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Last week's National Conference on Preaching at Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX) was a remarkable event. It was our largest-ever conference, with a final registration of 414. The response to the speakers was excellent. In fact, here are a few comments that came in from participants (used here with their permission): "These days re-awakened and re-imagined areas of my preaching ministry that had grown routine and stale. I return home with a renewed desire and energy for faith-stirring creative proclamation." (Mike Leamon, Calvary Wesleyan Church, Bethlehem, PA) "Beneficial, insightful, much to process and think about." (Kim-Sen Yap, Zion BP Church, Singapore) "The NCP is a spiritual highlight for me. It is a time to make deposits in my spiritual growth account." (Ed Farris, Calvary Baptist Church, Columbia, MO) "Uplifting and inspiring. I would recommend NCP to anyone looking to grow in their preaching skills." (Jeff Alexander, Trinity Lutheran Church, Litchfield Park, AZ) "Very inspirational and useful. I'm excited to get back to preaching. I'll be back!" (Steve Kramer, Shepherd of the Valley, Afton, MI) "My experience was wonderful! It was as if most of the speakers were speaking directly to my spirit. I needed this time of learning and refreshing!" (Tim Childers, First Baptist Church, Mableton, GA) "Great! Looking forward to more!" (Lorne Bean, Bright Temple AME Church, Warwick, Bermuda) "Incredible ideas to use, awesome instruction, and very inspiring and encouraging. For anyone wondering if they can afford the time/money for the conference, I'd say you can't afford NOT to come!" (John Toner, Oak Ridge Community Church, Columbia, MD) "The conference exceeded my expectations. Wonderful, helpful, refreshing, insightful, overwhelming!" (James Featherstone, Calvary Baptist Church, Huntsville, TX) OK, are you feeling disappointed that you didn't make it to this year's NCP? Then mark your calendar for April 17-19, 2007, for the next International Congress on Preaching in Cambridge, England. (Every fifth year, NCP becomes an international event.) That way you won't be so disappointed next May! Michael
Duduit, Editor There
will be no issue of PreachingNow
next week. The next issue will be dated May 16. Click here to visit "I Was Just Thinking" (Michael’s blog) for insights and observations about faith and culture issues. Recent topics: Will higher taxes mean lower gas prices?
Spiritual malpractice? In a recent message, David Jeremiah -- a cancer survivor -- presented a hypothetical case: "What if an oncologist examined a patient and said to him, 'Your blood pressure is perfect and your cholesterol is at an acceptable level. Your skin is healthy and your reflexes are good. Have a good day.' "Then suppose the patient left and the nurse turned to the physician and said, 'but doctor, you didn't tell him that the tests show that he has cancer.' And the doctor replied, 'Well, that is true but I just didn't want to ruin his day.'" Jeremiah believes that, in a similar fashion, too many preachers are painting life in the pastel hues of garden walks, spring flowers and lovely rainbows. They are not speaking of the grief, sorrow, heartache and separation caused by sin. Therefore, they are guilty of spiritual malpractice. (from The Christian Index, 4-13-06; click here to read the full article.) http://www.christianindex.org/2129.article
More Da Vinci Debunking In an excellent analysis of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (movie to be released May 19), scholar N.T. Wright points out that many of the details Brown insists are historical are easily proven false. He notes: "Brown claims, in a note at the start of his book, first that the architectural details of the places mentioned are correct and second that there really is a secret society called 'The Priory of Sion' to which people like Da Vinci himself, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and others belonged. Both of these claims can be shown very easily to be false. "On the first: I only know well one of the buildings which features in the book, namely Westminster Abbey. All right, Brown knows where the Isaac Newton monument is. But he still makes gaffe after gaffe which could have been corrected by 10 minutes of walking around with his eyes open. The Abbey has towers, not spires. You cannot see Parliament from St James's Park. College Garden is an extremely private place, not 'a very public place' outside the Abbey's walls (527). You cannot look out into it from the Chapter House; nor is there a 'long hallway' leading to the latter, with a "'heavy wooden door' at the end (529 ff.). Ten minutes' observation by a junior research assistant could have put all this right. If Brown is so careless, and carelessly inventive, in details as easy to check as those, why should we trust him in anything else? "And when it comes, second, to the Priory of Sion, the documents which Brown, following Baigent and Leigh, cite as evidence were forgeries cooked up by three zany Frenchmen in the 1950s. They cheerfully confessed to this in a devastating television program shown on British television in February (2005). And as for Brown's theory about Da Vinci's 'Last Supper,' according to which the Beloved Disciple next to Jesus is actually a woman, that he/she and Jesus are joined at the hip, that they are sitting in such a way as to display the letter V, apparently a sign of femininity, and also the letter M, for Mary, or Magdalene, or marriage, or something else, this is pure fantasy. You can take any great painting and play this kind of game with it. That's not to say that some painters may not have implanted coded messages in their work. It would be surprising if they didn't. But you won't find too many serious art critics giving Brown's reading of the painting more than a passing smile. "Other details abound which make the first-century historian snort and want to throw the book into the fire. . . . We may safely conclude, then, that The Da Vinci Code is fiction not just in its characters and plot but in most of its other details as well." (Click here to read the full lecture.) http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/davincicode.asp
Using Da Vinci to proclaim the Gospel In the conclusion of N.T. Wright's lecture on The Da Vinci Code (cited above), he offers a compelling argument for why this discussion matters. He also demonstrates how preachers can use The Da Vinci Code as a cultural connection for demonstrating how the Gospel is so startlingly different from he worldview of contemporary western culture. He says: "The Da Vinci Code is a symptom of something much bigger, a lightning rod which has throbbed with the electricity of the postmodern western world. "One of the basic fault lines in the contemporary Western world is the line between neo-Gnosticism on the one hand and the challenge of Jesus on the other. Please note that, despite strenuous attempts to make this line coincide with the current sharp left-right polarization of American culture and politics, it simply doesn't. Nor, for that matter, does it coincide with the polarizations of British or European culture either. So what is this real, deep polarization which runs through our world? "Neo-Gnosticism is the philosophy that invites you to search deep inside yourself and discover some exciting things by which you must then live. It is the philosophy which declares that the only real moral imperative is that you should then be true to what you find when you engage in that deep inward search. But this is not a religion of redemption. It is not at all a Jewish vision of the covenant God who sets free the helpless slaves. It appeals, on the contrary, to the pride that says 'I'm really quite an exciting person, deep down, whatever I may look like outwardly' -- the theme of half the cheap movies and novels in today's world. It appeals to the stimulus of that ever-deeper navel-gazing ('finding out who I really am') which is the subject of a million self-help books, and the home-made validation of a thousand ethical confusions. "It corresponds, in other words, to what a great many people in our world want to believe and want to do, rather than to the hard and bracing challenge of the very Jewish gospel of Jesus. It appears to legitimate precisely that sort of religion which a large swathe of America and a fair chunk of Europe yearns for: a free-for-all, do-it-yourself spirituality, with a strong though ineffective agenda of social protest against the powers that be, and an I'm-OK-you're-OK attitude on all matters religious and ethical. At least, with one exception: You can have any sort of spirituality you like (Zen, labyrinths, Tai Chi) as long as it isn't orthodox Christianity. "By contrast, the challenge of Jesus, in the 21st century as in the first, is that we should look away from ourselves and get on board with the project the one true God launched at creation and re-launched with Jesus himself. The authentic Christian gospel, which is good news about something that has happened as a result of which the world is a different place -- this gospel demands that we submit to Jesus as Lord and allow all other allegiances, loves and self-discoveries to be realigned in that light. God's project, and God's gospel, are rooted in solid history as opposed to Gnostic fantasy and its modern equivalents. "Genuine Christianity is to be expressed in self-giving love and radical holiness, not self-cosseting self-discovery. And it lives by, and looks for the completion of, the new world in which God will put all things to rights and wipe away all tears from all eyes; in which all knees will bow at the name of Jesus, not because he had a secret love-child, not because he was a teacher of recondite wisdom, not because he showed us how we could get in touch with the hidden feminine, but because he died as the fulfillment of the Scriptural story of God's people and rose as the fulfillment of the world-redeeming purposes of the same creator God; and because, in that death and resurrection, we discover him to be the one at whose name every knee shall indeed bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father." (Click here to read the full lecture.) http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/davincicode.asp
ILLUSTRATION: Mothers Day Susannah Wesley was married at age 19 to Samuel Wesley, a minister, and had nineteen children. Samuel was often gone for church meetings and revivals, so she assumed the primary load in raising the children. Two of her sons are well-known to us today: John and Charles Wesley. John launched the Methodist movement and Charles was a celebrated composer and hymn-writer; you would recognize some of his music like Christ the Lord is Risen Today and Hark! the Herald Angels Sing. Susannah Wesley spent time each day praying for her 19 children. She also took each child aside for a full hour every week to discuss spiritual matters. She also expected each child to be able to read the Book of Genesis by the time he or she was six years child. Here are her famous 16 rules of raising children: 1.
Eating between meals not allowed. (from Victor Yap; list from http://www.familyofdestiny.com/article_16rules.htm)
ILLUSTRATION: Evangelism A young salesman was disappointed about losing a big sale; and, as he talked with his sales manager, he lamented, "I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." The manager replied, "Son, take my advice: Your job is not to make him drink. Your job is to make him thirsty." So it is with evangelism. Our lives should be so filled with Christ that they create a thirst within others for the Gospel. Witnessing is really interaction. It's not about just going in and dropping a whole presentation on somebody. The more we practice sensitively and sincerely telling others about Jesus, the more responsive people tend to be. Sometimes we ought to think of ourselves as sales representatives, ambassadors of Jesus. Spend time in prayer today, asking God to give you the courage to witness. Trust that He will give you the right words. And never forget that you can lead people to Christ, but it's through Christ alone that they will come to know Him. (Turning Point Daily Devotional, 4-17-06)
ILLUSTRATION: Love and Money Bob and his sweetheart sat on the front porch rocking, when all at once he began to propose: "Beverly, I love you more than anything in the world, and I want you to marry me. I don't have a big estate or a yacht or a Rolls Royce like Johnny Smith, but I promise you I love you with all my heart." Beverly was quiet for a moment, then she said, "I love you, too -- but tell me more about this Johnny Smith."
ILLUSTRATION: Misery, Relief A guy walks into a shoe store and asks for a pair of shoes, size 8. The well-trained salesman says, "But sir, you take an 11 or eleven-and-a-half." "Just bring me a size eight." The sales guy brings them and the man stuffs his feet into them and stands up in obvious pain. He turns to the salesman and says, "I've lost my house to the I.R.S., I live with my mother-in-law, my daughter ran off with my best friend, and my business has filed Chapter 7." "The only pleasure I have left is to come home at night and take my shoes off."
"No man is poor who has a godly mother." (Abraham Lincoln)
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"Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues." (John R.W. Stott)
Four 'Preaching Truth' conferences planned A new
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note: the May 3 conference in Salt Lake City has been rescheduled For more information or to register, call (800) 288-9673, or visit the website at www.preaching.com/truth
More One-Liners Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous. Don't put a question mark where God put a period. Don't wait for 6 strong men to take you to church. Forbidden fruits create many jams. God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. God grades on the cross, not the curve. God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. He who angers you, controls you! If God is your Co-pilot -- swap seats! When you pray, don't give God instructions -- just report for duty! The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us. The Will of God never takes you to where the Grace of God will not protect you. We don't change the message; the message changes us. You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.
And finally . . . A Seattle policeman made an amazing shot -- right into the barrel of the revolver being aimed at him. According to an April 27 story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, an 18-year-old man -- reportedly recently released from a substance abuse center -- had already been involved in at least two fights when police confronted him at a bus stop and the man pulled a gun. When they ordered him to drop the weapon, he pointed it at police and they fired. The man died at the scene. Upon further investigation, one of the police bullets (fired from a Glock .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun) was found jammed into the cylinder of the gunman's revolver. "Physically, it is impossible to conclude anything other than the fact the suspect was pointing directly at the officers," Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer told reporters, adding, "I've not seen anything quite like that in my 24 years."
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