I’m not talking about the John Lee Hooker album (which is GREAT, by the way).  No, I’m talking about spiritual gifts.

As part of our most recent Residence in Ministry retreat we were required to read the book Equipped for Every Good Work by Dan Dick and Barbara Miller.  Having read Dan Dick’s excellent Vital Signs, I was intrigued at the prospect of a spiritual gifts assessment from a United Methodist perspective.  The results were surprising to me.

First, the book was better than I expected it to be.  I almost expected a spiritual gifts book to be cheesy in some ways (and in some ways it was).  But in other ways it was an exercise in self-awareness and perspective, and it gave me strategies for leadership in the local congregation.

Second, my highest score – and one that came as a big suprise to me – was in healing.  It wasn’t just my high score, it was one mere point from the highest possible score.  I’m not sure I would have ever considered myself a healer, at least not as my primary spiritual gift.  I don’t know what I expected it to be, but healing wasn’t my first idea.  Of course, my second highest score was in miracles and I sure didn’t expect that one either.  

If I were to describe my gifts and graces on my own, healer and miracle worker aren’t the first things that come to mind.  But let’s look more closely at how Dick and Miller describe them.  These descriptions are from the handouts available at the book’s website (which makes using the book with a congregation exceptionally easy).

 

Healing—the gift of conducting God’s healing powers into the lives of God’s people. Physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological healing are all ways that healers manifest this gift. Healers are prayerful, and they help people understand that healing is in the hands of God. Often their task is to bring about such understanding more than it is to simply erase negative symptoms. Some of the most powerful healers display some of the most heartbreaking afflictions themselves.

 

I have described myself on this blog before as a Wesleyan theologian with Process leanings, which makes sense in this context.  One of my pastor friends puts it this way: “if you pray, and you expect God to do something about your prayers, then you are a process theologian to some extent.”  I think that’s right.  I believe God’s will is ultimately done, but that God really does hear our prayers and responds to them in real time.  Sometimes God changes our circumstances, but more often God changes the pray-er.  And sometimes God just says, “No.  Not right now.”  I believe very strongly in a responsive, relational God.  

It also makes sense that my two careers – mental health counseling and pastoral ministry – merge at healing.  I believe both are healing professions.  And in my life as a therapist I was a Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapist, a disciple of Albert Ellis.  This makes sense if I am gifted as a healer, because REBT adds technique and method to my natural empathic abilities.  

A lot of my theology revolves around healing in one way or another.  I often articulate the doctrine of depravity as an expression of our inherent brokenness rather than sinfulness, corruptibility, or badness. Wesley often described original sin as sickness or disease, and Christ as the healer or the cure.  I work hard to articulate that healing takes many forms – including death which is the ultimate healing, our full incorporation into the life of God.   

Miracles—the gift of an ability to operate at a spiritual level that recognizes the miraculous work of God in the world. Miracle workers invoke God’s power to accomplish that which appears impossible or impractical by worldly standards. Miracle workers remind us of the extraordinary nature of the ordinary world, thereby increasing faithfulness and trust in God. Miracle workers pray for God to work in the lives of others, and they feel no sense of surprise when their prayers are answered.

Our worship bulletin has one scripture quote printed across the bottom every week.  It’s Mark 10:27 “With God all things are possible.”  So maybe that one makes sense too.

News reports, including those within the denomination, tell us that the church is dying.  I refuse to believe it.  It’s not denial.  I believe that to write the church’s obituary before we are dead is to deny the power of God to renew, reform and vitalize the church.  In other words, I believe that if you are focused on the numbers and the statistics and you see a bleak future for the church, then you are the one who is in denial.  When our little local church has improved our weekly attendance from 25-30 to 35-40 (and sometimes more) since I’ve been here I am not surprised.  I won’t be surprised when our numbers jump even higher.  God has a future for our churches if we pray, if we work hard, and if we are intentional about making disciples (first of ourselves, then of others).  Maybe I am a miracle person.

One thing I could have predicted is that I am not a director-administrator.  I do know enough about myself to know that.  So it is my challenge in each church I serve to find people who are gifted as director-administrator-organizers who can help me lead more effectively.  All in all, I learned a lot more than I expected from a relatively simple study.

Andy Bryan reflects on that question over on his (always thought-provoking) blog Enter the Rainbow.  It’s a question I also pondered as I read a little anecdote in F. Belton Joyner’s Being Methodist in the Bible Belt.  Joyner writes of overhearing a conversation in a restaurant and being able to tell that the conversants were Mormons, first because they declined coffee then from a few key words in their vocabularies.

So if an astute observer were listening in on a conversation how would s/he know we were United Methodist? Sure we have a few key words that would give us away.

• Itineracy / itinerancy
• Connectionalism
• Prevenient
• Wesley
• Sola Hymnala
• Covered Dish

But seriously, what makes us distinctive?  I know of a church in the nearby area that has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years, and my wife knows several people who attend there.  In fact, her sister and her husband used to attend there when they lived in that town.  They all tell the same story – they left their home churches because the sermons left them feeling beaten up: you are a sinner, you need to repent, God hates sin, you’re not doing enough, etc.  They found a home in a church that preached one simple message and got it right:

Grace.

Everyone who left a Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, or other church to attend this one will tell you that they didn’t really understand grace until they attended there.

This is not to say that the statements above aren’t true – they are.  We are sinners who need to repent.  We are not doing enough.  We are not good enough.  God does hate sin.  But that’s only half the message.  The other half is that God’s grace is bigger than that.  We are sinners, but God loves us anyway.  We aren’t doing enough but God loves us anyway.

That church succeeded where other churches in town failed by forming a central identity – they’re the grace church.  That’s not their name, it’s just who they are.

Are we Methodists missing the boat here?  Are we so busy preaching about the evils of this world, condemning the correct sins, supporting the right missions, getting things done, that we have forgotten to preach the essential grace-fullness of God and the prevenient nature of that grace?  That salvation is a process, a journey and a way of life rather than a one-time event that happened one evening at church camp?  Are we willing to loosen our grips on our personal theological agendas (running the gays out, running the conservatives out, running the liquor stores out, boycotting chain stores) long enough to embrace our identity as those who now recognize God’s grace at work in our lives before we were aware of it?

I believe with my whole heart that Methodism should look, smell, sound, taste and feel like prevenient grace.  Therein lies who we are.

I love the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  If you haven’t seen this, please check it out!

Part 1

Part 2

Sorry, I don’t know how to embed Comedy Central videos in WordPress.

So the other day I got to thinkin’ – always a dangerous proposition!

Anyway, what is the relationship between art and ideology?  Specifically, if art is intentionally rendered in the service of ideology, is it truly art?  If art has a particular ideology that it intends to communicate (or “push”) at what point does it become propaganda?

Idealist that I am, I believe that the purest, truest art is an expression of one’s inner soul.  Art should reflect the artist’s deepest passions, fears, hopes, dreams, desires.   Anything short of that is disingenuous to a degree.

Furthermore, it’s cheezy.  I say that as a songwriter who has experienced reflecting upon his own work and found that anything borne of something other than my deepest emotion comes across as cheezy or corny.

Remember the scene in Walk the Line where Johnny Cash auditions for Sam Phillips at Sun Records?  Cash works his way through a well-rehearsed gospel song and Phillips says, “I don’t believe you.”  When Cash sings “Folsom Prison Blues,” a song written after a visceral reaction to a film of the prisoners’ living conditions at Folsom, the absolute soulfulness comes through and Phillips believes him even though his performance lacks confidence and polish.

I have drawn parallels between protest songs and Christian music before, and here I go again.  Protest songs that are borne of simple political ideology seem cheezy to me, whereas some seem to have more soul, more grit, and more heart to them.  Same goes for Christian music.  Too often Christian music sounds to my ears like the composer sat down to write a Christian song (Christian first, song second).  Other times it feels like the composer sat down to write a song and his/her passion for Christ came through (song first, Christian second).  Yet as a casual listener, I can’t really read the hearts and minds of the composers – perhaps one writer simply has a better grasp of metaphor, imagery and wordplay than the other.   At the same time, too many Christian songs sound like the product of what one of my professors calls the “traditional piety perpetuation machine.”

So that brings me to a series of questions that I ask myself as a preacher:

1. Is the sermon an art form?
2. If so, is the art best served by being in tune with my own deepest passions, desires, fears, hopes, dreams?
3. Is the art well served by being in tune with the congregation’s deepest passions, etc.?
4. Am I guilty of preparing art in the service of ideology rather than passion?

And finally, am I overthinking this, or is it just part of my academic nature?

Ken Hagler has a cool point about preaching and brevity, and he refers back to a really neat post by copyblogger. I’ve always thought that a sermon should have one simple point, finely honed. A point that is trite or the traditional “three points and a poem” sermon is usually forgotten by the time the Methodists get to Applebee’s.

But I digress. When I read the question, “which words can you live without?” my mind went a whole different direction. Here are some words and phrases I can do without.

1. “With all due respect.” Nothing remotely respectful has ever followed that phrase.
2. “My bad.” I always thought that one sounded kind of dumb.
3. “True that.” See #2.
4. “Git ‘er dun.” Please stop saying it, and please scrape it off the rear window of your pickup truck.
5. “Vis-à-vis.” This one is generally used by people trying to sound more intellectual than they really are.
6. It’s “nuclear,” not “nook-yuh-lur;” it’s Wimbledon, not Wimbleton; the T in “often” is silent; “irregardless” is a double negative and not really a word.
7. Um-ba-rella ella ella eh eh.

What words and phrases can you live without?

I just don’t understand it.  Why do so many American Christians want to view themselves as persecuted, under attack, discriminated against and reviled?

Is it all that Gospel of John sectarian stuff?   Paul?  A desire to be heard above the din of the rest of the political-religious noise machine?

As Americans, we have a serious perspective problem.  We are the most comfortable country in the world.  One only has to spend a couple of days in Africa to realize that we have very little idea what actual poverty is.  Far too many of our dollars are spent on luxury and comfort.  Better picture, richer sound, softer seats, mattresses designed by NASA, smoother rides, better scents, breathable fabrics, quieter air-conditioning, quieter dishwashers, hands-free, low maintenance, pure decadence.  It takes a rich, comfortable nation to support Brookstone, Sharper Image, Bath and Body Works, The Body Shop, SelectComfort Sleep Number Beds, and Blu-Ray.

Not that I haven’t spent my share of dollars on some of the above.  I’m pretty comfortable, too.

But here’s the rub; you can’t really be that comfortable and persecuted at the same time.  Not really persecuted.  Maybe you can be ridiculed and criticized from time to time, but real persecution?  Naaaah.

In Darfur there’s real persecution.   In Africa and India and the Middle East there’s real poverty.  Here, there’s mostly other comfortable blowhards spouting their first-amendment-protected ideas and opinions that may conflict with your first-amendment-protected ideas and opinions.

But the facts of the matter have never made much difference to the more vocal, attention-mongering wing of the Christian right.  Donald Wildmon, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson (among others) persistently claim that Christians are the most persecuted group in America and around the world.  Their claim is that Christians are being attacked and downright persecuted for our religious beliefs.  (The other group who make exactly the same claim – that they are persistently attacked for their religious faith – are the ones we call “terrorists,” “jihadists,” etc.)

So I was not surprised over the last week when I was twice approached by folks who told me that “the liberals” want to pass a law that would keep preachers from preaching against homosexuality.  “Where are they getting this?” I wondered. Forget that I had never so much as mentioned homosexuality from the pulpit – and I won’t, for a number of reasons.

“No, that’s not about preaching or calling something a sin,” I replied.  “It’s about hate speech, the kind of stuff that incites people to violence.  If I call something a sin, that’s protected.  If I tell you that those people ought to be shot, that’s hate speech which is a totally different thing.  That’s what they want to make illegal.”

“No, I’m serious” was the reply.  “The liberals in congress want to tell you what you can and can’t preach about.”

“No, they don’t want me advocating violence against human beings.”

Snopes.com has a great article about the bill.

So where are they getting this stuff?  Well, from the American Family Association, Donald Wildmon’s organization.  You can read the AFA’s Action Alert here.  When Smopes declared the Action alert “misleading,” the AFA decided to post a response in which they claim if this bill passes, we are confident that liberal judges will rush to make it a federal crime to publicly criticize the homosexual lifestyle.”

Their basis?  The declaration that anti-homosexual literature can’t be distributed in government workplaces.  Forgive me if I’m wrong but the church isn’t exactly a government workplace yet, is it?

And why are the AFA bound and determined that they are being discriminated against on the grounds that they should be able to discriminate against somebody else? (namely, gays)?

And here’s my biggest problem with the whole thing.  I’m a Methodist, a Prevenient Grace guy.  Everything I preach and all that I try to embody as a pastor is predicated on the beginning of faith – prevenient grace; that God loves you first, wants you in relationship first, and there is no sin so great that it can’t be undone with grace.  My theological spine is built wholly upon God’s unflagging, unfailing goodness.  Everything you really need to know about sin is this – that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (where have I heard that before?).  We don’t just name sin and stop sinning, we enter into relationship with God and God does the sanctifying; as we are grown and formed in the faith, sin withers and dies as it becomes incompatible with our new life and lifestyle.  For the church to pick out its favorite sins and to point the finger at others is itself a sin.  It’s so much easier to criticize the sty in our neighbor’s eye than to face our own planks.

Besides, in my opinion, preaching for is better than preaching against.  Preach for faith  – for growth, for justification and sanctification as God’s work in our lives, for love of God and neighbor, for accepting God’s gift of grace, for prayer and meditation and forgiveness, and for strength.  It’s quicker and easier to tear something or someone down than it is to build up.  I feel called at this point in time to be a builder-upper, not a tearer-downer.

And please, if you receive news from anyone with an agenda to promote, take that news with a grain of salt and do some research for yourself.   Are they representing the facts of the case accurately?  Where are they giving opinion, especially opinion presented as fact?

Clint McCann has a great poster on the wall of his office at Eden.  It has a picture of Jesus and the words, “He died to take away your sins, not your mind.”

Two years ago at Annual Conference, Leonard Sweet gave a dynamite sermon in which he talked about the language of Christianity. He gave the parallel of Starbuck’s; if you are a customer at Starbuck’s you have to learn the language of Starbuck’s. You don’t have small, medium and large, you’ve got venti and grande and something else; their drinks have names that you have to learn. Likewise, we in the church have a certain language, and being a church member means learning to speak that language.

But sometimes I wonder whether the language of the church is lost on its members. How many people in the pews can tell you what a “doxology” is?

I brought this up in seminary a few times. There are words and phrases that seem meaningless at times. Does anyone ever use the word “rebuke” outside of theological and legal discussions? Does the phrase “washed in the blood” mean anything to anyone outside the church, or is it just gross? “There is a fountain filled with blood,” is an image that we might not let our children see in a movie but we let them sing it in church. In what context does “the wedding feast of the lamb” make sense? How many kids serve as an acolyte in church without knowing what the word acolyte means, other than “just light the candles?”

I joked more than once that theology was really the art of taking ideas anyone can understand and expressing them in language no one understands. This was made explicit during the first week of seminary when our mailboxes contained a sheet of paper entitled (only half-jokingly) “words only used in seminary,” that included simple definitions of things like eschatology, Christology, epistemology, ontology, pneumatology, etc.

How can we go about enriching our use of theological language so that it is meaningful to all involved? If Sweet is right, I believe the church needs to first concentrate on using our our own language properly and understanding it more deeply. It is essential that we talk about our language instead of simply using it uncritically.