Prayer for Epiphany

I haven’t posted anything during Christmastide, so I thought I would share a great prayer from the Book of Common Prayer(BCP).  Because the roots of Methodism are thoroughly Anglican, I find the BCP to be an anchor for my own spirituality.  It gives me a connection to the ancient church.  When I have run out of good words to pray to God, the BCP comes to my aid expanding my theological vocabulary.  It teaches me to pray prayers that are balanced with praise and not just petition.  It teaches me to pray the scriptures.   The prayer celebrating the Epiphany is a great example.

O GOD, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of earth;

Lead us, who know you know by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

That is my prayer for today.  Help me to see.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel—Tomorrow Would Be Great

On the seven nights before Christmas, the church has, since early times, prayed the O Antiphons.  These are seven petitions directed to Jesus that express great longing.  Each petition begins with a vocative “O”, crying out for God to intervene in our lives.  Each petition addresses the Savior with a different title that is appropriate for Advent:

• December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
• December 18: O Adonai (O Adonai)
• December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
• December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
• December 21: O Oriens (O Sunrise)
• December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)
• December 23: O Emmanuel (O Emmanuel)

These antiphons eventually became the well known Advent song, ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.  They are perfect prayers to prepare for Christmas.

Legend has it, that the monks that developed these songs hid within them a secret code.  Starting with last day, the first letter of each antiphon forms an acrostic, (Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia)  spelling Ero cras — I will be there tomorrow.  That is the true hope of Advent.  Even tough we pass through dark times, even the dark is not dark to God.  God promises to be with us.

Advent is a time to confess that God often feels absent from our lives. We need a Savoir to come and rescue us.  Only when we realize that we need a savior are we prepared for Christmas and the baby born in Bethlehem.  During this last evening and day of advent, we wait on God’s promise—I will be there tomorrow.

The Politics of the Christian Calendar: Thoughts on Christ the King Sunday

Christ the King Sunday is probably the most political Sunday of the year (with the possible exceptions of Easter, Epiphany, Christmas, Ascension, and Pentecost).  Being the last Sunday of the Church calendar, it concludes the church’s story.  The baby born in Bethlehem, the man that died on the cross, the one that rose from the dead is the King of the Universe.

Christ the King Sunday is the newest major feast of the church founded in 1925 to combat the forces of materialistic secularism and the rising tide of communism and capitalism.  These forces are still alive today and seek dominion in our lives.  Therefore, Christ the King is a great opportunity to talk about what it means to say ‘Jesus is Lord’.

When I was in high school, I responded to lots of altar-calls for Jesus to be my savior.  I have always wanted a savior to get me out of the mess that I am in.  Asking Jesus to be your ‘savior’ is easy, but asking Jesus to be your ‘lord’ is something completely different.  Christians are people who believe that you don’t have to ask Jesus to be the ‘lord of your life’, he already is Lord of Everything.  Christian are people who work hard daily to figure out what it means to live in such a kingdom.

I thought this quote from N. T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham and New Testament scholar was helpful for this Sunday:

[Caesar Augustus] proclaimed that he had brought justice and peace to the whole world; and, declaring his adoptive father to be divine, stylized himself as ‘son of God.’  Poets wrote songs about the new era that had begun; historians told the long story of Rome’s rise to greatness, reaching its climax 9obviously with Augustus himself.  Augustus, people said was the ‘saviour’ of the world.  He was its king, its ‘lord.’  Increasingly, in the eastern part of his empire, people worshipped him, too, as a god.

Meanwhile, far away, on that same eastern frontier, a boy was born who would within a generation he hailed as ‘son of God’; whose followers would speak of him as ‘saviour’ and ‘lord’; whose arrival, they thought, had brought true justice and peace to the world(Tome Wright, Luke for Everyone, S.P.C.K., 2001, p.23).

In does give new meaning to the beginning of the Christmas story in Luke doesn’t it?  “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered”– little did he know he would set in motion a world changing birth in Bethlehem.  There the King of Kings would be born and the future of Rome would be in great danger.

Geoffrey Lentz Reviews: Megabelt by Nick May

Megabelt is the title of a new book written by Nick May.  He says that the title came from a blend of “Mega-church” with “Bible-belt”, but eventually the neologism developed its own identity.   The book is a fictional account of a young man growing up in the evangelical subculture of the Deep South (the Bible-belt).  Fictional it may be, but it is the story of my life and the lives of many of the people I grew up with.

The book is filled with sarcasm and irony as it critiques old-fashion Southern churches and new Mega-churches, alike.  For those familiar with this subculture, the book will be hilarious.  It pokes fun at the phenomena of terribly written church signs, tells story from the emotional high of summer camp, and opens up a world where a displaying a church bulletin saves you 10% at restaurants on Sunday.

I had a brief opportunity to interview Nick last Saturday.  My first question to Nick was ‘what did your parents say(his parents were my youth directors in middle-school)’.  He said that they had been supportive of his effort and had actually been able to step back a laugh a little.  There will be some that upon reading this book will be insulted and think that May has gone too far and is hurting the church, but I think most “belters” will find it humorous.

May explained to me that his motivation for writing such a book was not out of some deep pain or hurtful place.  All in all, his experience in the ‘mega-belt’ was positive.  But through his life experience and his journey through college he has been able to step out of the bubble of the “belt” and see a Christian sub-culture that has shaped his life.

I found the afterword of the book written by Jon Morris helpful.  He states:

I finally saw that in the place I had grown up, Christianity was really just another social byproduct, one as natural as sweet tea and backyard barbeques.  I realized that, in some ways, the bible-belt had cheapened the teaching of Jesus to just another set of moral values, just another pledge to tradition.  Religious devotion and church membership had merely become flaky substitutes for the revolutionary movement Christianity was marked by at its outset.

Referring to St. Paul’s exhortation to not be conformed to the patterns of the work but to be transformed, he goes on to say:

What if this pattern of the world, the very pattern which Christians are called to resist, were a pattern of religion itself?  What if the world in question were one in which the majority claimed to be Christian?

In short, Megabelt is not about attacking the church, but trying to find a more faithful way of being the church God has called us to be.  It represents one fictional case study from the emerging church.  Nick May presents not an end to the evangelical church, but instead its future-a new reformation of faithfulness.

A Saintly Stimulus Package

This past Sunday we celebrated All Saints Day.  We called out the names of members who have died this past year, and we also remember all those that have gone before us and made our way possible.  I thought of some of my favorites: St. Patrick, St. Brigid, St. Gregory the Great, St. Benedict, St. Thecla, St. Simeon the Stylite, and St. Augustine.  There other others that are not usually referred to as saint that came to my mind: St. John Wesley, St. Martin Luther, and St. Alexander Talley (founder of my church).

Thinking about all these people made me think of what kind of saint we need today—in today’s economic climate.  This year we have faced the deepest recession since the Great Depression.  It has been a difficult time for churches.  Many churches have been forced to close.  University endowments are depleted.  Funds for missions and social outreach are drying up.

Economists are saying that the recession is officially over and we have begun a slow recovery.  People like Warren Buffet are putting their money where there mouth is and investing in our economy’s positive future buying up railroads and infrastructure. However, it is little comfort to those that are unemployed or who have had their salaries cut back.

So what kind of saint should we be looking for in this economic downturn?  The first that come to my mind are the thrifty saints like St. Francis and St. Clare.  They would have a lot of healthy advice for our overheated economy.  Professor Stephanie Paulsell, who teaches at Harvard Divinity School, says that what we really need is a saint that is a “big spender”, someone who is not too scared to invest in God’s Kingdom. In an article in the Christian Century, she nominates the little known St. Hedwig as a “saint for hard times”. Hedwig was married to the wealthy Henry I of Silesia at the age of twelve.  After giving birth to seven children, she devoted her life to sustaining the church.  She urged her husband and powerful leaders to provide land to build churches and schools.  She created endowments to sustain their ministries.  She founded hospitals and volunteered in them.  Paulsell explains why Hedwig is the right saint for the times:

There is no bailout coming for institutions devoted to prayer, learning and service. There is no rescue program for the seminaries where future ministers study, no check in the mail for the churches, shelters and prison chaplaincies that minister to the bodies and souls of those whom society has rendered invisible. Hedwig has a message for us: if we long for communities devoted to prayer and study, communities in which needs are met with compassionate attention, we are going to have to build and sustain those communities ourselves.

Hedwig is the kind of patron saint we need for a time such as this. We need Christians to make investments in God’s future.  The government is taking care of major industries, wealthy tycoons like Buffet are ready to invest in the future of railways and internet hubs, but who is willing to invest in the future of the church?  Politicians and billionaires, most likely, will not step forward to invest in God’s future.  I am afraid that God may be calling you and me.  Following in the footsteps of the saints, particularly St. Hedwig, I think we can answer the call.

You’re Invited to Participate in a Blogging/Essay Contest – 21st Century Church

I am exited about a new Blogging/Essay Contest hosted by Energion Publications.  The deadline for participation is November 2, and the winners will be announced by November 16.   The prizes are:

• First prize – Free copy of The Jesus Paradigm + two other Energion Publications books, with a $25 gift card for Barnes & Noble
• Second prize – Free copy of The Jesus Paradigm + one other Energion Publications book, with a $15 gift card for Barnes & Noble
• Third prize – Free copy of The Jesus Paradigm with a $10 gift card for Barnes & Noble

To enter follow these directions from Energion Publications (http://jesusparadigm.com/?p=203):

Simply write an essay in answer to the question: What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like?

If you are a blogger, post the essay on your blog and link back to this post, then also e-mail pubs@energion.com just to make sure.  We will add your post to the list of those participating.  If you are not a blogger, e-mail your essay in either Word document or Open Document Text (OpenOffice) format to pubs@energion.com and indicate in the e-mail that you are entering the 21st century church contest.

Entries will be judged in the following areas, with each area receiving a score of from one to ten:

1. Biblically rooted
2. Historically aware
3. Complete
4. Clear and Concise
5. Overall impression, including appearance, discussion generated, and anything one of the judges wants to include

Note that 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 may conflict in the approach of some people.  That is why there will be three judges, who come from different theological traditions.

I am honored to be one of the judges, and I am looking forward to reading some great entries on what a faithful congregation looks like.

Seven Things Every Worship Leader Should Learn from U2

Over the last few weeks, I have inadvertently become an authority on U2 spirituality.   It started with our U2CHARIST last month, included coverage by many media outlets, and has culminated with an article in the Atlanta Constitution before the big concert on Oct. 7.  In the process of all of this, I have become a huge U2 fan am truly impressed by the depth of Christian spirituality in their lyrics.  But, I must admit that I am not a U2 scholar by a long shot.   My true area of interest and expertise is in Christian worship (liturgy).  While participating in the concert, I discovered 7 things that every worship leader/planner should learn from U2.

1. Set the Stage-The U2 concert was in the huge Georgia Dome, a building lacking ambiance.  U2 brought in a huge set and dramatic lighting that transformed this lack luster space into another world (actually a spaceship).   So many worship spaces are under utilized.  Even a gymnasium could be transformed into a worship environment where the space itself draws people in to worship God.
2. Create Participation-U2 is know to draw the listener into the music, in fact it is why they are name U2 (you too).  In the concert, Bono asked us to help him with the music.  He even used the word ‘intimacy’ to define our relationship.  In this room with 50,000+ people, we all felt close and connected to the music and Bono.
3. Tell a Story-I was surprised to find out that so much effort had gone into making the songs for the night tell a story.  It was not a set of songs but an opera.  The order and transition were deliberate.  With the music, we boarded a spaceship, blasted off, traveled through space, and arrived in heaven (“Where the Streets Have No Name”).  I cannot tell you how many services I have been to where the music and the order of worship were completely random.  I remember visiting one church that sang “Come Now Is the Time to Worship” as the concluding song.  If the worship leader is not taking advantage of every action to tell the Christ story and to take the congregation somewhere, you are missing huge opportunities.
4. Prepare-The elaborate spaceship stage filled 120 semi-trucks with equipment.  The fog came out at just the right time.  The huge 360 LED screen work with surgical precision.  An unbelievable amount of preparation went in to making this event a success.  A lot of people say they don’t believe in preparation, because they want to leave room for spontaneity and Spirit to move.  An element of this is important, but you have to plan for meaningful spontaneity.  In other words, you need to give the Spirit something to work with.
5. Unity-One thing that we noticed is the way Bono interacted with the audience.  He brought all these individual together and made us a people.  We prayed for the freedom of those in Iran and became in solidarity with the exiled president of Burma.  Arch-bishop Desmond Tutu basically preached a sermon and that defined what kind of people we are.  We became the people in the America Civil rights movement, the people against apartheid, and the protesters in Iran.  We became “One”.
6. Call to Greatness-At the concert, Bono made us feel like we were saving the world.  We were singing for justice.  We were making a difference.  We were a part of a movement to change the world.  Now, I would argue that this was grossly exaggerated in the concert, but this is exactly what the church should be doing.  I must give Bono credit; at the highpoint of the service, Bono led the audience in “Amazing Grace” bringing us into an even greater story.  We should be drawing people into greatness, into the story of redemption of the world.  Worshipers should feel like their worship is making a difference.  Christians are part of the greatest movement in all of time.
7. Use Visuals-This may be what U2 does the best.  The concert was a full sensory experience.  The video elements helped create the story for the night.  It made the concert into a coherent experience.  The screen added meaning by framing songs in new ways.  Because of the visual elements, the song, “Bloody Sunday” was no longer about the struggle in Ireland, but the oppression in Iran.  We live in a visual culture—the print mediums of the Enlightenment are not as important anymore.  Churches need to rethink the visuals being used.  Screen, stage-lights, stained-glass, processional crosses, and candles may preach the gospel in ways that words cannot.

Response to Scot McKnight: Is Low Church Evangelicalism Protestant?

McKnight proposes an interesting question, that is worth discussing.  I answer this question in two ways; “yes” and “no”.  If Protestant signifies being in protest (public declaration against the Roman Church), then certainly low-church evangelicals are Protestants.  It is worth noting that Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Methodists have been uncomfortable being labeled as Protestants because the English Reformation was separate though related to the Protestant Reformation.   To complicate matters even more, the Joint Declaration on Justification (in 1999), resolved the central doctrinal divides between Catholics and traditional Protestants, therefore resolving the issue at the heart of the protest.  Many have argued that the Protestant Reformation is effectively over.  Low-church evangelicalism however carries on the tradition of protest against the Roman Church and is therefore Protestant, while many Protestant denominations are no longer in protest.

Yet, if protestant signifies being a reformed church in line with Reformation principles, then low-church evangelicalism is not Protestant at all, at least not as Protestant as the current Roman Catholic Church. This is illustrated by low-church evangelical beliefs and practices on the three core issues of the Reformation: Supremacy of the Bible, Priesthood of All Believers, and Justification by Grace through Faith.

First is the Supremacy of the Bible.  Low-church evangelicals do not use nearly as much of the Bible in worship as Roman Catholics.  Generally the sermon in these churches are based on one verse of scripture or a string of short verses relating to a theme, while Roman Catholics and traditional Protestants read multiple chapters from a lectionary.   Henry Neufeld, speaks at greater length on this difference in his posting on this topic.    The most concerning thing of all is the shift of “liberal” and “conservative” churches in America away from Bible/God centered worship to pop-psychology/human centered worship.  On this front the Roman Church since Vatican II, has out-reformed many so-called reformed Protestants.

Second is the Priesthood of all Believers.  Since Vatican II, the Roman Church has gone a long way in making sure that ministry belongs to all believers by virtue of their baptism.  However, many low-church Protestants have moved to a greater divide between those on the stage and those in the seats.  The seeker-friendly movement and the mega-church movement have separated the laity and clergy into spectators and entertainers.

Third is Justification by Grace through Faith.  Most low-church evangelicals officially hold on to this doctrine—but the prosperity gospel has been eroding this away in many churches.  I witnessed a well-known TV preacher ask for a thousand dollar gift to his ministry so he could pray your unsaved loved one out of hell.  That sounds similar to the selling of indulgences to me.  The prosperity gospel demands that believers do certain things in order to receive grace.   I think that even requiring converts to do or believe a list of things to be “saved” (like speaking in tongues, reading the King James, understanding elaborate eschatologies, four spiritual laws, etc.) borders on Pelagianism and goes against the heart of the Reformation.

So is low-church evangelicalism Protestant?  Yes of course it is.  These churches remain in protest against the Roman Catholic Church.  However, when it comes to all the hallmarks of Protestant Christianity, they are not necessarily Reformed or Protestant in any meaningful way.  It is my concern that many low-church evangelical churches are becoming de-formed and should earnestly begin seeking reformation into the Body of Christ.  The church in America is in great need of a new reformation and the Protestant Reformers continue to be a good resource this endeavor.  Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, Calvin, and Zwingli would be greatly disappointed with the current state of the Protestant church.  In other words if Martin Luther was in ministry today, he would not be nailing the Ninety-five Theses to a Roman Catholic Church door, instead his nail would shatter the store-front glass doors of a low-church evangelical mega-church.  He might even run as fast as he could to the holy mother church.

Evagelism and the Kingdom

I was delighted to read David Alan Black’s review of Mortimer Arias’ book, Announcing the Reign of God in his blog The Jesus Paradigm (named after his forth coming book).  It is remarkable for a solid evangelical to do such a close and sympathetic reading of an anti-evangelical text.  It seems that this type of dialogue between liberals and conservatives rarely happens anymore.  With more dialogue like this we could spend less time arguing about peripheral items and more time following Jesus.

The conservative church tends to lean towards Gnosticism with emphasis on the spiritual nature of Jesus and the gospel, while liberals tend to lean toward Arianism with emphasis on the physical nature of Jesus and the gospel.  Christian Orthodoxy says that Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine.  We need to listen to each other to recover a true Christian definition of evangelism and the Kingdom of God.  We need to embrace the paradox.   We need to learn to love the world and hate the world, to save souls and people, and to take care of the earth and long for heaven.  We don’t need to meet in the middle; we need to bring the extremes together like God did in the person of Jesus.

Here is a quote from Black that shows me that there is hope for growth in faithfulness on all sides.

I believe that one of the most difficult challenges for evangelicals today is to test our understanding of the Great Commission against this teaching of Jesus. Our missionary activity falls short if we limit ourselves to calling for personal faith in Christ without pointing to the requirements of the kingdom. Yes, we can always escape to a convenient “altar call” and “pledge card” mentality and call it evangelization, but this is not the total message of the Scriptures and the vision of the all-embracing kingdom of God. I suspect the devil loves it when we preach a Gospel without discipleship, as is inevitable once we become preoccupied with “getting people saved.” Following Christ means following Him in costly discipleship or it means nothing at all.

Summer Reading

For me, summertime is a time for reading.  I like to take books with me everywhere I go during the summer.  The beach is one of my favorite places to read.  Most folks recommend light reading, but this year I have been enjoying reading a few books about the future of the church.  Some of the helpful books I have been reading in this area are:

The Next Christendom by Phillip Jenkins
The New Christians by Shane Claiborn
The Jesus Paradigm by David Alan Black
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborn
A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McClaren

I also read for the first time Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and found it eerily similar to our current situation.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the best of all summer reading books-the Bible.  The Bible is a book that is meant to be read at the beach and in the open air.  The poet and philosopher Wendell Berry says:

I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is.  It is a hypaethral book, such as Thoreau talked about – a book open to the sky.  It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better.

I think Berry is right.  I had to look up the word hypaethral in a dictionary and discovered that it is an ancient Greek or Roman temple with no roof (from the Greek meaning open sky or air).  During the summertime, we remember that all of creation is an open air temple prompting us to worship God.  I hope your summer reading is going well and you remember that the Bible is just as at home in the woods or at the beach than it is in church (This posting origianlly appeared as the pastoral letter for First United Methodist Church of Pensacola).

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