Dan's Marinations

After a good period of time preaching several sermon series, I decided to return to the Revised Common Lectionary this fall.  As I was planning out these sermons I couldn't help noticing that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 shows up as the lectionary epistle reading for this Sunday, November 9.  With the very recent release of a remade Left Behind movie starring Nicolas Cage, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to preach it this week.  Before doing so, I would like to go into a little more detail about this form of eschatology and spare having to do so much during the sermon itself. The doctrine of a "secret" rapture of the church is almost an article of faith in some circles today.  Drawing in part on this portion of 1 Thessalonians, it holds that Jesus will return twice.  The first time is secret and snatches up the church, believers, leaving the rest of humanity to suffer through seven years of tribulation before Jesus returns in glory to usher in the Kingdom.  1 Th

Over the past couple of months I've been musing here about evangelism, and I suspect that this post will pretty much wrap up this series unless the Spirit moves me otherwise.  I started by asserting that too many people and churches live in nostalgia for some mythical past rather than thinking about the future.  This past is always better than it actually was in reality.  I then offered three basic assumptions that must be in place for evangelism to take place.  Next, evangelism is personal I wrote.  At heart it is one person interacting with another.  It always comes best from relationship.  Lastly, it is very important that we know our own story.  If you have have faith, there is a story of how it came to be there.  Think about your story, how you came to know Christ. What I suggest now is that just as it is important to know your own story, it is important to know what you believe.  This does not require a seminary degree, or any specialized knowledge at all.  Theological edu

Over the last several weeks several thoughts about evangelism have been marinating in my mind.  First was the idea that it's hard to go forward while looking backward.  Far too many churches look backward nostalgically to some mythical past, rather than looking to the future.  Yes, we do need to reflect on what we've done from time to time, but only in order to make what we do in the future better.  The second thing I mentioned was that evangelism requires three basic assumptions:  that God was/is doing something unique in the Christ event, that we must have some understanding of the thanks that we owe to God, and lastly that we must believe that the life of faith is the best life available.  If we can't at least handle these, my suggestion was to skip the church enterprise altogether and go to the golf course.  Lastly, I suggested that evangelism is personal and comes best in the context of relationship.  It is one person taking an interest in developing a relationship wit

An evangelism related blog I was reading recently included the following illustration.  An expert on evangelism and outreach was visiting a local church.  In the meeting one of the members asked him what the church could do to reach out to the growing immigrant population at their local school.  To this, the resource person responded, "what are you doing to reach out to them?" Churches do have an important role in evangelism.  They can do publicity and marketing campaigns such as putting up banners at local school fields and gyms, having billboards, church signs, conducting mass mailings, and maintaining a user-friendly and visitor-friendly website, etc.  The local church also has other important roles in evangelism.  One of the most important of which is to equip and motivate its members for mission.  This includes forming and training disciples.  The church's educational programs should encourage and enable members to think more deeply about their faith.  The church c

There are a number of assumptions that are necessary for evangelism.  These don't guarantee that evangelism will take place, but they must be understood in order for evangelism to happen.  You might say that they create an environment or atmosphere where it can happen.  Meteorologists issue thunderstorm or tornado watches based on atmospheric conditions.  Based upon a whole host of variables such as barometric pressure, temperature at the surface, temperature aloft, relative humidity, etc. they can say that there's a good chance that a storm will pop up on a summer afternoon even if they can't necessarily guarantee that it will happen.  They simply say that all the ingredients are in place.  So, what are some of the necessary ingredients for evangelism to take place? The first assumption is purely theological.  It is that there is, at bare minimum, something truly unique about the Christ event.  I say the Christ event, because we must look at what was actually happening i

Recently, I have been thinking more and more about the topic of evangelism and am feeling sort of convicted.  Though I regard it as extremely important to the church, it is not something at which I am particularly good.  My own sense is that we in the mainline churches do much better at missions intended to alleviate physical suffering and needs, both at home and abroad, than we are at actual evangelism.  Missions of mercy are certainly a part of the Christian's responsibility and ministry, but these don't take the place of evangelism.  St. Francis of Assisi is oft quoted as saying, "preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary used words," and we rely on this as a crutch to keep us from actually doing evangelism.  Unfortunately, this is a weak reed since this quote doesn't show up in any of his recorded writings and wasn't even attributed to him until centuries after his death.  Over the next few weeks I will be devoting this space to things that hinder o

"Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God...unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (Jesus of Nazareth circa 30 A.D.) The second topic for a blog post from among the sermon suggestions is "a transformed life."  This is a very, very good suggestion because it does hit so close to the core of the Christian faith and life.  Straight from Jesus' own mouth is this statement; without being born again (or born from above, as it can also be translated) we cannot enter the Kingdom.  What does this actually mean, though? To begin with, this doesn't mean that one must have one specific life-transforming event in order to inherit eternal life.  We should celebrate the person who experiences such a singular event, and the many churches that "celebrate recovery" in their programming or worship are doing exactly that.  Jesus said that there was joy in Heaven over ever

My good folks at the United Methodist Church of the Covenant provided lots of suggestions for sermons.  We had more suggestions than we have Sundays available to preach them, so I will be covering on this blog over the coming weeks all those that couldn't be treated in a sermon .  The first of these topics that I would like to cover is The "Peace of God."  By this I'm not referring to the "peace of God that surpasses all understanding," as mentioned in the New Testament.  The "Peace of God" (Pax Dei) I refer to was instead an ecclesiastical/political movement of the middle ages.  I actually referred to this in a sermon in early December. To understand the Peace of God we must first remember the culture from which it arose.  This movement arose in 10th century Europe in an increasingly violent militaristic society.  This was the age of feudalism in Europe.  Most of the land was owned by very wealthy lords who were subject only loosely to their kin