season 1, episode 2
I once heard a story of a friend of mine sitting in the ANTS library, reading a commentary, and preparing for a sermon. As he was deep in a scholar’s explanation of a text someone else came up to him and said, “don’t prepare, just let the Holy Spirit move you.” Sad to say, the person was serious.
There are those people who feel that sermon preparation forces God and does not free the Holy Spirit. These people will argue that if you have nothing to say on Sunday it is because God will not give you anything to say. Weak.
Granted, we always need to be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our preparation and our preaching. There may be times when mid-sermon you go a different direction or change things altogether because of a “feeling.” Yet this is different from going to preach with nothing at all.
To do no preparation at all shows little respect for your congregation and almost no respect for the act of preaching and proclaiming the Word. If you want to have a good product, give God something good to work with, spend time in prayer and preparation, and show up with something.
Lets be honest, winging it is not so much trusting the Holy Spirit as it is being lazy, procrastinating, and spending to much time playing Farmville.
Ouch.
In the corresponding episode we mentioned a number of resources. For commentaries we mentioned the Interpretation series, the Anchor Bible series, and the New Interpreters Bible. There are other good commentaries, but these are some good ones to start with.
We mentioned the Oxford Annotated Bible and the Harper Collins Study Bible as editions of the NRSV that we like to work with.
Here is a link to the Christian Book Distributers site where I attended a warehouse sale and was almost trampled by Christians.
Finally, there are a million plus sites about the lectionary – look it up.
After thought - I neglected to link the other two books mentioned on the podcast:
The Homiletical Plot by Eugene Lowry
Homiletic by David Buttrick
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Now Let's Sing the Gathering Song!
Welcome to the blog! If you are reading this either you listened to the podcast and were left desiring more (you just can’t wait another two weeks), you followed a link from some other page to this blog, or you intended to go somewhere else and now are deeply saddened by the lack of scantly clothed women.
Regardless, you are here so keep reading, you might find it worth your while.
In our first podcast we talked about Contemporary Christian Music, starting with Stryper. Something that we did not directly address was the purpose of music in worship. Here are my two cents (actually my 10-15 cents at least).
Music not only gives the individual a way to articulate a powerful experience, but also joins an individual with a community in articulating that experience. It is one of the few times in a worship service when individual’s actions are shared with others at a powerful and profound level. If you have ever heard the monotone, robotic reading of a congregation during unison or responsive prayers, you know that just because everyone does something together they are not experiencing together. Music, however, demands a physical involvement through the breathing, the singing, and pushes the individual to an emotional, mystical, spiritual experience. I am sure that there are those who sing with no emotion, but that is because they are as cold as ice and are willing to sacrifice...
In singing and sharing and articulating an emotional experience, people are embracing, to a certain level, values of the community (see Amazing Grace, or It is Well for hymns that embrace specific Christian values). This is where the type of music is important. If the hymn is not written well, the values offered will be weak and will not help in making good Christians. This is part of my (Jonathan’s) beef with Christian Contemporary Music. The individualistic emphasis on me and Jesus leaves out those around me, those outside the walls of the church, and does not call for growth. Good hymnody is important, as Charley emphatically stated in the podcast.
Now the fun thing about a blog is that I can throw out something loaded like this, unpack it a little, and then leave it for the reader to chew on. Ha!
Feel free to leave comments and Charley or I might respond, or e-mail us at 12ecast@gmail.com
Regardless, you are here so keep reading, you might find it worth your while.
In our first podcast we talked about Contemporary Christian Music, starting with Stryper. Something that we did not directly address was the purpose of music in worship. Here are my two cents (actually my 10-15 cents at least).
Music not only gives the individual a way to articulate a powerful experience, but also joins an individual with a community in articulating that experience. It is one of the few times in a worship service when individual’s actions are shared with others at a powerful and profound level. If you have ever heard the monotone, robotic reading of a congregation during unison or responsive prayers, you know that just because everyone does something together they are not experiencing together. Music, however, demands a physical involvement through the breathing, the singing, and pushes the individual to an emotional, mystical, spiritual experience. I am sure that there are those who sing with no emotion, but that is because they are as cold as ice and are willing to sacrifice...
In singing and sharing and articulating an emotional experience, people are embracing, to a certain level, values of the community (see Amazing Grace, or It is Well for hymns that embrace specific Christian values). This is where the type of music is important. If the hymn is not written well, the values offered will be weak and will not help in making good Christians. This is part of my (Jonathan’s) beef with Christian Contemporary Music. The individualistic emphasis on me and Jesus leaves out those around me, those outside the walls of the church, and does not call for growth. Good hymnody is important, as Charley emphatically stated in the podcast.
Now the fun thing about a blog is that I can throw out something loaded like this, unpack it a little, and then leave it for the reader to chew on. Ha!
Feel free to leave comments and Charley or I might respond, or e-mail us at 12ecast@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Watch this Space for Future Development
A post is coming soon.... a podcast is coming soon... a new day is coming soon....
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