The Bible is Its Own Evangelist

I found this to be a helpful reminder, especially since I am tempted often to feel the pressure to “flash up” certain biblical passages, always looking for the new hook or clever misunderstood Greek translation. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try and paint the most vivid picture possible of Scripture, but just a reminder that the Bible does a pretty good job of doing so without my help:

From Max McLean’s Unleashing the Word:

The Bible is its own evangelist. I came to faith because I was deeply affected by the words of the Bible. The famous British preacher Charles Spurgeon was once asked how he responded to criticisms of the Bible. “Very easy,” he responded. “I defend the Bible the same way I defend a lion. I simply let it out of its cage.” That quote captures our vision for this book and for the growth of ministries that are committed to the passionate, articulate, and powerful reading of Scripture. Isn’t it time to let the Bible out of the cage, or (to borrow from the title of this book) to unleash God’s Word?

When I tell a Bible story, I have a quiet confidence that God is going to do a mighty work by the very act of reading his Word. Therefore, my objective is to engage hearers and draw them into the Word of God. My role is to use my skills and abilities, as best I can, to draw them into an experience with the Word.

(HT: Challies)

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Send a Student to Passion

The Passion Conferences have been a huge influence in my life, a catalyst for spiritual growth. This January, in just a few weeks, I will be attending the 2010 conference as a community group leader.

I’ll be there with around 20,000 college students and other leaders in Atlanta.

If you’re a student reading this blog, then are you going? Why not? It will be worth your time. Sign up here.

But there are some students who won’t go – not because they don’t want, but because they can’t. They don’t have the money. So how about sending a student to Passion this year for Christmas?

There are a couple of ways to do this. You can take the initiative and seek out a student in your own church or life and just ask them if they’re going. Offer to comp them the registration fee, which is $199. It’s worth every penny.

Or you can simply give at the Passion site, $199 or more. Or less. If you want to do that, just click here. Follow the links under “About”, then “Donate”. And give to Passion 2010.

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Hello from Cali!

Sorry for the lack of blogging the last couple of days. I’ve had the great privilege to be on the campus of California Baptist University speaking at their annual Spiritual Emphasis Week. Jana and the kids are here in Riverside, CA, too, and we spent today at the San Diego Zoo.

The theme of the week is “Walk Deep,” and I’m preaching through a series built on the biblical metaphor of “the walk with God.” I’ll be doing 3 sermons this week:

Monday: “Deeply Walk” examining the life of Enoch from Genesis 5.

Wednesday: “Deeply Care” talking through the principles of Isaiah 58.

Friday: “Deeply Struggle” from Jacob’s wrestling match in Genesis 32.

If you want to follow along, you can download all the sermons from the “Walk” series by clicking on the Resources page of the blog, then entering my Online Store. There you can purchase all 4 talks associated with the “Walk” series.

I’ll be back soon with regular blogging updates. Thanks for checking in.

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“Walk” Sermon Series Now Available

I changed the format of the blog a little in order to add something new, should you be interested. If you click on the “Resources” page of the blog, you will see a link to download a sermon series I preached a month ago.

The series is called “Walk.” You can read the description on that page, too, but here it also is for convenience:

When the Bible talks about our relationship to Jesus Christ, the word used time and time again is “walk.” But what does it mean to walk deeply with Jesus? This 4-part sermon series, available below for $10, examines the metaphor of walking, examining key attributes in our ongoing journey with God.

Here’s how it works: Click on the link for “Enter Michael Kelley’s Online Store” below the description and then follow the instructions to purchase the “Walk” series. After you purchase the series, it should automatically download into itunes on your computer.

One favor, please – if you do this, would you please leave a comment to let me know? I’m testing out this process with what seems to be a great and user-friendly company and I’d love to know how it worked for you.

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Where Are All the Preachers?

Don’t get me wrong: I like Mark Driscoll. And Andy Stanley. Heck, I’ll say it: I like the creativity and admire the delivery of Ed Young. These guys are amazing communicators and it’s no wonder they have a tremendous following.

But there’s something in me that’s a little uneasy about a church going so multi-site that churches across the country look to a guy who lives thousands of miles away as their preacher of the morning. (I wrote more about the vitual pastor in this article).

The trajectory of the church seems to headed this way, and I’ve got to wonder if we are seeing the rise of the next stage of denominationalism; this time, the denominations won’t be called “Methodist” or “Baptist,” but instead organized under the platform of a main speaker. Now I don’t doubt the sincerity of these guys. I certainly don’t doubt their ability to effectively communicate God’s word. In fact, you could easily argue that they have more or less been pushed into this position by bad preaching. After all, who wants to hear the local guy when you can have Andy Stanley?

But maybe there’s another reason that has forced this issue – sheer lack of numbers. Where are all the preachers? My own demonination is reporting a continuing drop in seminary enrollment and that less and less people are giving their lives to be pastors. I can’t help but wonder why that is. I suppose you could argue that they’re being run off. After all, the job of “pastor” doesn’t have the greatest reputation as far as paychecks or sustaining a good home life. Or maybe it’s sort of circular, that young ‘uns feel intimidated about potentially having to “compete” with the big dogs on the video screens. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem like we are turning them out any more.

So where did they all go? Where are all the preachers? I don’t think it’s arrogant for someone to stand up, under the calling of God, and say simply: “God has given me something to say. And I’m going to say it.” It maybe my perception, but it seems like fewer and fewer are doing so.

What do you think?

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The 3 AM Statement

This post from Ben Arment reminded me again why I love One Point Teaching and Preaching. In that philosophy, you teach one major point. Everything leads to or comes out from that single point. It’s the one thing you want people to walk away from your Bible study, church service, or teaching moment with, echoing in their minds.

It’s called the 3 AM Statement.

The reason it’s called the 3 AM Statment is because it’s a short, memorable phrase that summarizes what your talk is about. It’s the main idea, so much so that if someone called you at 3 AM the night before you were teaching and asked what tomorrow’s lesson was about you could quote it to them through the early-morning fog.

There’s alot of advantages to teaching this way, but here’s 2:

1. It isolates the core truth of the message. Many times, I know I walk away from a sermon with lots of great content, so much so that I struggle to remember all the things I want to. But with that statement in my mind, it helps me organize my thoughts and fix on the core of what the Lord said to me.

2. It safeguards the message. You don’t chase rabbits when you have the 3 AM statement. As a teacher or preacher, the 3 AM serves as a gate for your talk. In your study, you’re going to find a ton of information. But with every piece of information, you have to stack it up against the 3 AM. It may be really interesting that there’s 19 Greek words for “the” in this passage, but does that fact support the 3 AM? If not, you tuck it away for use at another time.

Now some people might say, “But how can you preach verse-by-verse in this manner? Surely Paul or Jesus or Moses talks about more than one point in a passage.”

My response is that it all depends on how you divide the text. These guys (Paul, Jesus, Moses) were smart. And they were really, really good communicators. They were thoughtful about their presentations, too. And they were organized. If we take time on the front end to divide the text appropriately, we get closer to the single thing they were trying to say in a sentence, paragraph, or several paragraphs.

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Lost

Did I get you with the title? Ha! What a sneaky communicator I am. I’m in Lubbock, TX, today with the super-cool folks from Paradigm. I’ll be here the next 2 Thursday nights doing a sermon series from Luke 15 called “Lost.”

Last night I talked about how in the book of Luke one of the ways the good doctor described Jesus was as the seeker. Most notably, that description occurs in Luke 19, when Jesus came into contact with a certain diminutive, tree-climbing tax collector. The summation statement at the end of the story of Zaccheus is striking and simple: The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

I don’t often think of Jesus as a seeker, but there He is in Luke. Seeking. Looking for lost coins, lost sheep, lost sons, and even someone like Zaccheus.

It’s humbling to consider that I once was lost but now am found.

Thanks for the chance to hang out with Bruce, Austin, and Pearl Merchant; see you Red Raiders next week.

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The 1 Question That Can Change Someone’s Life

I believe there is a single question that has the potential to change someone’s life. And no, it’s not “If you died tonight are you absolutely sure you’d go to heaven?” (although that one has changed plenty of people’s lives, too).

Questions that change people’s lives are introspective ones. They are questions that force someone to think about the world and about themselves. They are questions that lead people to know God better and also to know themselves better.

That’s why I think the 1 question that can change someone’s life is this:
Why do you ask?

By asking that question, you show someone else that you’re not just interested in dispensing information; you’re interested in them as a person. And you’re not just helping them find an answer; instead you’re leading them on a journey of self-discovery.

But to truly ask that question, and to do it justice, you have to be willing to listen more than talk. You have to actually care more about the person than you do about showing how smart you are by giving them the information you seek. You have to be more committed to them than you are to answering their question.

For all those reasons, I think this question can not only change someone’s life – I think it’s one of God’s favorite questions back to us when we come to Him seeking information. It seems to me that God is far more interested in who we are than what we know. He’s more interested in developing us as Christ-followers than just passing out divine nuggets. And so He takes the time, effort, and energy to make us think, consider, process, and develop instead of just passing out information.

Isn’t it worth the same time, effort, and energy for us to follow His example?

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Why I’m Not a Fan of the Virtual Pastor

As I was serving on a panel last week at the Connect Conference in Nashville, the question from the crowd came up about satellite campuses. Lots of churches are doing it – creating satellite campuses and then projecting in a taped sermon from the pastor at the main campus. There are some huge advantages to doing church this way. Proponents would argue:
– You can reach a ton more people than you could otherwise.
– You have the ability to coordinate larger groups as they all learn the same thing.
– You can broadcast someone who is an exceedingly great communicator so that more people can benefit from the teaching.

But despite this reasoning, I’m not a fan. I’m not questioning the effectiveness of this approach; far from it. In fact, I would venture that this style of church may be the next evolution of denominations. It’s possible in 20 years, as the mainline denominations decline, a new group of denominations will emerge. They won’t be called Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian, but instead be the Acts 29 denomination, the Willow Creek Network, the Purpose Driven Model Churches, or the North Point Campuses.

Some of these networks have a great approach in my opinion, for what it’s worth. But the whole idea of having a virtual pastor still does not rest easy with me. I’ve got 2 main objections to it:

1. The virtual pastor prohibits people who have the gift of teaching from exercising what God has given them. With the rise of the virtual pastor, those who are gifted teachers have fewer and fewer avenues to use their gifts. Now those who like the virtual model would argue that even in that model, the pulpit is sometimes filled with a live person, someone actually from the congregation. Still, nothing replaces the week to week study and preparation from a person who knows the people they are speaking to.

2. I believe the most effective teaching ministry comes when the pastor/teacher is in daily relationship with the people under their care. In this way, the teacher truly knows the people, and, perhaps more importantly, the people know him. They know his family. They know his struggles and his weaknesses. He is more than a talking head or an incredible communicator – he’s a real person who needs them as much as they need him. The virtual pastor has none of these qualities, and ultimately, I believe it creates an even larger separation between the clergy and the laity.

So there you go. Again, it’s not a question of effectiveness, because the virtual model is effective. It’s a question of whether it’s right or not. Just because we can, does it mean we should? And wouldn’t a better model be one of actual church planting, where a mother church plants a daughter one and then releases it into the world instead of struggling to maintain a hold on it?

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7 Steps of Bible Study Preparation

Yesterday I mentioned that as part of my presentation at some recent conferences, I put together the 7 steps I use for Bible study preparation. I’m not assuming these are universal, but they have helped me organize my time and hopefully make my teaching style engaging, relevant, and self-revelatory. So here you go:

1. Read the text.
This should probably go without saying, but I would recommend reading the text upwards of 10 times. And reading in such a way as to enter it. To smell, see, and taste what is happening in the text. This should take about half an hour.

2. Question the text.
I take a blank sheet of paper and ask every single question I can think of about the text, even if I know the answers. I ask about the names of people, what they mean, where else they appear in Scripture, who their family is, what their nationality is, and so on. Do this with every element, including what specific words mean, where else they are found in the Bible, and what different biblical authors mean by them. Don’t worry about answering the questions at this point; just raise them.

3. Learn the text.
This is where your study tools come in as you try and answer those questions. Everybody might not have access to Bible dictionaries, word studies, encyclopedias or commentaries, but there are some pretty good online tools you can use. A couple of my favorites can be found here:
crosswalk.com
zhubert.com

4. Find the 3 AM statement of the text.
I am a huge believer in one point teaching. That is, walking into a lesson, you have one key thing you want to say with your time. It’s the main idea of the passage. And if you take time to construct in your own mind, chances are you’ll be more effective at communicating it. It’s called the 3 AM Statement because if someone woke you up at 3 am the night before you’re going to teach and asked, “What is your talk about?” you would be able to answer them in one, short, easy-to-remember sentence.

5. Personally reflect on the text.
This is where you take some time to ask the question: “What does this text mean for me?” Not, “What does this text mean for them?” You journal your answer, after several hours of prayer. In short, you choose to deeply encounter the text yourself before you try and help others do the same.

6. Construct an outline.
Take all the information, along with your personal reflection, and start constructing your teaching time centered around the 3 AM statement. Also, if you’re doing this for a small group, take the time here to think through the series of introspective and thought-provoking questions you want to ask your group. Write them out. Write several options of them out, depending on how you think people will answer.

7. Lead others to have a deep encounter with the text.
This is where to put the finishing touches on the teaching. Illustrations, verbage, and other flourishes make their appearance here.

Maybe that’s a helpful guide for you, too. I always enjoy the process, but it helps me to have a guide to work from.

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