Liberals who watch FOXNews - uncomfortable on purpose

Scripture is often a source of great comfort for many people. When there is a funeral you can but there will be a reading from Psalm 23. When you hear 1 Corinthians 13 is read, 93.6% of the time you are at a wedding. When there is tragedy in real life or in a play, you can find scripture be a source of strength and comfort.

In the same breath, scripture is also the source of great discomfort. When Jesus tells the people to sell all they have and give it to the poor. When we read about God destroying people and nations. Where there is a difficult teaching for which there is no simple answer, you can find scripture to be a source of discomfort.

We watch the news to be comforted. This is why conservatives will watch FOXNews and liberals watch MSNBC. We watch the news in order to hear others tell us that our worldview is correct. We love to hear our side is correct and the other side is wrong and idiotic.

For many Christians, we tend to read scripture like we watch the news. We choose the places that we like that affirm our worldview. We choose the places that provide us comfort and provide discomfort for others. We choose our own canon which we feel is "truer" or "more in line with God" than other scripture.

Do yourself and the world a favor - read the discomforting scripture. Watch the "other" news channel. Allow for the possibility that you may be wrong. The irony is that by listening to only the sources that bring us comfort, we actually harden our hearts through the phenomena of expectation confirmation.

The greatest form of evangelism?

For so many reasons, when the church thinks of evangelism it generally thinks of two things.

1. Something that people do on street corners (and then there are feelings/opinions about that
2. A marketing campaign

This post will address the second point.

Evangelism is not marketing.

We tend to think that a slick marketing campaign is the way to get people into the doors. Or that new pastors will bring new people. Or that if we only had the newest building then families would join the church. Or if we had the greatest bible studies or program for people to come to during the week that they would abandon their other obligations and come to church.

But the fact of the matter is there is only one thing in the history of the church that has ever worked to bring people into the faith and lead to transformed lives.

And it is not a new building or a new sign. (Do you know that there is a church that does not have a sign in front of it?!) It is not a program or a study. It is not new pastors or new leadership. The one thing that has always lead to transformation is a church that has generous people.

Generosity is the greatest evangelism that we have. It is the greatest practice that we have that shows people who we are and what we are about. Because when we see a generous life it is so compelling that we cannot help but be drawn into it and learn more.

Watch the first 4 minutes of this video:

This Is My Home from Mark on Vimeo.

People don’t come back to this man’s home because of the collection of odd and peculiar items in the home. No! People come back to this man’s home and bring friends because of his hospitality, his invitation, his generosity.

Everyone is compelled to see a person who lives out the generous life. Because deep down everyone knows generosity is the way we ought to be. Everyone longs to know how to live the life that gives everything yet grows all the richer.

Historically, Christians are people who are defined by generosity. We are the people who look at what we have and say “All this isn’t ours! We’re just like an overseer! And if [someone] tells us that “this is mine.” We’ll tell them, “You know what? It’s yours? It’s yours!” We give it.”

Generosity is not a marketing campaign, it is a lifestyle.

So Church, temper the desire for good marketing with the spiritual practice of generosity and see the greatest form of evangelism at work.

Read a book while it is being written, write a sermon as it is preached

Sylvia Hartmann is an author who is writing a book. Not a big deal, loads of people write books.

But Harrmann is using Google Docs to write her latest book, The Dragon Lords. Which means that everyone who clicks on her link to the manuscript - found here - at a certain time of day will be able to see her literally type each letter and watch the story unfold before your eyes.

You will be able to read a book as it is written.

What a great idea and what a great way to read/encounter a book.

To me this is an example, in part, of what it means to have a dialogue sermon.

In a dialogical sermon, there is a primary focus for the conversation and the preacher functions like a guide. As the focus is presented then people are asked to contribute to the creation of the sermon as it is being preached. Where most people will see a conversation others, with the eyes of Gospel, will see a sermon being preached.

For me, the metaphor of a journey does not "work" well to describe the spiritual life, but it does work well for describing dialogical sermons.

The preacher is the guide who asks the community to walk with them for a while. As the community walks together, people will notice that there are other paths to walk down. Through the conversation people may walk down paths and even run along rabbit trails. This can look or feel messy or even as though we are "not going anywhere". The guide has faith that the community will discover together where God is calling them to walk.

Other than helping the community move along the path(s) of conversation, the guild is also the one who is trained to see other paths and trails that the community has missed. Because of the guide's training and education and experience, the community trusts the guide will show them things they otherwise would have missed. (This is why sermon preparation for a dialogue sermon can be much more rigorous than a traditional monologue sermon, because you have to be on the look out for the non-obvious of you will not be able to point the overlooked trails out.)

When an author invites people to read a book as it is written it can be a scary thing for the author because of the level of vulnerability the author puts herself in. Hartmann is allowing many people to see her process, her edits, her mistakes and even provide feedback and input into the creation of the story. She is open to what the community has to say and is able to discover what the community's gems are and integrate them into the story.

Frankly, if that is not a way to do a sermon, then I don't know what a sermon in a community would look like.