The Way To See It #12: Dorothy Sayers

New Blog Book Coming Monday

I’ve turned my sermon series “Missio Dei”  into a “blog book”.  I’m going to publish it Monday.  Stay tuned.  Here’s an excerpt:

“Webster defines boredom as: “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.”  The reason there are boring sermons, and boring churches, and boring believers is that we have lost interest in the gospel.  We hear the gospel so often.  And we’re bored.  G. K. Chesterton has said that a yawn is a silent shout.  We hear the gospel and we yawn.  In our boredom our souls are shouting.  They long for our lives to be consumed by the mystery of God.  Maybe we could adapt Paul’s words to summarize this problem, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is bored.”

My last blog-book “What I Love About the Gospel” is available on the resources link.  Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me in this process of packaging my campus church sermon series.  I hope that these can be helpful and encouraging to you.  Feel free to use them for any ministry purposes.

Lewis on Life #1

“Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection.  If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water.  If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.” (from Mere Christianity, .176).

The Way To See It #11: George MacDonald

The Aesthetic of an Argument

Aesthetics matter to me.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like football, or hunting, or fishing…I just really value aesthetics.

I recently had someone ask me about my teaching style and how it relates to my value for symmetry and beauty.  To be honest, while I have thought about this before, I had never articulated a rationale of how the two are related.  While some might assume that an artistic person would prefer more of a “free form” story teller type of preacher – I actually get bored quickly if there is not a clear, linear, tightly planned argumentation.  This might have to do with my own intellectual and spiritual journey more than anything else, but I don’t want to completely dismiss the relationship between aesthetics and apologetics.

Some of my favorite authors and teachers are people who teach from the overflow of a well-studied, yet creative, mind.  I think the reason I love speakers like Tim Keller, and authors like C.S. Lewis, is that their train of thought is always intentional, vivid, strategic, and powerfully creative.  The aesthetic value does not reside in their gimmicks but in their content.  While some modern day speakers are applauded for luxurious props (like having a Lamborghini on stage while they preach) I think such antics reveal a lack of creativity. While I have no biblical nor dogmatic personal preference against such methods, I don’t rate them as “overly” creative.

For me, and I know everyone differs on such preferences, the creativity I value the most comes from the content of someone’s sermon.  It is the aesthetics of an argument that I value more than props, gimmicks, store bought illustrations, or the like.

“The Puritans applied such poetic artistry to their sermonizing….” “Puritan writers, readers, and auditors found not only piety, but also aesthetic pleasure in the manipulation of the biblical text”.
(Stephen Nichols.  2007.  Downers Grove, IL: IVP.  Jesus made in America, 25)

A Poetic Digression

The Cross and the Curse
(A Poetic Digression)

From nothing You formed the earth,
Though Satan tempted Adam to sin give birth.
Now fallen man must live under the curse,
Until the set time You would reverse.
In the fullness, Your Son You did send,
That sinful man might apprehend.
The work of Your plan established firm,
The Deceiver’s plots only to affirm.
Your might and power would not be lost,
While You delighted to give Your Son a cross.
In this paradox we dimly see,
The glory of Your matchless majesty.
How over the curse and by the cross,
Our salvation You purchased at great cost.
Make our stone hearts feel again,
The mystery of Your glorious plan.

The Way to See It #10: G. K. Chesterton

Remembering Todd

In remembering 911, I’ve especially thought about Todd Beamer today.  He was my age (32) on the day he gave his life fighting to prevent his plane from being used as a part of a terrorist attack.  The plan was likely intended for the White House or the Capital Building.

The Church & a Toothache

Nothing is worse than the pulsating, all-consuming, throbbing sensation of a toothache. You can try to ignore it, but you won’t be successful.  You will be reminded of its presence wherever you go.  You can’t run from the reality of a toothache.

The Broken Ministry

I once heard a preacher say that you could appropriately place a sign outside of the church with the message “Sinners Are Us.”  On the opposite side of the coin you could feature the message “Saints Are Us.”  We live in the midst of a paradox.  We are sinners who are saved by grace and are therefore saints.  However, life does happen and our sainthood isn’t always as clear as we would like. A.W. Tozer commented on this tension in the biblical characters: