Christian reading resources

I’m working on creating a recommended reading list for our church small groups ministry. This would serve as a reference and guide for small groups as well as interested individuals wanting to read books or engage in study using Christian books that fall within our faith tradition, are thoughtful and balanced within a spectrum of disciplines ranging from novels to church doctrine. I’m finding the task to be more challenging than anticipated.

It seems there’s a fairly significant gap between books written by and for the scholarly academy and books for a more thoughtful wider Christian population. Not that there aren’t many books I would characterize as “Pop Christianity” as embodied by pastors such as Max Lucado, Rick Warren, and other famous and much published Christian authors.  The list of Christian books written for laity is long. That’s not the issue.

The issue is finding a range of books, especially from more contemporary authors, that fall within a Methodist/Wesleyan tradition. One does not need to be a scholar to detect the strong Calvinistic or fundamentalist themes running the authors such as Lucado and Warren (not to pick on these fine Christian authors, but to see them as examples of a type). Or you can just as easily find books that espouse a narrow theological perspective and then present them as “THE” definitive Christian perspective as in the now famous Left Behind novels. This is fine, if you are a modern day Calvinist or fundamentalist. But if you are not, and have a more robust  understanding of salvation that would include Sanctification along with Justification by Faith,  then finding attainable Christian authors is more of a struggle.  There are some good ones, including Michael Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburgh UMC in Tipp City, OH. But even he is writing largely to pastors and church leaders.

And before I’m charged with elitism, I’d like to say, that for many Christians, these popular author’s views become accepted as the only “orthodox” view to take, even defining the boundaries of Evangelicalism. There’s an implicit line drawn by some Evangelicals to self-identify what is Evangelical using Calvinism, especially 5 -point modern day Calvinism, as the lines by which boundaries are drawn.

As a side note, even church leadership books are hard to find within our tradition. Most church leadership books today embraced by our own UM church are dripping with a theology that looks more Calvinistic and largely embraces an ecclesiology (understanding of the church) that is grounded more in corporate American than the bible. Church leadership, in it’s desperation for renewal, today seems quite content to marginalize theology as long as we get growth, as if one could separate one from the other; that alone is a decidedly un-Wesleyan move and one that Wesley would protest himself. But that digression is for a future blog. For now, the focus is on the dearth of books for a wider UM audience.

This is no small thing. In my last blog I spoke about how the tools for our communication shape us in important ways. Well, the content matters too. I think my biggest concern is that these mainstream, “pop Christian” authors are not particularly honest about their theological assumptions and commitments. There’s a sense that they are writing what is universally true for all Christians, when in fact, they write from a distinctive theological tradition. In the case of some authors, the faith tradition is not even as old as Calvin, but more along the lines of 1950′s/60′s neo-conservatism.

The danger is that their teaching becomes “gospel truth,” in churches where doctrine and theology is not really seen as important. In the absence of sound doctrine by your local church, people will gravitate to what others profess with confidence and universally, especially if it’s close to what one already believes. I know, I’ve been there. Before going to seminary I drank deeply of the wells of fundamentalism and pop-Christianity because I felt that it was feeding me in ways I was not being fed at the local church. What I didn’t realize is that these authors didn’t speak for the entirety of the church, much less Evangelicalism, just because they were widely published and popularly read. Even as a life-long United Methodist, I had to go to Saint Paul School of Theology to be introduced to John Wesley and Methodism; to learn about Christian Perfection, sanctification and what “holiness of heart and life” is really about.  This just shouldn’t be the case in our day and age. Part was my own fault, but partly our own church had little to say about it.

One book that will definitely make this reading list is Aiming for Maturity (Wipf and Stock press) written by a friend, Steve Rankin, who is a well-respected church historian as well as chaplain at Southern Methodist University. He writes as a scholar yet to a general audience. He is the self-proclaimed “blue-collar scholar” and gives wonderful insight to the nature of doctrine and the Christian life. There are other resources that will also make this list including studies published by the General Board of Discipleship that have taken John and Charles Wesleys sermons and theology on Christian Perfection and made them accessible to a wide audience (titles to be included later). Also to be included are books written by my friend and mentor Dr. Henry Knight, the chair of Wesley Studies at Saint Paul School of Theology.  Hal can write and talk with the best of scholars, and like Dr. Rankin, he also has a heart for the church and has written several good books for laity (Transforming Evangelism, Eight Life-Enriching Practices of United Methodists to just name a couple). There is also the promising work of a young theologian and acquaintance who has published work regarding the Wesleyan class system for our own day.

Though my search has just started, my hope is to unearth a treasure of resources that are grounded not only biblically but within our faith tradition as Methodists.  The ones I’ve spoken to are the ones I’m familiar with, that in no way means there’s not a rich selection to find. Also, there will be resources listed that aren’t particularly United Methodist or Wesleyan.  However, those will be chosen carefully and with purpose, and largely by authors who have a sense of clarity about the tradition from which they stand or at the very least speak to an issue or topic in a careful, engaging and thoughtful way without driving readers into a theological ghetto of narrow traditions that aim to speak for the whole.

An example…

An example for how the method may impact the way we think about things is in an issue currently bubbling up in our local church. In the move to facebook as a primary tool for e-communication, some people are being felt alienated as they can not or do not wish to use Facebook. For them, email is something they know how to use and is seen primarily as a neutral tool. And if it’s effective, then why not use it, especially if it gets more people praying!! For some people, the method is merely a tool, a function to disseminate information and nothing more or nothing less. This is not uncommon. Yet the book, “The Shallows” and the research identified suggests different.

 First, the email system employed is a “top-down” approach that implicitly enables people to see the church office as managing people’s prayer life.  Facebook requires lay to be involved more proactively by posting their concerns, and by God’s grace, response-enabled to pray for and with another, to reach out in caring ways, even in a virtual environment.  How is this system enabling a way of thinking about church where our piety is managed from the church office?

One person indicated that if corporations think highly enough of email as a way to keep them posted then it’s good enough for the church. That got me thinking about how people may perceive these church emails as “spam.” I auto-delete anything thing from an organization that I didn’t ask for specifically.  I’m shaped to see these as spam and they get “trashed.” What do people do with these emailed concerns after they have read them and ostensibly pray for the situations and people reported? Do they get taken to the virtual trash? How does that impact how we think about intercessory prayer? Do we pray and pitch? Is that really intercessory prayer, or is there more to caring ministry of prayer? This is especially how we may be training people outside of our church to think about prayer when they receive these requests unsolicited, like so much spam. This is currently how the system works, where many people receive these emails, requested or not. Is that spiritually healthy? Is God pleased by this kind of intercession?

Furthermore,  emailed prayer concerns communicates something of a more cavalier approach to intercessory prayer,  but this can be just as true of facebook or other e-communication. Outside of a present community in which the prayer is shared, it communicates a detached reporting of concerns. Church gossip isn’t even relegated to this kind of relational detachment. Most people enjoy sharing juicy tidbits in person where they can get a personal response and conversation.  Something email lacks in astounding ways, where tone is often misinterpreted. Another significant difference is the ability to create community (“where 2 or more are gathered…”) through prayer, even if it’s a “virtual community” (there is critique of this as well, but that’s for another blog).  Email largely lacks this as there is little sense of a conversation as much as there is a reporting. Here social media has more of a community vibe just by it’s nature.

With all that said,  prayer concerns in the context of worship and small group ministry is the heart beat of our intercessory and caring ministry where authentic community and ministry can occur. In this context we can “pray with” as much as “pray for” people. Both are biblical, yet I wonder if the biblical calling to get as many people to possible to pray for something then “trash” it in our computer dumpster or e-file it away?  The bible describes something different: James 5:14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. There’s something more relational and communal about this kind of praying with. Certainly, when distance or circumstances interfere, we are called to pray for people for all kinds of reasons, and email can seen as an efficient tool to communicate concerns to a large number of people at once.  Yet, do we stop and think about how these tools, electronic or otherwise, shape how we think about what it means to pray and to care in positive or unhealthy ways?

The means matters, and in terms of our how we communicate our joys and concerns, they have a way of shaping how we think about prayer, community, and care. No one way is perfect, but some are more relational.

The method matters

I’m reading a book called “The Shallows.” I’m not finished yet and the premise is not particularly new, however the implications and applications for today are pretty profound. I’m excited to get back to reading it.

One of the points that the book is making is that the way in which we communicate is not a value neutral tool that just helps us accomplish a particlar end, task or purpose. In fact, how we communicate may shape us as much, if not more, than the information being communicated.  That means that whether you are reading a newspaper on ink and paper, or getting a rss feed from your smart phone does make a difference, even if the subject is basically the same.

For the church, the implications are just as profound. Moving to more electronic media to communicate information says something about the church as much as the content. In someways this is self-evident. Churches who are intentionally trying to reach a younger generation know that they will need to use social media to do so. But even then, social media through the internet is still seen mostly as merely just another tool among other tools. What is missed is that the way we think as we are using these tools is being shaped as well.

I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing, nor need it be.  For example. At our church we’ve moved from publishing a paper newsletter and now communicate the same information through our internet website  and weekly printed worship bulletin. We’ve also moved to a facebook page to communicate prayer concerns, event updates, and more up-to-date information. The website  would contain more static information about the church while the Facebook page would communicate ever changing information. Then I would blog, tweet, and Facebook post in order to reach the community and congregation in ways outside of Sunday morning worship services. This is nothing particularly new or innovative, even amongst churches. However, what is not being said is that in this process what we are doing is communicating something about our church and shaping those who are invited into this web of e-ministry. Understanding this is important.

The enlightenment was wrong about something that many churches have implicitly and uncritically bought into: the myth that there is an perfect content of “the gospel” that you can wrap into different packages or forms to communicate it without saying something about the gospel. Anytime we proclaim the gospel, the method by which we do so says something about the gospel itself.  When we think we can just change the “form” of the gospel message without it impacting the “content” or if we think that current/previous methods are more “pure,” we have slipped into a false distinction between form and content. The question is whether or not we understand that how we proclaim the gospel  is saying something about the gospel message. The gospel is embodied, the Word became flesh..embodied, and it mattered a great deal or it should. God chose a particular method to communcate His good news; His Son Jesus, and that was intentional. How the church embodies the gospel matters. Perhaps the Apostle Paul was really onto something more significant than we imagined when he called the church “the Body of Christ.”

For example, a praise service with a “band” says something about the gospel even as it proclaims the gospel differently, not just in “form/content” but in the simple way in which that service proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ. The question is, do we know what we are saying about the gospel when it’s proclaimed in this way or in a more “high church” method? I don’t believe one is more faithful than the other, but they do communicate something different about the gospel even when they are saying much the same thing.

How we communicate as a church matters. It says something about us as God’s people as much as what we communicate. How we communicate the gospel matters as a church.

 

 

 

Calling audibles

The Super Bowl has just ended, and with it the football season.  A key part of any football game is making on the spot decisions. More and more, quarterbacks are empowered to change the play call based on what the defense is doing. They know what they are up against and make necessary adjustments in order to give themselves the best chance to succeed. Successful quarterbacks are the ones who recognize what the opposition is doing and call an audible to respond appropriately. We need to do the same in our own lives, especially in our Spiritual lives.

I think having an established prayer time is the best way to practice the spiritual disciplines. They are called disciplines for a reason However, life can happen fast and our schedules can shift quickly.  The opposition is working to keep us from prayer.Like a good quarterback, we need to be able to make adjustments as needed.

Most days I have a scheduled time for my quiet time with God. I get up pretty early in the morning and after taking my oldest son to school I spend about an hour with God in prayer and searching scriptures. Sometimes, that time is impossible if my wife gets a call to substitute teach. She can be out of the house pretty early. Rather than the quiet time with God I planned and count on, I’m in charge of getting kids up, ready for school and out the door.  If I’m going to get that time with God that I desparately need, I need to call an audible.

The temptation is to punt. To just say that life is too busy and today’s schedule won’t accomodate that prayer time…even pastors are tempted in this way! Instead of re-ordering the day around prayer, we can get pretty pre-occupied with being “productive” and making sure we get things done; important things no doubt, but I wonder if they are really that much more important than our prayer time?

What in your life causes you to make audibles in your Spiritual life? What adjustments can you make to keep your sacred time with God, sacred? How can we re-order our lives so that our prayer life remains an appropriate priority among shifting priorities and responsiblities? What is really the most productive thing we can do each day?

Redirecting!

So far, my blogs have been addressing the nature of the church, vision, mission and it’s ministries. This is fun stuff indeed and still remains very close to my heart! However in the time that has elapsed since my last blog, our church in particular, has turned some corners and so I find it beneficial to redirect the nature of my blogs toward a broader conversation of fatth matters. I’d like to start with prayer.

My current sermon series is a walk through the Lord’s Prayer. Much has been said, but of course not everything. One of the things that drives me to preach, teach and further write about prayer is due to the nature of its centrality to our life in Christ. Yet, though we as modern Christians recognize this intellectually, and may even consider ourselves and others as “prayer warriors,” it seems that we’ve in some ways have narrowed this vital means of grace. For some our prayer’s have devolved into a ten to fifteen “devotional time” whever we might spend a few minutes to give God our “to do” list of things we want done. I’m not certain but I do believe this is more of a protestant piety than catholic or othodox as we have a general disdain, if not skepticism, for formal, written prayers in our personal piety and rely upon the spontaneous prayer as being more “spiritual.”

The longer I have been a pastor, and the more I have grown in my prayer life specifically and faith life generally, the more I’ve relied upon the discipline and the spiritual breadth and depth of the prayers of the saints. I do not pray the “Daily Office,” however I have been influenced by time spent in a monastary and the Contemplative prayer movement in general. I began with a prayer book provided by the wonderful Catholic nuns at the monastary who witness to us the power of a life of prayer.  However benificial this was, my protestant formation craved something more. John Wesley himself prayed from the book of Common Prayer and I needed such a resource from my own faith heritage.  What I found had been under my nose for sometime, a prayer book that I had bought while at the Wesley Theological Society meeting, a scholarly meeting of theologians who have forever shaped my understand of the true purpose of theology in shaping hearts and lives for Christ. “This Day: A Wesleyan Way of Prayer” has greatly enhanced my prayer life, that I’ve shared with others who’ve found great benefit as well.

This prayer book is more like a personal prayer mentor that guides one through a diversity of prayer. More than that, it allows me to deepen my relationship with Christ, energy my life and ministry and give me real food for the journey as it intentionally gives time to listen to God and speak to God; to be in coversation. In the process, I’ve learned how to glorify God and speak his praises, offer confession and contrition, search the scriptures prayerfully, and yes, even time for seeking intercession.

I don’t suggest a “one size fit all” piety. However, when it comes to our prayer life there is a signficant treasure from our heritage available to serve as our guides. There is signficant power in spontaneous, spirit filled prayer. But even John Wesley confessed that his own spontaneous prayers were fed and empowered by his time praying the written prayers of the saints.