My 2013 Ebenezer

Ebenezer
What is your Ebenezer for 2013?

The last Sunday of last year, I challenged my congregation to reflect on what God had taught them in the past year, and then to create some sort of memorial. The idea was based on the concept of Ebenezers we find in the Old Testament. “Ebenezer” is a Hebrew term that translates “stone of help” – it’s a stone monument erected by Israel to mark an act of God in their history.

The exercise: create some sort of marker that reminds you and those around you of how God worked in your story in the past year.

Since I’m a blogger, I figured my Ebenezer should be a blog post. So what follows is my account of a concrete way God was active in my life in 2103. It’s not meant to be boastful. It’s not seeking compliments. It’s a marker. A signpost.

So what did I learn in 2013? I learned that I have been given the spiritual gift of Evangelism.

I know, right? Me too.That takes a bit of unpacking. Spiritual gifts are abilities given to Christians by the Holy Spirit. We receive them specifically so that we may use them to serve the larger body to which we belong. Since I’ve been part of one church or another all my life, I’ve been thinking about my own spiritual gifts at least since my youth group days.

Spiritual gifts are a notoriously tricky subject to broach – everyone has their own pet theory about what they are and how to identify them (you can find a thousand or so “tests” for them online). I’ve taken plenty of the inventories myself, and unsurprisingly, the same few always show up.

I’ve always identified gifts like Knowledge and Teaching as my primary spiritual gifts. And to be sure, they’re gifts I use all the time (especially in my role as a Teaching Pastor).

I never considered Evangelism as a gift because of how I thought about Evangelism.

How I'd always pictured it.
How I’d always pictured it.

I’m sure it’s no different from your conception: handing out tracts, fire-and-brimstone preaching, 4 Spiritual Laws, debates, all that. When I engage people who aren’t Christians, when we share life, talk about faith, religion, all that, I don’t like to be combative or confrontational. And I don’t appreciate the shallow, bait-and-switch methods I was taught as a teen.

So how did I decide I have the gift of Evangelism?

Some while ago, someone gave me some really great advice on identifying Spiritual Gifts. (I can’t remember who said it. My memory attributes the advice to my college New Testament professor, but I think it was someone else. He’s just the bible guru who lives in my head.)

The advice was: If you want to know what your Spiritual Gifts are, ask your church community.

It makes sense: if the Spirit gives us gifts so that we can edify our church body, then who better to tell us how we best serve than those we’re serving?

Three different persons in the past year, three individuals part of my community in some way, specifically told me I connect and engage non-Christian persons in spiritual conversations better than anyone else they knew. These three persons were all from different parts of my life – they don’t know or interact with each other. And they each told me this – unsolicited – at different points throughout the year.

None of these people called it “Evangelism” – in one way or another, they all told me that I connect people who don’t follow Jesus to Jesus without getting wrapped up in institutional church – the churched language, habits and customs that comprise American Evangelicalism but not necessarily the Gospel.

And that’s why I decided to call it Evangelism.

If it's not good news here, it's not the Gospel
If it’s not good news here, it’s not the Gospel

“Evangelism” comes from a Greek word that meant “good news” – “Gospel” in Middle English. When we talk about the Gospel, we’re referring to the Good News about Jesus – a term my friend Matt uses instead of “gospel”. That’s not coming to a building on a Sunday or learning a particularly set of words (like Gospel!) or to ascribe to a certain political agenda.

Evangelizing is announcing the good news about Jesus. It’s about the conviction that God is already working in the world and the fact that Jesus rose from the dead is good news for everyone. Wherever they are.

Evangelizing is recognizing that everything is spiritual, whether it’s the latest superhero film, the party at the bar, the birthday party for their kid or even the things that happen in church buildings. It’s about helping everyone connect the dots, revealing the God who is already working in their lives and helping the say Yes to the invitation that God is extending to join in.

According to my friends, the Spirit has gifted me to do this well. This year, I’m listening to the voice of the Spirit speaking through them, and exploring how to leverage that for my Church.

That’s what God showed me in 2013. My goal in 2014 is to leverage that gift to help my church family.

YOUR TURN: What is your Ebenezer for 2013? What did God teach you?

Memorial Day Prayer

God of peace, who created the world and all that is in it, God who is the source of every good gift, we pause today to remember that we live in a broken world. On a Memorial Day in the shadow of yet another terrible tornado, we are painfully aware that we live in a world of selfishness and pain. In our world, nations war against nations, fighting over the good creation you put in our care. We all know the pain of that war, whether we’ve served or someone we deeply love. We know the fear, the sting of absence, the pain of uncertainty. 

And many of us know the sting of loss. The pain of death. Weekends like this are particularly difficult because we come face-to-face with that loss again. Let us remember today that people all over our war-torn war know the pain we know. Let us remember that Death is our ultimate enemy, our only true nemesis. Death unites us all as people. 

Remind us today that the brokenness we see in war, in natural disasters, is a reflection of the brokenness of our own hearts. Remind us that you are the God of peace, and that you have called us all to be peacemakers. Despite our brokenness, through your son you call us all to join you in proclaiming your message of reconciliation.

Let us hope and pray and work for the day when all our soldiers, when all the world’s soldiers can lay down their arms and come home. Let us hope for the day when swords will be beaten into plowshears, when assault rifles will be made into combines. Let us hope and pray and work for peace. 

We offer these prayers to a God who knows the pain of death, and we wait anxiously for the return of your son Jesus, for his kingdom to come and your will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We offer these prayers in his name.

Holy Saturday 2013 Prayer Vigil

Beavercreek Nazarene Lent 2013 Sermon Series - Venom

Download a PDF of the Prayer Vigil here.

“Prayer is not introspection.  It is not a scrupulous, inward-looking analysis of our own thoughts and feelings but is an attentiveness to the Presence of Love personified inviting us to an encounter.  Prayer is the presentation of our thoughts – reflective, as well as daydreams, and night dreams – to the One who receives them, sees them in the light of unconditional love, and responds to them with divine compassion.”  — Henri Nouwen, A Book of Hours

This is Holy Saturday, a time that lies between the shame and pain of Jesus’ death and the celebration and glory of Jesus’ resurrection. These prayers follow the traditional Holy Hours of the church, times when the faithful would take out of their days to pray and read Holy Scripture.

Use this to help guide you into prayer and meditation on God, who brought you to this point, who died that you might live, and who leads you into community and new life.Continue reading

In the Garden: A Good Friday Responsive Reading

Beavercreek Nazarene Lent 2013 Sermon Series - Venom

The following is a responsive reading written to be used in the Good Friday gathering that concludes our Venom sermon series. The Pastor(s) read the plain text, and the congregation responds with the bold text.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

And God saw that it was very good.

God created you, humankind, in God’s image. God’s way for you was simple:

Be fruitful and multiply. Till and keep the garden.

And do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Do not try to make your own Way.

But one day, you were walking together in the garden. You were near that forbidden Tree, and a serpent got your attention.

[Pastor1:]  “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘If you do, you will die.

[Pastor1]:  You won’t die! God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.

You craved the wisdom the fruit would give you. You wanted to be like God, to take God’s place. You wanted to recreate the world in your own image. So you ate the fruit.

Immediately, you knew what you’d done. So you hid.

You were still hiding when God came looking for you.

[Pastor2]:  Where are you? Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?

Men:  It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.

Women:  The serpent deceived me. That’s why I ate it.

[Pastor2]: You were told to be fruitful and multiply. Now childbirth will cause you terrible pain. You were told to till the garden and keep it. Now the ground will produce thorns and thistles for you. You were created in my image, but now you are bent away from me, and your sin spreads into the whole world.

Now the whole world is trapped in Sin. Our pain doesn’t come from God’s Way.

The problem is us, for we are all too human, slaves to sin.

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.

I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 

I have discovered this principle of life– that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. 

This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

What miserable people we are! Who will free us from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was there in the beginning with God, creating that perfect world we lost.

The Word became human and moved into our neighborhood.

The Word was a new Adam. The Word succeeded where we failed. The Word never listened to the words of the serpent.

God made the Word, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God.

Jesus, the Word of God, told us that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Behold your savior, lifted up on a cross. He has become your Sin, your pride, your rebellion. He has taken your place.

What miserable people we are! Who will free us from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

Thanks be to God, that Jesus, the Word of God has died to free you from sin and death.

All of us have sinned. We’ve all fallen short of God’s glory.

Behold the one who has never sinned, who has become your sin.

The wages of Sin is Death.

Behold the one who has died in your place, who receives the consequences of your choices.

Have mercy on us, God, according to your unfailing love.

Turn away from your Sin. Repent and follow God!

Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The Christmas Peace

JR. Forasteros - December 23, 2012

The Christmas Peace

It\'s the End of the World As We Know It

Christmas is a showdown between two Ways: our sinful human way of Pride and Empire and God's peaceful, Lamb way.

From Series: "It's the End of the World As We Know It"

These days, we're obsessed with the End of the World. We should remember that when Jesus came the first time, it really was the End of the World, at least as we knew it. And the beginning of something much, much better. This Advent, we prepare ourselves to welcome Jesus' coming into the world by exploring the book of Revelation!

More From "It's the End of the World As We Know It"

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Luke establishes the birth of Jesus as a showdown between two kingdoms: God’s and Rome’s. By the time Jesus was born, Augustus had been ruling as the first Roman Emperor for over 20 years. He’d firmly established his trademark imperial policy, the Pax Romana, a Latin phrase that means “Peace of Rome”.

Augustus used the Peace of Rome to entice and threaten those Rome ruled into following Rome, into living Rome’s way. The Pax Romana policy essentially claimed that Rome brought peace to the Earth. The implied message was that if you follow Rome’s way, you get peace: safety and security, protection from your enemies. If you don’t follow Rome’s way, you’re the enemy, and Rome will crush you.

Augustus used the title “Savior” to describe how he brought the Peace of Rome to the world. Check out this inscription from a calendar that dates less than a decade before Jesus’ birth:

Providence… has given us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things… The birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news for the world.

This is the language Rome used to describe its ruler. The Good News is that Augustus was born. Why is that good news? Because Augustus is the Savior. He protects Rome from her enemies and brings peace to the Earth.

And this Augustus decrees that a census should be taken, so a Galilean peasant and his pregnant fiancée head to Bethlehem, where she gives birth. This is the world into which Jesus is born. Now look at what Luke tells us happens next:

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior— yes, the Messiah, the Lord– has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

The angelic messenger tells the shepherds there’s a new king in town. Tonight is the birthday of a new savior. This is a Gospel message to oppose Caesar’s. But the angel isn’t finished:

Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others– the armies of heaven– praising God and saying, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” — Luke 2:8-14 (NLT)

The angelic choir proclaims Pax to the Earth, using all the language Augustus used to describe himself.

That is quite an entrance. God is throwing down the gauntlet. God is directly challenging Caesar’s claim to bring peace to the earth. According to Luke’s Christmas story, Caesar is a false god, making false promises and offering a false peace. And the good news is that the true king has come. The good news is that in the birth of Jesus, God is bringing true peace to the Earth.

When Christians take the Christ out of Christmas

war-on-christmasThis is a condensed, blog-friendly version of my sermon from yesterday. Listen to it here.

The so-called “War on Christmas” has been beaten nearly to death. On one side, many Christians believe that using words like X-mas and wishing someone “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are the mildest forms of a more-or-less systematic attack on Christmas (and by extension, the Christian foundations of American culture). This camp believes – and rightly so – that you cannot and should not take the Christ out of Christmas. (by the way, go read this)

On the other side, many recognize that America is becoming increasingly pluralistic, and in an effort to welcome other faiths and cultures into the dominant culture, are removing the most explicitly religious elements of Christmas celebrations. This camp believes – and rightly so – that there’s a lot you can do around the holidays that doesn’t have to involve Jesus.

I’m not interested in taking a side in the War on Christmas (though as usual, Jon Stewart is pretty spot-on). I’m more interested in how those who call themselves Christians are fighting this “War”.

Christians are taking the Christ out of Christmas by the way we treat our enemies in this “War”.Continue reading

StoryMen: Apocalypse 2012 Special

storymen_bannerNEW The second (and possibly last!) episode of my new StoryMen podcast with Matt Mikalatos and Clay Morgan is up! Since December 21 is right around the corner, we welcome our first (and possibly last!) special guest, author and podcaster Jason Boyett. Jason’s sort of an Apocalypse expert, having written two very excellent books on the subject.

BONUS: check out the new StoryMen look! The art is courtesy of M. S. Corley, a truly astounding artist (who does COMIC BOOKS WHAT!?!). Check out his blog for some excellent art!

How to listen:

  1. You can subscribe on iTunes.
  2. You can listen on the StoryMen site.
  3. Oh, and if you haven’t liked us on Facebook yet, do it!
  4. You can WATCH us (!) on YouTube. Thanks right! Thanks to the magic of the interwebs, you can watch all four of us talk! It’s 1.057% more exciting than listening to us! Though you do get to see how pretty we are, which is an obvious bonus.

Enjoy these preview clips:

Continue reading