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Easter is the real deal

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Christianity lost the battle for Christmas a long time ago. There was too much money to be made and too much fantasy and nostalgia to be found in a holiday about children, gifts, elves, Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen and snow. Maybe just as well. Christmas was never a serious Christian holiday anyway. It was invented to compete with pagan sun rituals. It was populated by evangelists writing many years after the incarnation who wrote four different narratives to explain the meaning (not the historicity) of events known in legend, not in observable fact. Easter, on the other hand, is the real deal. It was an actual event, seen by many, rooted in history. From the empty tomb flowed the faith that changed the world. To be sure, modern Christianity must engage in minor skirmishes with bunnies, flowers and candy. But mostly, this holy day is our story to tell. We should be careful and creative in how we tell it. Easter is poorly served if we make too much of the pageantry. The … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Easter

Remember your ordination vows: Don’t give up on peacemaking

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    At this critical moment in the life of our denomination, especially following the 222nd meeting of the General Assembly, it is an opportune time for us as ordained church leaders to reaffirm our ordination vows. As we review them we might also ask which one of them is the most difficult today. Many might quickly reply that in light of the tragic murders in Orlando, the assassination of a member of parliament in Great Britain and other recent violent events, that the sixth vow, “Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?” (W-4.4003) is clearly the hardest to keep. Indeed, how can we continue to follow Jesus’ command to be peacemakers when the world is so filled with violence and hatred, one in which airliners are sabotaged in the Middle East, senseless shootings take place nearly every week in our own country and name-calling and threats are part of the presidential race? Yet … [Read more...]

Three markers of healthy and unhealthy churches 

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After serving dozens of churches as a pastor or consultant, I have concluded that there is no single formula for health. There is no array of attributes that can be assembled to guarantee health. There is no package of fixes that can be implemented, no checklists that can be applied everywhere. Yet you can walk in the door of any church and know fairly soon whether it is healthy or unhealthy. Health and unhealth are different. They sound different and look different. Healthy churches make good decisions and handle crises capably. Unhealthy churches consistently make poor decisions, and the normal crises of community life undo them. Here are the three markers that a healthy church will show. OTHER-ORIENTED. The healthy church is fundamentally oriented toward other people. Sunday worship focuses on visitors, strangers and the not-yet-affiliated. The unhealthy church, by contrast, takes its cues from longtime members. The healthy church looks beyond its walls to see the … [Read more...]

Honorably rewired

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  What can you do with a pastor when he/ she stops being a pastor? This question is a paraphrase of Bing Crosby’s forgotten ballad, “What can you do with a general when he stops being a general, what can you do with a general when he is unemployed?” Pastors respond to retirement in different ways. For many, it is a longed-for period when they can start over again, move closer to extended family, travel or do things they have put off. But it is not that simple. When John Buchanan retired from Fourth Church in Chicago, he was asked at a professional conference what he missed most about the ministry and became so overcome with emotion that he could not continue. Pastors are called to service, but when they retire it may seem as if they are being rerouted to a new country like Abraham and Sarah (at ages 75 and 65 respectively), to a golf course, to a mission field or to a recliner. If they move, life may need to be rebooted. Bereft of instant recognition and friendship in the … [Read more...]

Tagged With: retirement

Sticky preaching

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What makes sermons stick for you? How do you know a good one? If the preacher makes you feel spiritually stimulated and alive when you go home, what has happened? These are questions you are invited and obligated to ask as church leaders. Although teaching elders (commissioned ruling elders, guest preachers) are responsible for the selection of Scriptures and the content of preaching (W-2.2005), the sermon is obviously designed for the benefit of the listeners, not the speakers (W-2007). “The sermon should present the gospel with simplicity and clarity, in language which can be understood by the people” (W-2.2007). The concept of stickiness in communication is well known in educational circles. Recently it has been explored in relation to theological education in an excellent book by Holly J. Inglis with Kathy J. Dawson and Rodger Y. Nishioka (“Sticky Learning: How Neuroscience Supports Teaching That’s Remembered,” Fortress Press, 2014). As a Presbyterian church educator, Inglis … [Read more...]

A Markan model for Ministry: Going to the other side 

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A few years ago it was popular to urge church leaders to “think outside the box” in their long-range plans for ministry. The evangelist Mark pushes us more radically than that. In the first gospel he urges churches to break out beyond conceivable boundaries and barriers and encounter people whose customs and beliefs are foreign, even hostile. A good case in point is found in the unique details of Mark’s version of the bizarre story of the demoniac with multiple personalities who is healed by Jesus when the pigs are driven into the lake (5:1-20). When Jesus commands the disciples to go to “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee in 4:35, rather than disembarking on the opposite bank after a terrible storm, they end up deep in the interior of the Decapolis, in Geresa (Jeresa in modern Jordan), around 34 miles southeast of the lake. For obvious reasons, Matthew and some Lukan texts relocate the story because later writers doubted that demon-infested swine were capable of such an Olympic … [Read more...]

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