How Efficient is Your Bible Reading?

Hopefully, it's inefficient. Alastair is one of the smartest people I've never met and has played an important role in my Bible reading in the last few years by turning me onto some pretty amazing Bible teachers (even if they're Calvinists).

His post reminds me of a line from Alan Jacobs' book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction:

If most of us read too fast, most of us also read too many books and are unwisely reluctant to return to something we think we already know.

I'll Pray for You

The title of this post is probably one of the biggest lies told in the church. You're talking with someone who is in the middle of a rough season. She mentions that her grandson is having surgery on Wednesday. You say, "I'll pray for him." Wednesday comes and goes, you see this woman in the grocery store on Friday and think, "Oh no! I said I'd pray and I didn't! Jesus, please let this prayer for her grandson be retroactive. Amen!"

If you're wondering how I was able to take a peek into your past and see accurately it's because I've done it, too. I've had that sinking feeling of knowing I promised to pray but forgot to. I've even developed a habit of not even offering to pray in the future because I know I won't remember to pray even if I write it down.

Until now. Pastoral care, meet iOS 5.

I'm a shameless Apple shill. No doubt. I like things that have a low frustration factor and I can count my frustrating Apple moments on one hand.

But this isn't really about Apple. It's about how easy it is to set a reminder to pray for someone using iOS 5 with Reminders. There's probably always been some workaround to this, but I find Reminders incredibly easy. For instance, I promised to pray for some folks Saturday morning when I'll be out of town. In the past, I'd have a 98% chance of forgetting. This time, however, I set a Reminder for Saturday morning at 10AM.



Boom! Now I know I'll remember to pray.

An Intro to My Great Struggle in Nouwen's Prologue

Moving from teaching university students to living with mentally handicapped people was, for me at least, a step toward the platform where the father embraces his kneeling son. It is the place where I so much want to be, but am so fearful of being. It is the place where I will receive all I desire, all that I ever hoped for, all that I will ever need, but it is also the place where I have to let go of all I most want to hold on to. It is the place that confronts me with the fact that truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it. It is the place beyond earning, deserving, and rewarding. It is the place of surrender and complete trust.

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (p. 13)

This guy knows. He knows the utter absurdity of trying - trying to control everything including how we approach God and what we receive from him.

It doesn't stop us from trying, though.

Annual Conference After Show

Thanks to Andy Ihnatko (yes, I spelled his last name from memory, thank you very much) from MacBreak Weekly, I finally have an iOS blogging client that doesn't make me want to injure myself or anyone else. His "pick of the week" on the show this week was an iPad app called Blogsy and it is fantastic. That takes me one step closer toward being able to abandon my computer for all but about 10% of my tasks (image & video editing, Skype, writing really long pieces, and desktop publishing).

Enough of the tech talk, though, for that is the subject of my other blog.

I returned last night from the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. It was a long week. The United Methodist Church meets every four years at General Conference and there we make decisions concerning the polity and structure of the whole church. Ou next General Conference is in 2012 so we elected delegates at our Annual Conference this year who will go next year. The clergy and laity groups each elect 6 delegates, 6 more delegates to Jurisdictional Conference (where new bishops are elected), and three alternates. In all, 30 people were elected in 3 days. This was my first time to vote as I wasn't eligible to vote last time because I hadn't yet been ordained.

OK, enough of the nerd talk, right? Actually, the voting was pretty important because it meant that we had to stay in the conference most of the time so that we wouldn't miss a ballot. I spent less time visiting with people this year than years past because of this. The Asbury Seminary alumni were pleased to host J.D. Walt for our alumni lunch. It was great to visit with him and to hear of some exciting things going on in the world of Wesleyan Methodism.



The Confessing Movement of Arkansas hosted Dr. Chris Bounds from Indiana Wesleyan University. Chris is a great guy and one of the smartest people I've ever met. It was great to catch up with him and hear him speak at both the CMA breakfast and on the floor of the Annual Conference.



We also passed a new and radical direction for our conference called Imagine Ministries. That was a significant deal and am proud of the work the IM team did and look forward to joining in their work for years to come.

Quote of the Day

"Oops!" - Harold Camping

Power Through Prayer

In the last three days these things have happened in my life:

• I left church on Sunday feeling neither high or low about the sermon I preached. I left confident in the Word of God and God’s power to work in the hearts of people. I was able to rest in that.


• I deleted a couple of tweets. I grew up thinking that giving someone a hard time was a way to show someone you liked them and appreciated them. That’s pretty dumb. About 20 minutes after posting them, I felt this impression in my heart not only to delete those tweets but to start paying attention to how I give people a hard time and to stop doing it. It honors no one.


• I apologized to my wife this morning. Yesterday, I was gruff with her for a moment in the middle of my yard work. It’s no way for a man to speak to his wife who just happens to be a daughter of God.

(If that last thing seems strange to mention, I have a really hard time apologizing. I’m that wicked.)

So, what’s been going on? It seems like I’m surprised at these good things. I am, a little. What’s been going on is that I recently finished a book called Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds. More than anything, that little book is an indictment on prayerless preachers who work so hard to create power and strength in their ministries while neglecting the only true power in their lives - prayer. I have repented and have devoted more - much more - time to prayer than some of the other things that tend to crowd my attention during the day. You know what? God’s been working me over. And it is awesome. The Holy Spirit has moved me in each one of those bullet points. No joke. It’s one of those weird moments in life when I think, “Man, this rebuking by the Holy Spirit is hard and it hurts. Do it some more!” (If this keeps up I’m sure my wife and church will be saying, “Do it some more!”)

I’m not writing to brag but to give those of you who are experiencing prayerlessness either some encouragement or a kick in the pants. Especially you preachers who walk into the pulpit thinking that your three points are going to totally change someone’s life when you haven’t sought the one who is already at work in the lives of those who hear his word.

Here’s three links you can try on for size (You’re in luck if you’re a Kindle-user).

Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer
The Complete E.M. Bounds on Prayer - Kindle $3.99
Power Through Prayer - Kindle is $0.99!

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

One of the things that stirred my heart as a college student was a gift that a friend and fellow Wesley Foundation student gave me in my last semester of college. It was a tape of a plenary address that John Piper gave to the Evangelical Theological Society in 1998. Few ideas have stuck with me as much as  his exhortation to those professors, that the greatest need in training the next generation of pastors and missionaries is "to know God and to find in him a Treasure more satisfying than any other person or thing or relationship or experience or accomplishment in the world."

I've had a copy of that message both in audio and in print for 12 years and it wasn't until recently that I listened to it again and gleaned another gem which has been a part of my spiritual life or growth or whatever you want to call it for the last few months.

Plead with God that he not leave you unmoved by the glories revealed every day in the sky and in the Scriptures.

Make that your prayer as you watch this video (via my friend Geoffrey who retweeted Alan Hirsch)

http://vimeo.com/22439234

Seminary on your iPhone

My late-friend, Michael Spencer, used to promote The Theology Program on his website and podcast. I never checked it out because, hey, I have a Masters of Divinity and after four years of seminary why would I need something like this? Oh, brother. I've since discovered that if I want theological stimulation, I'm going to have to seek it out and books just aren't enough to keep me sharp.

The price of The Theology Program was a little too steep for me. Until now. They have just released an iPhone app for $6.99 which contains 60 hours of theological training, 1200 slides and 1800 pages of workbooks. On your iPhone. That is simply incredible and a heck of a deal.

I would encourage all of our lay people to try this out. You won't agree with all of the perspectives (indeed, you shouldn't) but if you're willing to think and process, this will be a very valuable tool in thinking theologically. I've already downloaded and am looking forward to giving it a shot.

A Late Follow-Up on Acts 29 Boot Camp

I guess now is as good a time as any to write up my thoughts on the Acts 29 Boot Camp I attended on March 10, 2011. I've been slightly hesitant for two reasons. One, I'm sure some of the Acts 29 Network and some of my reformed friends will react with, "Why on earth would you attend?". Two, I'm sure some of my fellow Methodists will react with, "Why on earth would you attend?". Let me answer that second. The first thing I want to say is that I absolutely did not attend with the idea that I would write an undercover story to tell anyone what really goes on. If there is a "really" I don't know what it is and I probably wouldn't tell you about it - I'd talk to the men in charge because airing laundry isn't my thing.

So, why did I go? I'm not called to church planting and I've not the skills or qualifications for church planting. I love church planters and support them whole-heartedly. I want to help and support church planters as much as I can. I watch church planters pour a lot into ministry and I hurt with them if those plants shut down. As a United Methodist, I haven't seen a lot of church plants make it to viability and I'd like to see that change. I've been talking to a seminary buddy of mine about developing a support network for our tradition and so when an opportunity arose for me to observe and learn from a network that has a viability percentage that's directly opposite of ours, I couldn't wait to attend. I emailed them about the viability of church plants and they graciously replied to me. You want to know what it is? "98.4%. I'd have to double check, but for some reason I thought it was 3 years." That's cut and pasted right out of the email I received back. Wow. If you aren't floored by that, you aren't paying attention. I wanted to learn something from them because they clearly have a lot to teach.

What did I learn?

Did they flood attendees with tips and tricks about marketing and miracles? Nope.

The entire first day (the only day I attended) was about the church planter's character. I say this with all the loving sarcasm I can muster - Gee, what a concept. (My sarcastic contempt is for every book, blog, and article I've read that skips right over that component as though it's foundational and doesn't need to be covered.)

There was some righteous anger in some of the talks. I felt like that anger was from a place of deep hurt and sorrow because of some ministry failures within the network that resulted from a lack of character focus. As Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Network President, said, "Some of you are hiding your sins right now." Sam Storms, Matt Carter, and Bruce Wesley also spoke and didn't hold anything back, either. I reflected and prayed because even though I'm not planting a church, I could as easily fail for a number of reasons - particularly self-idolatry.

For me, in spite of the time being terribly lonely for an outsider introvert, it was a fantastic time of prayer, reflection, rebuke, and repentance. At the end of the evening, right before he spoke, Matt Chandler came out and exhorted us to turn our attention away from ideas, tips, and tricks and toward listening to the Holy Spirit. This isn't a direct quote, but he said that if we showed up and missed out on the Holy Spirit, our time was wasted.

My time was not wasted.

If you'd like to listen to the content, it is available here.

Shall We Gather?

I'd better get this in before there's another database connection error. Grrrr.

The scene behind the church this afternoon. It started raining, oh, sometime on Saturday and finally let up a little while ago. I saw on Facebook that we got around 15" of rain. Lots of flooding going on around here.

It rained almost all day long yesterday (Easter). I was pretty bummed because last year it was just so beautiful and bright outside. This year was dark and gloomy. Not the way I wanted to celebrate Easter. But, God was working on me and teaching me.

My mood is generally affected by numbers. And by numbers I mean weekly attendance and giving. It's not just my mood but my self-worth, understanding of calling, and all that. I wasn't fired up for Easter this year. I looked at the weather forecasts and knew that it would rain which meant that there wouldn't be as many people on Sunday morning. I was not happy. But, I noticed something as we began to worship yesterday. Suddenly, that concern and burden weren't there. I'm not entirely sure what God did in me, but I knew that as I got up to preach one of my weakest sermons of all time God was stripping away the self-focused concern about numbers. I cared more about clearly presenting the gospel to those gathered than the actual number of people who showed up. What a clear sign of grace to me and how grateful I was to have experienced it!

Slowly but surely, my heart is figuring out that my identity, self-worth, reputation, and all that are actually in Jesus and not me. I wish I figured out things a little more quickly but progress is better than stalling.