Have you ever read a book by George Barna or Rick Warren or Lyle Schaller and wished you could condense the material for your church leaders?
In Rethinking the Church (Baker, $11.99), James Emery White provides little new or original material, but he makes the concepts more accessible than do the gurus. White, a Southern Baptist pastor, writes that Rethinking the Church is not just another book about church growth. True, the book does not cover church growth per se, but it does speak to the issues that lead to growth. White challenges the reader to keep the church current in a rapidly changing world.
God who leads In Rethinking the Church, White’s methods and terminology are similar to those in Reengineering the Corporation, a popular business book a few years back. I found his questions to be more valuable than his answers:
- What is the purpose of the church?
- What is the mission of the church?
- Whom are we trying to reach for Christ?
- What determines whether the church is alive and growing?
- How will we accomplish the mission God has given to us?
White concludes that discipleship, community, worship, ministry and evangelism are what the church does, but he correctly states that these five do not make up the purpose of the church. White never really answers the question of the church’s purpose, but he frees the church from being task-driven by stressing purpose prior to task. Although using some of Rick Warren’s language, White seems to be calling the church to be purpose-led rather than purpose-driven. Although slight, this distinction paints a different picture of God—a God who leads rather than a God who drives.
In the chapter on evangelism, White explains well how the culture has changed and that the methods and assumptions used in 1960s evangelism are not accurate today. His three-step method of evangelism is simplified Barna:
- Step one: bridge building
- Step two: verbal witness
- Step three: invitation to an evangelistic environment.
This chapter makes an excellent tool to teach leaders an evangelism strategy.
The chapter “Rethinking Structure” may be the most controversial. When White writes, “Majority rule is rooted in American democracy and as a result has often been incorporated unthinkingly into the church,” some will object. I hope White is not suggesting the church be led by a Lone Ranger pastor hiding behind the mask of his or her calling. Although majority rule can be used as an effective means of veto, it has value as a method of building consensus.
In the chapter on community, White, who started a seeker church, strays from the seeker party line. Often church-growth material pays tribute to community as a means of helping the church grow—for example, community is projected as an effective method of reaching Generation X.
But White calls the church to authentic community not as a means but as a biblical end. In a powerful story, he tells of a former staff member who returns to a church to ask for forgiveness. The pastor and congregation lay hands on him as an act of prayer support. White says, “This is church!”
He is right. The community component of the church can never fully be understood as good public relations. Community is grace.
—Gary Fenton Dawson Memorial Baptist Church Birmingham, Alabama
The “New Homiletic” for Dummies Sermon structure that keeps people’s attention.
Effective sermons resemble well-planned grocery shopping trips: they move logically from here to there, from one section to another—not randomly from this to that.
Eugene Lowry presses this issue in The Sermon: Dancing the Edge of Mystery (Abingdon, 1997, $19.95).
So what’s wrong with sermons that move from this to that? As a “biblical literalist” (to use Lowry’s term), I was reared on sermons that unfolded like this sermon outline of Psalm 137:
I. The Pain of God’s People (vv. 1-3) II. The Predicament of God’s People (vv. 4-6) III. The Prayer of God’s People (vv. 7-9)
Such an outline moves from one point to the next with little sense of flow. While I’m still a biblical literalist, I find that the “new homiletic,” which has emerged over the past twenty-five years, provides a more effective way for Bible exposition. The Sermon offers a concise and up-to-date overview of this new paradigm. Its genius is what Lowry calls “strategic delay of the preacher’s meaning.”
Band-Aid prevention One of Lowry’s key points is for the preacher to look for the conflict in the text, then pursue its complication.
“Complication in a sermon,” he writes, “often deepens the grasp of the symptoms of our human malady—to the point where diagnosis can become clear and remedy born of the gospel found.”
Recently, when I prepared to preach Psalm 137, I found the conflict embedded in verses 1-3—injustice can ruin a believer’s appetite for praise. Verses 4-6 seem to thicken the plot, to provide complication: “How can you restore your appetite for praise when God allows injustice in your life?”
But then the text takes an unexpected turn.
A sermon’s plot, says Lowry, should move from conflict to complication to sudden shift. Sudden shift involves a reversal in which the action veers around to its opposite. The “answer” offered by Psalm 137:7-9 consists of a blessing on the one “who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
Lowry’s plot-based sermon culminates in the unfolding, where “matters finally come together in resolution.” I noted that the prayer in Psalm 137:7-9 actually expresss a commitment to letting God exact vengeance. In other words, “the only way to restore a ruined appetite for praise is to trust in God’s justice.” If I had stated this at the outset and plowed through the text, the conclusion would have struck my hearers as a pat answer.
Lowry notes, “Premature closure turns out to be a Band-Aid on life’s tragedy … perhaps even an immunity against hearing the good news.”
Dead-end escape Lowry offers numerous suggestions for preparing plot-based sermons. He notes: “Conversations [with people in the church] early in the preparation stage are timely; later they tend to be pleas for confirmation.” Following Lowry’s suggestion, I’m carving out time to visit our church’s small groups on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. I read for them the text I’ll preach the following Sunday, then ask, “What puzzles you or bothers you about this text? Where might this text intersect with your life?”
I now leave my study when I have not achieved a point of closure in my sermon preparation. As Lowry observes, if I’m frustrated when I quit on Tuesday afternoon, my preconscious mind will kick in and ruminate about the text while I’m making a hospital call. When I return to my study on Thursday, my mind engages the text more effectively.
When I preach Scripture, I am handling God’s thoughts. Lowry’s book is teaching me strategies that accomplish what the text intends to accomplish.
—Steven D. Mathewson Dry Creek Bible Church Belgrade, Montana
Ideas with a Keystroke Easy access to the works of three popular Christian leaders.
You don’t want to steal anybody’s intellectual property. You just need an illustration or idea to get your sermon preparation over the hump.
The Nelson Electronic Bible Reference Library CD-ROM (Professional Edition for Windows 3.1 and 95; $499) can streamline your sermon preparation. You get instant access to more than seventy-five electronic books. The NEBRL uses the Logos Library System interface (reviewed in Leadership, Summer 1997). That means users can add other electronic resources from Nelson or any other LLS publisher.
Relaxed preparation What makes this program different from others on the market? Its content. You get current nonfiction works from three popular Christian leaders:
- Charles Stanley’s Eternal Security, The Gift of Forgiveness, How to Handle Diversity, and The Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life.
- Josh McDowell’s Answers to Tough Questions and Handbook on Apologetics.
- Jack Hayford’s Spirit-Filled-Life Bible, Hayford’s Bible Handbook, and study guides to the Bible. In addition, the professional edition of the NEBRL gives you many other tools. Here is just a sample:
- Bible versions: ASV, CEV, Darby, Good News, KJV, NKJV, NLT, and RSV. The NIV and NASB are available from Logos, and you get a 50-percent-off coupon to purchase one of them.
- Word studies and cross-reference works: includes New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek, New Strong’s Guide to Bible Words, New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, Where to Find It in the Bible, and New Nave’s Topical Bible.
If $499 is too pricey, Nelson offers a Deluxe Edition for $249 (39 books), a Basic Edition for $129 (21 books), and a Starter Edition with several books unlocked for $10. You can upgrade by using the Collection Browser and your credit card.
To run NEBRL, you need a 486/SX PC or higher, Windows 3.1 or 95, 8MB RAM, 15MB hard-drive space, and cd-rom capabilities. With the NEBRL, Saturday evening sermon prep may be more relaxed.
—Tim Ostermiller assistant editor Computing Today
Intentional Adoration A new tool makes worship planning easier.
Product: SOFTPraise 2.0a (Howard Publishing; $129.99). Benefits: Helps you mix and match hymn topics, titles, biblical references, keys, styles, authors, and more. Each hymn is stored in MIDI file for versatile playback. You can quickly create song combinations and lists by topic and key. Also, you can track when a hymn or song was used last.
Drawbacks: No visual readout of notes played. Limited MIDI programming features. Only songs found in Songs of Faith and Praise (about 700 hymns and 250 contemporary choruses) are included.
Media requirements: PC: 386 or better, Windows 3.1 or 95, 4 MB RAM, 9 MB hard-drive space, and sound card.
—Tim Ostermiller
NOTE: For your convenience, the products listed above are available for purchase from ChristianBook.com.
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