In light of the cultural exhaustion and busyness in which we live, the negative effects to our lives, souls, and bodies are endless. That is obvious and everyone knows it! Unfortunatly everyone and their mom also seem to think they have the answer to the fulfilling and satisfying life you want in the newest best selling self-help book they offer. That is one thing that I have learned in doing some cover copy jobs for a publishing company.

Unfortunately, all of the answers that I have read so far are overly simplistic, unrealistic, and mostly just silly!

Basically everyone says the same exact thing but package it differently hoping to be the next big thing.

This leads me to the point of this whole thing: I HATE self-help books. They're pathetic and all they really achieve is making lots of money for the author. Yes, this even includes "Christian" self-help books (which is really a paradox in terms-if we were Christians we would understand that we CAN'T help ourselves and the fulfilling life that the world tells us we are seeking(comfort, wealth, stability, etc.) isn't the life God wants for us!)

This has just been a rant brought to you by Dustin. Grrrrr. Isn't that what blog are for?

We've enjoyed a fantastic holiday weekend. Friday night we went to Tarver's party, Saturday night we had a cookout at Jason and Kimberly's, Sunday night we had an Evergreen Community Dinner at Scott and Jojo's, and today we have not done anything and it's been great! We've sat around, played Rummikub and listened to some albums we haven't listened to in a while.

A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
This album is SO freaking good. If you haven't heard it, please do yourself a favor and just listen to it for the music. Although I have never really gotten into the New Pornographers, I love this record.








Rogue Wave - Descended from Vultures
Another great album that I was reminded of when Bob blogged about them the other day. We saw them play with The Stills in Florida before we left at a little bar and we really grew in our enjoyment of them. Their first album is okay, a little strange and not something you want to listen to all the time, but this record is much better and solid from start to finish.





Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
This is one of my favorite albums from last year. For some reason I cannot stop listening to it. If I listen to it in the morning it is in my mind on repeat ALL DAY LONG. I have still not gotten sick of Midlake.







Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
Another favorite from the last few years. Sounds a lot like My Morning Jacket. I like every song on this record and love the songs Great Salt Lake and St. Augustine!







Modest Mouse - We Were Dead......
I haven't gotten a chance to listen to this much, but gave it a run through today. I like it. Not sure what else to say about it yet. I'm curious to see what the people who "liked Modest Mouse before they were big" thought of the record. I'm sure they were very unsatisfied, blah blah blah, but i'm still curious to know.





In completely unrelated news, I'm preaching my in class sermon tomorrow at 10:10. I can't wait to have that done! I decided to go with Rom. 12:1. Thanks for all of your suggestions, it was tough to pick just one verse! Bob asked a question last Monday at the Brass which was, "are you preparing a sermon you would ever be able to preach at Evergreen?" Sadly I had to say no. I probably wouldn't preach this sermon at Evergreen. It's not appropriate to that audience. It was written with the seminary nerds in mind and has much more of a classic sermon structure than I usually use now.

I remember at LCC in preaching classes the profs always said, "you have to let the rules break you before you can break the rules." I have been breaking rules for years now so it's hard to go back to following the rules. Therefore, I'm a little nervous about tomorrow.

Taking Out the Trash

Joe Paterno goes old school with his punishment of the team! Check this story out. This is awesome. Thanks John V. for this story!

Your thoughts? Should other coaches follow suit?

R.I.P Kelly Dowd

Last year about this time we met Kelly Jo Dowd in Florida where she was spending time with Kelli's family friend Jerry who was dying of cancer. At this time she looked great, I was shocked to hear the news today that She passed at the age of 42 from cancer. We met her while we were visiting with Jerry and got to talk with her for a short time. I know Jerry enjoyed having her over and gathered much courage with his battle with cancer from Kelly. She seemed like a very brave and loving woman. I know she was an inspiration for many others with cancer as well.

Kelly is a inspiring example of what Paul said, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." (2 Cor. 1)

Somehow, even in the midst of her own battle, she was able to focus on others and give them hope and comfort. That is truly amazing!

Plagiarism: The Prostitution of Preaching

Plagiarism – “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source.”

“One day I was walking alongside the seashore and I noticed that thousands of starfish had washed up upon the shore….”

If you have been in the church for any amount of time you probably know where I’m going with this illustration because you’ve heard it several times from pastors all claiming it as if it were their own. In fact while I was in college I heard this illustration three times during my four years in chapel by pastors who were telling it like this actually happened to them!

Sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to plagiarism in illustrations. We don’t expect or require that our pastors are always telling us the truth or are genuinely giving an example of something that happened to them. When I hear a pastor preach I honestly do not know what to believe anymore. Did this man really throw starfish back into the ocean? Is this man’s nephew really in the army? Does he really have a friend that plays professional baseball? I don’t know anymore! More importantly, why does the pastor feel like he has to lie to get his point across or to entertain the crowd?

What was once the case in the world of illustrations is now becoming the norm with entire sermons. Illustrations aren’t the only things getting stolen anymore. Even worse is the fact that some pastors encourage this by selling their sermons

This past Easter I got an email from Fellowship Church offering me Ed Young Jr.’s Easter Sermon for only 8.95 with his own handwritten corrections! Wow, imagine having a sermon with Ed’s handwriting on it!

Not only are pastors like Ed Young Jr. encouraging pastors to plagiarize at the expense of their own congregation, he is charging 10 dollars a sermon to do it! I’m not sure what is more unethical, preaching a sermon that is not your own and pretending like it is, or selling a sermon and making money on a sermon you’ve already been paid to preach for your own congregation. The phrase “peddling God’s word for profit” is certainly relevant in this argument.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article several pastors admitted that there was nothing wrong with this.

The Rev. Brian Moon said "Truth is truth, there's no sense reinventing the wheel-if you’ve got something that's a good product, why go out and beat your head against the wall and try to come up with it yourself?"

One author actually admitted that he was just happy to have a sermon worth stealing! He wrote an article on this subject for Pastors.com entitled, “Don't be original, be effective!” In this article he says, “Let's forget about originality – which is often a form of pride.” While I understand that we should draw deep from sources in church history and those smarter than us, most people use this as an excuse to live by this mantra “Don’t be original, be lazy!” There is obviously a misunderstanding in what it means to be effective. Are we effective because of the quality of a sermon an expert has written for us or are we effective because of the Holy Spirit’s power upon our words and God’s Word?

Even more interesting is the fact that this same author seems to change his mind on this discussion depending on the day, or more likely the audience he’s writing to. In Relevant Leader he encourages people to be original! His article in this publication is titled “What Ever Happened to Originality?” Completely to the contrary of what he wrote in the previous article he says here, “As leaders we must challenge our people to dig deep and pay the price that's required to be truly creative." He goes on to say “We have allowed ourselves in either desperation or ignorance to be duped by recycled ideas instead of thoughts that were really wrought by the Spirit himself." But that is precisely what he has encouraged us to do in the article for Pastors.com. So which is it?

His definition of plagiarism might be the problem. "Real plagiarism is taking stuff out of a book and putting it into another book.” He continues saying,. "Speaking, taking people's material and putting it into a speaking forum, is not plagiarism."

Actually that is exactly what plagiarism is by definition, written or spoken. Words are words, and stealing them are the same regardless of the platform. And throughout church history that has been a given.

For an ethics class at my seminary recently I read a book called Ministerial Ethics which has an appendix with examples of codes of ethics for ministers from years past to more current codes. In all of the codes from the early 1900’s this clause is present in some form:

“It is unethical for the minister to use sermon material prepared by another without acknowledging the source from which it comes.”

From denomination to denomination the issue of plagiarism was seen as an ethical issue. Using material from someone else’s sermon without acknowledging the source was wrong. But as you continue to read the more current examples of ministerial ethical codes, one little clause seems strangely absent from the code. I don’t think I need to tell you which one.

Not today however, pastors all over the country and taking sermons and even worse, buying sermons from websites such as www.pastors.com or www.creativepastors.com (how creative is buying a sermon online?) or just getting them for free on www.sermoncentral.com and preaching them word for word as their own with no intention or conscious telling them that they should cite where the sermon came from.

So what has caused this shift from plagiarizing being one of the top ethical issues for ministers to it being a complete non-issue?

Could it be our “easy button” culture that does not want to dig for God’s truth or take the time to listen to God for their congregation? Could it be that pastors are simply choosing convenience over the difficult work of interpretation and exposition? Why be original when you can be lazy?

I will be the first to admit that I do not preach 52 Sunday’s a year, nor do I understand all the pressures that come with writing a message every week on top of all the other demands. I am compassionate about the difficult role that pastors must face. And because of my lack of experience in this role I asked another pastor who has more than 20 years of preaching experience. I have not asked his permission to use what he has said so I will leave him nameless.

When I asked what his view of plagiarism in preaching is the first thing that came out of his mouth was this statement, “Buying other people’s sermons doesn’t take seriously the call to be a pastor to a specific people, in a specific time, in a specific place.” I agree, what Rick Warren has to say to his congregation does not necessarily and I would say usually does not have much correlation with what God wants you to speak to your congregation.

He went on to say that a pastor should be able to preach a good sermon every week and there are three reasons why they would not be able to do that. I have added a possible fourth and expounded upon the reasons.

1. The pastor does not have the gift or calling to preaching.

Preachers have an innate desire and passion to study God’s word and to preach the revelation that God has given their community. If the person has no desire to pour themselves into God’s word and plead for a message on behalf of their community, he probably does not have the calling to preach.

2. The pastor does not have enough time because of other demands.

This does not legitimize plagiarism but I am compassionate to this reason more than the others. A pastor during his week may simply have too many demands on their lives to be able to spend 10-20 hours preparing a sermon for Sunday. Unfortunately the elders have lost sight of the priority of preaching and the responsibility of the pastor to be spiritual leader and not just CEO of a business. This needs to change. There is a misunderstanding of what the primary responsibilities of the senior pastor are: to pray and to preach. To this I say, the pastor has got to learn to say NO!

3. The pastor has simply gotten lazy and has no discipline to study God’s word.

This goes back to our easy button culture. The pastorate is a great place for a lazy man to hide as I have heard one pastor say. That is true! Unfortunately I think this is a predominant reason that pastors would rather buy a sermon than spend the time themselves preparing. Why spend so much time crafting a message when one is just the click of a button away. The pastor has lost the discipline to listen to God on behalf of their community. And in my opinion when this happens, the pastor ceases to be a pastor regardless of what his title tells him.

4. The celebrity status of preachers has intimidated them to the task.

Because of the way we worship pastors at large churches, many preachers believe that if their messages are not as good as a mega-church pastors’ message is, then it isn’t worth preaching.

If you think that these other “celebrities” can preach better than you can to your own congregation, then it’s probably time to wrap it up. Does Ed Young Jr. or Rick Warren really know the people in your community? Of course not, you do. So if you are not better prepared to preach to your own people, my suggestion is simple: it might be time to look for a new job.

The pastor I spoke with made a bolder statement later, “Plagiarism is the prostitution of preaching, I disagree with it on so many levels.” This prostitution runs both ways. When a pastor sells a sermon manuscript to make double profit, this is wrong. I have heard many say that they sell their sermons because they want to be a resource and help other churches succeed. If this were true however, then my question is this, “Why don’t you just give it to the church for free?” Why would you charge money on something you are already getting paid to do if the entire motivation was to help other churches? It’s simple, you wouldn’t. This is another way that the capitalistic church can make a few bucks and sadly take away money from struggling churches that actually need it. Plagiarism is more than an ethical issue, it is a stewardship issue at heart.

When you buy or steal someone else’s sermon everyone loses. It hurts the people that God has entrusted you to preach His message. It hurts you because you are not taking the time or developing the discipline to sit and listen to God. It spends money your church could be using for more beneficial purposes. After all, the church is paying you to write a sermon not to contract it out for 10 dollars! Worst of all, plagiarizing is short-circuiting the Holy Spirit’s role upon your own life and the life of your congregation. God has a specific message that he wants to give your congregation. It is your job as a pastor to listen and be the conduit of that message. Not to give the message that God gave Rick Warren to give to his congregation in Southern California.

When pastors stop listening to God, studying Scripture themselves and instead buy a pre-packaged sermon, they stop being pastors. Instead they turn into lazy consumers who are either burnt out on speaking every week and probably need a break, or idolaters thinking that a “celebrity” preacher can probably say it better than what God can give them personally.

The joy of being a pastor is getting to sit down, open up our heart to our Creator and plead for a Word for Sunday! Don’t get lazy and don’t let other demands get in your way this Sunday. The vocation that God has called you to requires it, and your people are dying for it.

Ben Gibbard-Roseland, Portland, OR

Last night we went to see Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) perform at the Roseland. We got there near the end of David Bazaan's (Pedro the Lion) set which we were a little thankful for. I really enjoy Pedro the Lion but seeing their live show is difficult at times because it's kind of a bore so you can imagine him going solo.

Ben Gibbard was pretty good. He did a cover of the Shins "Gone for Good." Apparently James Mercer might have been there had his wife not just delivered a baby the previous week. Bummer for us! He also surprisingly did a cover of Nirvana "All Apologies" on the piano. It was okay. Really tough to cover Nirvana! The best part of the show (aside from someone screaming, "Marry My Sister" at a really quiet moment) was when Jenny Lewis made a surprise appearance and sang a few Postal Service songs with him. I enjoy Ben Gibbard's song writing. I think he does a good job of telling stories in a way that you can feel what he was feeling and understand what was going on. He's not too vague and abstract so you can't understand, but it's not too simple that it's silly or just total pop crap either. I think he's more of a poet in that way than a songwriter. Either way, I enjoy his storytelling.

The experience left me with three thoughts:

1. I feel really old when I go to concerts like this.

2. About 80% of this crowd first heard of Death Cab for Cutie on The O.C.

How do I know that? Well, because most of them were high school/college girls who thought they were at a popular night club by the way they were dressed. Not quite the crowd DCFC first started with! The other reason is that if Ben played any song older than a song on Transatlanticism, the O.C. Death Cab fans didn't have a clue what it was. "405"? No idea! "Why You'd Want to Live Here"? Forget about it.

My favorite part of the night was the guy that was standing in front of me. He had a "cool guy" shirt on (large collar, real flashy, looks slightly European). There were a few songs that he really got into. One of those was "Title and Registration". He had his head slightly tilted back, eyes closed, swaying back and forth, moving his arms. I honestly thought he was going to cry. He apparently has been very touched emotionally by this song in particular. Why? I have no idea. When I listen to the song, i'm not sure what could really grip your heart. Anyway, after that song he pretty much just fondled his girlfriend the rest of the night.

3. I don't really enjoy going to shows all that much anymore.
I don't like being crowded in an over-sold out room (although Roseland was better than most). I don't like standing in line at the bar for 15 minutes as people cut in front of me to buy a 7 dollar beer. I don't like trying to find a place in the room where you are not standing directly behind the seven foot dude who always shows up but doesn't want to stand in the back. When I lived in NYC I went to shows ALL the time. I would go by myself just to check out new bands in fantastic venues like Bowery Ballroom but I'm just over it! I never thought I would say that but I just don't like being stuck in a crowded place with everyone pretending they have more hipster cred than everyone else. Ultimately, this all leads me back to number 1. I'm old!

Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds; The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century by John Stott

I just finished John Stott's classic preaching text today. I could describe Stott's book this way: Every quote from every great preacher that your preaching professor has ever said has probably came from this book! Between Two Worlds is a vast compilation of the wisdom of the greatest preachers in history and what they have to contribute on the task (or joy depending on what mood you're in) of preaching. The first half examines the place of preaching in the history of the church and the challenges for preaching in this century (which is a little dated but still has timeless elements of truth). I found the second half of the book more helpful as Stott gives his personal means of study and preparation. It's not hard to see why this book has been a valuable resource to preachers as we think about what it means to preach, the qualities of the preacher himself, and some great ideas of how a preacher should go about the task. So many gems and valuable insights. The vast amount of material can be overwhelming and a bit repetitive. Stott certainly does not say in 10 pages what he can say in 30. But I found the historical value of this book the most beneficial as how preaching has been viewed and spoken of through previous generations.

John Stott believed that clear, biblical preaching was key to the life of a community of faith. I think it is easy to see the results of weak preaching in the life of many contemporary churches who instead of preaching faithfully have decided to spend every week giving five steps to a healthy friendship or to balancing their checkbook and using scriptures here and there to illustrate their point. Why is God's word only used for illustration in contemporary preaching? I wish more preachers would look back into history and rediscover our heritage as preachers and how effective preaching can be for life transformation, rather than just drawing a crowd with life-enhancement.

I love preaching. I think it is one of the most exciting privileges a human being has. To get to speak what God has spoken carries great responsibility but also great joy. I love the time spent in study, i love the craft and creativity that goes along with it. I love good preaching, i love good preaching books, i loved my preaching classes in college. This is something I desire to spend my life working on. I think there is great power in good preaching not because of good preachers, but because of the power of the Holy Spirit when God's word is spoken. I have hope that preaching can recover from the lull it is in and I see it being recovered in churches who are tired of getting 5 more steps for having a better life and more lists of things that they should do during the week. I have hope that more and more pastors will spend the time necessary in study for their sermons on Sunday and learn to say no to unnecessary tasks. I have hope that more pastors will see the responsibility they possess and stop buying other men's sermon online and start thinking about what God has to say to the community that He has entrusted him with. I'm excited for the future of preaching.

Suggestions?

For my preaching class this summer, one of our projects is to preach a 15 minute sermon on one verse of scripture. I'm having a hard time picking out one singular verse because i'm not sure of many verses that aren't intricately tied to their surrounding context. There do not seem to be many verses that independently complete an entire thought. I'm not sure the exact point of this exercise, maybe he's trying to show us how difficult it is to be faithful to scripture when we rip verses out of context? I'm not really sure. But, regardless I've got to do it.

So, what verse do you suggest?

This is fun stuff, I haven't had to preach in class for about 6 years now! But it will be nice to get honest critique from people. It's hard to find constructive criticism and I'm looking forward to improving!

NEXT WAVE - Emergent Manifesto of Hope Review

Click here to check out my new article on Next Wave!

Coming next month, I'll be interviewing Dick Staub, author of Too Christian, Too Pagan and speaking of his new release The Culturally Savvy Christian. I look forward to chatting with him!

Really?

I was just thinking the other day, what the world could use are three more episodes of the Terminator! Lucky us!

Report Card

Theology 1 - A
Advanced Hermeneutics - A
Spiritual Formation Class - A
Premarital Counseling - A

The entire point of this post was to brag and I refuse to apologize for that!

Vacation is Up

Tomorrow we leave to go back to P-Town and start living our real lives again. Our 10-day vacation to Illinois to visit our families has been fantastic and a little surreal. I can't believe all the time is up already. Goes way too fast! We didn't fill our time with a whole lot of stuff other than just spending time with family and living their normal lives with them. This is something we have not been able to do enough in the last few years and it makes me realize how much you miss when you move away to follow a dream. I keep trying to remind myself that it is part of the sacrifice of a follower of Christ but it is still tough when you know nieces and nephews are growing up without knowing you. And you get to see your parents for about 4 days a year!

But we must go back to the life that God has for us now in Portland, one which we love and get back to work. I've got an intensive preaching class the entire month of May that meets three days a week. I've got to read four books in the next few weeks, write a 20 page paper, preach once in class, and critique some sermons. I'm really excited for this because it's been about 7 years since I've had a preaching class. This will be a nice refresher and hopefully will help me sharpen up a bit before I preach at Evergreen on June 10th. I could use some help! It's hard when you don't preach often to continue to grow as a communicator! I miss it!









This week I got to see my childhood hero Ryne Sandberg. I went to a Peoria Chiefs game (minor league baseball) and he is managing the team. Many people stood in line and got autographs and I considered it but I'm just not really an autograph guy, it's just another thing I will feel like I need to hang onto for my entire life but never know what to do with. Plus when I meet someone like that I never know what to say. What can you say? "Hi Ryan, you were great, blah blah blah." And then I just stand there and feel dumb. Cool to see him though. One of the greatest Chicago Cubs in history!
I've heard that my father and I look alike, what do you think?









We also saw Spiderman 3 on my mom's birthday. We all enjoyed it. Pretty much the same storyline as the other two episodes, but I really enjoyed the bad guys! It was my mom's 50th this year so we went out to eat at a restaurant called Johnny's Italian Grill. Great food and a huge wine list. Happy Birthday Mom!









I got to play a lot with our nieces Savannah and Gabrielle and that was a blast! We also found out that we were teaching Sunday school on Saturday night at 10pm so that was fun! Kelli, Jaime, and I took about 15 minutes a piece and shared what God was doing in different parts of the world. I think about 2 of the 12 adults were actually listening so that wasn't bad odds.

We also go to visit our alma mater, Lincoln Christian College and walk around campus for a little while. I haven't been around campus for several years but it brought back a ton of memories being around. So many good stories, seems like a whole life ago now and it's only been 5 years! I remember breaking into the chapel at about 2 in the morning, taking the ladder, climing up three levels on the building to get on the roof and taking buckets of sidewalk chalk and covering the roof of the chapel with a message for the students as they walked to chapel in the next morning. We worked on it until about 5 in the morning and it looked great. Unfortunately when we woke up for chapel at 9, it had rained. Anyway, just one of several stories that we were able to retell.

One of my favorite parts of any vacation is reading John Steinbeck which has become required reading for vacation stints. I read four of his shorter novels (seriously like 100 pages a piece, don't be impressed).

Tortilla Flat: Quirky little story about several poor "paisanos" who become friends (in a strange and selfish sort of way) and live in an inherited house together doing whatever it takes to get wine to drink. Funny story. No one can write better characters than Steinbeck. They're fantastic.

The Red Pony: Based on Steinbeck's upbringing as a boy, four separate stories of incidents, mostly involving ponies and growing up on the farm and covering the issues of tragic loss as a child.

The Moon is Down: Intriguing WWII story about a town that gets invaded. It's a complicated story because no one is really the villain, the invading officer is just following orders and the townspeople are naturally rebelling. This was my second favorite out of the four.

Cannery Row: This is by far the best "Steinbeck" writing out of all of these. I'm not quite finished yet, but while the rest are good stories, Cannery Row is art! After reading so much Steinbeck I really want to go to Monterey and Salinas and see the land that he is writing about.

11 Steinbeck novels down, 10 to go! Woohoo!

This is one of the funniest articles I've read on Lark News for quite some time! I was crying when I got to the last paragraph! Brilliant!!!

Church tries, fails to get through worship time without singing a Matt Redman song

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Sunrise Christian Church’s worship team decided last Sunday to change directions a bit and avoid all known Matt Redman songs in worship.
"We realized that most of the stuff we sing was written by him, so we wanted to change up the spirit of things," says the worship leader. "You can’t let one songwriter dominate your song selection."
They successfully avoided better-known Redman songs like "The Heart of Worship" and the nearly ubiquitous "Blessed Be Your Name." They also vetoed "Wonderful Maker" and "Once Again," as team members shrewdly recalled that these songs, too, might have been written by the prolific Christian Brit.
Then things went off course. To end worship time, the band segued into "Let Everything That Has Breath" and "Better is One Day."
"I didn’t know those were Matt Redman songs," said the guitarist sheepishly later.
The band further erred by playing "I Will Offer Up My Life" and "Let My Words Be Few" while the offering was taken.
After the service, a somber mood engulfed them in the green room.
"It’s impossible to completely avoid Matt Redman songs during any extended time of worship," said the band leader dejectedly. "People may as well give in."
The pianist said she felt "Redman-handled by the whole experience."
"It’s humbling to realize that without Matt Redman, I wouldn’t have a worship music vocabulary," she said.
In separate news, a remote tribe was discovered in the mountains of New Guinea, and despite their complete isolation from the modern world, the tribe was already familiar with the gospel of Jesus Christ and with several Matt Redman songs which the tribespeople say angelic beings taught them. Missionaries gave the tribe Bibles, a crank-powered CD player and a Matt Redman’s greatest hits CD. •