God is the main actor in the preaching moment, but sometimes preachers forget.

When preachers ​one of the questions that comes up is "what are you preaching?"  This sounds like a fine question, like a group of scientists getting together asking each other what they are researching. 

This question generally breaks down into two types of answers: The "brag" and the "life changer". 

The brag is when preachers talk about how innovative the sermon or series was. Generally it is expressed in modest terms but it is clear that the sermon was nothing short of greatness. It was flawless and it is shared that this sermon is just one of a 'typical' sermon. The brag also contains any gimmicks that were used: videos, text messages during the sermon, painters while preaching, etc.

The life changer is when preachers talk about how many lives were changed or affected by the sermon or series. This is a more nuanced version of the brag but it is much more acceptable because preachers feel that we are in the life changing/transforming business.​

In the same way that farmers like to talk about the quality of the harvest, preachers like to talk about the quality of the sermon. But unlike farmers who also talk about the processes they used to get such a harvest, preachers are not very good or interested in talking about the process we use to craft sermons. 

But I want to talk about the process of preaching. I really am not interested in the product of preaching that we call the sermon.

Here is why.​

Regardless of how clear I think I am, people get from sermons things that I did not say or did not mean. People get from sermons what they get from sermons and I believe that God is the man agent of the preaching moment.

Rather than talking about the product, the sermon, of which the preacher has much less control over how it is heard and interpreted  I would rather talk about the process of how the preacher crafts sermons. 

Perhaps preachers don't talk too much about process because few lives are changed by sermon processes and it is much harder to brag. ​

Annual post

A couple of years ago I had an encounter with Amazon. You can read the story here.​

Last year, I posted about it here. ​

All of this to say, and in the event you did not read the previous posts, Amazon's customer service is excellent and I delight in the day that they will have retail shops (are you listening Radio Shack).

Get yourself a Kindle.​

The wisdom of Men in Black...

If you have ever seen the movie Men in Black, then you may recall this scene after "Jay" fires his weapon called the "noisy cricket":​

KAY We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public.

JAY Can we drop the cover-up bullshit?! There's an Alien Battle Cruiser that's gonna blow-up the world if we don't...

KAY There's always an Alien Battle Cruiser...or a Korlian Death Ray, or...an intergalactic plague about to wipe out life on this planet, 

​There always something that is threatening to be the end of the world.

In fact one fella has created a little infograph called Mountains out of Molehills​ which charts global media scare stories and the deaths related to those stories.

There is always a threat to our way of life. Today it is "the sequester"​. Before that it was the "fiscal cliff". Which was not long after the "debt ceiling crisis". 

What I think is interesting is that the thing that really was a threat to a way of life was something that was overlooked in its time.

The death and resurrection ​of Jesus Christ changed the world. It is a threat to all those who rule with violence, fear and oppression. It is a direct threat to empires and those who believe in their authority.

So, while there will always be "Chicken Littles"​ who believe the foxes that the sky is falling. But Christians know that the greatest agent of change was not a fox, but a lamb.

Do not listen to the foxes.