Church Voices

When you use scare quotes (” “) in reference to somebody else’s improper use of scare quotes, should you use single scare quotes (’ ‘ or maybe “‘ ‘”)?

How would that look in face to face conversation (where scare quotes are most often used and abused)?

Church leaders seem obsessed with or pressured into convincing their listeners that what is taught is “relevant”. No sermon or lesson is complete unless it’s tied off with some desperate pitch on “practical application,” which as a result often seems forced or cheap.

Whatever happened to seeking knowledge for its own sake? Isn’t seeking knowledge and wisdom for its own at the very foundation of what it means to be a person of virtue, by cultivating a rich internal life? Isn’t that the beginning of the path to the good, the true, and the beautiful?

You can be joyful whilst not being happy and happy whilst not being joyful. And, of course, you can be joyful whilst being happy. Happiness is based on your happenings. It therefore depends on what is external to you. Joy is based on an internal hope, conviction, or promise. Joy is therefore also derivative, but is secure in a way happiness is not. “Can’t you be happy because you’re joyful?”, you might ask. Yes, but only when your happenings permit such. Positive or neutral happenings permit happiness to be derived from joy. Naturally so. But if your happenings are lugubrious, then happiness shouldn’t be derived from joy.

Joy is necessarily a virtue; happiness is not. If your happenings are lugubrious, then happiness is probably a vice (hence, shouldn’t). Depressiveness (as opposed to depression) is the opposite of happiness. Depressiveness isn’t necessarily a vice, but it is necessarily not a virtue. If you’ve joy whilst your depressiveness it isn’t necessarily a vice. However, if you’ve no joy whilst your depressiveness it’s a terrible, terrible vice. When you’ve joy, when is depressiveness a vice? It’s hard to say. Perhaps when your happenings are equally conducive to happiness. Given that happiness is a virtue and depressiveness is not, the former should be preferred.

On that note—happiness is a discipline—a discipline I need to work on.

I know this is being posted late in the day, but enjoy.

I don’t talk politics at church.  But this isn’t church.

I’ll tell you now that I  won’t be voting for Clinton or Obama this election (for various reasons).  There is much I could say that I don’t like about their political decions in the past, and their views on the role of government in our country.  But I don’t really need to do that.  What I do need to do is to be challenged to treat others with respect and to love my enemies.  So I would like to share with you one thing that I appreciate about Clinton and Obama.   (There are probably more, and please feel free to share your own positive observations.  No criticizing or I’ll have to bring the smack down on you.  There are plenty of other places and times to do that.)

I appreciate both of these candidates being willing to discuss issues of faith at an event specifically for that.  They were asked questions of varying kinds by different people, including ministers.  The questions weren’t all fluff either.  Were some of their answers evasions and redirects.  Yes.  But they aren’t Bible scholars, they are politicians and trained in that.  And quite frankly, there are many things about God, faith, and Christianity that I find mysterious and don’t have a tremendous grasp on yet.  And when somebody asks me about them, I give the best answer I can but it might not really be a satisfying answer.

One thing that did come through when Clinton and Obama answered their questions was a desire to live out their faith by helping other people.  In Christian circles, we call this “loving your neighbor as yourself.”  Sounds familiar, where have I seen that before?  It is possible that both politicians are saying what will get them the vote.  But I hope they are genuine and that I’m gracious enough to give them room to fail at it.  Especially when I as a minister, preacher, and christian fail at loving my neighbors quite a lot.

For all of the failings of the Democratic party, there appears to be a genuine desire among Democrats to love their neighbors.  Maybe as Christians (not Republicans or Democrats) we can show our communities what that looks like.  Maybe we can even love them as Christ has loved us.

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. - John 8:31-32 (KJV)

Reading the King James Version of the Bible is akin to reading/hearing pirate speech.  Fun and humorous at times, but doesn’t help communicate so well anymore.

Why do we insist on making people learn a new language to know Christ?  Now, I’m fine with learning a new language because we know Christ, such as the desire to learn Greek and Hebrew, or simply the process of learning how to speak in a way that glorifies God, but otherwise we are putting up an unnecessary barrier.  I don’t care what you use for your own devotions (although there will be plenty of words in the KJV that will mislead you if you don’t know better), but to insist that everybody uses that version because it’s the one God ordained is rediculous.

This would be one reason, among many, I don’t trust hospitals and their employees.  Before I continue, let me say that hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc. all have important and vital roles in society.  I use their services when I need to.  I also appreciate the hard work that most (if not all) medical proffesionals put into their practice of medicine.  There will also always be situations in which no amount of hard work, knowledge, experience, or testing availabe at the time will be sufficient.  That being said, gross mistakes and injustices are done on a regular basis across the country in hospitals and medical facilities.

My wife and I had a poor experience a couple years ago with a local hospital emergency room when my wife had to go their three times over the course of a few days.  Forgiving the ignorance and rudeness of various staff and professionals (we understand not everybody can be at the top of their game all the time, both in dealing with patients and their emotions as well as dealing with the problem) but during that time my wife’s female doctor was not contacted once, despite our specific request that they do that, until after my wife miscarried our little girl whom we had seen moving and heard her heartbeat only hours before by ultrasound.  They got reemed by her doctor for that, as they should have been.  (On a side note I wonder if there is a natural (unless combated against) devaluation or desensitization of human life that takes place as medical professionals deal repeatedly with death.)

I could also provide numerous stories from other patients where I witnessed errors, problems, etc.   Some of those were corrected because family members were there and were on the ball.  Others didn’t turn out so well: one lady recently passed away from widespread cancer when she was told for years by multiple doctors that she was fine and that her illness was in her head.  As it turns out, her illness was in her head, she had a major brain tumor (in addition to cancer elsewhere).

My experience (personally and professionally) has been that nurses are the most on the ball of anybody in the hospital.  Be good to them, because more often than not they will be responsible for helping you to get the care you need.  Also, listen to advice that tells you to communicate with medical persons providing you treatment.  Along with this, if you have to go to the hospital to be treated, have a family member or close friend with you as often as possible (especially during times of treatment and drug administration) if not the entire time so that they can do or say what needs to be done for your proper treatment.  Unless your doctor is House (a wacky, unorthodox, medical genius), if you have a serious or life threatening illness or condition, don’t hesitate to ask for a second opinion (or third). 

The Brazen Carreerist, Penelope Trunk brings us five tips for public speaking that I think applies to preaching.

1. Tell stories
2. Look deeply at individuals in the audience
3. Be honest about how you’re doing
4. Smile, even if it’s fake
5. Relax

She has some interesting observations.  This one was particularly interesting.

We do this because it’s so hard to talk in an unengaging way and look someone in the eye. And most public speakers are not particularly engaging. You can test yourself - to see if you’re really connected - by forcing yourself to look at one single person while you make a point. Get out the whole idea before you let your eyes move to the next person.

This is a way to know for sure if you are connecting with your audience when you talk. Sticking with one person for each point is painful and nearly impossible if you are not truly connecting your material to that person.

Time is a funny thing  when you’re preaching.  When you first start preaching regularly everything feels like its coming at you at light speed.  You don’t have time to take in how the audience is reacting.  Its everything you can do to spit out your sermon without doing something stupid. But, after you get some experience the experience slows down a bit.  You’re able to see how your audience is reacting, you get a sense for whether you’re communicating or not.  And if you’re not, ending a sermon early is a mercy.

Then there’s this:

Your nonverbal body language influences people’s reactions to you more than what you say. For example, Allan and Barbara Pease spend a whole chapter of their book, The Definitive Book of Body Language, dissecting the power of a smile. If you smile at your audience, they are likely to smile back. And a smile engenders good feelings and a true connection — even if the smile is forced

If you serve at a church as the preaching minister, you can do more than just control your body language (though this is important).  You control the entire environment.  From decorations, to room configuration, to lighting. All of these things communicate something, just make sure they’re communicating what you want them to.

From here:

James Merritt preached tonight at the Southern Baptist Pastor’s Conference. He began his sermon by mentioning his website PastorsEdge. He encouraged his listeners to download his free Father’s Day sermon - illustrations and PowerPoint included - and use it this Sunday with his blessings. He assured them it was not plagiarism and they had his full permission.

This bothers me for a couple of reasons, none of which has to do with plagiarism, copyrights or any other sort of ethereal claims to intellectual property.

First, using an entire sermon prepared by someone else castrates the development of new preachers. Right now certain young, undeveloped preachers may be able to produce better sermons by using someone else’s material, but after a few years they’ll not be able to develop their own sermons, nor will they ever develop their own style that they’re comfortable with, which also emphasizes their strengths as a preacher. If this were to become wide spread practice Christianity would not produce any more great preachers, and the evolution of preaching would stagnate.

Second, every congregation is different. Oh I know you head off across the blogosphere and you’ll find posts where the view that certain denominations are homogeneous based on their, geographic location, political bent and racial make-up, but its simply not true. Each congregation, and each community has certain shared experiences, biases, sins, questions and needs that are unique. By using a sermon created by someone else you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to communicate the gospel as effectively as possible, and you’re robbing your congregation of hearing the gospel in the clearest possible way (and if we want to be a bit more
pragmatic, you’re robbing them of what they’ve paid you for).

So please, stay far far away from places like Pastor’s Edge because ultimately it will make your preaching dull, and ineffective.

If you’ve ever been anxious to hear a movie review that goes something like this:

If Christianity were a zombie movie then we’re all Carlton waiting for the zombie kids to devour us while we futilely pound on the door to the Kingdom of God, thank God Jesus plays the part of Susan who graciously lets us in though we deserve a good zombie munching.

You might try checking out Movie Watching Messiah.