I’ll be sharing a message about Christians and alcohol this week. I’m wanting to get some feedback from our CornerStoners. Well, maybe that isn’t the best term for our attenders 
I’ll be sharing not only what the Bible says about drinking alcohol, but also we’ll be talking about real world consequences in our culture today. I just want to get an idea of where you stand on the issue. Take the following poll and let me know what you think.
[polldaddy poll=3832648]
I want to talk about something that is incredibly frustrating to me. There are far too many Christians who think their job is to be on the sidelines as a referee instead of on the playing field. I deleted a comment on my blog by someone who thought it was their job to tell the world how all the pastors at the Newspring Leadership Conference were false teachers. Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incidence. If you read many blogs or look at the facebook comments of popular pastors you will see Christians who constantly complain and disrespect them. Even in our church, I have had to deal with people who like to remind me of everything I am doing wrong.
The sad thing is that most of these “self-proclaimed” experts have a high degree of Biblical knowledge. But knowledge doesn’t equal obedience. Jesus had very little tolerance for the religious experts of his day. The Pharisees knew Scripture inside and out, but yet their hearts were hardened and cold. They put extra burdens on the people they were supposed to be serving. That sounds like many of the religious referees of our day. They are arrogant and they presume to know the motives of others, even when they have never talked with them privately.
I’ve got to admit, it is easy to fall into the trap of judging others based on second hand information. I’ll give you a personal example from my life. In the past I didn’t have a very high opinion of Willow Creek based on what I had heard about their church from other pastors. I kept hearing how liberal they were and how they watered down the message of the Gospel. It was easy to assume that everything I heard was true. But then I did something that completely changed my mind about Bill Hybels and Willow Creek. I read several of his books and I realized how much of a burden and heart that Hybels had for reaching people who were far from God. Even though I might not agree with him on every single detail, I gained an incredible amount of respect for a man who has devoted his life to God. It is not my job to tell him how to do his. In fact, I want to learn all I can from someone who is so passionate about evangelism.
Let me challenge you and ask you a question. Are you becoming arrogant in your attitude toward others who use different methods than you do? If so, please repent of your arrogance and seek to listen for God’s will for your life. Your job is not to stand on the sidelines and referee, your job is to be involved in the action. Quit complaining and start serving. The world needs to see Jesus through you.
It seems like there are more Christian conferences every year. Leadership conferences, conferences for small churches, conferences for creatives, conferences for staff, and conferences for every topic you can think of. I have decided to skip some of the big ones this year, but there is one conference that I just couldn’t pass up. The Newspring Leadership Conference is this week down in South Carolina and it will be awesome. Anytime you can bring together great preachers to share about our responsibility to preach the Gospel, good things will happen. I especially can’t wait to hear from Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll, but I have listened to and been challenged by every single speaker. Jennifer is driving down with me so she can shop, but I’m going to the conference by myself. If any of my pastor buddies want to meet up, look me up.
I’m still frustrated at the game last night. I know this has nothing to do with theology or technology, but it’s my blog, so I can write about whatever I want to. I love college football and I love Virginia Tech. I didn’t just jump on the Hokie bandwagon recently, I graduated from Tech in 1995 so I’ve sat through many games, both good and bad. I’ve been to bowl games and I’ve watched the team transform from a nobody in college football into a top program. Unfortunately, the game last night was the ideal example of recent Hokie football. Here are some of my thoughts about the game.
What is it that you feel you don’t have the freedom to say in church? Too many times we act like everybody is perfect and nobody has any problems. One of the most feared words in church is “fine” As in, everything is fine. We pretend and act like we don’t have fears or struggles, and unintentionally we create a culture where people don’t feel accepted because they aren’t perfect.
Anne Jackson, otherwise known as Flowerdust if you read Christian blogs, has written a new book called Permission to Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession, and Grace
I don’t want to ruin the ending of the book for you, but let me just say that if want to read a book that has all the answers neatly wrapped up at the end, then this is one book you might want to skip. I think some of the best discussion comes from unresolved tension.
On a different note, I love the layout of this book. The typeset and graphic design is incredible. The poetry and letters that were included really added to the overall transparency and authenticity of the book. Here’s what the publisher has to say about it.
“What is the one thing you feel you can’t say in church?”
In May 2008, Anne Jackson asked a question on her blog, “What is one thing you feel you can’t say in church?” Hundreds responded. Everyone had a story.
Permission to Speak Freely is the artistic collaboration and movement of author Anne Jackson, who is through with keeping brokenness in the dark. Bringing to light the original intent of God’s sanctuary as a place of help and healing, Anne reveals that through confession, both to God and to others, we can live lives that are whole and healed.
Told with disarming transparency, Anne shares what led to her own addictions and the ensuing lifestyle that left her wounded and withdrawn. She includes dramatic stories of others that also learned to lose their fear, pride, and masks; to identify their hurts; and to find the courage to speak freely. Readers will share in the opportunity to find their own redemption and freedom.
Disclaimer: I did receive a free copy of Permission to Speak Freely for review through the Booksneeze review program, but was not asked to give a positive review. The links to Amazon.com in this post are affiliate links. I would earn a small commission if you purchased the book through a link. Click here to see my full disclosure policy.
My brain is a scary place. So this may be a post that you skip over unless you are interested in how I process and organize information. As a pastor, each week I have the responsibility to clearly present a message based on God’s Word. It means that I spend time studying each week, making sure that I am prepared to stand up and preach. I typically write out my sermon each week in Apple Pages. But when I write using a word processor, I am forced to write in a very linear process. When I need to reorganize my thoughts, I have to go through a painstaking process to cut and paste to make everything flow together.
Outlines help somewhat, but they still cannot be quickly changed. That’s where mind maps can help. Wikipedia defines a mind map as “a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.” I watched a video tutorial on mind maps over at Pastorgear.com and I decided to give it another try.
I downloaded the free version of XMind for the Mac and I started organizing my thoughts. I created nodes for Bible verses, for illustrations, and for my central idea. I started adding in points and thoughts, and very quickly a sermon was formed. I was able to reorganize my ideas very quickly by dragging and dropping. You can collapse and expand your different points to keep everything on the screen. And finally, when you are done, you can export the map out as a text file to use for preaching. You can see a partial map from the sermon last week above this post.
Overall, I’m impressed with XMind. The program worked great and it really helped me to organize my thoughts. For an engineer, this program really matched my analytical and logical skills and allowed me to be creative at the same time. The process is much better than simply writing a sermon out on paper. You can very quickly see how the message will flow from point to point. I’ve been using Evernote to store many of my sermon ideas, but I want to start incorporating XMind into my weekly work flow. I might even upgrade to the pro version to get some more export options. Just don’t forget that the most important tool in sermon preparation is your Bible. You must do the hard work of studying Scripture if you teach each week. Nothing can replace prayer and Bible study if you want to powerfully present God’s Word each week.
Let me know how you organize your sermons, and if you want to find out more about using a tool like this, check out the video below from Pastorgear.com that got me interested in trying this out.
Cornerstone Sermons