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Yesterday's Dallas Seminary Daily Devotional contained this timely story: "Who really cared? His was a routine admission to busy Bellevue Hospital. A charity case, one among hundreds. A drunken bum from the Bowery with a slashed throat. The Bowery . . . last stop before the morgue. "The derelict's name was misspelled on the hospital form, but then what good is a name when the guy's a bum? The age was also incorrect. He was thirty-eight, not thirty-nine, and looked twice that. Somebody might have remarked, "What a shame for one so young," but no one did. Because no one cared. "His health was gone and he was starving. He had been found lying in a heap, bleeding from a deep gash in his throat. A doctor used black sewing thread to suture the wound. Then the man was dumped in a paddy wagon and dropped off at Bellevue Hospital, where he languished and died. But nobody really cared. "A friend seeking him was directed to the local morgue. There, among dozens of other nameless corpses, he was identified. When they scraped together his belongings, they found a ragged, dirty coat with thirty-eight cents in one pocket and a scrap of paper in the other. All his earthly goods. Enough coins for another night in the Bowery and five words, 'Dear friends and gentle hearts.' Almost like the words of a song, someone may have thought. "Which would have been correct, for once upon a time that man had written the songs that literally made the whole world sing. Songs like 'Camptown Races,' 'Oh! Susanna,' 'Beautiful Dreamer,' 'I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,' 'Old Folks at Home,' 'My Old Kentucky Home,' and two hundred more that have become deeply rooted in our rich American heritage, thanks to Stephen Collins Foster. "Today, some of these forgotten souls are in prison. Some in hospitals. Some in nursing homes. And some silently slip into church on Sunday morning, confused and afraid. Do you care? Enough 'to show hospitality to strangers,' as Hebrews 13:2 puts it? It also says that in doing so, we occasionally 'entertain angels without knowing it.' "Angels who don't look anything like angels. Some might even look like bums from the Bowery, but they may have a song dying in their hearts because nobody knows and nobody cares." It's possible some of those angels were rescued out of flooded New Orleans neighborhoods and are even now being cared for by churches like yours. Even in a moment of tragedy, God can work through His people to bring hope and compassion -- if we will only be available. Michael
Duduit, Editor If you missed the 2005 National Conference on Preaching, you can still obtain audio tapes and CDs. Click here to learn more. And be sure to mark your calendar for April 24-26, 2006, for the next NCP in Dallas, with the theme "Preaching Creatively." You'll enjoy great speakers like Haddon Robinson, Calvin Miller, Dieter Zander, Jack Graham, Steve Wende, Doug Pagitt and many more. Click here to learn more about NCP 2006 and to save on early registration.
Preaching must be practical and biblical The PreachingTodaySermons.com newsletter recently ran an interview with Randy Frazee, a teaching pastor at Willow Creek. Frazee -- who recently went to Willow after 15 years as pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Fort Worth -- talked about the importance of both practicality and biblical grounding in the contemporary sermon. He said, "Each sermon must be rooted in a specific biblical text, and the message of that text in its historical and literary context must be maintained, so that what we proclaim is not just workable but profound and revelatory. . . . "The reason that's important is as a contemporary church we are taught to be practical . . . One of the temptations of being practical is not to be biblical. We desire to scratch where people itch. We know they scratch in the area of failure in their marriage the struggle of raising children, with finances, with desires to set goals in the areas of success for their career, with the desire to have meaningful relationships, or a happy life. So we in the contemporary church do all these practical series where people itch. But the solutions we give are often not rooted in the historical text of Scripture. At the end of the day the preachers who are overtly practical but not careful to be biblical will find they have developed a large crowd, but they're not profound in giving them solutions to life. "For example, it's possible a pastor would give a sermon on marriage communication, because the vast majority of people in his congregation are struggling to communicate in marriage. What he or she proceeds to do is lay out a series of practical things you could find in a self-help book. For example, before you speak, hold your breath and count to ten. That's a practical suggestion, but Scripture offers more than just teaching people how to contain the darkness within them. "Scripture offers, in an encounter with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, an opportunity to remove the darkness and to develop the fruit of the Spirit. You can say to a married couple, 'If you really come to know Christ, we can teach you, as you develop a relationship with Christ, how joy and gentleness will emerge in your life. When Jesus said you need to turn the other cheek when someone insults you, he wasn't suggesting that you turn the other cheek in anger. He is suggesting that there should be no retaliation in your heart. Therefore, you can gladly turn the other cheek because you have no insult to return.' "That's the profound truth of Scripture. Practical preaching is absolutely central. It's one of the major legs in the stool, but one of the dangers of practical preaching is we speak a lot from the book of Proverbs or we use a lot of text but do not provide profound truth that comes from the Word of God. Therefore, I don't think it's as life changing as it would be if the message was rooted in the text." (Click here to read the full interview) http://store.yahoo.com/pttranscripts/thleofpr1.html
Mixed reviews on multi-site survey In a recent PreachingNow, we talked about the trend toward multi-site churches using video technology. The story offered a link to a survey on the issue, and many of you responded. Although many expressed interest, a slight majority of the responders were somewhat or very negative on this approach to ministry, and almost 60 percent said they would probably not or definitely not favor adopting such a strategy. We received some interesting comments, with several sharing positive insights: "It is a great way to extend the influence and ministry of your church. If God is moving in your church, and has led you to this opportunity, then I think it is a great thing. There are not a lot of churches seeing new growth, so I recommend it. The only concern is you have to make sure the main campus never feels like they are being left behind for the newest thing. You have to give equal attention to both, and I would highly recommend against moving the main offices to the new location." "In large churches you have so many different areas that your people come from that I believe you can divide your large congregation based on geography and be able to reach so many more people." Many of the comments expressed serious concerns about the multi-site approach: "Might be effective as an evangelism tool; but lacks the personal touch that a shepherd should have with the flock. A part of the growing trend of impersonalization that characterizes our culture. Great for preacher-hero seekers to view. Whatever ministry God chooses to use gets my nod. Nonetheless, I am somewhat skeptical." "This approach enhances a performance view of Christianity and is driven by a personality following. It treats faith as consumerism and not as community." "Big isn't always better . . . A talking screen really buffets the "realness" of the Bible, its message and how relevant it is to the hearer. After a time . . . it will be easy to just turn off the "movie" . . . " Then we received one lengthy comment from a senior pastor whose church has adopted a multi-site strategy: "We've adopted a multi-site philosophical approach to doing weekend worship services because we want to reach more people but our congregation didn't want a mega auditorium. Multi-site allows us to expand our reach while at the same time provide more intimate/personal worship experiences in smaller venues. Our multi-sites are on the same campus/another part of the building as our main service. We show the message via DVD and every other element is done live in that site. We're beginning a facility expansion and renovation campaign this fall. This approach to weekend worship services drastically affected our building plans. Instead of building a 4000 to 5000 seat auditorium, we're constructing multiple small venues on site with a 1400 seat main auditorium to reach the same amount people. Another advantage to multi-sites is the ability to create multiple styles of worship during the same worship hours, thus, expanding the churches ability to reach into the culture around it. "Creating multiple styles of worship allows the people to more fully connect in worship. This can be used to reach outside the church as well offer an alternative to those already in the church who would worship to a deeper degree with a different style of worship. A challenge in adopting this model of ministry is volunteers. Conducting simultaneous services requires multiple production and worship teams during the same hours. This has been a challenge. Our philosophy has been to try to raise up volunteers from within that particular venue so that those who attend can feel a sense of ownership. "Technology is a challenge in that we currently have a one-camera setup that tapes our weekend message that is used in our other venue. We would like to expand to a multi-camera setup but the cost is very expensive. We were reluctant to take on this cost at the outset of trying this because we didn't want to get stuck with a lot of cameras if the concept didn't work. A multiple camera would greatly enhance the "end product". Overall I think people have been very receptive to the multi-site approach. It's allowed us to relieve some overcrowding in our main auditorium. We initially approached this concept as a way to offload people from our main service so we could have room for additional people. A multi-site approach beats an overflow room with a TV by a mile!! Although we have 2 main services on Sat night, when we launched our multi-site service last fall, we began with 2 services on Sunday (9:00 & 10:45) only. 10:45 has been our best hour and after almost a year into it we are at capacity for that time slot. This fall we going to drop the 9:00am service and offer a Saturday night (6:15pm) service in it's place. We found that some coming on Sunday morning would really like to be able to come on Saturday night. Overall it's been a good experience."
Use specifics to make language come alive In the new book The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching (Zondervan), there's a chapter by Craig Brian Larson on "Preaching Pyrotechnics," in which he discusses why some illustrations work better than others. One of those keys is specific language rather than general. Larson says, "Being specific means saying Luger rather than weapon; '89 Taurus rather than vehicle; adultery rather than sin; the nails through Christ's palms rather than Christ's sufferings; Bob, the 45-year-old overweight Chicago detective with the scar on the back of his hand rather than the officer. The gunpowder is in specifics -- the more precise, the better." (Click here to learn more about the book The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching)
Illustration: Distractions, Hindrances In a recent edition of his Tuesday Mornings newsletter, Tom Barnard writes, "The New King James Version begins Chapter 12 of Hebrews by saying, "'Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run. . . .' In the earliest Greek Olympics -- in which the competitors were all males -- runners ran with no clothing on them at all! No hindrances of any kind. Later, of course, athletes added light-weight clothing. Runners trained with weights that could be strapped to their legs or ankles to provide resistance and to build endurance during training. But when it came time to run, the weights were removed. . . . "Stripping down for the Christian race can be a distraction if we concentrate on the things that hinder and forget that we have a race to run. We can spend all of our energy eliminating the distractions from our lives and never get around to running. Running is the goal; not stripping down. I remember a college revival some years ago when the evangelist preached against secular music. Dozens of students brought their entire collections of tapes to a particular service as a sign of their commitment. They thought the disposal of their records and tapes guaranteed their success in running. They were sadly mistaken." (For a free subscription to Tuesday Mornings, contact Dr. Tom Barnard at barnard22@cox.net.)
Preaching Truth Conferences Planned Across U.S. Next week brings two more one-day preaching conferences: in Little Rock and Cleveland, with Philadelphia the following week. If you haven't registered yet, please do so right away. You'll want to know that RegOnline (the company that hosts our conference registration program) has designated Sept. 15 as the day they will donate $1.00 to Katrina victims for each registration made that day. Our Nov. 29 conference originally planned for New Orleans has now been rescheduled for Birmingham. Location information is available on our website at www.preaching.com/truth. Using the theme "Preaching Truth in a Whatever World," each event will feature presentations by Dr. Michael Duduit, editor of Preaching magazine and PreachingNow, and an array of outstanding guest speakers. Here are dates and areas for fall conferences (exact church location/address is at our website, www.preaching.com/truth):
These conferences will offer insights into the unique preaching challenges of today, and will offer a toolbox of strategies and ideas for effective biblical preaching in today's "whatever" culture. Visit our information page (www.preaching.com/truth) for more information or to register.
ILLUSTRATION: Greed, Satisfaction When L.L. Bean, founder of the great mail-order catalog and store in Freeport, Maine, died in 1967 at the age of 94, The New York Times obituary described an interview with a reporter that went something like this. Reporter: Mr. Bean, why don't you expand? Bean: We are expanding. We're testing some synthetic red suspenders in the next catalog. Reporter: No, Mr. Bean, I mean really expand. You have the Bean boot and great merchandise. Why don't you get some venture capital and really expand -- become the Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward of the sporting goods business? Bean:
Son, I eat three square meals a day. I can't eat four.
Illustration: Heaven, Eternity, Book of Life The Social Register contains the names and addresses of 25,000 of America's most prominent families along with club memberships, college affiliations, and other facts. It provides information about art, travel, collecting, philanthropy, and other subjects of interest to the well-heeled. It is published annually in November, updated in May, and costs $125 -- and sold only to the 25,000 families who are members. Didn't receive your subscription invitation to the Social Register this year? Not to worry. Truth be told, there's another book that a Christian's name is already in that carries a whole different cachet: the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 21:27. It's fine to be honored on earth for prominence or importance, but the bigger question is whether your name is written in God's book in heaven. Entrance into the New Jerusalem will be only for those whose names it contains. And there's only one requirement: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The applause for your prominence on earth will one day be drowned out by the applause for your presence in heaven. (Turning Point Daily Devotional, 7-26-05)
Illustration: Marriage, Wrong Answer While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor say, "It is essential that husbands and wives know each other's likes and dislikes." He addressed the man, "Can you name your wife's favorite flower?" Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's Pillsbury, isn't it?
ILLUSTRATION: Negativity Bill Bouknight tells the story of a little boy who was trying to raise some money by collecting old bottles, going door-to-door in his neighborhood. When he came to the home of a woman who was the "town grouch," the little boy asked, "Do you have any coke bottles?" "No," she replied with a scowl. Then he said, "Do you have any old whiskey bottles?" "Young man," the woman replied, "Do I look like the type of person who would have old whiskey bottles?" The little boy studied her for a moment and then asked, "Well, do you have any old vinegar bottles?" Isn't it tragic that some people go through life so negative and sour and bitter? And if you don't watch out, they will infect you with their thinking.
Illustration: Communion, Lord's Supper Little Johnny was in church when the wine and wafers were passed out. His mother leaned over and told him that he was not old enough to partake in the Communion. When the basket was passed, she leaned over again to tell him to drop his money in, but Little Johhny held his dollar firmly in his hand, stating . . . "If I can't eat, I won't pay!" (Cybersalt Digest)
Football FINALLY makes sense A guy took his girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. "Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents." Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like, "Helloooo? It's only 25 cents!"
LeaderLinks is a web-based publication for Christian leaders. The September issue is now available at www.leaderlinks.com. Interested readers can also go to the site (or just click here) and subscribe to LeadingNow, a monthly e-mail newsletter featuring ideas and resources for Christian leaders. LeaderLinks is a publication of American Ministry Resources, which is the publisher of PreachingNow, Preaching magazine and preaching.com.
"A perfect parent is a person with excellent child-rearing theories and no actual children." (Dave Barry)
About lawyers . . . Did you hear that the Post Office just recalled their latest stamps? They had pictures of lawyers on them . . . and people couldn't figure out which side to spit on. * * * How can a pregnant woman tell that she's carrying a future lawyer? She has an uncontrollable craving for baloney. * * * How many lawyer jokes are there? Only three. The rest are true stories. * * * How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? How many can you afford? * * * How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three. One to climb the ladder. One to shake it. And one to sue the ladder company. * * * If a lawyer and an IRS agent were both drowning, and you could only save one of them, would you go to lunch or read the paper? * * * What do you call 25 skydiving lawyers? Skeet. * * * What do you call a lawyer gone bad? Senator. * * * What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50? Your Honor. * * * What do you throw to a drowning lawyer? His partners. * * * What's the difference between a lawyer and a vulture? The lawyer gets frequent flyer miles. * * * Why does California have the most lawyers in the country and New Jersey have the most toxic waste sites? New Jersey got first choice.
And finally . . . A South African driver has earned the distinction of being the world's fastest blind driver, according to a Sept 9 Reuters story. Blind since birth, 33-year-old Hein Wagner of Cape Town set the record by driving across a remote airstrip at 167 mph. He had a sighted navigator for his record-setting drive. The effort was aimed at increasing public awareness of problems facing blind people and raising money for a national charity for the blind. The previous record, set by a blind British bank manager, was 145 mph. Adding to the risk, according to Wagner: "I drove it with no insurance. No one wanted to give any to us."
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