On reading books

Summer time is especially good for catching up with academic reading.  I am always over-ambitious as I select the pile and nearly always end up disappointed that several books are left unread.  But much depends on taking a realistic approach.  Not all those books in the pile should be read closely!  Indeed, some need to be skimmed in order to ensure time is spent on the more significant. (My summer time reading also includes novels but these rules do not apply to them!)

Robert Webber used to advise students that they should not read an academic book word for word, page for page, chapter for chapter. Rather they should read a book like they would look at a picture, study its frame and only at the end examine its details.  Often the first look would give a clear idea how much time to spend. He suggested first reading the back cover, contents page, Introduction and Conclusion with time given over to thinking about the author's stance and books' purpose. Can you sum up in a sentence what the book's point is and how the author wants you to respond? 

To ensure you are not oversimplifying you need also to frame the book by studying the index, footnotes, and Scripture references to gain understanding of the author's sources and interpretation.  Further, the book's  structure requires its chapters to be scanned.  

All this happens to prepare you for the big question:  Is this book significant enough that you need to examine it in detail, making notes of key sections and even of vital quotations.  Some of us have good enough memories to capture the main issues for the future with few notes.  For me, note-taking has to be more extensive to keep reminding me of those distinctive ideas that now help to build up my knowledge.  Because this last stage is time-consuming the early looking and thinking is essential for setting priorities.

So, I find I have three kinds of academic books in my reading repertoire:
Grade A - I have paid critical attention to most pages because of its high caliber challenge.
Grade B - I am aware of the general issues and have given parts of the book some serious attention.
Grade C - I probably have engaged with its main issues already in other reading, or it falls outside my priority concerns.

Do you have a system for sorting out which books most deserve your attention?  Have you engaged with many Grade A books recently?  Care to share?

Remembering

Moving house means sorting out what should be kept or thrown out.  On the hoarding scale we are nowhere near the top of the scale (I think) but we have still amassed an amazing amount of material from our lives so far.  In certain moods you can argue for retaining almost all of it.  Your child's finger painting aged four, your Valentine's Day cards, your letters when leaving the UK or at any other time when they mark a significant event or friendship.  To say nothing of the talks and sermons I have been preparing for nearly fifty years (to say nothing!)  Many of you will have shared the tension of sorting out - and tension it is.

I wish we could have slowed down the sorting out process because I also had important lessons to learn. Remembering is an important spiritual art.  One of the most significant moments came from rediscovering some of my old prayer journals.  From Weds. October 7th. 1992 to January 3 1995 covered a dramatic time in my life - leaving the pastorate in Cambridge to becoming Principal at Spurgeon's College in 1993.  I was surprised by the full entries on some days, by the detailed references to the spiritual aids I was using - especially Oswald Chamber's My Utmost and E Stanley Jones' Living Victoriously, and by the painful honesty of my prayers.  At times my spiritual life really was in turmoil and page after page I pour out self-awareness and need.   

Thankfully, overall, my entries show some personal development and shining moments.  For example, on Saturday Oct 10th. I record a difficult tearful pastoral situation confronting a couple who had broken up another marriage in the church.  Then I quote Oswald Chambers: "We read tomes on the Holy Spirit when one five minues of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam".  And as I worked on my sermon for the next day I wrote a prayer that the Holy Spirit would grant me:
Desire to love,
Humility to learn,
Courage to live,
Commitment to listen.
It was a sunbeam moment!
I need to keep remembering how God has led me through and to be reminded to keep my journaling up-to-date yet reflect on the past.  How often do you remember?

Nothing really can be said in defense

Yes, we have surfaced after our house move, travel to family in NJ, and staying with friends. Our belongings are scattered in at least five different locations and, in spite of warnings about how easy it is to lose track, certain key documents that should have remained accessible are now at mystery locations. No wonder my blog has been quiet of late!  Before I write anything else I must follow up my last (distant) post.  Michael Duduit wrote (thanks for commenting Michael) that "Nothing really can be said in defense of the annual Call Sunday."  And, oh, what negative experiences I have heard from others. 

One really troubled me.  Like a retired pastor: "I could write a few short stories about the laymen's control technique of humiliating and limiting the pastor's call from God which can too easily be trumped by the laymen's local church accountability technique under the threat of an annual 'vote of confidence'.  I personally lived through three different unpleasant and still vivid memory experiences as a sixth grader, high school youth and college student in three different churches in three different states. When I was a pastor I was confronted with the threat of such a vote in three different pastoral assignments. I negotiated a 'no contest' surrender with the promise that if I did not point fingers at 'the enemy' (I saw that done when I was a high schooler), recruit an army, or do battle - that I promised to move along as quickly as feasible.

One case it tok 13 months, another 18 months and the last one was 8 months.  I am not a fighter. I left with a clear conscience and a clear call to do just what I did - with God's grace to forgive and God's peace to reward.  I have been back or invited to come back to all the churches in question.  I have a clear conscience as I watch the rseponse of those who were responsible. I am at peace even with them.  Time has proved that Romans 8:28 applies in just such a case as that."

Grace triumphs eventually but what an incredibly sad story. I know that we pastors can really fail the Lord and our people, and sometimes mistake God's call on our lives as well as to particular places.  Yes, we can get it wrong. But what a challenge about the destructive power-structures of some of our churches.  There are Christian ways of behaving, but regularly reviewing a pastor's call as an open season for easy abuse is not one of them!

Annual Call Sunday - what?

We are in process of moving from our home by the end of June so you can imagine the chaos on every side. Multidimensional chaos as we sort out and downsize!   But just before I return to the grim removing task let me mention one surprise I heard about for the first time when teaching in Tennessee last week.

One of the pastors (with over 30 years experience) shared with the class that he was facing "Call Sunday" that first Sunday of our two week course.  A couple of other students groaned as I asked innocently what this meant.  He explained that this is the designated Sunday each year when the church meets to renew the call to their pastor (and other leaders too).  I asked him whether he had any idea what might happen, and if pastors could be rejected on that day so that they were literally out of their job by Monday.  He replied that actually he had no idea how the vote might go but he was hoping they would invite him to stay a fifth year.  However, he told us that in his first church he had been so surprised by the large negative vote on "Call Sunday" that he had no other option but to resign on the spot.

Of course, as soon as we met after the Call Sunday we were keen to know how it had gone for him. "Well," he commented rather wearily, "they've given me another year!"  Though  he longed for them to discontinue the practice they asserted this was their tradition and common in the Appalachians.

'Call Sunday' certainly makes the pastor (and others) sharply accountable.  But my immediate reaction, knowing how (some) local churches work, is that this assumes a very large measure (too large?) of community maturity.   It does raise the important issue of keeping all of us Christian leaders rightly accountable before Christ and his people.  But what can be said in defense of  an annual Call Sunday?

Four stars - how can I improve?

You can tell from recent posts that my time with Masters students at Carson-Newman College has been very stimulating.  On the last day, one of them asked me a question: ' If I am a four-star preacher and I would love to be a six or seven star preacher, how can I improve?   Should I spend more time in my bible work, or concentrate more on how to interpret with application, or focus on learning more skills in delivery (like preaching without notes), or try to integrate my preaching with the rest of my pastoring more, or something else?'  He said the background to this query came from a conference he attended with John Maxwell speaking on leadership, when the same question was made asked about leadership.  If you are below average -4 star - how can you develop to be above average?

I like the idea of seeking to improve.  I don't believe that any communicator ever ceases to need improvement!  None of us have perfected being an ambassador of Christ!  However, answering this question is complex isn't it?  For a start, preaching is a calling and gifting that depends on God's empowering and the first priority is to stay close and dependent on him and his word.  My character makes a huge difference to my effectiveness (ethos).  No amount of technique and hard work can make up for abiding in Christ and growing in Christlikeness.  Yet, all preachers need to be challenged about those areas in the preaching process where we have developed bad habits or just grown lazy.  The particular student who asked this question confessed he had been preaching for twenty years in exactly the same way each week!

The short answer to his question is that those of us who dare to speak for God and his reconciling work (2 Cor. 5:20) need to keep checking on all those aspects he raised.   Worn habits and (let's admit it, yes,) laziness can dull the flame. And, let's keep working at integrating preaching with the widest possible pastoral responsibilities which, as Leslie reminded us in the last post, include the apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic.  Sermons should not be trapped in devotional boxes but part and parcel of flesh-and-blood daily kingdom living.  Real words from God's word for real living! 

Important but not that important (3)

Thanks to Leslie, a busy Methodist pastor, who commented (to my last post), that in his best experiences,  the weekly pastoral work does feed sermon preparation.  Rather than preaching being a 'set piece' occupying hours in a separate box it belongs within the hurly-burly of pastoral life though, as I wrote last time, the preacher does need some quiet time!

One further point arose in class discussion about preachers who so concentrate on preaching that they spend most of each week locked away in their offices.  This is a more difficult point and we were sensitive raising it.  Is it possible for average preachers to shelter behind the need to produce average sermons by spending vast numbers of hours, and then escape pastoral responsibilities of serving and loving their people?  Arguing that nothing is more important than preaching (Acts 6:2 is sometimes quoted), oodles of hours on sermon preparation are justified and...guess what.... pastoring is avoided!   Can it even be that sermon preparation is purposely elevated to escape the time-consuming difficult task of giving pastoral care? 

This opens up the whole issue of balancing pastoral priorities, doesn't it?  I really believe in preaching but it is part of a bigger package isn't it?

It's important but not that important (2)

Following my post yesterday, let me underline that in no way do I want to diminish the significance of preaching for bringing people to faith, challenging vision and building community.  I see it as God's essential way of communicating truth for life.  We have a speaking God who uses preachers!  When you are called to be a preacher it is the highest calling. Yet, God also calls us to be pastors. Indeed 'pastor' seems to be the preferred title for Christian ministers in most churches I visit.   However, being pastor involves preaching and more!   Preaching cannot do it all! 

When the student group discussed trying to balance the pastoral tasks of loving and caring for their people with finding quiet hours in the study, a couple of vital points emerged.  First, out of that loving and caring comes the contextualizing of the preaching.  It is said that the best listeners make the best preachers - not only listeners to God's word but to his people.  Identifying in the cut-and-thrust of a congregation's life grounds preaching in the real world.  We mentioned the value of preachers who periodically spend time with their congregation at their places of work.  Nothing quite perks up illustration and application than spending a few hours with hearers in their daily lives.

Second, preaching preparation does need times of quiet, especially at the beginning when you immerse in God's word.  But the wonder of being a pastor is that preparation is a continuous drip feed as you go through the week.  The sermon Scripture should be in mind as you drive around, visit the sick, lead group meetings.  Structuring sermon ideas should be fermenting in everything we see and do, ever alert to the 'voices' of culture, congregation and worship as well as personal experience.   So, when it is a difficult week with two funeral services and a tough critic to deal with as well as several seriously ill people, the sermon at the end is spoken out of that community experience into that community experience.  It's real because the  pastor's life is real.