Late reflections are better than never

Well over two weeks ago on Trinity Sunday (May 18th this year) was also celebrated as Graduate Sunday at Wentz’s United Church of Christ, where this year’s graduates, myself included were honored. The service was well done and full of surprises especially afterward on the way out when I was intercepted by one of the women involved with the church’s knitting ministry with a scarlet red prayer shawl (to match the academic colors of seminary degrees) that she thought they were going to give me during the service in recognition of my advanced degree but it didn’t happen. Although in the end the part that stood out to me the most was the blessing upon the graduates which with a bit of online research turned out to be the Franciscan Blessing:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen.

Which also exists in a second slightly amplified form:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

Amen.

In some ways I think that the Franciscan Blessing highlights what not only seminary education but also Christian education should look like. Those of you who have had more social contact with me during my time of seminary will know that as time went on during my studies that I’ve become more concerned about the dangers of oversimplification to the point of indifference in regards to nonessential issues, to the point of being wrongly accused of turning lukewarm by a few that did not understand. Early on during my seminary career I was a strong young earth creationist and led a science and faith small group to teach it as a volunteer with InterVarsity at Ursinus College. Yet now I have since changed from viewing theistic evolution and old earth creation as valid honest attempts to harmonize the scientific worldview with the Biblical one and have since shifted from considering myself a young earth creationist to a simple creationist as in God created the world as compared to naturalist evolution’s teaching that by random chance nothing exploded and created everything. The same goes with many other divisive issues within the church as instead of taking hard stands like I used to in the past, I can now name the Biblical basis of the strengths of the weakness of both sides of the issue and most likely come to the conclusion that neither side is completely right. In a similar way my one personal spirituality has expanded to the point that while I’m clearly most heavily rooted in the Reformed stream of church history, but I’m now willing than ever to study and apply aspects from other Christian traditions including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox which I know would make some of my friends a bit uneasy if they knew the full extent of it. Yet I believe this broader devotional base has resulted in me having a fuller understanding of Christ given that the church is body of Christ which is not restricted among any one denomination but a makeup of them all together as one. I also feel that I’ve reached the point now that I regardless of what happens for me vocationally, which is still up in the air, that I would view my time in seminary earning my masters of Divinity to be worth it. I know that regardless of what happens that I will always be involved in some form of ministry and at the very least my blogging and little spiritual formation study and possible book project will not be going away. Yet beyond that I could potentially see myself being personally content to spend my entire working years in a secular job such as working in a tea shop till retirement. Not to say that I won’t honestly attempt to find a career in full time ministry. I have reached the point where I feel that my seminary education has made me a better Christian with my main focus to make a difference in helping other people and it no longer matters to me what I’m doing as long as its something that fits me as a Christian as part of God’s will.

In with the new year of 2008

For the most part, 2007 was a fairly typical seminary year as I progressed onward in my studies. Without a doubt the most notable event of the past year, was finally reaching the end to my seemly prenatal 26 and a half years of singleness when Paula came into my life. It is hard to believe in a way but I know that the year of 2008 will be a year of transition for me and that without a doubt I will have a very different life by this time next year than now. I am within days of starting my final semester at Biblical Theological Seminary before I graduate with my Masters of Divinity on May 3^rd 2008. The scary thing is that as of now I have no idea what I’ll be doing once I finish. Well at least my final semester schedule of 2 courses and class on 1 day a week starting at 1:30 in the afternoon will allow me plenty of time to be able to job search around my classes. Now if only I knew where to get started, I’m in the process of looking into a certain organization at the moment but if things do not work out I’ll have to go out and look for other alternatives. So any prayers on your part would be greatly appreciated, and as always if you have anything that you would like prayer about feel free to let me know.

The other change that I see in store for 2008 is finally getting to the point of feeling ready to start working on my book project. Ever since my first semester in seminary when I took a practical theology class called Personal Assessment and Spiritual Development and reinforced when I took a theology class called The Christian Life, I’ve felt the urge to write a book on living the Christian life. I find it hard to explain beyond saying that I’m almost comfortable saying that it is something that I have a feeling that I might be called to do on the side regardless of the nature of my vocation. As while I did not feel ready to take on the project early on in seminary, the idea never left me. Over the past year my interest in spiritual formation has greatly increased as am having an increasing desire to both grow more spiritually myself and learn the best way to help others do the same. So in the interest of making progress on what is an important goal to me and creating some accountability in the process, I share with you my spiritual formation reading list for 2008 or at least the start of it as I’m sure I’ll add other books to the list as the year progresses.

Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster
The Spirit of The Disciplines by Dallas Willard
Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney
Simplify Your Spiritual Life by Donald S. Whitney
The Sacred Way by Tony Jones
Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli

A Long Overdue Ministry Update

Earlier on this fall I took part in 7 week ministry experiment at Wentz’s United Church of Christ as an exploration of pastoral ministry through taking part in leading worship, through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I’m very grateful for how the Elders were willing to take the time to have extended meetings with me in several occasions and especially Pastor Tony for his weekly mentoring meetings. At the initial meeting I was heavily moved by the assurance of support by one of the Elders. He told me that I should not be worried about doing a perfect job with the services, because as my church family they are here to support me. To the point of valuing me finding the nature of my calling to ministry more important than having perfect services for the next few weeks. As a whole I can say that the experience has helped me greatly in two ways. First by helping me grow in my ministry experience and learning more about my strengths and weaknesses. Second by making me realize that at least for the moment pastoral ministry does not appear to be the nature of my calling. I started out gradually with doing only the Scripture readings at the two traditional services. While it seemed to be a very slow start at first, looking back now I was glad, as turns out that even public Scripture reading is not as simple as it looks. As it is best to think of Scripture reading more as story telling or drama than reading. I also has to work on my pacing and projection, as while it often sounds like you are going very slow and shouting, the people in the balcony won’t think so. In the end, I was surprised that I found preaching to be both easier and more enjoyable than leading worship, through the three sermons that I preached. I was glad that I got to preach to a smaller audience at the contemporary Journey service, because it had been over 2 years since I had last preached when taking my Homiletics class in seminary. With the possible exception of my first sermon at the Journey service when I spoke too fast for some people to understand, my sermons went were good and were received well by the congregation. Being assigned very familiar preaching texts, I made the effort to preach on from a fresh perspective often in light of their historic cultural background. Which resulted in an impressing number of comments about how much I researched passages, when in reality I had only consulted a single commentary. The comment that meant the most from me was from my mom, who told me that Pastor Tony had a large grin in his face when listening to my first sermon at the traditional service. Finally, my manuscript sermons out of the lectionary texts, helped me with my writing as well as teaching abilities. In a way preparing the sermon manuscripts came off as devotional writing upon demand as preaching preparation. Especially since the lectionary texts were not ones that I probably would have chosen but I was glad that I did not have to come up with my own preaching texts.

On the other hand, leading worship o came off as a more mixed experience for me. The thing that caught me the most off guard was unexpected social anxiety at times. Which caused me to freeze up at times and having trouble getting started, the worse of which was when I was unable to do the Assurance of Pardon one time with Pastor Tony having to fill in for me even though I had it written out in front of me. Toward the end of the experiment, the emotional toll started spilling over into Saturday and Monday, which had me wondering how much longer I could keep it up. Leading me to be asking myself if it was something that I could do if I had to, instead of if it was something that I felt called to, making me realized that my calling is most likely elsewhere. Still I must admit that to some extent I found the experience of leading worship enjoyable as experiencing the other side even though I know that I could never handle doing so weekly. It is hard for me to explain but I felt a sense of power during the service. This sense of power one that I neither desire nor felt completely comfortable with, and came off as being especially strong while leading the Prayer of Confession, Kyrie and Offertory Prayer. The chairs in the front of the sanctuary came off more like thrones to me in both look and feel, which ended up making me glad that I was wearing a coat and tie instead of a robe and stole for the services. The other aspect that made me uneasy was that after writing the liturgy for several of the services, they started to come off to me as just as much of a performance as worship. Also the fact that I was clutching a hymn book instead of a Bible for the services did not help much either. Delivering the morning prayer on two occasions was something that came off as strange of in a way praying for the sake of being heard by others at first. Sure I know that there is a time and a place and Biblical support for corporate prayers, just that it stood out as a stark contrast to normally seeking privacy and lowering my voice in prayer. The final week of leading worship with Rick Wilkie in Pastor Tony’s absence, helped me understand things better while doing only the sermon. As I felt much more relaxed during the service and remember feeling glad that Rick was doing the liturgy instead of me. And the following week I was even glad to be back in a pew instead of the front. So in the end this few weeks of experience helped broaden my view of ministry and calling. Even now I am still sorting through things and will continue to keep everyone posted as they progress.

What do you have to say to us?

This past week I had a very productive and enjoyable meeting with Pastor Tony about the next steps toward getting in care status, the first stage of ordination. The part of our two hour and twenty minute talk that stood out to me the most was my question about the difference between the Evangelical and Mainline Churches and the talk the ensured on the issue. Of how the traditional Evangelical answer is to call the Mainline Churches liberal (as a dirty word from their perspective) and at times question if they are really Christian. Yet as I have noticed much of the time the conservative branch of the church is unable to stand its own arguments against the liberal branch of the church is turned against itself, so in that case what is the difference? Turns out from the Mainline perspective the question itself is somewhat misguided as unlike the Evangelical church, the Mainline church can not say to the Evangelical church “You are wrong!” but instead asks “What do you have to say?”. Just like the common ecumenical motto “In essentials unity. In non-essentials liberty. In all things love.”, which recognizes that as Christians we will never completely agree with or even fully understand each other’s perspectives but the more important thing is that despite our disagreements over the non-essentials, we are still united under the essentials of being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. I also found out from Pastor Tony that the simple answer is that the Mainline Protestant Churches are the ones that came out of the Reformation, the Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, etc which along with the Roman Catholic Church recognize three sources of authority: Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation. The traditions of the church passed down to us from previous generations, the Holy Scriptures at the root of our faith and the responsibility of interpretation that each generation has to make the faith their own in their current place and time. As God will not be backed into a corner and His Will changes with the times, just like how in the book of Jonah, God changed His mind in response to the people’s repentance. As compared to the tendency of Evangelical stance which focuses on Scripture at the cost of Tradition and Interpretation. Yes I realize that I’m likely oversimplifying things but honestly I have reached the point where I am more comfortable with the mainline stance of being more willing listen and learn from others with different views, even though I still find the ultra conservatives and ultra liberal stances equally scary.

motive above skill?

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organizer of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all snares.”
~an excerpt from The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis pages 73-74

The other major point that stuck out to me while reading C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce was the danger of missing God while engaging in ministry. It seems sad in a way that one’s devotion towards a good cause has the potential of destroying their love for it, especially when it comes to God. Just goes to show once again how God is ultimately after our hearts and inner motives instead of our outward actions. Scary in a way as it means that an incompetent Sunday school teacher who is unable to plan a good lesson but still strives to do their best out of love for God and the children of the church, may in fact be in God’s eyes more righteous than a gifted preacher whose sermon series consistently become Christian best sellers when converted to book format, because they lost sight of God in their preaching. Even more alarming and sad is that in the light of Matthew 7:22-23 and Matthew 23:1-7, one is faced with the reality that many of the redeemed were won to Christ through the efforts of the damned. Shocking I know to think that the gifted in leadership are the ones most likely to miss God in their apparent service toward Him. But then again maybe that is why in a way God favors or at least considers blessed fools whose heart is in the right place, not because they come off as needing extra help but because they are less likely to place their trust in themselves instead of God as they are more aware of their need for Him.

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
(Matthew 7:22-23 ESV)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you–but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
(Matthew 23:1-7 ESV)

To be or not to be

No I’m not considering suicide but another matter of equal or greater importance, ordination. My past meeting about it brought up some things about the nature of ordinated ministry that I haven’t known before. As while every Christian is called to some form of ministry, a few are called to go beyond the standard lay ministry into the ordained ministry of the church. As the two main distinctions that set ordained ministry apart are a dedicated focus on preaching God’s Word and administering the Sacraments. I had previously thought about ordained ministry primarily in terms of the Biblical teachings and pastoral care of others but I had never considered the administering of the Sacraments as another major responsibility. I was uneasy about my Biblical counseling skills and homiletics (preaching) classes in seminary but soon found that they came to me easier than I expected at first. Yet now I’m finding myself even more freaked out by the idea of administering the Sacraments. How should one view being on the other end of the Sacraments? Who am I that people should be bringing their babies to me to baptize them into the covenant community of the Church or to serve Communion to others? They say one has a special calling from God to ordained ministry and for me I know it boils down to the Sacraments as regardless of what I do I know that I will continue to teach through writing as well as mentoring others regardless of whether or not I join the ranks of the clergy. So should one feel more confident or at least comfortable about the Sacraments or is the fact that one is uneasy about it to be taken as being worthy of doing so? As that means that one would be more likely to look to God while administering the Sacraments to others as compared to it becoming a routine duty like mopping the floor to a janitor.

Biblical Greek

I’m finally finished with my NT Greek classes at Biblical and I’m glad that its over. At the same time my level of fluency that I ended up is a bit disappointing as I can barely translate stray verses with a grammar and lexicon and trying to read the NT in the original Greek is clearly out of the question. Well I guess at the very least I have a good understanding of the different Greek verb aspects which can’t always be accurately translated into English and how at times it gives either a much narrower or broader range of possible meanings than its English translation. Still it makes me wonder what level of fluency most pastors that regularly use Greek and Hebrew in their sermon preparation actually have?

Blessed To Be An Instrument of Blessing

Lately I keep on thinking back to the Abrahamic Covenant and its relationship to the whole of Christianity as well as to my life in general; making me glad that I took Genesis in the fall as it was something that I never gave much attention to before. I especially like the promise that Yahweh made to Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3, “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” As it teaches that when Yahweh blesses us, His blessings are not something to be kept to ourselves but to make us an instrument of divine blessing in order that more people may be blessed. I know the the Gospel message is the typical primary example of how having been saved and brought into the light we should shine our light out to draw others out of the darkness into the light through the blood of Christ, yet I believe it goes deeper than this. Lately I’ve felt that my writing seems to be blessed more when I’m writing for the direct benefits of others as compared to chasing after mere scholastic areas of the faith of personal interest to myself. Such as my latest “Letters to Theophilus”, which started out as practical theology oriented letters seeking to comfort, encourage and instruct others in areas that they have been struggling, but have probably benefited me just as much as the people that I wrote them for. There is something about doing a detailed Bible study on the subject of struggle for someone that you care about where it becomes personal. When I feel to a certain extent that their struggles have become my own, in the sense that I have to figure out what the Bible teaches on the topic for myself as well, sometimes simply because they have raised up questions around things which I had never before considered examining in the light of Christianity. At that point, any benefit that others receive from it seems secondary to what I gain by writing it, which only increases my desire to share it with others so that they in turn might benefit from it as well. I guess one can say that Yahweh’s blessings is the only thing in one’s possession that increases when you start giving it away to others, as you become blessed further to allow you to bless others even more.

The Dangers of Theology

I’ve heard it said that seminary is a risky overtaking given the odds that are at stake and the increased accountability before God by increasing in knowledge and ultimately becoming leaders within the church. At the same time the question remains how does one know if they are coming closer to the truth or completely missing the point in their theological studies? The it goes what seems to be my love hate relationship with academic theology, especially the whole modernism vs postmodernism issue that is going on at the moment, which in my opinion seems to be ultimately missing the point. Yet at the same time there is a certain bit of virtue on both sides of the divide from which should make both sides able to learn something from each other, which I talk about in my Christian Truth and Disputes essay which is posted on my articles section, which according to my one seminary professor makes a few connections that he is fairly sure that I am the first person to make, which he considers intriguing and definitely worthy of consideration and further research. Still I’m wondering how much more I should consider looking into an independent theological study to investigate this idea of simultaneously embracing premodernism, modernism and postmodernism at the same time depending upon the situation as if it proves sound upon further investigation it has the potential of taking off and increasing the amount of unity across diversity within the church, while still respecting the Bible’s teachings. Even so it is worth the cost to go on, as there is a certain toll that academic theology takes on one that studies it? While at the same time it would be irresponsible to abolish academic theology as leaders must be able to investigate new theological ideas to determine whatever or not they are sound or not. Still even if I am really on to something which might have a potential for me to make a name for myself within the theological community it will almost certainly come at the expense of making adversaries on both sides of the whole modern vs postmodern divide within the church which is quite a volatile environment at times, yet ironically the main reason why I consider it possibly worth pursuing would be the potential for a God honoring way to smooth over our differences within the Church to better be able to embrace each other in unity across our diversity of views, while all clearly respecting what is clearly written in the Bible while not trying to beat each other into submission in regards to our opinions over the “minor details” of the gray areas where one can go either way and still remain faithful to the Bible’s message.

First Fruits Of Seminary

Today I was amazed by the growing fruits of my ongoing seminary education in my life. I had previously downloaded freeware Bible software for my Palm Pilot to which I recently added the original Greek and Hebrew Bible texts which at the time I downloaded simply because they were there as free downloads. Today at Valley View during the sermon I tried following along to sermon using the Greek New Testament instead of the ESV on my Palm that I normally use and I was blown away by how much I understood. Now granted I was only able to make out common words such as apostles, bread, and houses; but I understood the grammar of the sentence structure. What that means is that it seems like my vocabulary is currently my most limiting factor in terms of reading the the original New Testament text in the original Greek, and I am only a little over half way through my first semester of NT Greek. In a similar sense looking back I think the Introduction To Biblical Counseling Skills class that I took last fall has really helped me better understand verbal communication better in terms of my ability to effectively interact with others and ask good questions in conversation which can REALLY make a big difference in terms of meaningful interactions with others as compared to the shallow small talk which seems all too common today among “friends”. Not only that but I was also surprised how quickly God was able to use me to bless and comfort others, even when I was still being equipped at the time, through bringing to me a few people that I was actually able to help comfort in their struggles. While as of this time I’m fairly sure that God has not called me to be a counselor, its great to know that with God’s help I can serve as a fairly competent informal counselor when needed. Praise God that my investment into a Master’s of Divinity at Biblical Theological Seminary is clearly paying off already and I’m only a little over a third of the way through my program!!!