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.

I figured out why I'm depressed. I secretly wish for several stupid things. Here they are:
a. I wish that a whole bunch of people that I really like in this place who do NOT go to the church with which I am affiliated, did. Or maybe ever more deeply stupid, there are about 4 little other churches which I just wish would say to me, "We've been praying about it and we think we're just supposed to come be with you from now on. Don't worry about the details, we'll work all those out."
b. I wish I could know what I know now, and be like 30 again.
c. I wish my girls lived here. And wanted to.
d. I wish I knew the Lord Jesus was returning like, in 1 year.
e. I wish Dallas Seminary would call me up and say, "Yo, we want you to come teach part-time." Adjunct Instructor in Coolness.
f. I wish in my next doctor's visit he would say, "Oh Neil, I want you to take this neat, non-addicitive, no-side-effects, sample pill which will make you lose 80 pounds while eating anything you want."
g. I wish my Dad would appear to me from heaven, young, full of Christ, and tell me some stuff.
h. I wish UMassDartmouth would invite me on to their faculty. I would promise to be good.

None of those are true. So that's why I'm kind of depressed, I figured out...

I remain terribly interested, vitally concerned and emotionally tied to the plight of the 20Somethings as regards evangelical Christianity. Others can never compel, cajole or convince a group to be receptive to Christ, as He is. (I seem to be thinking in triples today.) But we can pray and always be hungry for dialog with a generation that seems to NOT buy the evangelical "package." For example, I found the suggestion interesting in a recent CT article, that the 20Something block does not by and large "buy" evangelical eschatology. Too much commercialization and focus on sensational things has made them skeptical. I can understand that. The writer of the article, in a frenzy to distance himself from "e.e." confused the books and the movies, referring to the movie, The Late Great Planet Earth, which to my knowledge has never been made into a movie (though I wouldn't be surprised if I learned it HAD been made into a video game!) Finally, the suggestion is made that the older evangelicals (which I am afraid now seems to include me) have somehow failed to really communicate the core of the faith. Thus, lesser, more hollow forms of the faith are not wearing well or even being adopted by spiritually minded 20Somethings in general.

Now, I'm not feeling sorry for myself when I say this. Really, I'm not. But I became aware again how quickly we become irrelevant to each other. This probably makes little difference to most people, but to preachers and pastors, who trade on relevance, quick perception about culture and speaking into the culture, getting irrelevant is scary.

I viewed pictures on Facebook of a woman who used to be in our church. How very Central we pastors imagine our churches to be. But then the people move on, develop great lives, experience happiness and many new things all without our participation. Perhaps viewing FB pix of people who have moved on isn't a good idea. But it stimulated thinking about how relevance is relative! Today I may be profoundly relevant to someone; tomorrow I will likely become a memory, and then...irrelevant. Now this is a grief if I maintain an insistence on always remaining relevant with everyone I meet. Yes, Yes, no one can do that. But we imagine we can... And truly, we cannot. So I suppose the solution is to accept passing relevance, and try to always be creating NEW relevance with new people around me. Praying faithfully and intelligently for various people, keeps me relevant too, a little bit.

So often I see people entranced with someone's "niceness" that they make theological decisions about their correctness based on liking that person. This is preposterous. I am all for being nice. And friendly. And a good listener. And funny, even. But theological rightness or wrongness has little to do with nicencess. We need to develop a filter for gullibility. The apostles warned against the tactics of "niceness."

I think theological issues--true ones--come up fairly infrequently these days on the local church scene. At least, they do not come up so often around the church where I am part. Theology of baptism, the Lord's Table, salvation, sanctification, polity are pretty set in place. Conflagrations about election, glossalalia, what millenialism?, head-coverings or clergy-Or-not, just do not occur these days. I wonder what theological matters await us in the future? The next generation knows very little theology, I fear.

A thousand pardons, but I ask again, what is an evangelical? And more importantly, can a person be saved and somehow, for some reason or set of reasons, NOT be an evangelical actually? Aren't being saved and being an evangelical the same thing? Doesn't becoming saved MAKE a person an automatic evangelical? The reason I ask, is that I have been encountering people who a) seem to possess a knowledge and trust and confidence in Jesus Christ for their salvation, b) seem to at least appreciate the Bible if not daily reading it, c) seem to generate some sense of "fruit" in their character and daily decisions. And yet they either 1) do not know about evangelicalism or 2) do not like evangelicalism, or some aspect thereof or 3) are so basic-minded that they are not aware/interested in ANY "ism." So can a person like that be a regenerate disciple of Jesus Christ?

On Saturday, I felt an emotion that occurs in me only rarely: awe. We were at the Quonset Point Rhode Island Air Show. An F-22 took off in front of us, shot straight up in a giant roar that made my ribcage vibrate. It came to a complete stop in mid-air. I said, "Oh no!" I feared it would fall. And it was beautiful at the same time. And tears came down my face. I looked around, and thousands of fellow-observers were all looking up, jaws open. The volume, the total focus, the incredible sight, the fear, the joy. This is "awe." And it didn't take but a couple of moments, in the midst of this rare feeling, that I remembered John on the isle of Patmos, as he viewed the Risen King Jesus. He fell as a dead man. Awe. I'm not sure I'm looking for more of this emotion. But it was incredible. It emotionally took me to a great place to imagine the feeling of seeing the Lord Jesus. It will be awe then too, only far more.