1. In the first corner is the text: What does it mean?  How did it get its message across?  Why does it matter?
2. In the next corner is you: How will this be lived out?  How does it change you?
3. In the third corner is the people you are talking to: Who are they and what do they need?  What does the passage have to say to them?
4. In the final corner is the world: How does the passage resonant or create dissonance with the society we are in?

Of these four, the last two are the ones I struggle with the most.  So, here are some questions that might help understand 3, our people.  These come from Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte.  She is writing for a corporate setting and the principles of presentation and preaching are so close.

1. What are the like?  There is no substitute for knowing your people personally.
2. Why are they here? What are they expecting you to do, and what do they expect to get out of this?  (Sadly I suspect many people expect 30 mins of boredom rather than hearing God, Himself speak through a preacher).
3. What keeps them up at night? What is their fear?  This is often different to what should keep them up at night.
4. How can you solve their problem?  How can you, pointing to Jesus, help them deal with their fear?  How does the Gospel change things?
5. What do you want them to do?  What’s the takeaway, what’s the point of what you are saying?
6. How might they resist?  What will or can stop them from doing what you are asking?
7. How can you best reach them?  What is the best way of delivering this information?  Inspiring with stories or stats?  Challenging with points or repentance?

These are not the only questions you can ask, but they are a good set of questions to help us focus the point so we are producing great disciples for Jesus.  What questions do you ask?

Here is what we did:

Before the day, Sonny and I sat down and went over the passage.  We both had a good idea of the issues that needed to be brought up and what I thought was the main point.  But I made sure I didn’t know what the questions were beforehand so I could just script the questions, this had to be live.  Our small groups had been through the passage beforehand which is our normal habit.

On the day we explained what we were going to do.  (You can listen to it/ download it here).  Sonny then had 15 mins to ask questions about the passage, then we opened it to the floor for others to throw in questions and then we had another 5 mins where Sonny asked questions about application of the passage.  I should point out there was nothing off limits, and Sonny through some curly ones in to make sure I was on my toes.

What worked:

• People seemed to be more attentive, I suspect because it was a new format and people weren’t sure how it was going to work.  (They were looking for the acrobat to fall doing a new trick!).  But I also think it was because of the format itself.
• Having the questions not known before hand means that there was no scripting, this sometimes meant that things seemed a little ragged around the edges but I think it made the whole thing edgier.
• Questions from the floor were more in depth.  I think the reason for this is that Sonny did not hold back on questions and so people saw there was nothing ‘off limits’.
• I knew what I wanted to say about the passage and weaved it into the questions.
• We didn’t lose the application of the passage by having the last 5 mins reserved for it.

What we would do differently:

• It would have been more helpful if we had a 5 min presentation of this is what the passage is about before we got into questions.  It would have helped people see the big idea and give them something to hang the questions on.
• The questions were grouped together but flagging this for people might have been more helpful: “Let’s start with some context questions”, “Moving into the passage…”, etc.
• Some of the questions were meant to be vague to give me more room to move, but we worked out more direct questions worked better.

Other things to keep in mind:

• If you are the ‘speaker’ you need to trust your ‘interviewer’ that they won’t highjack the event to their own agenda.  I trusted Sonny and he let me just run when I needed to.
• There is much less time in packaging and more time in preparing the text.  I felt like I was prepping for an exam!  It also meant two of us had to prep the passage, not just one.
• This is dangerous.  You need to make sure it is still a Christ-centered, Biblically faithful, life changing presentation.  It would be very easy to make it entertaining or personality driven, though the same thing could be said about monologues!  Though with this I think it is potentially easy to lose the authority of the Word as well, the interviewer is key here.  Keep your eye on the ball.

Would we do it again?  Probably with the changes that we have identified, and depending on the topic/ passage.  This passage worked because it was about revelation.  As an evangelistic event I think it would work really well.

Thoughts?

Erasing Hell, Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle

I was not really looking forward to this book for two reasons, one was its author and the other it subject.  I have found Chan to be popular but wanting.  And lets face it hell is not a subject that people want to look at.  But this book is a must read for all Christians.

Chan has written a couple of other books including one on the Holy Spirit called The Forgotten God, which I was frankly disappointed by.  It was heartfelt, but lacked precision on some issues that needed to be dealt with.  I read this one partly due to its popularity but mainly due to the fact it free on Kindle!!

Chan (and Sprinkle) wrote this book out of a response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins which questioned the idea of hell that the church has been holding.  I can see Bell’s approach being popular, afterall, do we really want to believe in hell anymore let alone talk about it!   Chan’s response is: “Don’t believe something just because you want to, and don’t embrace an idea just because you’ve always believed it.  Believe what is biblical.  Test all your assumptions against the precious words God have us in the Bible.” (p14).

There are three things I liked about the book.  (Like is probably not the right word but will do for the moment).

Firstly, the book does not hold back in terms of looking at the Biblical ideas of hell and what they mean.  They do look at what different ideas could mean and accept that there are some things we don’t know, but argue that hell is a place of torment and punishment for those who do not turn to Jesus.  This is not a popular idea and I can already see the comments being written about that last statement.   But Christians don’t talk about Jesus because its fun or popular, we talk about the Gospel because its true and what is at stake.  This book is a great reminder of what is at stake.

Secondly, he examines the perspective of others, today and throughout history, and assesses them in the light of the Biblical evidence.  This is something I thought was lacking in the Forgotten God, but is important and clear here as Chan seeks to answer some of the questions people have about hell.

Thirdly, he shows us the personal, emotional cost of talking about hell.  This is not merely a cold doctrine that we can examine and leave.  Let me finish with the words that Chan starts his book with:

The saddest day of my life was the day I watched by grandmother die.  When the EKG monitor flatlined, I freaked out.   I absolutely lost it!  According to the Bible, she was headed for a life of neverending suffering.  I thought I would go crazy.  I have never cried harder, and I don’t ever want to feel like that again.  Since that day, I have tried not to think about it.  It has been over twenty years.

Even as I write that paragraph, I feel sick.  I would love to erase hell from the pages of Scripture.

How about you?  Have you ever struggled with hell as I have?  Do you have any parents, siblings, cousins, or friends who, based on what you have been taught, will end up in hell?  What a bone-chilling thought.  Until recently, whenever the idea of hell – and the idea of my loved ones possibly heading there – crossed my mind, I would brush it aside and divert my thinking to something more pleasant.  While I have always believed in hell with my mind, I tried not to let the doctrine penetrate my heart. pp13-14.

If that is you, like me, you need to read this book.

The film uses the project of setting up a salmon fishing site in the Yemen to deal with the cultural differences between the Middle East and the West, the personal cost of the war in Afghanistan, marriage breakdown, as well as some amusing insights into British politics and departmental bureaucracy that with a change of accents could easily be Australian.

One of the most interesting relationships is that between the visionary investor Sheik Mohammed (Amr Waked) and Dr Jones.  The Sheik is a self confessed man of faith who says of the project “I built this to the glory of God, but I fear it has become to the glory of man”.   Dr Jones is a clear man of science and the two become quite close through their shared passion for fly fishing. The Sheik uses this to illustrate that Dr Jones is not as far from being a man of faith than he thinks.  Fishing requires a faith that the fish are there are they are willing to bite, the fisherman can spend hours waiting and fishing before he will see any evidence of this.

I love this interaction because it blows apart the overly simplistic idea that faith is ‘blind’.  Fly fishermen will spend hours preparing their fly, seeking out ideal locations, talking about where the fish are.  They gather evidence which their faith is based on.  And yet faith is “what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).  The only way they know the fish are there is when they are caught, not before.  People are looking for a clear surety in the Christian faith that is not there until the faith is acted on, though there is lots of evidence that the faith is sure.  Faith is used all the time in our lives, not just in our relationship with God and so should not be dismissed as easily as it often is.

This is not a film to be judged by its title, it is a very clever film with some interesting insights.  It should watched with an open mind and a an hour or so afterwards to discuss it to make the most out of the film.

1. The adaption of a species to its environment over the course of several generations.
2. The emergence of a new species as a product of the adaptation.
3. The spontaneous existence of life leading to the emergence of species.
4. The explanation of the existence of the physical universe by the big bang/ spontaneous existence.

Let me give you where I stand on each of these issues as a scientist and theologian*:

1. I have no problem with this as a scientist, I saw lots of hard evidence in the lab when I was studying.  As a theologian this is the area I want to focus on later in the post.
2. As a theologian I have no principled argument here, but as a scientist I am agnostic here.  Sure, there are the fossil records and other strong circumstantial evidence that leads this to probably being right, but I want to see some hard evidence of a new species emerge from an existing one.  I realise this takes thousands of generations and we need to be patient and I am up for that.  However, as a scientist I want to see it.  I don’t count wolphins and ligers since they cannot propagate.  I don’t count viruses since they are parasitical but I do imagine the evidence will come from the microbiological world.  (And someone reading this might give me the evidence I am looking for!)
3. This one is the one I am most skeptical about.  The reason for this is that as a scientist this is the one that is most likely to be replicated in a lab, but thus far hasn’t.  As a theologian there is a sacredness to life, especially human life, that would mean this is something that would be difficult or impossible to replicate.
4. As a scientist I think I understand Hawkins enough to see there can be models of the spontaneous existence of the universe.  Though I do question what this has to do with biological evolution, but that is a side point.  As a theologian I don’t really have a problem here since though this appears to be contradictory.  We do this all the time.  We talk about ‘a sunrise’ and ‘an earth rotation’.  Both views of the solar system cannot be right in the relationship between the sun and the earth, one assumes that the sun orbits the earth, the other that the earth is turning on its axis before the sun.  Yet, we still look forward to a sunrise.  The two terms mean different things because of their context and what they are seeking to do in language.  I think the creation accounts and models of accounting for the existence of the universe do the same thing.

But let me return to the first level of evolution.  Species are constantly adapting to their environment over generations, this is not really deniable.  But why?  Why do they need to adapt to their environment?  Because the relationship between the species and the environment is not perfect.  This is something that Bible upholds and explains:

“For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children.”  (Romans 8:20–21 HCSB)

Creation is not as it should be.  The relationship between species and their environment is fractured, the need for adaption highlights the relationship that the Bible expounds.

On the other hand where does adaptation of the species fit into the theological picture the Bible paints?  I wish to submit that: the allowance of adaption is a sign of God’s grace to his creation, allowing it to continue even its brokenness.  That is, that evolution is a sign of God’s grace not a denial of His existence.

Instead of God leaving His creation to its frustration and futility He continues to sustain it by the process of the species being able to adapt to the changing and frustrating world that it is seeking to exist in.

This does lead to some questions that I frankly don’t have answers for:

• How does extinction therefore function in God’s plan?
• Does God have a direct role in how species seek to adapt?
• One would therefore assume that there will no longer need to be adaption in the new creation, is that a fair assumption?

* OK, so I am using these two terms fairly liberally.  I have science degree as well as two theological degrees.  That does not make me a specialized expert in any of these fields.  I should point out science wise I specialized in neuro-psychology and less so in physics and maths so biology is really not my strong suit.

When I was growing up in church they were called Bible Study Groups, but with the change in names comes the change in their function.  Here is one of the things I have noticed: how the average person in the church perceives the function of the small group is very different to how the leaders of the church perceive it.  I could speculate as to why this is, but instead let me offer some diagnostic questions that might help.  I should point out that there is very little right and wrong here.  But how small group ministry fits into the larger strategies of the church is important.

1. Is this where you expect maturity, mission or both to take place?

It is easy to say both, but you may not want to.  When Willow Creek took off, they made conscience decision to make the Sunday church service evangelistic and the small groups for the maturity and growth of the Christian.  I can already see people warming up their hands to comment that it often is both, but the question is what is the primary aim for the ministry?  If the group is primarily for mission how will maturity take place?  Do you want to put in an intense 1 to 1 network?

2. How autonomous are you expecting the groups to be?

This is something I have noticed, is that leaders of churches get frustrated with the lack of initiative by their small group leaders.  On the other hand they give them little opportunity to be autonomous.  Would you give a small group a budget to work with?  How would you expect them to use it?  Do you need to clear out the church calendar a little to give them the room to move?  On the other hand it does not take much to turn a church into a loose group of house-churches that increasingly have little to do with each other.  How do you resolve this?

3. What do you expect of the leaders of the group?

This will be different for different people.  Soma Communities (not us, the one in the US), for example treat their small group leaders as church planters.  On the other hand Saddleback Church see them as HOSTs: People who Have a heart for people, can Open the door, Serve drinks, Turn on the DVD, etc.  All of the teaching and pastoring is done for them.  Soma Communities want highly committed groups, Saddleback want lots of groups.  Both have looked at what they want and planned and built around it.

4. Is this the front-line of pastoral care?

When I was working for AFES I would hear things like, I don;t really know my minister, but I know my small groups leader, but he doesn’t really know what I should do.  Relationally small group leaders are often in the ideal place to address key pastoral issues and care for people.  But they are often ill equipped to do so.  Some churches have compensated for this by having ministries specializing in the care particular needs.  This can be a good compensation.

5. How do you expect to plant more groups?

This is an important question, how will you get more groups?  Do you grow and split the ones you have? (I highly recommend NOT doing this).  Do you plant more?  Do you do a big mix up at the start of each year and just end up with more?  This question really depends on how deep you expect the relationships to be in the group.  The more surface the relationships the easier it is to break up the groups and start more, on the other hand it is harder get that depth of relationship you might want.

6. How are you training leaders in this?

OK, so that is what this whole post has really been about.  What do you want leaders to do?  What do you expect of them?  How do you get new leaders? etc.  I have worked out that training of leadership needs to be done on two levels.  BASIC is the initial training that you need your leaders to have to start.  Make sure they understand your expectations, what to do when they are out of their depth, etc.  But we also need TRENCH.  This the ongoing training we need for leaders are in the trench, doing the job but needing the support, the help, correcting direction, etc.

At Soma we have BASIC with GC 101 and other training, what we need to start to develop is TRENCH.

Other questions I have missed?

Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (which has nothing to do with Christianity).  This is an army that takes kids, rapes, mutilates and forces kids to shoot their parents, etc.  No-one is saying that Kony is misrepresented here or that he does not deserve the full force of the law.

KONY2012 is a movement that is seeking to raise awareness of his need for justice.  The movie is an incredibly good piece of communication: it is emotional, but clear and leaves people with a clear sense of “this is what needs to happen and here is what you need to do and we have a clear goal and time line so you need to do it now – we can change the world”.  The main thing is making Kony famous by re-posting the movie online and getting as many people to see it as possible.  This will keep putting pressure on the US Government to keep sending ‘military advisers’, which will help the Ugandan Army track down Kony and bring him to justice.  It is a clever way to get your point made and achieve your goal.

KONY2012 is a case of how online movements can make change and I think will become the standard in the future of how a movement should work.  The online movie is done as a grassroots documentary with the focus on the movement’s young son, the subtext being even a 6 year old can work out what is going on here.

But there are some detractors from the KONY2012 movement.  Grant Oysten from The Educated Negro points out some flaws in the movement.  For example only 31% of their donations went to the charity.  This is probably true, but the movement seems to be about raising awareness as much as helping people on the ground.  The free movie online looks very cool and underground but would have cost at least several hundred thousand dollars to produce to get us talking and doing it for free.  That is not to mention the staff, lobbying, posters, etc.

Oysten also points out that KONY2012 is seeking to support the Ugandan Army which has it’s own criminal issues like systematic rape.  Again I would agree with that – I don’t know the stats but I understand no African army would walk out of a criminal court clear.  But we need to start somewhere.  Bringing Kony to justice will make leaders in Africa, rebels and governments, stop and think at least for a moment that they might too face an international court.

Does this mean I will support the KONY2012 movement?  On one hand as a Christian I want to see justice done, I want to see kids rescued, I want to see the “Lord’s” Resistance Army disbanded.  But the KONY2012 movement is about making sure there is pressure on my representative in Washington.  I don’t have a representative in Washington.  As far as I know the Australian government are not doing nor planning on doing anything.  Apart from raising awareness to….raise awareness I am not sure I am achieving anything.

By all means be informed about Kony, KONY2012 and their detractors, but I think we need to learn from them about how can change the world for the better.

On a crisp spring day a few years ago, I took my nephew, who was about eight at the time, to a baseball game.  As the fourth inning wound down, he turned to me and said, “Uncle Nelson, can I have some Skittles?”  Well, I love my nephew, and I want to grant him the desires of his heart, so of course I said yes.  I pulled a couple of dollars out of my pocket, put them in his eager little hand, and watched as he walked the short distance to the concession stand.  A few minutes later he returned, already  digging hungrily into a bag of candy.

Watching him eat those Skittles brought out my sweet tooth.  So I asked him, “Can I have one of those?”

Without hesitating, he answered, “No, Uncle Nelson, they’re almost gone.”

Though I didn’t say it aloud, I have to admit my instinctive response was, “Look, kid, I gave you the money for those Skittles.  Not to mention I am a lot bigger than you are.  If I wanted to I could take the whole bag of Skittles away from you right now.”  Instead I let him continue eating his Skittles in silence.

As I sat there listening to my nephew chew and watching him wipe red, yellow, and green food colouring off his mouth with his shirtsleeve, I couldn’t help but think about how often I have watched  people within the church – myself and other leaders included – treat God the same way this child had just treated me.  How often have we taken resources and gifts God has given us and set about consuming them, with little regard for his ultimate ownership?  And how often has he looked on, refraining from using his position and power to force us into obedience?

But I was struck by how much they would turn to their coaches.  I stopped to think “Why on earth do these guys need coaches?  They are the best in the world!”.   In fact these were not just coaches, they were the best coaches in the world.  Did they really need them, after all they are just hitting a ball over a net?  They seem to think so. So here’s the point:

No matter how good you are, you can never do without coaching.

I have also been following the NFL season and there was I was struck by the sheer number of coaches they have for each team.  There is a defensive coach, a tackle coach, a kicking coach, etc.  Having more than one coach can be a good thing as well.

I then stopped to reflect on my coaching staff I thought about who I have and who I need.  I realise at this point someone might point out that the Holy Spirit is a coach and who needs any more than that?  Point taken, but the way the Spirit coaches is to equip others to help us and gives gifts to people to that end.

I also can hear someone say “how do you meet with all these people, do you get any work done?”.  Firstly, I only meet with these guys once every few months or so.  I usually come to them with a list of questions I have accumulated over a few months or with an assignment we have discussed.  Secondly, this is about working smarter and not harder.  This is about making sure we are using the time, resources and gifts that God has given us to His Glory and not wasting them.

Who I have:

A Ministry Coach

This is a guy who is older in ministry and he helps me from making really big and stupid mistakes in ministry.  I will bring something to him and will point out the possible flaws and issues it will raise.  If I can’t argue that it is a good idea by the end, it probably isn’t.  I also bring to him pastoral issues that are really hard to work out and having a guy who is not invested personally in the relationship gives some perspective.

An Organizational Coach

This is a guy who works in H/R.  He oversees our ministry and recently did a 360 review.  In his assessment we looked at some points in the ministry that were weaknesses and need to be fixed.  He then worked on the solutions with me.  Again if I could argue my point to him, it was probably worth doing.

An Entrepreneurial coach

This guy is a guy in small business.  He has one job.  Every few months I sit down with him and he shakes me out of the rut I might have got in to make sure I am actually spending time personally and as the one leading the church to reach out to people.  I get a lot of “How’s that working for you, when you have 60,000 people to reach?” answered by some mumbling “I am getting there, kinda…”.

Who I also need:

Which got me thinking, who else do I need?

A Theological Coach

At the moment I don’t have a theological coach.  I can read books and listen to podcasts, but probably need someone whose finger is on the pulse of issues floating around the wider church that I need to address.

A Preaching Coach

I have had from time to time a preaching coach.  At the moment I am trying to do some new things in terms of interactivity and precision in preaching and while it is good getting feedback from my leaders and people in church, they tend to be too nice whereas I need someone to say “that was good idea on paper, but don’t do it again”.

At the end of the day, the decisions are mine and my coaches know that.  I am the one on the field and I need to make the calls not them, but they are really helpful guys who I love very deeply and have a huge sense of gratitude for.  Do you have a coach or coaches, what do they coach you in?