Presby-Musings

We recently visited the island country of Malta which is south of Italy and just north of Tunisia.  Malta is a beautiful country, with a rich history.Wherever we went, we encountered one of the over 300 churches that were dotted throughout the island, many of them large, ornate buildings.   One of those churches, which I’d visited on a previous trip to Malta is Shipwreck Cathedral—a church built on the traditional site where (as the book of Act relates) the Apostle Paul washed ashore with the passengers and crew of a ship, which crashed into rocks just off Malta’s coast.   Paul told everyone on board the ship to not be afraid, that God would not allow anyone to lose their life in the wreck, and his prediction came true, of course.  The Maltese people welcomed the survivors and gave them food and supplies.   As Paul was gathering wood for a fire, a poisonous snake bit him on the hand and refused to let go.  He had to shake the snake off into...

This week we are starting a new sermon series entitled "Haunted" that will take us through the month of October.  If you are wondering if I timed this series to happen during the spooky month of October--wonder no longer. I totally did. But I've been thinking about the idea of this series for quite a while, in fact.  Over the course of my years as a pastor I've had occasion to talk to people in crisis about the things that got them into crisis mode.  Their crises could be quite different, but there's always a common thread that runs through their stories. Maybe their crisis has to do with faith, or their purpose in life.  Maybe they can't seem to get unstuck from addictive and destructive behaviors.   Regardless of their actual experience, virtually every single person was haunted by something from their past that was affecting their present and ruining their vision of the future. Some people were haunted by regret.  Others were haunted by doubts--...

Recovering the Sermon Part 1 This past week I facilitated a preaching workshop that was hosted at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Ocoee.  We had about 15 participants from my local presbytery--representing the roughly 70-plus Presbyterian Church (USA) churches in the Central Florida area. The impetus behind this workshop was two-fold: 1) I've been attending creative preaching, communication and leadership workshops with Rob Bell for the past few years and thought I would share what I learned, and 2) My recent doctoral project revealed that one of the many issues that pastors of growing churches had in common was the amount of time and energy they devoted to preparing sermons and improving their preaching. I am hoping that this kind of workshop will serve as a prototype for some exciting things I'd like to see our presbytery do in the future.  I currently serve on the Church Transformation Committee for the Central Florida Presbytery, and I believe that one of ...

This week I am preaching the fifth installment of the sermon series, "Big Church" a study in the book of Acts .  The basic premise of this sermon series is that Jesus did not establish an institution, he established a movement.  Unfortunately, his followers over the years didn't get that memo because the Church in all of her tarnished glory is most definitely an institution.  Which is why, in my opinion, that so many people have given up on the Church. But I think there's another way---and I am not alone.  There is a growing number of people who are waking up to the fact that Jesus did not create a mission for the Church, he created a church for His mission.  The mission, you see, was established long before the Church.  And it's high time we figured this out and got down to the business of moving the Movement Jesus founded. This week we will be studying one of the more familiar stories in the book of Acts---the story of Paul & Silas in the Phil...

This week we are continuing the sermon series, "Big Church," a study in the book of Acts that is based on the following premise:  Jesus didn't create a mission for the Church, he created a Church for His Mission."  In other words, the Church is a movement and not an institution. The passage of Scripture that we are plunging into this Sunday is from Acts chapter 16:9-15---the story of the conversion of Lydia. Here's the text: 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. 11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi , a Roman colony and the leading city of that district[a] of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. 13 On the Sabbat...

God's ideas about fueling a movement are "whack." [If you don't know what the word "whack" means, you need a primer on your hip-hop speak circa 1989.  Or you can simply read the various definitions here .] Take the way that God transformed the Apostle Paul , for example. God decided that Paul (formerly known as Saul) was the perfect choice to give movement to The Way (which was what Christianity was called in those early days... I sort of like it better to be honest!). And that's exactly what Paul/Saul did. Without Paul there would have been no rapid expansion of The Way to the Gentiles, and eventually to Rome itself.  Paul accounted for 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament , not to mention being the Church's first real  theologian. Here's the thing, though.  If you didn't know how the story ended, you would have never predicted any of this stuff happening.  Saul enters the story of the Church as a bad guy. The passage of S...

This Sunday I am preaching the final sermon of the series that I've been preaching for the month of June entitled, "Dusting Off Old Stuff."  This sermon series on essential Christian doctrines and why they matter has been an eye-opener for me. And a reminder that I didn't remember that much from what I learned in seminary. This is what happens when you drink from a fire hose, so to speak: you might get some  water down your gullet, but all you remember is the fact that you got owned by the hose. The topic of this sermon is The Lord's Supper.  Or Holy Communion.  Or the Eucharist. Lots of Christians call it different things.  And celebrate it in different ways. Which leads us to some questions that could use answering, at least in my mind.  First, If we say that we are celebrating the Lord's Supper, why does it always seem as though we are acting like we are at a funeral? Anyone else feel me on this?  Seriously, for most of my life I hav...