Spurgeon Preaching

A couple weeks ago a quote from Jesus caused me to ask the question, for whom am I teaching? Some reading this weekend led me across some thoughts from Charles Spurgeon which cause me to ask: What am I teaching?

“It is better to fail attempting the right subject, than to succeed in the wrong; and the right subject is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To even attempt that subject is a noble thing in itself.”

“I am content to live and die as a mere repeater of scriptural teaching, as a person who has thought out nothing and invented nothing, as one who never thought invention to be any part of his calling, but who concluded that he was simply to be a mouth for God to the people, mourning that anything of his own should come between.”

“I always feel that I have not done my duty as a preacher of the gospel if I go out of this pulpit without having clearly set before sinners the gospel. I sometimes think that you have so often and so long heard me tell this story, that you will get weary of it; but I cannot help it if you do—I had better weary you than be false to my charge.”

These are words I need to hear and ponder as I live in a world that is addicted to new ideas, being relevant, and innovative thinking. I believe the bible is not boring, teachers are boring. I also am learning that the Gospel is powerful. In fact, the apostle Paul calls it the power of God. It does not need my help. But, oh how I need it's help.

What do Spurgeon's thougth stir in your heart and mind?

For whom are you teaching?

 ¹⁶Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. ¹⁷If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. ¹⁸He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.  John 7:16-18

One of the penetrating questions those of us who teach must ask continually is: For whose honor am I speaking?

It's always difficult to evaluate our motives for the heart of a man has immense depths.  Questions like those below can be of some help:

1. Prior to speaking, are my prayers full of a deep love and concern that the people see God and His truth or are they focused on me simply speaking clearly and well?
   
2. Prior to speaking, have I prayed through the text I am teaching and allowed it to teach and recalibrate my own heart and life to it's truth?
3. Is any anxiousness or nervousness that I am feeling flowing from a fear of speaking to man or a fear of speaking for God?
   
4. When I am speaking, am I using language of guilt and pressure or am I keeping my focus on shining a light onto God and His truth allowing the Spirit of God to be the one who moves people to his desired intention? 
   
5. When I am finished teaching is my first concern whether or not the people were pleased or whether God was pleased?

I've been guilty of speaking for my own honor.  May the Church be filled with those who speak for the honor of the Lord rather than the honor of themselves.

Two more words

Proclaim. Perform.

When we talk about evangelism we must understand that there are two key intertwining ideas that must always be before us and at work within us. One without the other is not sufficient.

The gospel must be performed. By performed I that we must ask ourselves does who God is and how he work in this world come to bear on my life as his witness in such a way that I seek to flesh out the sacrificial love of God that unselfishly seeks what is best for others. see john 13:35

The gospel must be proclaimed. By proclaim I mean that work of God in Christ must be put into words. see Romans 10:14-15

Beautiful pictures of both of these is found in Acts 4, Philippians 1.

God help us in being the church in this generation that both performs and proclaims the gospel with our lips and our lives.  One without the other is not enough!

Two Words

Two words are consuming my thinking these days. Two words that are helping me to better understand what Jesus called the Great Commandments (remember there are two).

Commune. Cooperate.

This is what I want my life to be about. I want to grow in an ever deepening communion with the living God through Jesus Christ. I want to cooperate with God in caring for his creation, namely that part of creation that he treasures most: people.

What does communion and cooperation look like for you today? I think it may be that simple.

Fully Awake

Luke 9:32 32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory..."

This is my prayer for myself, my family, and the North American Church today. Like Peter, James and John, we've been invited into deep communion with Christ. Christ has done everything needed to bring us to a place of encounter with Him.

The problem: I'm sleepy. My spiritual eyes are heavy and my heart dull. Feasting on this world brings my soul into a post thanksgiving dinner sluggishness.

The answer: Become fully awake. I can't do this. I'm crying out to the Lord today for a heart and mind that is fully awake.

Why? I want to see the glory of the risen Christ. I want to see.

God, make us fully awake!

Why you need to be a part of a Learning Community

Seth's Godin blog post on June 4, 2009 was really encouraging to me because this is the type this is the type of learning experiences we are seeking to build with our Learning Communities which we are hoping to launch throughout the EFCA later this month for youth workers.

My friend Bill Allison says that we need more guides on the side than we need sages on the stage. Another friend, Steve Hudson drilled into me that training (or reading books) is for understanding but we need coaching to help us work on implementation.

Only about 20% of people, once they get new information...information they need...really know what to do with it. Most people know it's good information. They know they need that information. They know it's important. The problem is their not sure what to do with it or there is no one keeping them accountable to make the changes or adjustments that need to be made.

Seth's post is the longest one from him I've ever seen. Here is the portion I most connected with:

Learning: The educational lesson that I found the most striking is that the book knowledge was easy to transmit and not particularly essential. Once you get this far, it's sort of a given that you're good at school. We read more than a hundred books, and the book learning happened quickly . Our culture has done an amazingly good job at teaching talented people how to learn concepts from books.

I taught for five to twenty hours a week, and very little of it was about the books. So, if concepts from books are easy, what’s hard?

Doing it.

Picking up the phone, making the plan, signing the deal. Pushing ‘publish.’ Announcing. Shipping.
We spent a lot of time on this area. Every morning, each person came in prepared to push someone in the group to overcome the next hurdle. This is what growth looks like, and it was energizing to be part of.