicited more responses than Brian McLaren. Part of McLaren's appeal is his courage to rethink long-held evangelical assumptions and call the church to shed the baggage of modernity. Brian's critics, however, accuse him of throwing the orthodox baby out with the modernist bath water. In this interview McLaren discusses his view of hell and judgment, and explains why some have mislabeled him a universalist. Part one of this post also features fellow prophet Tony Compolo.

Brian, in your book, The Last Word and the Word After That, you focus heavily on "deconstructing" the evangelical view of hell. Some critics think your deconstruction has moved to the point of your embracing a "universalist" position. Are you a Universalist?

McLaren: No, I am not embracing a traditional universalist position, but I am trying to raise the question, When God created the universe, did he have two purposes in mind - one being to create some people who would forever enjoy blessing and mercy, and another to create a group who would forever suffer torment, torture, and punishment? What is our view of God? A God who plans torture? A God who has an essential, eternal quality of hatred? Is God love, or is God love and hate?

If Jesus walked into your church this Sunday and preached, what would he say? That's a question pastor Jim Martin has asked on his blog, A Place for the God-Hungry. Jim is pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas, and below he shares his thoughts about what Jesus might say to the "mature" in his congregation.

I am thinking about my teaching/preaching. I am thinking about my words, my sermons, and the over all message these people hear.

I am thinking even more about my own life. At times, I feel like I have gotten lost in a system that has eaten me alive. At other times, I think that I am simply coming back to what really matters most to me. This is why I am thinking about the following two questions:

What if Jesus were the guest speaker at our church this Sunday? What would he say?

Brian McLaren has been proclaiming the need for a different, more generous approach to orthodoxy. His critics say "generous orthodoxy" is an oxymoron that exemplifies the problem with the postmodern church. In part three of our interview, McLaren explains what this new approach means for the local church pastor. While Tony Campolo discusses the societal definitions of "orthodoxy," and defends McLaren's call to overcome restrictive categories developed five centuries ago.

Brian, you are pressing for a "generous approach to orthodoxy." What does this mean for the local church pastor?

McLaren: I think it's quite problematic, partly for reasons of sociology. I think a lot of conservative, evangelical churches where formed through a sense of competition with other churches, so everyone formed detailed doctrinal statements in order to defend how right their beliefs were, compared to the other churches. What I'm trying to say is that creating a 72 item doctrinal statement about your beliefs may not be the best why to "make disciples." We need to really assess what the essentials are and allow some latitude for people to think and process their faith.

Ben Folds' song "Rock Star" includes these lyrics:
You need their approval
To tell you you're cool
Hey, but look how you pay for it
Give the people what they want
You've got to give the people what they want
Got to give the people what they want
Rock star

I'm a pastor and not a rock star (despite the blurring of those roles in recent years). Still, every time I retreat to the bookstore coffee shop to write another sermon I face the subtle temptation to tickle ears, to preach for approval, to be cool, and give the people what they want.