Tag: Preaching

The Weekend Wanderer: 24 February 2024

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.

“Meet the Iranian Christians Crafting an Evangelical Alliance“ – Jayson Casper in Christianity Today: “Last week in Tehran, thousands rallied to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that established Iran’s modern theocracy. Last October in London, 130 Iranian Christians gathered to worship and pray, and celebrated a quiet decision to establish an evangelical alliance. Time will tell which gathering was more consequential. In 1979, one month after the fall of the shah, 98 percent of Iranian citizens voted to approve a constitution installing an Islamic government. Four decades of religious authoritarianism later, an online poll indicated that only 16 percent of the population would vote for it again. An earlier survey, furthermore, found that only one-third of Iran’s population call themselves Shiite Muslims. More than half identified as either atheist, agnostic, no religion, vaguely spiritual, or Iran’s ancient Zoroastrian faith. Those responding ‘Christian’ totaled almost a million.”

“Calling All Preachers: The pulpit needs a revival of the prophetic and the poetic in this prose-flattened world” – Walter Brueggemann in Comment: “The preacher in US culture deals with a claim that is commonly accepted as the truth by the listeners. That is, we preach mostly to believers. There is a casual, indifferent readiness, even in our increasingly secularized society, to grant the main claims of the gospel—not to grant them importance, but to accept them as premises of religious life. In fact it is precisely the problem for the proclamation of the gospel that the great claims of the gospel do not seem to be problematic or in question. The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. What began as news in the gospel is easily assumed, slotted, and conveniently dismissed. We depart having heard, but without noticing the urge to transformation that is not readily compatible with our comfortable believing that asks little and receives less. The gospel is thus a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane. Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. But more than that, our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, revises quality into quantity, and so takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes.”

“How the church can serve society by changing the way it handles property” – Duke’s Faith & Leadership interviews Mark Elsdon, the editor of the new book, Gone for Good?: “It’s not easy to be optimistic about the church these days. But Mark Elsdon is working on it. In his book We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry, he argued that, well, the church isn’t broke. In his new book, Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition, he makes the case that this moment poses a unique opportunity for the church to make a difference. As congregations disperse the enormous real estate holdings of the church, Elsdon sees a chance for renewal. If congregations think of their buildings and land as assets they are stewarding rather than possessions they own, that mindset can help them transform church spaces for the community’s well-being, he said. Gone for Good? is a collection of 16 essays by practitioners in many fields that addresses the question of what happens to church property when a church closes. At its core is the argument that property should be viewed as neither an albatross nor a cash cow but rather an asset that should be thoughtfully handled and used for good.”

“A Boy and a Comet: Viewing Halley’s Comet as a young child kindled in me a quiet reassurance that has never deserted me” – Howard Thurman in Plough: “It has always seemed curious to me that man should investigate the external world, recognize its order, and make certain generalizations about its behavior which he calls laws; that he should study his own organism and discover there a kind of orderliness of inner behavior, which he seeks to correct when it acts out of character by a wide variety of ministrations, from drugs and surgery to hypnosis and faith – and yet that he should be inclined, at the same time, to regard himself as an entity apart from all the rest of creation, including his body. Man is body, but more than body; mind, but more than mind; feelings, but more than feelings. Man is total; moreover, he is spirit. Therefore it is not surprising that in man’s spirit should be found the crucial nexus that connects him with the Creator of Life, the Spirit of the living God. The apostle is utterly realistic when he says that in Him we live and move and have our being. The most natural thing in the world for man, then, would be to keep open the lines of communication between him and the Source of his life, out of which he comes and into which (it is my faith) he goes.”

“Campus religious groups report greater interest from students trying to find meaning in ‘crumbling’ culture” – Kendall Tietz at Fox News: “Religious sentiment among Gen Z Americans and college students has captured the nation and the media over the past few years and experts believe the trend is indicative of the younger generation’s desire for meaning in a culture that hasn’t prioritized religion.  Christian campus groups at universities across the U.S. have seen a growing interest from college students in recent years as Gen Z faces unique challenges like the COIVD-19 pandemic, the rise of social media and the political polarization of society. Author and religious commentator Billy Hallowell told Fox News Digital that Hollywood, the media and universities typically all come from the same, secular perspective, which has permeated society and given America’s younger generation, Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, the false understanding that everything is about ‘you.’ He described this as the ‘”my truth, your truth” generation’ which tells America’s youth that they can ‘decide what you think is right and wrong.'”

“For Black ‘nones’ who leave religion, what’s next?” – Kathryn Post in Religion News Service: “When Black Americans leave religion, it’s rarely a clean break. Take Rogiérs Fibby, a self-described agnostic, atheist and secular humanist who grew up in the Moravian Church. The head of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Black Secular Collective, Fibby also considers himself ‘culturally Christian.’ ‘I know all the lingo, the theologies of different denominations, the theological distinctions, how to move in those different spaces theologically and interpersonally,’ he told Religion News Service. Or take Felicia Murrell, who served in church leadership across a range of denominations for over two decades. Today she thinks of herself as ‘interspiritual,’ but she also told RNS, ‘Christianity is my mother tongue.’ Then there’s William Matthews, longtime Bethel Music recording artist who left the church for about six years, starting in 2016. Today he’s the music director at New Abbey, a progressive, LGBTQ-affirming church in Los Angeles where exvangelicals and religious ‘nones’ regularly attend.”

Music: Poor Bishop Hooper, “Psalm 1,” from Every Psalm Project

Let the Message Live in You: preachers who bring a word of life to others because it has become a word of life first in us

Matt Erickson3 Comments

An article I recently wrote was published this week at Preaching Today entitled “Let the Message Live in You: May we be preachers who bring a word of life to others because it has become a word of life first in us.” This article arose from some of my recent work as part of my Doctor of Ministry, and I hope what I write here is thought-provoking and helpful for other preachers. The article is open for now, but will likely be behind a paywall in the future (although I’d encourage preachers that the resources from Preaching Today are well worth the price). Here is the first section of the article to whet your appetite.

One of my favorite things to do is to get outside, whether it’s walking through the neighborhood in the afternoon, hiking out in the woods, going for an early morning run, or just sitting somewhere to watch the wind blow through the trees and carry the clouds across the sky.

When I hike, there are certain seasons when it’s hard not to notice the beauty of what’s growing. In early spring, crocuses bring the first signs of new life, sprouting up amidst the last vestiges of snow. The yellow, white, and purple petals of their flowery forms draw the eye’s attention, standing out against the drab gray-brown of their earthy surroundings. As Spring’s warmth spreads, the first flowers and leaves begin to stretch forth from bare branches, whether magnolias, birches, or maples.

This slow expansion of new growth is a tell-tale sign seasons are changing, but also a reminder that something significant is happening behind the bark and under the ground. In places where our unaided eyes cannot see, life is brewing something new that will eventually surge forth in ways we can behold.

There is a resonance between the development of spring and the work of the pastor. Fruitful ministry arises from the overflow of our own life with God. In pastoral ministry, enduring fruit will flow forth naturally from a life cultivated in hidden ways with God. The ministry work of discipleship, visitation, and public prayer is the visible flower, fruit, and leaf of the underground life with God. And, for our purposes here, the fruitful ministry of powerful preaching overflows from the unseen life the preacher cultivates with God.

From “Let the Message Live in You,” Preaching Today, February 2024.

Preaching Like Jazz: Relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.

Matt Erickson3 Comments

An article I recently wrote was published this week at Preaching Today entitled “Preaching Like Jazz: Relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.” This article was probably one of the most enjoyable articles I have written in awhile, coming both out of my own musical interests and my work as a preacher. I hope this article is inspiring and helpful for other preachers. The article is open for now, but will likely be behind a paywall in the future (although I’d encourage preachers that the resources from Preaching Today are well worth the price). Here is the first section of the article to whet your appetite.

My parents offered me the gift of piano lessons when I grew up, beginning in second grade. Nancy Schwegler was my devoted piano teacher, helping me learn the intricacies of music theory and strengthening my technique, all while gradually exposing me to some of the greatest composers of the classical tradition. But her devotion to me as a student shone even brighter when, realizing I was losing interest in piano during high school, she took lessons herself to help me learn how to play jazz.

As my interest in jazz increased, she set me free to develop my abilities by playing with those even more skilled, even as I soaked in the masters like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock. With my parents’ encouragement, one summer while in high school, I attended a jazz camp at a nearby university, learning so much more about the ins and outs of playing jazz.

One of the biggest adjustments for someone trained classically with music is moving away from a full score—where all the notation for both hands is written out from start to finish—to working off a lead sheet—where the only notation might be a melody accompanied by the basic chord structure of the song. I tried to learn how to comp and improvise amidst the flow of the music and the lead sheet while at this camp, but the harder I tried, the worse my playing sounded.

Observing this, one of the older, seasoned jazz musicians working with us, an upright bass player, leaned over to me while we played and said, “You need to relax. You need to relax into the feel. Just let the feel get inside you and flow with the rhythm and the music.” It was counterintuitive but it was right.

When I first began to preach in high school, I believed using any prepared notes was a failure of faith, and not relying on the Holy Spirit. After all, I thought, if I can’t trust God to give the words in the moment, then where is my faith? However, it didn’t take me too long to realize that it might be helpful for me and others if I had something in front of me to restrain my tendency to meander off into topics that were only of interest to me (and perhaps not even that interesting to the Holy Spirit!).

Later during seminary, I learned to prepare an outline of Scripture texts that led to a sermon outline that led to a written sermon manuscript that led to an aural draft of the sermon, that is, the written form of a sermon meant to be heard not read. This was incredibly helpful for my development as a preacher.

Yet as time passed, I realized I needed to develop my own approach to preaching. The approach I have developed could best be characterized as preaching like jazz, of studying and preparing diligently but then relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.

From “Preaching Like Jazz,” Preaching Today, January 2024.

Spiritually Formed Preachers: How to bring spiritual formation into your entire sermon process

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

An article I recently wrote was published this week at Preaching Today entitled “Spiritual Formed Preachers: How to bring spiritual formation into your entire sermon process.” This goal has been one of the driving forces in my preaching but sometimes has been an elusive aim. I tried to put some of my thoughts into this article and I hope it’s helpful for other preachers. Although the article is likely behind a paywall (although I’d encourage preachers that the resources from Preaching Today are well worth the price), here is the first section of the article to whet your appetite.

The first message I ever preached was most likely only memorable to me. I was a high school student, newly set ablaze in my faith, and ready to tell people about Jesus and how vital it was to live for him. Filled with passion, and more than a little rough around the edges, I unloaded lengthy biblical passages and ideas on living for God. More than 30 minutes later, a sleepy room stared back at me after my scattershot approach, and I feebly closed in prayer.

Looking back on that day, I remember that God works in and through us often in spite of ourselves. I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish in that message, but I know I had many ways to grow.

As we grow in our calling to preach, we know it is God’s work in and through us that is central, but sometimes we may lose focus. We venture into thinking of preaching merely as a skill-based event within a worship service. Yes, skill is necessary in preaching and should be faithfully honed, and, yes, the sermon is an event within a service of worship that should be memorable and contribute to the whole. But preaching is so much more than just that.

Sometimes we think of the sermon only as a way to get people to do something, whether step forward in faith, join in with small groups, or give to a capital campaign. As important as all these things may be, preaching is more than that.

At our worst, preachers sometimes wander into the dark land of using preaching to build our ministry platform or contribute to our sagging ego. In these seasons, we desperately need to turn from ourselves and get back on track because preaching is definitely much more than such self-serving efforts.

There is a sort of language that, unfortunately, is not often explicitly associated with preaching but should be. That is the language of spiritual formation. These pandemic years have revealed the truth that we are always being formed in one way or another, both in our inner and outer lives. While we can always be formed unintentionally, spiritual formation describes the intentional process of formation by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus from the inside out.

From “Spiritually Formed Preachers,” Preaching Today, October 2023.

The Weekend Wanderer: 24 September 2022

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.

c3a88de3-3f75-48c8-a590-f64d16f580bd_696x357“Intermission: Last Post for Christian England” – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule: “I spent much of the day, along with several hundred million other people around the world, watching the funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth on TV. It was full of remarkable, beautifully choreographed and often moving moments, as you would expect of an event which has been prepared for since the 1960s. A lot of things don’t work very well in Britain anymore, but this kind of pageantry is something we can still do well. We will not see its like again, I don’t think. I say ‘pageantry’, but this is a dismissive word. What happened today was a rolling, dense mat of symbolism, replete with historical meaning, anchored in a very particular nation and time period. What did it symbolise? Above all, I think, it symbolised something that our culture has long stopped believing in, and as such can’t really process effectively, or even perhaps quite comprehend. This was brought home to me by one particular moment in the ceremony.”

Taylor - Silence“In Praise of Silence” – W. David O. Taylor at his blog: “I’m excited to be speaking at the Liturgy Collective conference in Nashville on October 13-14. It’ll be a wonderful opportunity to connect with other musicians, pastors, and liturgists. This year, the theme of the conference is ‘rest,’ which I think is perennially needed, but even more so these days. The topic of my two talks will be on the nature of Silence in Worship, and my basic argument is that we need far more of it than we usually presume. Silence is fundamental to faithful prayer, I suggest, because prayer begins with the act of listening, not talking. God gets the first word—not the pastor, not the musician, not any of us. Silence also is fundamental to faithful singing because in silence, we attune our ears to ‘the chief Conductor of our hymns,’ as John Calvin once put it. We do so in order to be reminded that we were not the first to arrive on the liturgical scene. In humility, we listen first—then we sing. Silence is likewise fundamental to faithful preaching because the preacher must make time for the people of God to inwardly digest the word of God so that it has a fighting chance to take root in our hearts and bear good fruit in our lives.”

HTB“Wanted: Creation Care Coordinator for Major British Evangelical Church” – Ken Chitwood in Christianity Today: “The job ad was a little different than the ones normally posted by London’s largest churches. It wasn’t for a pastor, priest, choir director, or organist. Instead, the large evangelical Anglican congregation wanted an environmental project manager. Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), perhaps best known as the birthplace of the evangelistic Alpha course, has advertised a position for someone who will help ‘oversee the strategy, planning and execution of HTB’s approach to Creation Care.’ The individual will work closely with other lead team members to put an ‘environmental response at the heart of church life.’ Jobs like this at places like HTB are notable, said Jo Chamberlain, national environment policy officer for the Church of England. Such roles, she said, signal a sea change. Evangelical churches in the UK—and perhaps elsewhere—are embracing the critical importance of creation care and environmental stewardship at the congregational level.”

Charles Spurgeon“The Secret to Spurgeon’s Success” – Stephen Story at The Gospel Coalition: “Everyone is a theologian, R. C. Sproul rightly observed. Anyone with ideas or beliefs about God is doing theology. It may be poorly considered, but it’s theology nonetheless. By the same token, it might be said that everyone has an ecclesiology, a doctrine of the church. We all have beliefs or assumptions about what the church is, why it exists, and how it ought to function. Rarely do we pause, though, to think deeply about these things. Even among pastors, the incessant demands of ministry often pull us toward fixing urgent problems while neglecting larger questions. What does healthy pastoral ministry look like? What matters most in the life of my church? Am I shepherding God’s flock in a way that pleases him? In Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry, Geoffrey Chang shows why the 19th-century Baptist expositor should be regarded as more than ‘the Prince of Preachers’—he should be studied as an example of a faithful pastor. Chang—assistant professor of church history and historical theology and curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary—contends there’s “no better model of faithful pastoral ministry and commitment to the local church” than Spurgeon (2).”

Wirzba - This Sacred Life“What in the World is the World?: A review of This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World” – Doug Sikkema in Front Porch Review: “In The Myths We Live By, the late Mary Midgley explores how we humans are deeply storied creatures. Myths—the grand narratives that give shape and meaning to our lives—tether us to each other, to time, to place. They tell us who we are, where we came from, how we might live and, possibly, why we are even here at all. One might think myths belong to that benighted classical world of pagan ritual or even that Dark Age of Christendom teeming with its irrational superstitions, but that’s only because, Midgley would argue, we’ve been held captive by another, more potent, set of stories….What is one to do? Perhaps one thing is that we can live by a better myth. Or perhaps recover such a story that’s been ignored and largely forgotten. This is what Norman Wirzba sets out to do in This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World. For Wirzba, a possible antidote for our dis-ease in the Anthropocene is to recover some of the essential pieces of the narrative, the lived mythology, of Christianity.”

005“London Goddess Purée: Is the celebration of ancient goddesses female empowerment or rank patriarchy?” – Matthew J. Milliner in Comment: “The British Museum has good reason to put together the exhibition Feminine Power. After all, when girls are actually being advised, with the full endorsement of the psychological and medical establishments, to surgically remove their breasts in an attempt to become male, misogyny has reached a new apogee. (See, for just one example, the harrowing interview recorded here.) Accordingly, any museum’s effort to signal the importance of being female should be welcomed. Clipboard-bearing curators at this show collect viewer responses and display them on a large screen. One of them boldly proclaims, ‘Woman, an adult human female,’ surely indicating this visitor knows that very definition is under baffling new attack. Even so, the subtitle of this particular show at the British Museum suggests problems: Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic. The images here gathered span epoch and geography, their only commonality being ‘profound influence on human lives, both past and present.’ Which is to say, every global goddess within reach has been thrown into the curatorial blender for this exhibition, and—not unlike the $25 smoothie I recently saw advertised and sampled in Los Angeles—the results are less than invigorating. And that may be part of the point.”

Music: The Porter’s Gate ft. Liz Vice, “Brother Sun (Giving Glory),” from Climate Vigil Songs