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The Podcast is Back
26 Tuesday May 2015
Posted in Preaching
Category Archives: Preaching
The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin
01 Wednesday Oct 2014
Posted in Fifty Days of Singleness, Preaching
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So I’m on camp and I’m finding it difficult to find time to blog as well as lead on camp.
With that in mind, here’s a filler post. It’s a sermon I did in April this year at Soul Survivor. I think it’s one of my better ones.
Enjoy.
Dream it, Achieve it
30 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Christianess, Dreams, Fifty Days of Singleness, Preaching, Work
It used to think being an itinerant speaker would be an awesome job. I think I even prayed a few times that God might let me be one. And now, my job is to be an itinerant speaker.
I think what excited me about the idea of travelling around and speaking places was:
A) When you just do one off speaking gigs people tend to be really appreciative
B) When you visit a place once you don’t have to deal with all the baggage and mess doing life with people brings
C) You get to preach all the time, which would be awesome
Now that I’m doing the job, I’ve found that all those things happen. People are much more appreciative of my speaking when they don’t have to listen to me every week. And when I arrive at a school, youth group, camp or church, I usually don’t know what’s going on for people. I get to be blissfully unaware of everyone’s issues. And I’m preaching 4-5 times every week, sometimes up to 5 times in one day, it’s great!
But all these things aren’t all I hoped they’d be. It’s nice that people are nice to me about my preaching, but it’s rare to ever actually be challenged on what I say, or given tips on how people think I could improve, or given much in the way of feedback at all. There is little pushback from those who listen, because you’re just passing through.
Often, when you’re just passing through, you miss the continuity of relationship that you get from day in, day out ministry. You might not have to deal with peoples problems, but they’re is a joy in getting to play a part in helping people know Jesus better in the midst of life’s messiness. Plus you also miss out on their triumphs. You just see a glimpse and then you move on.
I do love preaching regularly. But when you’re preaching 3-4 new messages a week, there is no time to stop and reflect on the scriptures. When I have to keep preparing new stuff, everything seems under done.
However there is some good stuff about itinerate speaking that I didn’t know about:
I get to be on the road a lot, I love driving, I love listening to audiobooks, I love being alone.
Getting to do the same talk many times, I get to perfect it, it’s fun being able to work on the nuances of a talk rather than just getting it done.
You get to speak about the big passages all the time. None of this obscure stuff. You just do the greatest hits of the Bible.
So I guess I’m happy. I’m glad I have achieved my dream, my prayer has been answered. The lesson perhaps is, your dreams are rarely what you expect, but that doesn’t make them any less worth aiming for.
Or perhaps there is no lesson. This could just be a blog post about my job.
Hearing Stories
08 Monday Oct 2012
Posted in Christianess, Church, Preaching
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From Thursday to Sunday I was away on a (very small) mission trip with my youth group (which I may blog about later, but knowing my blogging habits, it won’t happen). Yesterday I was asked to preach at the local baptist church on singleness. The pastor of the church used to be a pastor at my church and was the one who originally asked me to preach on singleness. So yesterday morning I found myself in front of 200 strangers talking about singleness.
What was interesting is that after the sermon people kept coming up to me to tell me their stories. Their experiences of marriage and singleness. There were so many stories which we’re terribly sad, some which were full of redemption, all stories where people were talking about the goodness of God. Like the woman who told me about getting married very young to a horribly abusive man, she escaped, and when she had no plans ever to get married again, she met a new man who she told me was the most wonderful husband any woman could want. Or the man who told me about how his wife walked out on him, and for years he was lonely and bitter, till one day at church he was told by a visiting missionary to hand his desire for a companion over to God. He did so then and there. Twenty minutes later he met a woman who he fell in love with and they’re getting married in six weeks. Or there was the woman who told me of what it’s like to live with a husband with dementia who can no longer make any sense of life. However in the months before it became really bad he gave his life to Jesus after his wife’s decades of prayer. There was story after story.
It was an honour and a privilege to have so many people come up and share with me their stories. I’m not sure why it happened yesterday in a way that it’s never happened after I’ve preached before. It could have been the topic, rarely does singleness get covered in church. It could have been that I was a visting preacher so people felt like they could share with be easier. It could have been that people connected some of the things I was saying with their own stories. I’m not sure. Whatever it was, I’m pleased God would decide to use me to to speak to others. It’s the honour of preaching.
Worth the Quibble
18 Saturday Aug 2012
Posted in Bible, Church, Preaching, Social Justice, Youth Ministry
I heard a preacher tonight at a youth event. He preached almost all story and no Bible. Almost all entertainment and no meat. Yet he’s done more in his ministry to the poor through the church that he leads than many of the most biblical preachers. He’s certainly more impressive than me. It makes me wonder if it’s worth the quibble.
Sailing Gold
11 Saturday Aug 2012
I don’t want to boast or anything but I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that I started speaking on a sailing camp in 2009 and this year we have a freaking gold rush in sailing. Sowing and reaping and all that.
I might start speaking on some swimming camps. It’s my patriotic duty.
Speaking of Speaking
11 Wednesday Jul 2012
Posted in Christianess, Preaching, Youth Ministry
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I’m on camp again. Been here since Sunday. I’m speaking to about 70 year 7 and 8s. We’re looking at people Jesus met. It’s a bunch of talks that I gave in December at another camp. Right now I’m sitting in my room, I’ve had a break from of camp to read, sleep and find out whats been happening on the internet. I’d like to pretend this is my first break but one of the great things about camp is that everyone is tired, so when I disappear to have a sleep no-one thinks I’m being lazy, they think I’m looking after myself. And you know it’s important. I have a hectic schedule. I have to speak once a day and sit in on small groups. It’s very tiring. The rest of my day is full of things like playing games, eating food, and hanging around with people. Tough. That definitely deserves a daily nap.
One of the things that has made me happy is that today we had a mystery elective for some of the young people, and it turned out to be a two-hour YouTube marathon. What a great idea. After a few technical issues, it turned into and extended Video of the Week session, except it was everyone’s videos of the week. Brilliant!
In case you’re wondering the talks are going pretty well. I tend to find that doing old talks is never as satisfying as doing new stuff. But I’m sure I don’t have the space to always be writing new stuff. Seeing I was working on other stuff right up until my first night on camp, new stuff wouldn’t really have had any space.
I’ve been recording the talks so I might even get around to posting them sometime. I could stick them up, one a week or something. Then my podcast would get a regular update. That’d be novel.
Speaking of speaking, my friend Graham Baldock recently interviewed me about speaking on camps for his blog. You can find my answers at these links: part one, part two, and part three. You can find his refections here. If I was struck by anything it’s that sometimes I lack coherent grammar when I speak.
Truth
21 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in Christianess, Ethics, Preaching
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This morning on my way to work I listened to the lastest episode of This American Life. It was a retraction of a story they did a few months ago which was an excerpt from a play about Apple. The guy who had written the play, Mike Daisey, had made some stuff up and TAL didn’t fact check properly. So this week they issued a retraction. And not just any old retraction, they issued an hour long retraction. Nothing says commitment to truth better than spending an hour telling people how you stuffed up by letting someone else not tell them the truth.
It was a really interesting episode, definitely worth a listen. You can hear in Ira Glass’ presentation that he is taking the whole thing very seriously and very personally. As he interviews Daisy you can hear him struggling to maintain his journalistic manner. The interview is riveting and very uncomfortable.
It got me thinking, for at least the entire walk from my car to the office, about truth. Mike Daisey created a play about Apple that was presented as fact, but had many made up bits in it. He insisted that it wasn’t a lie because the theatre has a different standard of truth. Truth and fact disconnected in the theatre in a way that doesn’t translate to journalism. Sp I wondered where my boundaries for truth and fact are. If someone were to fact check my discussions, the stories I tell, the feelings I express, would they find that I had blurred the lines in between truth and lie in service of a genre or a good reputation? I thought about when I preach, often my illustrations exaggerate my feelings and responses because it helps the listeners to relax and relate. Generally when I do a humorous illustration I’m much happier to exaggerate then in any other type of illustration. When I am telling someone else’s story, or telling about something God has done, I’m much more careful with the truth. I’m assuming that people can tell when I’m being silly and when I’m not. But can they? Preaching is a genre that is tied to truth, if only the truth as understood by the preacher. Can a preacher exaggerate, leave details out, add flourishes when giving their illustrations and then speak what is presented as God’s truth when explaining the Bible? Are listeners happy with the genre shift within the sermon? Is it appropriate?
What also challenged me was TAL’s commitment to making sure the truth was told when they made a mistake. Sometimes I make a mistake with the truth that is accidental, I don’t always fix it up. Should I? What if the person will never know, and it won’t make a difference to their life? How committed to retraction does one need to be personally? I don’t know. I usually correct things when I have been adamant about something and it turns out to be wrong. Sometimes I think this is a commitment to truth but more often than not I’m probably just concerned they’ll find out what is true and realise that I was wrong. Better to admit your mistake before someone else points it out. I find it hard to distinguish where my commitment to truth ends and when my pride begins.
I’m pretty sure if we didn’t have so much pride going on, we’d all have a lot more reliable truth going on.
Wrestling with the Beast
18 Sunday Mar 2012
Posted in Bible, Christianess, Church, Preaching
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Tonight I preached on Revelation 13-14:5. It’s the passage all about The Beasts and the number 666, and the 144,000. I was pretty excited to be doing it because the beasts and all that are pretty exciting.
But when it came time to be writing the sermon it was hard. Nothing seemed to be coming. At least, I couldn’t find a big idea that I was happy with and I couldn’t find an interesting way of talking about it which didn’t just sound like a lecture on the symbolism of Revelation. I spent hours on it throughout the week, but even last night nothing good had arrived. I went to bed hoping the morning would improve things.
It didn’t improve things much. And today, a day that I had planned to have off, was a day full of sermon wrestling. It was pretty frustrating. I was feeling tired, and cranky. Mostly just cranky that my planned rest day was not restful at all.
In the end I wrote notes for my sermon, instead of a full text, which I almost always do. And I just went in hoping for the best. Actually I did more praying too.
I think it turned out ok. My end we pretty muddled I think. Someone came up to me after and said “Did you just make that up as you went along?” Which I didn’t but I can see how it may have sounded like that. They can’t all be winners
Still, people did say they liked the sermon and got stuff out of it so I can’t complain. And happily, God works despite bad preachers, so who am I to worry. It’s only my pride that’s at stake.
I’m pretty happy it’s over. I’m pretty keen for some rest. Saturday maybe.
If you want to hear the sermon, you can get it here, or I’ll put in on the podcast in the next day or two.
Update: I listened to the sermon this morning. The sound quality is pretty bad. Apologies.
Noah Got Nude
14 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in Bible, Christianess, Preaching, Work
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Well I finished day two of nude Noah. I basically did the same talk I did here, but I added a bit about how Jesus is a better Noah. When Noah emerged from the ark nothing changed. When Jesus emerged from the tomb, everything changed. One teacher told me she learned a lot, but she may have learn about how wrinkly a nude 600-year-old man is, cause I’m not sure which bit she was referring to.
Nude Noah
12 Monday Mar 2012
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Tomorrow I’m speaking at a school to year 9 and 10 on the passage where Noah get’s drunk and falls asleep naked. If the students don’t laugh, this one’s gonna be awkward.
Camp Post-Its
11 Sunday Mar 2012
Posted in Christianess, Preaching, Youth Ministry
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I was speaking on a youth camp this weekend. It was fun. I did some talks on Jonah.
As the kids listened to the talks and had discussion groups they were encouraged to write down on sticky notes one thing they were challenged by, a quote they liked, draw a picture, or share something to encourage others. It was like a poor persons tweeting.
Here are some of the highlights.
Bad Dream Again
07 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in Christianess, Dreams, Preaching, Work
So back in 2010, when I was just a newbie to the preaching in schools game, I posted about visiting a school and finding out I had to preach in 10 minutes. It was like a bad dream.
Today it happened again, only worse. I went to a primary school chapel, and I had a talk ready. It was on the line from the Lord’s Prayer “Give us today our daily bread”. Unfortunately while I was sitting in chapel the teacher leading chapel told the kids how today they were going to learn about “Your will be done”. Oh. Bugger.
I had to speak in three minutes, I had zero prep time, I had not talk. This was definitely bad dream material except I wasn’t naked. At least, if I was naked no one mentioned it, and forgetting to wear clothes is usually something people point out to you.
What seems to have happened was that the visit I was on had been rearranged a few weeks ago. Instead of being booked to come in a few weeks they moved me to today. What I didn’t register is that when my date changed so did my chapel topic.
As I sat in chapel I contemplated just doing the talk I had planned and apologising that I stuffed it up but for some reason I decided to make up a talk right there in chapel. I probably had 3 minutes between when I found out the topic and when I had to get up to do it. Happily the talk I had prepared had elements I could import, and the rest, I just flew by the seat of my pants. Or I by the power of the Spirit. Or somewhere in between.
I don’t think it was my greatest talk ever. But then again, it wasn’t the worst. It was probably the best one I’ve written in three minutes. The chaplain came up and said he liked it, so I appreciate that, even if he was just being a polite Christian.
I’ll aim to not have that happen again. I guess I learnt to check topics when dates change.
The other thing I learnt about preaching today that if you say, in reference to bush dancing, “doing Strip the Willow with an old lady is not my idea of fun”, you will inevitably lose every year eight boy in the room. Who’d have thought?
Tomtime 2000 