Live Generously

I’ve got plenty more from Pagitt’s book to talk about, but here is a short reflection on prayer that I wrote as a bulletin insert at church a little while back.  I got a lot of positive comments from it, so I thought I’d share it here.

First, a confession: My name is Brian Kiley, I work at a church, and I struggle with prayer. There, I said it. It’s out in the open. What you are reading comes from a guy who makes no claims of expertise, but rather identifies himself as a struggling sojourner who has spent his entire adult life trying to learn to communicate authentically with his God…with limited success. In saying this, I hope to give you permission to admit your own struggles with prayer, and to understand that having difficulty with prayer is ok. I also hope to encourage you to press on in your pursuit of our oft elusive God, seeing your difficulties in prayer as challenges to be overcome, not insurmountable obstacles.

Lately some books I’ve read have alerted me to the fact that perhaps the difficulty I’ve experienced in building a solid prayer life is partially attributable to my use of improper raw materials, namely, improper words. Consider this quote from pastor and author Eugene Peterson:

“In a kind of rough-and-ready sorting out, most words can be set in one of two piles: words for communion and words for communication. Words for communion are used to tell stories, make love, nurture intimacies, and develop trust. Words for communication are used to buy stocks, sell cauliflower, direct traffic, and teach algebra. Both piles of words are necessary, but words for communion are our specialty.”

If I were to take an inventory of my prayer life, I would find myself fully stocked up on words for communication while possessing a dearth of words for communion. In short, my time with God in prayer consists chiefly of my presenting of a laundry list of requests to God that I would like to see him address in a timely fashion. These requests are predominately selfish though not entirely, as I often pray for friends or students in our college ministry. It is not that there is anything wrong with offering such prayers, per se, but a prayer life built on a foundation of communication is bound to be unsatisfying because our God is not a God of communication.

Our God is a God of communion. One who desires for us to learn to simply be with him. One who desires for us to see prayer not as a means of altering his activity in the world but rather a means of declaring our desire to submit ourselves to him so that we can join in what he is already doing. Prayer then is something that is relational, submissive, and freeing, rather than agenda-driven and demanding. It’s a casual cup of coffee on the patio rather than a morning business meeting. Prayer is built on the foundation of communion with God, being with God, loving God. Only this communion creates the proper context for communication.[1]

So then, from one prayer struggler to another, my encouragement to you is to spend less time communicating with God this week and a little more time communing. It is then that we experience the majesty of who our God is.

Let me leave you with a short passage for meditation as you sit with our great God this week. Romans 11:33-12:1: “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.”

So I’m now almost about two thirds of the way through Preaching Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt, and I’m continuing to wrestle with a lot of his ideas.  I’ve appreciated some of the comments I’ve received from many of you, and I’ve especially enjoyed reading what my former college pastor Rhett Smith has had to say about preaching.  As I continue to read Pagitt, I am becoming more and more convinced that as a church we need to move past the unidirectional, forty minute monologue that has become the centerpiece of the contemporary worship service.  The problem is, that this raises a difficult question:

What do we do instead?

I suppose it’s in the answer to this question (so far) that I’m not really buying what Pagitt is selling.  He seems to be advocating a more communal approach to preaching, in which the community is involved not just in the sermon giving, but also in the sermon preparation.  In theory, I think this can be a very healthy thing. I suppose my fear is that in practice, at least the way Pagitt seems to be articulating it, we can easily find ourselves on a slippery slope to relativism where we lose our conception of objective, propositional truth, and instead foster the idea that we’ve all got opinions and beliefs and they’re all valid and there is no standard by which they can be judged.  Such a philosophy is a great way to make friends, but I don’t know that it’s the most effective way to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

That being said, I think Pagitt does well to point out the problem of “centralized control” that can exist in “speaching” churches.  If only one person is “giving the message”, it’s easy for that person to become the lone authority figure within a particular body (or at least for them to perceive themselves in that way).  As I said to our group at Seven24 last Sunday, I refuse to believe that I’m the only person in the room who God speaks to, and similarly I refuse to believe that I’m the only person in the room with something worthwhile to share. Furthermore, I don’t view myself as an authority figure.  I view myself as one member of a church community.  Unfortunately when I speak, uninterrupted, for 35-40 minutes it’s easy to get the sense that I view myself as the final authority on what I’m talking about, as much as I might insist that is not the case.

So then, what’s the answer?

In short, I don’t know.  I believe centralized authority is a dangerous thing, and I believe that community involvement in the preaching event in some capacity is a healthy thing.  I believe we also need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater as we talk about preaching.  Preaching has always been, and I believe it still is, a means by which God communicates the truth of his word to his people.  I also think, however, that those entrusted with the responsibility of preaching the word of God can best serve their people by not simply calling them to be passive consumers of truth, but rather inviting them to be a part of the truth discovery process.  More on this later…

Originally published January 24, 2008

“PowerPoint makes people stupid.”

That’s what Rick Beaton, the professor for my Biblical Organizational Leadership class at Fuller, said in the middle of a lecture yesterday…a lecture which featured an abundance of PowerPoint slides.

Rick went on to explain how numerous studies have shown that PowerPoint discourages engagement and encourages passivity. I pondered the truth of these words as I sat passively slumped in my chair. I enjoyed the lecture, but I wasn’t engaged. Rick promised there’d be no more PowerPoint.

All of this got me thinking about “speaching”. I wonder, does speaching do the same thing to congregations? Does the lengthy, uninterrupted presentation of one individual’s thoughts that have been prepared in isolation from the rest of the community similarly encourage a sort of passivity and intellectual disengagement on the part of churchgoers? Does it stifle creativity? Does it hinder growth?

Doug Pagitt would argue that the answer to all of those questions is a resounding “yes”. Furthermore, he would argue that the presentation of sermons in churches that are focused primarily on application further dull the minds of the listeners. This is quite a scandalous thought, given the extreme focus on application found in many sermons, my own included. I know that I want to make time spent listening to what God’s given me to say worthwhile for my audience, so I endeavor to give them something that they can apply to their lives when they walk out the door. The problem with this, according to Pagitt, is that in a sense I have done myself work that instead should be the job of the entire community. I have read the Scriptures, prayed through the Scriptures, wrestled with the Scriptures, and come out on Sunday night with a message that amounts to a sort of “do you see what I see?” presentation. Pagitt suggests that instead when the church gathers we ought to be more focused on the implications of the text. We should present the text and then ask our congregations, “what do we do now?” This promotes intellectual engagement and encourages a more communal focus. Similarly, it breaks us out of passive “PowerPoint” mode when we gather, and promotes dialogue.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this idea. I’m all for encouraging people, whatever their faith may be, to wrestle with the implications of Scripture, particularly in a group setting. That being said, I would argue that on some level it is the job of the pastor to break down a text so that it’s truth can be more fully grasped by the congregation. Let’s be honest, my job allows me the luxury of spending ten or fifteen hours researching the meaning of a text, something the average churchgoer is simply unable to do. Is it not reasonable for members of my congregation to thus expect me to give them some applications from the text that come from my hours of study? I think we would be doing the church a tremendous disservice if we disregard application altogether.

However, I do think Pagitt is on to something when he emphasizes implication. He rightly says that implication challenges people to take their own faith seriously. They can’t just sit and zone out in front of the “PowerPoint” of a speacher when they are being implicated into the story. They can’t zone out when they know that the thinking hasn’t been done for them and that they are going to have to wrestle with some questions along with their brothers and sisters in the church community. As Pagitt says, “Application is about how a piece of information fits into your life. Implication is not about fitting; it’s about redefining. It’s not about value-added suggestion; it’s a call to see the story and join in it.” Perhaps that is what all of us really need. We don’t need quick fixes to fit neatly into our lives…we need to see the story and have our lives fundamentally reoriented around the part that our church communities play in that story. The challenge is determining how we who work in ministry professionally can best engage our congregations intellectually and invite them out of passivity and into the part God has for them to play.

Yikes…lots to think about…

Originally published January 23, 2008

I love my job. I really do. Quite possibly my favorite element of my job is the privilege of teaching the Bible to people at Seven24 on Sunday nights. I love studying for sermons, I love writing sermons, I love giving sermons, and most of all I love the way that God uses his proclaimed Word to change lives. I’m also constantly thinking through different ways of making the teaching portion of Seven24 more effective. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the world’s greatest out-of-the-box thinker, but when it comes to something as critically important as communicating the truths of scripture in such a way that they are transformative for myself and others, I certainly want to think as creatively as possible.

It’s for that reason that I’ve begun reading a chapter out of “Preaching Re-imagined” each night before I go to sleep. Doug Pagitt’s basic premise is that preaching in churches has turned in to “speaching” (speech making) and that this is largely ineffective. Pagitt advocates a shift to what he calls “progressional dialogue”, which is a more interactive preaching format practiced at his church, Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, MN. I’m only about a quarter of the way through the book, so I’m not quite able to draw any definitive conclusions just yet, but so far what he’s saying makes a lot of sense.

At Seven24 we have an interesting situation in that on your average Sunday night usually at least 80% of the people in the room have already listened to a fairly lengthy sermon that day, either at our church or another church. I often get the sense that the last thing that’s needed is for me to talk at them for another 40 minutes, especially given that I’m speaking to mostly college students, who have a lot of good insights and a strong desire to share those insights with others. That being said, creating a “sermon” that is highly interactive is, frankly, difficult. More often than not I’ll have at least one question that I’ll invite the congregation to respond to, but I’ve struggled to truly create a more conversational sermon setting. The lack of conversation during the teaching times at Seven24 is not due to my need to hear myself talk or a lack of desire on my part to interact with the community…it’s simply due to my own difficulty in figuring out how to effectively engage the audience. Today I began working on a sermon for the sixth installment of our periodically recurring series called “Why We Do What We Do”, and I look forward to hopefully engaging people at Seven24 in discussion in the midst of the sermon in a way that will hopefully be more beneficial to us as a community than me giving a 40 minute speech would be.

I’ve already got quite a bit more that I could say about some of Pagitt’s ideas so far, but I think I’ll stop there for now. To anyone reading, what do you think? When you go to church would you rather here just a straight sermon or would you prefer more interaction? Why do you feel the way that you do? I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts.

P.S.- my talk from last Sunday night is posted here .

I came across this trailer for a rather interesting film that is said to be coming out some time in the spring of this year.  The film is called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, and it features Ben Stein (”Bueller….Bueller…”, yeah that guy). Judging by the trailer it basically alleges that there is tremendous bias within the scientific community against anyone who would dare question Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.   Allegedly professors have been denied tenure and basically had their career ruined for suggesting that perhaps there is more to the universe than evolutionary processes that gave rise to natural selection (there’s a longer trailer on the film’s website that talks about these things).

While all I have seen is the trailer that I posted above, I did proceed to read up on this project a little bit more, and having done so I found elements of it to be both very exciting and highly disturbing. I should say at this point that I am a Christian pastor who is not a scientist. I believe God created the universe, and I also believe that the truthfulness of Darwinian evolution does not negate that.  On the exciting end, I have long believed that the notion of a universe that exists, without the supernatural, having come in to being by means of violating its own rules is highly implausible.  Furthermore, I’ve oft found that the flippant way in which the notion of the supernatural has been dismissed by scientists in secular settings reflects a rather ironic level of closed-mindedness.  For those reasons I’m glad that this film is being made so that the prejudice against those who question a naturalistic worldview can be given some attention.

With all of that being said, I have a number of problems with this film.  The first is simply the tone that the trailer, website, and subsequent media releases by the film’s producers has taken.  Frankly, in defending their cause and dismissing their opponents they sound no less bigoted than people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.  They seem to dismiss those who would believe in Darwinian evolution as half-blind fools who refuse to accept reality, again sounding like Dawkins, Harris, and others. Such overly polemical language is simply embarrassing.  I’m tired of those who are, in one way or another, defending God belittling their opponents in this sort of fashion. It would be nice to see some sort of public figure on either side of the “God debate” who can speak with at least a shred of fair-mindedness.  Additionally, from reading a New York Times article about the film, it sounds like its producers weren’t entirely truthful about the film’s premise when they were seeking interviews with some noted atheist scientists.  Among other things, they told them the film had a much more innocuous title (”Crossroads”), and they were told that it would be about the intersection of science and religion. Such dishonesty is deeply troubling to me.  Richard Dawkins even said, “At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front.” Why such dishonesty is necessary is beyond me.

I’m sure if this film gains any sort of public traction it will be sure to spark quite a bit of controversy.  It sounds like it’s going to raise a lot of important issues that need to be addressed.  I guess I just wish the filmmakers weren’t so quick to demonize their opponents.  I just don’t know that fighting fire with fire is all that effective or all that Christlike.

Originally posted January 18, 2008

After two unsuccessful new year’s resolutions, months of self-coercion, and an embarrassing number of ok-i’m-gonna-do-this-oh-but-then-again-maybe-i-won’t moments, I have finally entered the blogosphere.  I have long understood my own need for an outlet for my own creativity–if I can even call it that–but alas I’ve also long been content to read and reflect upon the musings of others while sparing myself the intellectual energy and soul searching required to articulate my own thoughts and reflections in a semi-comprehensible manner.  As with any lifestyle change, the jury will remain out for quite some time on whether or not blogging will “stick” for me, but I sincerely hope that it does.  More than that, I hope that blogging becomes a means by which I can clarify my own thoughts and receive feedback from others.

What finally pushed me over the edge was a conversation I had with my small group last night.  We were reflecting on passion and fear, and how the latter often restricts our pursuit of the former.  I realized as I shared my own stories and listened to the stories of others that too often in my life I’m willing to settle for what’s easiest and what is more likely to prevent pain.  In my case, too often that’s recreational internet time spent seeking information that doesn’t really matter.  The reality is, though, that perusing espn.com requires minimal effort, and rarely inspires me to live differently.  As much as I desire inspiration intellectually, too often its practical implications strike fear into my heart. And such fear is a hyperlink to espn.com.  Writing is one of the ways that I want to confront that fear.  My hope is that this blog will promote deeper theological and cultural reflection that I can then write about in a meaningful manner. Furthermore, I hope writing can be the gateway into a community of mutual encouragement and inspiration.

The title of my blog comes from the title of a sermon I gave at the college/young adult ministry I pastor several months ago.  I knew I needed to give a message on giving, but I also knew that I had long grown weary with the way that church talked about money.  My own unspoken thesis was essentially that the church is too often good at getting people to tithe, while not being that good at teaching people to be generous. The goal of my sermon was thus not to increase the dollar amount in the offering per se, but rather to help others think differently about their resources, and specifically how they can use their resources for the good of causes that are bigger than themselves.  The irony is of course that when our focus is moved away from scarcity and selfishness and towards generosity, we experience a level of fulfillment and joy that would otherwise be unattainable.  I believe with everything in me that God has made us to be generous, and as I seek to better think and live generously in my own life, I want to encourage others to join me on that journey.  Thanks for reading, hopefully more be coming soon.