Which Way the Wind Blows

Acts 20:22

"And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there." -Paul

Acts 21:4

Through the Spirit [the disciples] urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

In studying what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit for a sermon, I was reminded of this strange little movement in Acts.

Did the Holy Spirit want Paul to go to Jerusalem or not? Paul felt compelled by the Spirit to go. The disciples were compelled by the Spirit to urge him not to go.

I think that the Spirit did want him to go, but wanted him to go through that bit of testing to be sure he was ready.

However, this brings us an important lesson for those of us trying to follow the Wind of God. Just because he compels us to try to stop someone from "going to Jerusalem" does not necessarily mean he wants that person to listen to us.

Perhaps also, we should consider that just because he sends us toward a city, doesn't necessarily mean he wants us to arrive there.

Poets, Prophets, and Preachers PART 3

Well, the response I've been getting about Rob Bell (from at least four people just recently) is that he is "out there" on some things. Therefore, I should be pretty careful.

My response has been out where? Such generalities are not helpful to anyone. If there is a problem, define it.

I am not pretending that he is always right. Only my Mom carries that honor (at least, that is what she tells me). I can point to a couple things off the top of my head that I did not think were quite right.

For instance, even though I did find the trampoline illustration in Velvet Elvis helpful in some ways, it fell short in showing how some "springs" are more important than others. (The doctrine of forgiveness is bigger than how often we take the Lord's Supper, for instance). And some are essential. (The resurrection of Jesus, for instance).

However, the same could be said for any teacher I've ever listened to for very long (especially yours truly). We all fail somewhere. I can't tell you how often I groan on Sunday afternoon about something I said Sunday morning. I long to be perfect, alas I'm not.

Overall, I think he is a pretty sound Bible teacher.

He taught five sessions, three of them were 'how-to' construct a sermon. Here are some things that I can tell you about his preaching from hearing those sessions.

1. He is an expository preacher.

Rob Bell always starts his sermon preparations with the text. I already knew this. But he showed how he approaches the passage. He tries to memorize the text way in advance so that it can "live with" him for a long time before he preaches. He focuses on the words, studies their linguistic origins, examines how they are used elsewhere. He researches the backgrounds. He works a passage hard before he starts assembling the sermon, and it shows.

2. He is passionately in love with God's Word.

You can see this in his sermon prep. It also show in his body language when he talks about the text.

3. He is passionate about God's work.

It would be interesting enough for me if he just showed the neat things he discovered in his research. But he works the sermon all the way to applications.
4. He works really hard on his messages.

This was the most striking thing to me. I always assumed he was just really gifted as a communicator. He is that, but wow, he works hard. He showed us his process. Every part of his sermon is the result of a lot thought a preparation.
5. He still believes the sermon is a very powerful tool in the post-modern world.

Many post-modern church leaders are giving up on sermons. They see the method as dated and ineffective. Not so with Rob. Though he doesn't often use the force of the 'bully pulpit, preferring to give the first words of a discussion rather than the final word. (This very different approach is why I think he tends to be misunderstood).

Poets, Prophets, and Preachers PART 2

Rob Bell did most of the speaking. But he had some guests too.

The surprise guest guest was Zach Lind, drummer from Jimmy Eat World. (You can find his blog here) Rob interviewed him about the creative process of song writing, and then applied that to the creative process of sermon writing. The biggest take-away from that was that writing a good song or sermon doesn't just happen. It often takes much working and re-working.

That was probably more fun than helpful.

Peter Rollins was one of the other guest speakers. He had two one-hour sessions. The first he was interviewed by Rob, the second he just spoke. Peter was really funny and charming (with his thick Irish brogue).

Peter, however, might be one of the reasons that so many evangelicals are nervous about all things Emerging. (I'd argue that the biggest reason is that evangelicals get nervous is that they are group that is labeled. Any time that happens, the labeled group is seen as new and therefore unorthodox. But that's a discussion for another day.)

Peter is absolutely mad. I would say that there is a method to his madness, but many will never be able to see beyond the madness. He speaks quickly, rapidly dropping bombs of provocation. He speaks with far more question marks than periods.

I'd argue he is more a performance artist than a preacher. If you understand him in that way, it makes much more sense. Let me give you an example: For Lent, he instructed his group to give up God. For those 40 plus days, they did not read the Bible or pray. Instead they read atheist writers like Freud and Nietzsche. Already, he may have lost you. But by the end, he talked about how a need and a hunger for God had been created.

That's Peter Rollins in a nutshell. His performance art carries the danger of being misunderstood, but it also carries a tremendous potential to speak in ways that a speech canot. The best things I got from him were two illustrations (maybe I'll share them another day) and the motivation to try to work in more performance art into service (attentive to the dangers, of course). His books may be worth reading just to inspire creativity.

The other guest speaker, Shane Hipps, pastors a Mennonite church of about 300 in Arizona. Before he became a preacher, he worked for a marketing firm that had accounts with Porsche and others. As a part of that work, he did much research into how people think in the effort to coerce them into buying whatever his firm was pimping. He left that behind, but now carries some important warnings about what unintentional messages are media carry.

You can can catch the heart of his first message here (It's a 5:40 video) or in an articel he wrote here. (You might want to check out some of the other interviews about virtual community too).

The infromation he gave in his first session should be required for any student of preaching. Really good. Really important.

Since he contends that the medium is the message, his second session was about what kind of message do you as medium convey (beyond the text of your sermon, of course).

That session was confusing to me. I found his blog and asked him to explain the ideas from his second session more. You can find his response here. He deserves a lot of credit for responding so quickly and graciously. I'm still probing more, because it is new to me. I want to know more about what he means before I swallow it whole or deny it completely, or (more likely) do something between those extremes.

Poets, Prophets, and Preachers

This is a review of the Poets, Prophets and Preachers conference I attended last week. It was a preaching conference hosted by Rob Bell.

I have been somewhat careful about telling people I was going to hear Rob Bell, because I grow weary of answering all of the rumors and accusations that surround him. I don't agree with everything he says. The same could be said of any author, speaker, or teacher, though.

Most of the more passionate attacks seem to be from people who have not actually read his books, or seem to completely misunderstand them.

But like I said, I'm tired of this debate. So, I have been listening and reading him in relative silence for a couple of years. When I would quote him, I'd say "I heard a preacher say..." Cowardly, I guess.

Things changed a little when a fellow attender was fired by his church for just being at this conference. Now I feel like saying nothing may be allowing ignorance to handicap the church. I'm not going to commit myself to daily fighting this battle. But I will let you know what I see, good and bad and let you form opinions of your own.

This is already getting lengthy, so I'll break it up into a couple parts.

What enticed me to go:

1. I really want to get better at the craft of preaching
2. If you paid for one registration, it was good for two people, which encouraged us to experience it in community, where you could digest the ideas together. I got to do this with an old acquaintance from college. This was much better than going to a conference without anyone else. I've done that before: not fun.
3. Since we split the registration price, the cost was only $125 for 2 and a half days. Compare that to other conferences and you will see what a value that is.
4. It was in Grand Rapids, a pretty quick drive from here. Compare to Chicago, Atlanta, and San Diego where other appealing conferences were.
5. Rob Bell is an amazing communicator. I was hoping I could learn some of his preparation and delivery techniques. (I was not disappointed, by the way).

I think in the next post, I will give you my impression of the two other speakers, Peter Rollins and Shane Hipps. Then, in a third post, I'll give you my impression of Rob's five talks.