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The International Congress on Preaching -- held last week in Cambridge, England -- was a remarkable event that touched churches around the globe. Nearly 500 pastors from more than a dozen nations gathered for three days of preaching, practical workshops, and addresses exploring the theme: "For Such a Time as This: Preaching Truth in an Age of Idolatry." Participants heard fascinating insights about effective biblical preaching in today's culture, along with encouragement for the task. As soon as our team gets over jet lag and gets unpacked, we'll post some photo highlights of the Congress at our website (www.preaching.com/icop), along with an order form to obtain audio CDs or tapes of Congress speakers and workshops. (If it's not there when you read this, just check back in a couple of days.) By the way, it's not too soon to mark your calendar for next year's National Conference on Preaching, which will be held April 7-9, 2008, in Washington, DC. The theme is "Preaching and the Public Square: Where Do Pulpit and Culture Meet?" It's going to be a great event that you won't want to miss! Michael
Duduit, Editor Click here to visit "I Was Just Thinking" (Michael's blog) for insights and observations about faith and culture issues. Recent topics: The Faith Debate; Backing away from 'The Tomb of Jesus'
When Images Fail In his book Preaching with All You've Got (Hendrickson), British pastor David Day encourages the use of image-filled language in preaching, but he also reminds us that there are times when particular images just won't work: "First, some images are just too unpleasant for the listeners to take. A Christmas message contained the image of the incarnation as 'God interjecting himself into the world's blood stream.' It was a vivid picture, certainly, but a number of people found the motif of the hypodermic needle and the hospital context too painful to dwell on. "Second, some images don't work because they divert attention from the point of the sermon. I still enjoy the memory of a good friend of mine describing Jesus as a light. Christ's attractiveness meant that people were drawn to him. 'Just like the candle flame to which all the moths are . . .' (drawn so that they die in agony, presumably.) Just in time he saw that this image really wasn't quite doing the job he hoped for and had the confidence to turn it into a joke with the congregation. "Third, some analogies trivialize what is holy. For example, God is not much like a duvet nor Jesus like Coca-Cola. "Fourth, some word pictures tend toward the sentimental. I'm fond of the image in the old hymn: 'In our dear Lord's garden, planted here below, many tiny flowerets in sweet beauty grow.' I know this to be true because I've seen them, fighting to get on to the school bus, with mobiles (cell phones) clasped to their ears, flowerets every one." (Click here to learn more about the book Preaching with All You've Got)
Smile -- you're one of the happy ones Clergy are the happiest in their work among the 198 vocations surveyed in a recent study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The report was featured in the April 17 Chicago Tribune. Ministers ranked tops in both job satisfaction and general happiness, while "physical therapists and firefighters were second- and third-ranked in job satisfaction. Other occupations in which more than 60 percent said they were very satisfied included teachers, painters and sculptors, psychologists and authors." The Tribune reports that the worker satisfaction study is based on data collected since 1988 on more than 27,500 randomly selected people. The survey indicates that 87 percent of clergy said they were "very satisfied" with their work, compared with an average 47 percent for all workers. Among clergy, 67 percent reported being "very happy," compared with an average 33 percent for all workers. (Click here to read the full article.) http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704160387apr17,0,6484345.story?coll=chi-business-hed
When God Shows Up In his new book When God Comes to Church (B&H Publishing), Steve Gaines asserts that the great need of the church today is a renewed sense of God's presence. He writes: "I once heard an old-time preacher speaking about God sending fire from heaven onto Mount Carmel during the prophet Elijah's day (I Kings 18). He said that the manifest presence of God is 'when God shows up, and He shows off!' He comes in not to take sides but to take over. When He arrives in splendor and glory, it is obvious to everyone that He is present and He is in charge. The human agendas fade away in the overwhelmingly awesome presence of the King of kings. "For years now this has been my primary prayer for every worship service in the churches I have served. The longer I live, the less interested I am in how many people we have in the sanctuary. What is far more important to me is how much of God we have in the place. If He comes, we will have a wonderful service, no matter if there's only a handful. I know some preachers who think if a thousand people come to their morning services, or fifteen hundred, or two thousand, they've had a great Sunday. Not necessarily. I say to them, 'You haven't had a great Sunday unless God shows up!'" (Click here to learn more about When God Comes to Church)
Three 'Preaching Truth' conferences set for May A new series of Preaching Truth in a Whatever World events are planned for May 2007. These one-day preaching conferences explore strategies for effective biblical preaching in a postmodern world. Led by Preaching editor Michael Duduit and a variety of guest speakers, these conferences offer a valuable time of insight and refreshment for those who proclaim the Word. Preaching Truth conferences will be held in the following cities: Columbia,
SC -- May 8 For more information or to register, call (800) 288-9673, or visit the website at www.preaching.com/truth
ILLUSTRATION: Encouragement In his Tuesday Mornings newsletter, Tom Barnard shares this: In her book, Especially for a Woman (Thomas Nelson), Ann Kiemel Anderson remembered a story told her by her sister, Jan. Here is a cutting from the story: Jan taught 3rd grade once, a long time ago. One bright-eyed boy would stand at her desk, watch her, talk to her, and all the while wrapping his finger around a piece of her hair into a little curl. He thought Jan was the shining star in the night. Over and over, however, he did poorly in his work assignments and daily quizzes. One day Jan stopped, looked at him, and said, "Rodney, you are very smart. You could be doing so well in school. In fact, you are one of my finest students . . . " Before she could continue to tell him that he should be doing much better in school, he looked up at her with sober, large eyes. "I did not know that!" From that moment on, Rodney began to change. His papers were neater, cleaner and his spelling improved. He was one of her top students -- all because she affirmed him. She told him something no one ever had before, and it changed his life.
ILLUSTRATION: Witness, Holy Spirit The sound of the gavel opening the Republican National Convention on July 31, 2000 was not really the sound of the gavel. When doing sound tests, the audio engineer for the convention discovered that the noise the gavel actually made was not impressive enough to fill the huge hall in Philadelphia, so he pre-recorded an "ideal gavel sound" that was played over the loudspeakers when the moderator struck the desk with the stand-in gavel. The gavel served as a switch to trigger an "electronically reproduced gavel pulse." Our gavel, our witness for Christ, is not loud enough either. We need the Holy Spirit to be our Loudspeaker. We need to let God's power come into our lives and make us a gavel, a witness, that is only worthy because of what God has done in our lives. (from Jeffrey Arthurs; source: "All Things Considered," National Public Radio, 7-30-00)
ILLUSTRATION: Fathers, Promises In his forthcoming book When You've Been Wronged (Moody), Erwin Lutzer tells this story: "A young pastor began a ministry on Saturday mornings to the inmates of the local county jail. Each week he'd go into the jail cells and conduct Bible studies and prayer sessions among the inmates -- mostly young white men who were doing time for anything from burglary to habitual drug use. As he'd enter the jail the despair and anger among these nineteen to twenty-four-year-olds was palpable. "When the young pastor asked the warden how so many young men with great promise could end up in such a place, the warden sighed and said, 'This place is filled with boys who got tired of waiting for their dads to keep their promises -- promises to provide, promises to show up and spend time with them, promises to come home at night -- they finally got so angry with the injustice of it, they went out and did stupid things.' "Young men waiting for their dads to keep their promises! What a sobering reminder that broken promises can help send a young man down a road of personal destruction." (The book will be released in July. Click here to pre-order a copy.)
ILLUSTRATION: Death After dying in a car crash, three friends go to Heaven for orientation. All are asked the same question: "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?" The first guy immediately responds, "I would like to hear them say that I was one of the great doctors of my time, and a great family man." The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in the lives of children." The last guy thinks a minute and replies, "I would like to hear them say: LOOK, HE'S MOVING!"
"You have to start tithing when you have little if you are going to tithe when you have much." (James E. Carter)
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ILLUSTRATION: Imitation The man was in a hurry taking his 8-year-old son to school, and he made a U-turn at a red light where it was prohibited. "Oops, I just made an illegal turn!" the man said. "That's okay, Dad," the son said. "The police car right behind us did the same thing."
"A pessimist is someone who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks."
You Know You're in the Wrong Church When . . . 9. The church bus has gun racks. 8. The church staff consists of Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor and Socio-pastor. 7. The Bible they use is the "Dr. Seuss Version." 6. There's an ATM in the lobby. 5. The choir wears leather robes. 4. Worship services are B.Y.O.S.: "Bring Your Own Snake." 3. Karaoke Worship Time. 2. Ushers ask, "Smoking or Non-smoking?" 1. The only song the organist knows is "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."
And finally . . . Those of us who get our thumbs tied in knots trying to punch a number in a cell phone can only stand in awe of 13-year-old Morgan Pozgar, who was crowned LG National Texting champion over the weekend. The teenager from Claysburg, Pa. won the crown after she typed "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (from the "Mary Poppins" tune) in 15 seconds. According to an April 22 AP story, Morgan defeated nearly 200 other competitors to become East Coast champion, then beat West Coast champion Eli Tirosh, 21. How did she get so proficient at typing in text? She estimated that she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month to her friends and family. Asked how she planned to spend her $25,000 prize, she explained, "I'm going to go shopping and buy lots of clothes." She might consider applying part of the winnings toward those text messaging bills as well.
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