12 Witnesses

Just one pic today. I am still not feeling 100%, but this pic is of a Gerber Daisy that my wife has planted around the house. I took the picture in the Spring, but had not yet posted it - so I didn’t have to do much to post this.

Back in the saddle soon. I’m starting to feel better. Thanks for the encouragement.

Sorry for not posting right now.

I’m not feeling well, and just don’t have the energy to compose thoughts.

Back with you in a few days.

As always, check out the other articles from those folks blogging the spiritual disciplines at Words Are Not Enough, live from New Orleans; aka Joe Kennedy’s blog.

Simplicity.

Hmm. Frankly I’ve never really pursued simplicity. It is not that I don’t think it worthy. Just the opposite. I think the simplistic lifestyle is a very worthy pursuit. Just not one to which I have given myself.

Full disclosure, here. I’m an 80’s guy. High School and College - all of my independence and self growth - took place during the decade that was known for its self indulgence. To say that I am a product of my culture is a no brainer.

That is not to say, however, that I am for the indulgence of my personal whims. Quite the opposite. In the last decade, my wife and I have not purchased things that we very much wanted because we could not afford them. We are working our way out of debt, and are making some real headway, I might say. Those who are self indulgent do not say “no” to their whims.

That’s not quite “Simplicity” though, is it? Simplicity is not about choosing the “goody” that it most wants and leaving the others behind. Simplicity is about leaving aside things that complicate your life with desire, demands on your time and attention - things that make you complex.

I am all for not loving the things of the world. 1 John 2:15 - “Do not love the world, nor anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Nevertheless, I am drawn to complexity like a moth to flame. I love my Treo, XBOX, Laptop, iPod and everything that I can hook these things up to or use to micromanage my life or fill it with things. Often, these things are not inherently “wrong.” The only games on my XBOX are sports; the songs on my iPod are almost exclusively Christian; I use my laptop to blog, but also to write sermons and prepare the outline/power point for them; my Treo is my link to church members, calendar of meetings, contacts and more.

As I said, they are not “wrong” in and of themselves, but is the complexity they bring, and that I so enjoy, what is best for my life in Christ?

I fill up my time so much that I am often exhausted. When I am tired, I make poor decisions and I am not compassionate. I have become so busy juggling my life that I fear slowing down. You see, to drop what I have fought so long to keep in the air goes against the nature I have trained into myself. I’ve spent a long time learning to juggle this life. I have invested money as well as effort in the ability to stay as busy as I am. Frankly, it’s a habit that I enjoy and I can’t necessarily say is a sin, so I have a hard time thinking that I should not only start letting phone calls go, but actually turning off my phone. What? No email? What if someone needs me?

As a result of this lifestyle, I often need a nap, yet seldom get one. I often need to look on others with refreshed eyes that see God at work, but look on them with eyes that don’t really have time to take in the fullness of the picture before me - so many other things need my attention. I often need to think clearly, but the demands of the massive amounts of information clutter my thoughts and confuse me.

I am not good at simplicity, but perhaps I should be.

Or this post could be titled Power in Preaching 5 (Addendum)

I have noted the interesting correlation in my ability to preach with my personal sense of holiness. Not that I necessarily think that I am holy, (although that matters as well, but on a different level) but that I have a sense that I have laid aside those things that I desire in my flesh in order to be prepared to preach.

Often, I am not very “holy” at all as the outworking of Sanctification has varied at times in my life from very much to very little control of my thoughts, actions, desires and motives. When preparing to preach, I am very aware that if I allow something I know to be sinful in my life, it will weigh me down and has the potential to destroy whatever message might have been given.

It is destructive in several ways. First it destroys my peace of mind. I wrestle with a sense of unworthiness when I evaluate my holiness. I know that some would take that to mean that I wrestle with some particularly gruesome sin or sins, but it is not that simple. The fact is that all my sins are particularly gruesome, for all of them have the power to enslave and destroy. The same is true for all of us.

Another way the presence of sin is destructive in preaching is that haunts the mind. As I try to think through what I am to say, remembrances of that which I willfully have harbored in my heart spring to mind, distracting me from the task at hand and rendering me into a stuttering fool, with no power.

Ultimately, it is destructive of my ability to preach because I cut off sensitivity to the Holy Spirit by rejecting His divine conviction in favor of separation from Him and union with my fleshly preferences. Without the Holy Spirit’s power, what good is preaching? Orators are not preachers. Too often those are easily confused.

That did not happen yesterday, by the way. I have taken some personal baby steps in furthering God’s control over my life by eliminating some things that I felt were dragging me down. Under personal conviction, I have struggled against them and have met more success than failure.

It is not that I am more holy now than I ever have been, either. It is more that I am winning some of the battles or, rather, that God is winning them in me. They are important battles, too. Well, they all are, but I have a sense that this is the key to my relationship with God and His ability to use me in leading my church. For me, this is the focus of the holy Spirit, as He speaks to me.

So I find myself with more “junk” in my life than I have had at other times of my life, but feeling so good about God’s victories in my life, I sense great power in His work in me and in the church. Therefore, I approach the pulpit with both confidence and sensitvity to the Holy Spirit.

Our friend Christy Taylor (wife of friend and fellow minister Jason Taylor) holding a sleeping Daisy not long after the puppies arrived.

Another view of the field of windmills by Weatherford, OK. This time with a faster shutter speed to stop the motion.

Yesterday, I performed the funeral for a combat veteran from the “Forgotten War,” The Korean Conflict. I knew Lonnie Chaffin a little. I’ve only been here a year and his health did not allow him to come to church often. He was quiet, kind and gentle. That’s what I remember.

At 9:00 am we were milling around the War Memorial at Floral Haven Cemetery here in Tulsa. This is an area for funerals, but also where soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are buried with special honor. Their decorations are noted on their grave markers. Fallen heroes of our nation.

I looked out from under the canopy as a row of American Flags, and one Oklahoma flag, flew almost taught from their poles at the entrance to the memorial. It was a striking sight as they fluttered in a mildly strong, but slightly cool, refreshing breeze. They stood in contrast against a bright, clear, blue sky with white, fluffy clouds in the background.

Bagpipes behind me began to play and instinctively, everyone came to attention. I noticed that I stood straight - almost at attention. As the honor guard escorted his flag draped casket to its position under the canopy, the family huddled on the benches before it, comforting one another.

A tear rolled down my left cheek.

I had this overwhelming sense that I needed to do the very best I could. Not just in the service. Everywhere. I always try to give my best to the families who are grieving. I felt that I needed to go home and work harder at everything to which I laid my hands.

I was there to pay tribute to a man who had risked his life, the future, the very existence of the family now gathered before his casket, to ensure that I had the ability to live and love and pursue happiness in our country.

The chaplain completes the military honors at the end of the service with some thoughts, honoring the life of a fallen sailor. The honor guard pulls tight the flag and begins to fold it. They pass it to one another, each saluting in turn. The sailor receives it and takes it to the widow, surrounded by her children, and kneels.

“On behalf of the President of the United States, and a grateful nation, I present this flag to you in honor of your husband …”

More tears on my cheek.

The bagpipes begin to play Amazing Grace, and I move to speak to the family. We are dismissed to the sounds of mournful pipes and the honor guard escort the casket to its final resting place.

For whatever reasons, my blog bit the dust last night. The interesting thing about it though was that I was contacted by a couple of church members right away to let me know. Then I had a few bloggers let me know.

Frankly, I am thrilled to death that my church members were reading my blog and were doing so more diligently than those in the blogosphere I have come to know over the last couple of years. Not that I don’t care about a diverse readership. I do. But mostly I am thrilled that I am making some inroads into the lives of our church family through this blog.

Honestly, I am writing more with them in mind all the time, so this has been an affirmation.

I won’t lie and say that my pride didn’t rise up and tempt me when I went from 7,000 hits a day during the SBC and 1,500 per day on average to about 250 to 350 per day now, depending on what I write. That statcounter can be useful, but it can also be idolatrous.

Anyway, I am grateful for those who think I have something thoughtful to say nowdays and truly appreciate your dropping by.

The blog seems to be running all right now. I am going to write a post tonight about the funeral I did this morning and have it drop tomorrow morning. It was a military funeral and it was incredible to experience the wash of emotions. Well, I don’t want to spill it all now. Come back tomorrow and check it out.

As always, check out the others blogging the Disciplines at Joe Kennedy’s place.

I was first introduced to the concept of Journaling in seminary when I read Bill Hybel’s book, Honest to God. It was one of Bill’s first, if not THE first, and it was my first introduction to a guy who would become very well known among American Evangelicals, if not very well appreciated.

This is not about him, though, it is about journaling. As a part of the book, Bill took on personal time with God and encouraged people to journal as it had revolutionized his time with God. Seminary was a time of incredible Spiritual Growth for me. The book and subsequent journaling that I added into my life was a major part of that.

When I journal, still to this day, I journal as per Bill’s suggestion. I write a page in my notebook about what is going on in my world. Obviously, as this is about time with God, I also reflect on Him and His work in my life. In other words, if I am enjoying good times or struggling with hard times, I write about them, but from the viewpoint of what I see God doing in them and in me. I go on to write out my prayers, but I’ve already written about that.

Journaling prepares my heart for prayer. It gets me focused on God. it helps me to think through the raw emotions that I am feeling and to focus on why I feel that way and if I am right or wrong to feel that way in light of what I know about God and what I know about the way He relates to me and the rest of His creation.

It is imperative that journals be kept safe. I have, on occasion, read to people from my journal, but only things that are “safe” for me. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that you will find all my secret sins if you find my journals, but that is not what I am talking about.

If you are not committed to keeping your journals private, you begin to write with the idea that you are writing for posterity and not for honesty. If journaling is to be beneficial, it must be honest. Editing your words in a way that makes you sound a little better than you are, which is what you will do if you think that others will be one day reading your journals, will cause you to be shallow. Moreover, it will reinforce the bad behavior journaling is intended to alleviate - that of having a heart that is unprepared and sheltered from the probing eye of the Holy Spirit as you pray.

Not long after I started, I had grown so much in the endeavor, I became legalistically addicted to it. I had once left my journal in a friends’ room - I forget why I had it there, but I was not sharing it - and when I got up to have my time with God, I couldn’t find my journal. As a result, I didn’t spend time with God. Journaling had become equivalent for me with time alone with God. No two ways around it - that’s idolatry.

So disciplines are means to an end, not an end to themselves.

Two things about preaching with power now.

First, passion. When I am passionate about that which I proclaim, it has power. Frankly, that is just good oration. Any good public speaker will speak with passion. Any great public speaker will roll his passion in waves, peaking at just the right moments finally ending with the greatest crescendo.

The good thing is that, as a preacher, you can get better. The bad thing is that you can fake power. Oration and power aren’t the same.

The flip side is when I think I’ve gone flat, but people are changed. The Word is powerful. The Word can’t be faked. I loved yesterday’s sermons. There were just a few brief moments of passion, but not many. Mostly, I was trying to get through the vast material on time, which I did. I had five points in the morning and just 30 minutes to get through them and the invitation.

You see, we share our facility with two other congregations, one Korean and one Hmong. They meet after us, and they have been patient, but we have pushed them back with almost 90 minute services - which is way out of hand. The services are flying by, and most people really enjoy them, but that’s another blog. The deal is, I had to put a move on.

So I did. The night was similar, pressed by an impending business meeting. On both occasions I picked my moments to settle on profound truths, but for the most part, I hit the high points of the Scripture and moved on with brief illustrations.

But I got more feedback from the congregation today than I had on many occasions when I had tried to illicit a reaction. The after sermon comments talked of great content. Hmm. The content? Simple exegesis of the text. In truth, I am not responsible for the content. The Scripture is.

I have heard many a “powerful” orator preach with tremendous ability to capture the mind and inspire. I have also been greatly captured and inspired by Shakespeare. I have further seen many a great orator fall from the pulpit with personal scandal. Passion and oration is seldom power.

Paul wrote this:

1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

Emphases mine.

So, how do you improve your preaching, but deny your desire to use oratory skills to fake power, or produce temporary inspiration that will never have eternal significance?