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This
week's edition of PreachingNow
is an abbreviated, Spring Break edition. What that means is that
for the past week, I've been with my family in sunny southern California.
(OK, not that sunny. It was about ten degrees warmer in Nashville
than San Diego. Leave it to me to plan well.) So this week's newsletter is a bit shorter than usual. But don't worry -- next week my verbosity will return in full! Michael
Duduit, Editor
Keep your imagination working In a recent article for Pastors.com, Michael Quicke urges his fellow preachers to, "Keep imagination in top order. Imagination is God's gift, but it takes effort to stay fresh. We all slip into comfortable ruts of thinking and speaking. Work hard at creating connections between Scripture and the secular mindset. Look at the different points of your message, and ask yourself whether a point can be teased into something better. Try inverting it or approaching it from another angle. How can you put it in a more interesting way? Keep thinking about everything you see. "For example, in a Christmas sermon, I showed a brown sales bag from a local store that promised 17 percent off the price of everything that fits inside the bag. But in small print it went to immense lengths to explain how everything must fit inside. It may sound whacky in cold print, but this brown bag memorably illustrated the limitations of Jesus' incarnation. Many commented how strikingly appropriate this odd bag was, as I continued to talk about the Word made flesh (John 1:14). With imagination, the Gospel applies to so much in life. After all, God is creator of everything -- brown bags and all." (Click here to read the full article about illustrations) http://www.pastors.com/rwmt/article.asp?ArtID=10357
Plan
to be with us in Cambridge for the Time is running short but there's still time for you to plan to be part of one of the most exciting preaching events of the decade as you attend the third International Congress on Preaching, April 17-19 in Cambridge, England. This event is only held once every five years, so the next one won't be until 2012! ICOP 2007 will feature an amazing team of preachers and teachers, including N.T. Wright, David Jeremiah, Alister McGrath, Calvin Miller, Dave Stone, J. Alfred Smith, Michael Quicke, Timothy Warren, Robert Smith, Mike Glenn, Michael Milton, and many, many more. You'll enjoy stimulating addresses on the Congress theme, "For Such a Time as This: Preaching Truth in an Age of Idolatry." You'll hear challenging sermons, and you'll participate in practical workshops on a variety of preaching-related topics. There's still time to register, and airlines have recently announced transatlantic airfare sales, so make your plans now to be with us. To learn more (and register online), go to www.preaching.com/icop or you can call 800-527-5226 (toll free inside U.S.) or 615-386-3011 (outside the U.S.)
ILLUSTRATION: Success, Failure Eugene Peterson observes, "Among the apostles, the one absolutely stunning success was Judas, and the one thoroughly groveling failure was Peter. Judas was a success in the ways that most impress us: he was successful both financially and politically. He cleverly arranged to control the money of the apostolic band; he skillfully manipulated the political forces of the day to accomplish his goal. And Peter was a failure in ways that we most dread: he was impotent in a crisis and socially inept. At the arrest of Jesus he collapsed, a hapless, blustering coward; in the most critical situations of his life with Jesus, the confession on the road to Caesarea Philippi and the vision on the Mount of transfiguration, he said the most embarrassingly inappropriate things. He was not the companion we would want with us in time of danger, and he was not the kind of person we would feel comfortable with at a social occasion. "Time, of course, has reversed our judgments on the two men. Judas is now a byword for betrayal, and Peter is one of the most honored names in the church and in the world. Judas is a villain; Peter is a saint. Yet the world continues to chase after the successes of Judas, financial wealth and political power, and to defend itself against the failures of Peter, impotence and ineptness."
ILLUSTRATION: Challenges In his book Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, Chuck Swindoll wrote: "Several years ago I met a gentleman who served on one of Walt Disney's original advisory boards. What amazing stories he told! Those early days were tough; but that remarkable, creative visionary refused to give up. I especially appreciated the man's sharing with me how Disney responded to disagreements. He said that Walt would occasionally present some unbelievable, extensive dream he was entertaining. "Almost without exception, the members of his board would gulp, blink, and stare back at him in disbelief, resisting even the thought of such a thing. But unless every member resisted the idea, Disney usually didn't pursue it. Yes, you read that correctly. The challenge wasn't big enough to merit his time and creative energy unless they were unanimously in disagreement!" (Click here to learn more about the book Living Above the Level of Mediocrity)
ILLUSTRATION: Calling, Service In the March 2 edition of his Friday Evenings devotional, Tom Barnard tells this story: In the late 1920s, at the age of 26, an English woman named Gladys Aylward was turned down in her attempt to become a volunteer missionary to China. Her academic record was not great. But she heard about a 73-year-old missionary named Jeannie Lawson who was looking for a younger woman to carry on her work in the city of Yangchen in an area south of Peking. Miss Lawson invited Gladys to join her, but Gladys would have to pay for her own passage to get there. Through a series of miraculous events, Gladys finally made it to Yangchen, where she joined the older missionary in her work. Together they established an inn to provide food and housing for merchants traveling through their area. Following Lawson's untimely death, Gladys turned to taking in children orphaned during the war between Japan and China. In 1938 the region was invaded by Japanese forces, and Aylward was forced to leave. She led about a hundred orphan children to safety over the mountains and ocean, to Formosa. Her courageous efforts were told in the book, The Small Woman, by Alan Burgess. In 1958 the story was made into the Hollywood film, The Inn of Sixth Happiness. Gladys explained her amazing work like this: "I did not choose this. I was led into it by God. I am not really more interested in children than I am in other people, but God through his Holy Spirit gave me to understand that this is what he wanted me to do, so I did." Extraordinary
results are often accomplished by ordinary people who are convinced
that the Lord has given them to understand that "this"
is what he wants them to do. (To subscribe, send your name and email
address to barnard22@cox.net.)
ILLUSTRATION: Home, Family A woman was at home with her children when the telephone rang. In going to answer it, she tripped on a rug, grabbed for something to hold on to and seized the telephone table. It fell over with a crash, jarring the receiver off the hook. As it fell, it hit the family dog, which leaped up, howling and barking. The woman's three-year-old son, startled by this noise, broke into loud screams. The woman mumbled some colorful words. She finally managed to pick up the receiver and lift it to her ear, just in time to hear her husband's voice on the other end say, "Nobody's said hello yet, but it certainly sounds as if I have the right number." (from Mikey's Funnies)
ILLUSTRATION: Friendship, Choices A group of friends went deer hunting and paired off in twos for the day. That night, one of the hunters returned alone, staggering under the weight of an eight-point buck. "Where's Henry?" the others asked. "Henry had a stroke of some kind. He's a couple of miles back up the trail," the successful hunter replied. "You left Henry laying out there and carried the deer back?" they inquired. "It was a tough call," nodded the hunter. "But I figured no one is going to steal Henry!"
On the preacher's bookshelf . . . Out this month is the tenth edition of John Glynn's Commentary & Reference Survey (Kregel), which has become a "must have" guidebook for those interested in serious biblical study. Glynn takes us on a tour of the best commentaries and resources for biblical study, and suggests ways to invest in order to maximize our investment in such materials. Consider this the "Consumer Reports" guide to where to spend your commentary dollars.
Wisdom from military trainers (part 1) "A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit." (Army magazine of preventive maintenance) "Aim towards the Enemy." (Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher) "When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend. (U.S. Marine Corps) "Cluster bombing from B-52s are very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground." (USAF Ammo Troop) "If the enemy is in range, so are you." (Infantry Journal) "It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed." (U.S. Air Force Manual) "Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons." (General Macarthur) "Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo." (Infantry Journal) "You, you, and you -- panic. The rest of you, come with me." (U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.) "Tracers
work both ways." (U.S. Army Ordnance) "Five second fuses only last three seconds." (Infantry Journal) "Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything." (U.S. Navy Swabbie) "Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid." (David Hackworth) "If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush." (Infantry Journal) "No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection." (Joe Gay) "Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once." "Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do." (Unknown Marine Recruit) "Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you." "If you see a bomb technician running, follow him." (USAF Ammo Troop) "Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death, I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing." (At the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base, Kadena, Japan)
And finally . . . "Thirteen-year-old Katharine Tuck's sneakers are equal opportunity offenders. They smell as bad as they look." According to a March 20 AP story, the Utah seventh-grader is $2,500 richer because of her nasty footwear, as she out-ranked six other children to win the 32nd annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest. Katherine stunk up the joint "with a pair of well-worn 1 1/2-year-old Nikes so noxious they had the judges wincing." "I'm so proud of the little stinker," said her mother, Paula Tuck. Apparently parental pride has no limits.
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PreachingNow
is a publication of Salem Publishing. Editor: Dr. Michael Duduit.
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