I always enjoy the week before Easter. There are so many reminders of what really matters in life: newness and appreciating it; the path Jesus took and the events of His last Incarnate days; the build-up to the biggest bummer of all time, and then the silence... and then the most Incredible Day of all time; the being-together with the brethren; the hope that new people will become brethren as the Focus of the resurrection wins their hearts. I love Easter, and then again--every Sunday is a Resurrection Sunday! This is why the church changed from worshipping on the Sabbath to worshipping on the first day of the week. The Resurrection trumps everything!

The first Christmas I remember would be 1956 when I had just turned 4. Coming downstairs to a magically overnight construction of a train table and Lionel train layout almost blew my four-year old mind. I also remember from that Christmas singing around the community Christmas tree and being given a small box of hard, Christmas candy. 55 Christmases later, I still love the day. I love how all the joy people feel depends ultimately on the quiet assumption of the "reason for the season." Christmas would just be another silly, fantasy-laiden, escapist holiday were it not for the birth of Jesus at the root of it. I don't know how early it was for me when I first heard about Jesus--but it certainly wasn't long after 1956. I am waiting now for this babe in the manger, then crucified, dead and buried, then risen, then ascended, for over 50 years. There were maybe 5 years in there when I wasn't paying attention--otherwise Christmas always reminds me of the "good news of great joy for all the people." It is what drives my life. I hope nothing will ever distract my affections until I see His face. Merry Christmas 2011 to you who see this!

Early Sunday mornings have always been serene to me. Even when our girls were little, there are many memories of quiet, peaceful Sunday mornings, early. Today I am at the church, alone yet, an inch of snow has fallen (which always contributes to a certain feeling of pax) and praying for the day. I am thankful that the Lord's Day is yet special in my mind. Our world treats it as second Saturday so much. But to me, it is unique in the week. As Jesus said, it was was created for man, not man for it. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of early Sunday mornings. May I never cease to appreciate them.

My Dad was a soldier for about five years. He was also a soldier before he was a soldier. And he was a soldier after he was a soldier. Martin Jens Damgaard, youngest of eight children of Christian Sorensen and Metha Kirstine, joined the Civilian Military Training Corps during the Depression and learned some of the basic protocols and training routines of the U.S. Army at that time. It was then that he learned of the man who would become his C.O. during World War II--Colonel Kearney. Dad was a soldier long before he enlisted just before Pearl Harbor in 1941. After he was mustered out of the Army in early 1946, he was offered and accepted a civlian engineering job at Fort Belvoir, VA with the Corps of Engineers, with whom he had served throughout the war. From there he moved to the Office of the Chief of Engineers in Building T-7, next to National Airport and from there to the new Army Materiel Command until his retirement in 1973. From professional soldiering, he worked in support of soldiering for the remainder of his career. He was Chief of the Mobility and Equipment Branch in AMC as a GS-15 at retirement. Although his handling of the stresses of his position, and the times in which he worked was with great difficulty, I would say he loved the Army his whole working life. And near the end of his working career, as I was growing up there were two moments regarding me, that stay in my memory clearly. First, I remember he was very joyful that my draft lottery number was high (something like 350) in my year of eligibility for the draft--he told me that he did not want me to have to go to Viet Nam. Second, he counseled me gently away from joining the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets as a freshman there--a step I was seriously considering. He said he just seriously doubted whether I would be happy in a soldiering environment. It was 1970. It was also one of those subtle moments in one's own history where you later can see that it was a turning point. While Dad loved soldiering he was fairly sure I was not, though currents had been drifting me towards that for years up to that point. Years later, Dad also wrote one of the few remembrances of his war experiences--a letter in 1980 to a Junior High English class in Illinois (upon invitation) to describe his experience as a liberator to Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany in April 1945. This was the man who raised me.

If you went your whole life and no one ever heard of anything good that you did, no one ever sent you a card, announced your name in public for recognition, you never had your name engraved anywhere, no one ever thanked you for blessing them in some way, no one said to you, "You did that well," no one ever e-mailed you or FB messaged you and told you that you were valued, no one ever even really knew your name or remembered you years after you died; if your entire experience on earth was characterized just by being with people, being among them, spending your whole time just trying to live and do well, and bless people wherever and whenever you could, and the only rewards were the smiles of the blessed, the sighs of those you relieved of a burden, the quick "thanks" on the spot when you helped out, and the joy of knowing you invested a little time and effort well--how would you be with that?

Well I was hoping that despite all my comon sense, biblical sense, and desire for large crowds to love me, that maybe somehow Harold Camping was on to something and my years of study at Dallas Seminary had actually failed me and I had missed something important. I want Jesus to come back. From a personal and selfish standpoint, the sooner the better. Because I actually believe that the Bible==without the need for any funky numerology==teaches pretty plainly that Jesus will come back. Actually. At least that's what Paul, Peter, John and a bunch of other first century guys wrote. And two thousand years of Christians have bought their testimony. So I was kinda hoping. Or maybe Harold miscalulated just a bit and ...

Concerning men and women.
This is a constant and evolving discussion surrounding what are appropriate and what are inappropriate functions for men or women in Christian circles. Traditionally, they are better defined but since, say, 1970, they are more clouded--some would say, "more open." But does openness result in confusion or contradiction? And ultimately, how does God expect us to balance things? If everyone can do anything, that invites confusion--where there are no boundaries whatsoever too, we violate a plain understanding of Scripture. But over-restrictiveness also seems to violate something. So, I am still and ever thinking this one through. One thing is clear: some people are crazy.

Well, I have little doubt about it any more. The church in this country, is changing. One reason is that the general perception of Sundays is changing. For those who do attend "church" it is more about connecting and seeing friends, checking in with accountability, getting a rush from the worship team, or other things, than it is about really paying attention to the preaching, deliberately offering up awe and affection to the Lord. I have fended off this feeling for a long time. Now, I think this is the main interest of American Christians. At least the evangelical ones.

It isn't that we have apostasized from our core doctrines or abandoned our love of the Word of God. We just love ourselves more. That's my opinion, at the moment at least.

Ideally, I wish all Christians would do these things:

Commit to attending a church every week, even if things aren't ideal there. Make time for worship. He is worth it.
Be loyal to whatever church you go to, for as long as you can do so. And demonstrate that loyalty in many ways.
Read your Bibles every day.
Forgive your fellow church people heavily, and frequently.
Ask God to make you less about you and more about other people. Ask Him for this repeatedly.

Concerning preaching.
I think it must be true that preachers really make up about 97% of people who think about preaching other than when listening to Sunday's sermon. But we preachers think about if often. A lot. We are interested in preaching for a bunch of reasons. At a carnal level, its the gladiatorial games of evangelicalism and we measure our warrior-ish-ness by our preaching. Okay, maybe that's a bit much. But we DO measure something by our preaching. Very few of us are so egoless that we don't somehow gauge our self-worth by what, how, how long, how cool and how many heard what we said in that 35 minutes last Sunday. On a little deeper level, we actually do take our calling fairly seriously (and ourselves too, some days.) In a nutshell, Spurgeon said to his "students," "Dude. Can't preach well? Get a job. You're not called to the ministry." Or something to that effect.

I am in the process of scanning 27 years of sermons into PDF format via our new, cool Bizhub C220 Galactic Copier/Scanner/Assimilator. I have been finding sermon series--I have always preached from full manuscripts--around our church (one series set of Notes, I found on the floor of the church attic--isn't that cool?) These were MY Notes. Here's another interesting thing--with a bunch of these series, I don't even remember preaching them. Thus, I find a series, say to myself, "Whoa! Cool! I preached that??!! Dang. I don't even remember preaching that series back in, like, 1989." Which makes me think that the sub-story of both LOST and FRINGE, the idea that there are parallel universes which exist and which have their own versions of Us in them, might be right. I think maybe the Other Me in a parallel universe must have preached some of these series. Anyway, I am scanning these series for posterity. They will be available in PDF via e-mail, website, CD and any other cool way I can think of getting them out. Not that anyone will want them, but as I said, we measure our self-worth by these messages.

Also of note to me, in viewing all my old series in neat stacks on the Library table, I notice that I have (embarrasingly) had a peculiar fetish for creating nifty (dorky?) new logos (haha no pun of the Bible software I use, intended) for my Dartmouth Bible Notes masthead. I have made up, like, 15 different logos over the years. (Here's my Cool-Retro-1940's era; here's my snazzy, Back to the Future 1980's era; here's my Minimalist, Just Read the Flippin Notes era.) Man, I must really be addicted to something...

I also note that I have always--over some 1,400 sermons at this point--done messages about 3½ to 4 pages, single space, 12 pt. font, translating into the fact that my messages are all about the same length. Which must make listening to me for 27 years (there's a few in my church who have endured that long) really, really predictable! (Predictable people defend themselves by pointing out that we are dependable.)

In doing this Scan Project, I am now publishing a List of Available Messages - Electronic (LAME). It will be in this Sunday's bulletin, which means, it will be on the sanctuary floor, in copious numbers on Sunday afternoon! I am quite proud of the fact that I, single-handedly, have scanned over 2,300 pages of very spiritual, relevant, intuitive and otherwise highly practical Notes of Sermons - Electronic (NOSE), thus far. I estimate that this represents about 2/3 of my sermon production, to date, going back to the Big Bang (when I actually graduated from seminary) in 1983.

Preaching is such a strange practice. On the one hand, it seems remotely sexual. It is an intimate thing to do, to reveal your thoughts for interplay, discussion and then Final Point! It is also sort of like gaming - there is a sense of moving from one level to another. It, of course, is primarily spiritual and I am all too aware of the implications of You-Can't-Take-the-Flock-Further-Than-You've-Come-Yourself as it applies to what I say in a sermon. Preaching is also hugely sensitive for preachers. We are laying out our minds, our hearts, our lives for people to see. That is hard some weeks. Because some weeks I have had a crappy week, spiritually, myself, or I have been in conflict which some sheep and I feel hypocritical trying to Say Something to them about their spiritual walk. But lay out our hearts, we do just the same. Week after week.

All of this to say, I find, upon review of the whole experience, that I really enjoy the business of preaching. I studied with Haddon Robinson for a while, twice. I listen to sermons all the time and I have a few favorite preachers--none of which are the Hot Ones on the radio. And I have come to regard these values as important:
a. Preach the Word of God, primarily. Stay on target.
b. Learn about humor.
c. Mind the time of a message. Know when people begin drifting, and quit 3 minutes before that.
d. Be humble.
e. Don't yell.
f. Don't use words like "millieu."
g. Use good illustrations only, and only a few.
h. Tell cool stories, and personal ones regularly.
i. Pray over every sermon. Every one. Never become smug, self-sufficient.

I would love to start a preaching small group, with a few preachers where we would talk about preaching and our sermons. But I don't think that will happen. There's too many other small groups needing to happen...

Concerning evangelism,
The bad news is, people don't think its cool to proselytize. The good news coolness isn't everything.The bad news is, evangelism is considered a dirty word in polite circles. The good news is, we didn't invent it.The bad news is, statistics don't seem to bear out that we're winning people to Christ faster than we are losing them. The good news is that we're not ultimately in control of who becomes a Christian anyway.The bad news is, pluralism seems to have relativised the Gospel. The good news is the real Gospel never changes and never loses its power.The bad news is, Christians seem bored or disinterested in sharing the news about Christ. The good news is, the Lord of the harvest will just find other Christians to spread the news. The bad news is, Christians mess it up too often and even distort the Gospel or worse, even do evangelism to make money. The good news is, so what else is new? The bad news is, Satan is alive and well on planet earth. The good news is, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.The bad news is, we might get in trouble for sharing Christ. The good news is, God loves it when we share Christ.

In its nature, marriage is of perpetual obligation and can be dissolved in no way by the life of the parties but by some crime which wholly subverts its design. The scriptures mention two such: adultery, and willful, permanent desertion (Matthew 5:32, 19:9, Mark 16:18; 1st Corinthians 7:15). Irratibility of temper, want of congeniality, ungodliness, scolding, penuriousness, insanity, incurable disease, helplessness or consent of parties can give no right to dissolve the marriage bond. The law of God is decisive. The laws of man should be no less so. --Dr. W.S.Plumer (1870)

When did our wisdom in this country come to exceed Dr. Plumer's?

So it seems to me... that every so many years, there is a new trend towards refining the church. A new author, a music group, a visionary pastor (etc.) gets an idea and puts it out there and people start going, "Hey YEAAA!!! I AM unhappy with the church!" And so a reformation of sorts kicks in. The target issues tend to be the same (it seems to me), i.e. the church has become stuffy, the church has become rules minded, the church has become too formal, the church has become too informal, the church has lost its sense of tradition, the church cares only about tradition, the church is too top-heavy in its authority, the church doesn't HAVE "kingdom" authority, the church is not edgy enough, the church is too edgy, etc.

And then usually the Cutting Edge Leaders (C.E.L.s) align themselves with Martin Luther or Martin Luther King or some well-known leader of years-gone-by, to validate their vision for a purer church, a more spiritual church, a cleaner church, etc.

Frankly, I am worn out by the many cycles of refinement that the church seems to be destined to endure. Doesn't anyone just say any more, "I love the church?" Or, "I like to be with Christians of kindred spirit?" Or, "I thank God for the good things the church does, and I give God all the credit?" Lately, the book The Naked Church has come into vogue again. I read the book and while Jacobsen's writing captures some true points it tires me out to read AGAIN how "the church fails" and "isn't interested in real intimacy with God." Books like this all too often seem generated from the circus that is the church scene on the West Coast. I can only speak for the scene in the Northeast--but the churches here are doing the best they can to stay alive, to be Spirit-filled, and to reach our region with the Gospel. They don't need to be beat up again. They need encouragement and support.

Many fantasies surround Christmas. And how we love them. Not because they compete with the Mystery of the Incarnation, but because they suggest it! The fantasies of Christmas bespeak God's goodness, His power, His omnipresence, His humor, His other-worldness, His Company of Servants, His creativity, His community and warmth and His Uniqueness! I love Christmas, I admit it. Always have. Not all do of course, but I do. Tonight, it is late on Christmas Eve. I sit in the living room, watching the Christmas tree, the electric candles still lit in the windows. All have gone to bed, exhausted--I wait up a while. I pray, and talk to God about it all, giving thanks every third sentence. He is good. And I love anything which reminds me of that truth.

Something tells me we're going to have to become a whole lot smarter about evangelism. Today, even the word has become "dirty." All too easily, "evangelism" is understood to mean we think we're better than non-Christians, we need to somehow hoodwink them into joining our church, we want their money or we are mind-control freaks. We need to find new, less predictable ways to share the good news of Jesus Christ. I don't believe evangelism means making converts. I believe the Holy Spirit does that. I think evangelism is sharing the good news of Christ, seeing who inquires and then who responds, and following them up. We know there are some out there in any significant number of people, who will likely come to faith in Christ once presented with the claims of Christ. So, we wait, pray, and watch who comes to faith! Then, our job is to disciple, teach, model, mentor, coach, nurture, encourage and give doctrine to the new people who stay aboard. The world is hip to us any more though. They wait for our predictable, even cliché'd methods and vocabulary. Now they seem "on" to "seeker services" too. We need to find ways to get in close, share about Christ, and get out before they think its about us. It isn't about them coming along with us, joining our church, identifying with us or even making a decision for Christ in our presence. If the Spirit is working, they will find Jesus just fine. We can be there to love them and build them up, but it isn't about us. Its about them, and Him. They have the need, we have the "News," our Savior has the means.

I was thinking about all the things the Pilgrims didn't have to think about, as they "set up shop" in Plimouth (sic) in late 1620 and 1621: Kleenex, toothpaste, toothbrushes, rechargeable batteries going dead, TP, paper towels, vacuum cleaner bags, cell phone rechargers, lipstick, deoderant, anti-perspirant, cologne, after shave, razor blades, disposable razors, $8000 caskets, CDs, cassettes, baby wipes (or pretty much any kind of "wipes"), aluminum foil, Little Debbie wrappers, gift bags, bows for Christmas presents (they didn't celebrate Christmas--too secular), condoms, birth control pills, running out of Ibuprofen or Advil or Tylenol, ear buds, XBox(es?), PS3s, cigarrettes, empty cigarrette lighters, Coke cans, Coke bottles, Coke bottle caps, Fix-a-Flat cans, discarded straws, Big Mac boxes, tires, Axe cans, body wash, hand lotion, mp3 player and docking stations, iPods, iTunes, iPhones, iMan, Dunkin Donuts bags (o wait, I think there was a DD on Fort Hill when they arrived,) Poland Springs bottles, Budweiser cans (unless there were a few lying around on the deck of the Mayflower,) flash drives, Daytimer inserts, Bic pens, Odor Eaters, Odor Eater shoe inserts, Nike boxes, used Amazon mailing bags, super market plastic bags, Purell bottles and supermarket rotisserie chicken containers. So, I take it from this that they had it easier than we do.

I was thinking about music today. When I was young, music was everything. Each of my friends--every one--had his or her own musical configuration. We identified ourselves by such a configuration. We shared some favorite groups, but then diverged from each other on others. My friend Jeff and I both loved Beatles, but he had no use for my Moody Blues and I had no use for his Grateful Dead. We knew all the vagueries and subtleties of any group or singer. We spent $200 on a turntable cartidge and cited all the specs for it, against those of our friend's unit. For those of us who played guitar or drums (are there other instruments?) we enjoyed rough imitations of the great ones' tunes. Music was a passion. It was the fuel for our generation. I would go to concert after concert like religious pilgrimages.

Now, I listen still to music often, but have grown much more focused. I mostly listen to 60s musicians still. Christian music holds an attraction, but there I have become very picky. I do not know the Christian "hit parade" singers any more, since 1995 or so. I find much popular Christian music over-produced and commercialistic. We used to have the phrase "sold out." That would apply now, I think. Becoming a star seems to be the aspiration of many song-writers. Gone are the days of Sparrow Records and Keith Green.

I wonder how music will be in 50 years? What little of today's sounds I hear are more often annoying than pleasant. Surely they are not inspirational. I embarrassed myself last week by accidentally discovering a song recorded by a re-united Byrds in 1990, and liked it a lot, only to find out it has been recorded by numerous "pop" artists and is considered trite, even to the point of making the Top Worst 50 Songs of all time. Sheesh. And I just heard it for the first time.

In heaven I fantasize music to be always fresh, always innovative, never boring and never shallow. The right balance of beauty and movement. Until I get there... back to the Airplane.

The work of shepherding souls, is not unlike shepherding sheep. First, the shepherd does not necessarily own the sheep. Second, the sheep can become food for wolves if the shepherd becomes distracted. Third, sheep get sick easily and die. The shepherd grieves a loss from illness. Fourth, sheep know the shepherd's voice and trust it. Fifth, the sheep need green pastures in which to feed. Sixth, all the sheep are not identical; some have unique features. Seventh, sheep may bite on each other sometimes. Its to be expected.

Today, I shepherded lots of different kinds of sheep--college kids, twentysomethings, an older lady, a bunch of breakfast guys, talking about Glocks and Rugers, a worker-sheep who gives her every ounce of energy, a middle-age fellow seeking to know if he can rebuild a spiritual walk with the Lord after a quarter century of drifting. I am weary with the care of the sheep. But I am so expendable. Another shepherd could be easily found, so I do not overestimate my own importance. The bottom-line is, I love shepherding. I hope the Lord Jesus allows me to do this until the last week or so of my life.

Faith is trusting God, even though we can't see Him. And even if we could--the Israelites could see His workings with great drama and yet they still needed faith. I need it every day, even though I have the Bible and am surrounded by many believers, all of whom also have faith.

What am I trusting God for today? There are the resident, baseline things like a) if I die tonight I have faith He will take me to heaven b) the Gospel is applicable for all people, all of the time. c) His providence and care are there for me--He will never break a promise to me. But what active issues and challenges am I consciously trusting God about? Of this I should take regular inventory. There should be a number of things that are engaging my day-to-day trust in Him, and which I am frequently asking Him about. Daily faith is more than passive. It is active. It is a turning-over-to-Him intentionally, of things I would rather try to handle (or worry about) myself. A person of great faith, I think, is a person who is actively, deliberately taking God at His word. "Ok God, you have said it, now do it." This of course, assumes I am accurately interpreting His promises, and not stealing promises made to Israel or the early church and appropriating them to myself just because I like reading them. But there are a great many promises in the New Testament which ARE intended for all believers. These are precious, and the things that energize my faith. What of THOSE am I actively trusting Him for?

Quiet. My Dad used to sit out on the patio at night in the summer. He just sat, and smoked. I would know he was there in the dark by the ember of his cigarette. He would just sit, and think. He liked the quiet of the a summer night. Occasionally, he would sit out there all night. This is strange, because when he was raging he was very much heard all over our part of the neighborhood. When enraged, he was a terror. But when quiet, he really liked the quiet. I don't get much quiet these days. I am too busy. And there isn't anywhere I go where it is quiet. I detest being alone, too, which precludes much quiet. But I see its value. Daughter Susanna says she likes the concept at least, of the Quaker quiet time. They sit in quiet until someone stands up and starts ranting about something political. But if no one is ranting, it is quiet and she likes that. When I get quiet, there is a ringing in my ears. And a ringing in my spirit--I think that is why I have always liked C.S. Lewis' Woods Between the Worlds in the Chronicles of Narnia. I think it was exceedingly still there. Some quiet in my spirit, and stillness, would be nice...

It occurs to me, while watching the September 11th film tonight, that there are, in this life, many bad ways to die. But there are a very few good ways to die. Therefore, when we see someone die a good way--we can give much thanks for them and for their families. It is a convaluted way to give thanks, but a thing in which there is much grace...the older lady who died sitting in her favorite chair with her Bible in her lap, in her living room before church...the fellow who simply slips into the arms of the Lord in his sleep...perhaps there are a few others. Thanks be to the Lord when a person dies in grace and mercy. It is rare.