The Art Of Doing Nothing

Ok, I suppose 25 inches of snow in a week’s time will get some to slow down. Here in Oklahoma, it will get us to burrow underground not to be awakened until springtime. (And spring in Oklahoma usually starts in about mid-February, so I suppose it will be a short nap.) I wish I could just take a snow day. But I have two big edit projects to be completed. And I am about a month behind in my emails. And the piles of papers and books I keep telling myself I will put away has grown to where the FAA wants me to light it for incoming flights.

Of course there is that little web site called InternetMonk. Not to say that this site takes much of my time, unless you count the fact that I am writing this at midnight after working on other stuff since early morning. Being busy just comes naturally to me, I guess.

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IM Book Review: This Odd and Wondrous Calling

By Chaplain Mike

I’ve been waiting for this book a long, long time.

Finally, here is a book that paints a clear picture of what pastors actually do, what serving as a minister in a congregational setting is actually like, and what we actually think and feel about our calling and our work and how it impacts every area of our lives.

It’s called, This Odd and Wondrous Calling: The Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers, by Lillian Daniel and Martin B. Copenhaver, and I don’t have enough superlatives to say how much I loved reading this. I give it my highest recommendation— to those in vocational ministry or considering God’s call, and to all those who love the church and want to learn what it is like to serve her in Jesus’ name.

Where else are you going to find out about how God broke through on minute 54 of a silly hour-long discussion at a committee meeting about what to serve at a dinner for the homeless? Or what it’s like and what it means to stand at the door after a worship service and shake hands with parishioners? Or how pastors figure out what they’d like to be called when people address them? Or what it is like to be an associate pastor who gets the leftover assignments?

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Chapter Two: Prayer

Preachers occasionally comment that it is permissible for them to preach “down the road” – to talk about something they haven’t yet seen or exhort their congregation to levels they haven’t yet achieved.  When I write about prayer, I’m definitely writing about a “down-the-road” view, not a retrospective of all I’ve achieved myself.  That’s been true of all the posts in this series on Chapter Two of the Christian Life, but it’s especially true of prayer.  Consequently I will mostly be sharing quotations from people a lot farther down the road than I am.

What is Prayer?

Can we agree that prayer is fundamental to the life of faith?  It’s more fundamental even than humility or obedience or work, because it is partly through prayer, and the grace that God accords us in prayer, that we begin to grow in all the other virtues.  We’ve already commented that the Christian life is not something that we live by our own strength but is the natural growth of the branch on the vine.  Prayer is the daily renewing of the connection of branch to vine.  Prayer is our dinner table, classroom, and porch swing conversations with God.  Prayer is speaking, and it is listening.

Having agreed that prayer is fundamental, those of us who want to pray well, in a manner pleasing to God, may then ask “How?”  As far as I can see, there are many different ways to pray, and it would probably be a good thing if we don’t argue about which are better and which are worse.

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Conditions Ripe for Catechesis

The Lord's Prayer (2), Cranach

By Chaplain Mike

In the preface to Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, the Reformer describes the conditions of Biblical and theological understanding among the people of his day.

Martin Luther, to all faithful and godly pastors and preachers: grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The deplorable, miserable conditions which I recently observed when visiting the parishes have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief, plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw: the common man, especially in the villages, knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the pastors are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and pigpen. What these people have mastered, however, is the fine art of tearing all Christian liberty to shreds.

…Therefore dear brothers, for God’s sake I beg all of you who are pastors and preachers to devote yourselves sincerely to the duties of your office, that you feel compassion for the people entrusted to your care, and that you help us accordingly to inculcate this catechism in the people, especially the young. If you cannot do more, at least take the tables and charts for catechism instruction and drill the people in them word for word…

Luther was appalled at these spiritual conditions among the common folks who lived in the towns and villages of Germany. Even worse, he found that their pastors and church leaders had forsaken their primary responsibilities of teaching, pastoral care, and discipleship that would ground people in God’s Word and equip them to pray and fulfill their vocations as Christians in the world. Adding to the problem, there were almost no resources to aid in this work.

Out of these deplorable circumstances arose a renewed ministry of catechesis that undergirded and sustained the Protestant Reformation.

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A Most Biblical Practice, Largely Forgotten (2)

Christ's Appearance on the Mountain, Buoninsegna

By Chaplain Mike

>For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
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A Most Biblical Practice, Largely Forgotten (1)

The Catechism Lesson, Muenier

By Chaplain Mike

My son, do not forget my teaching,
But let your heart keep my commandments;
For length of days and years of life
And peace they will add to you.
Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.

• Proverbs 3:1-3 (NASB)

Wendell Berry was once asked if children should be reintroduced to the lost practice of memorizing and reciting poems. Berry replied, “Yes, you’ve got to furnish their minds.”

The traditional way of “furnishing the minds” of believers in the church has been through catechesis. In their fine book, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett define this practice:

Catechesis is the church’s ministry of grounding and growing God’s people in the Gospel and its implications for doctrine, devotion, duty, and delight. (p. 29)

They recognize three basic levels of catechesis in the church:

  1. Pro- or proto-catechesis—designed to help seekers or inquirers understand and believe the Gospel.
  2. Catechesis proper—designed to prepare children or new believers for their full inclusion in the church through confirmation or baptism.
  3. Ongoing catechesis—designed to help believers in the church during their continuing journey of formation in the life of faith, fellowship in the church, and ministry in the world.

The authors commend catechesis as a thoroughly Biblical approach to fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission command to “make disciples.” Furthermore, they trace eras in church history, preeminent among them the Reformation, when the ministry of catechesis undergirded and sustained spiritual awakening and reform in the church. They discuss reasons why this practice has waned, as pietism replaced piety, as schisms and denominationalism turned catechical teaching into emphasizing ones’ particular practices rather than the unity of the faith, as the Sunday School model became the primary method for teaching in churches, and as a focus on church growth emphasized getting people to come to church, overtaking the priority of what people will become once they start attending.

In this book, Packer and Starrett take up John Calvin’s concern, who declared, “Believe me…the church of God will never be preserved without catechesis.”

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Jesus Teaches about Light and Law

City on the Hill, Ten Eyck

By Chaplain Mike

Today’s Gospel: Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the light of the world…

…I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

when one day israel stood
before a storm-lit mount in dread
o’erwhelmed by fulgent truth’s demands
they shook and sent just one
to enter the cloud in their stead

chosen to reflect heav’n’s light
yet distant, far from ark and glory
alight, but through priest and blood and tent
lit by candles, curtain shadows dimmed
the meaning of their story

’til on another mount came darkest day
the sun, eclipsed, then vanished
and this world’s light went black
when evil rose and doused love’s flame
and all our hope was banished

nor did we know that this deep night
fulfilled law’s stipulation
that priest and blood and forms should end
and curtains rent reveal the rising sun
at dawn of new creation

now on the mount you say we shine
yet not with nature’s light
mere moons, reflecting glow
of ris’n sun’s glorious rays
dispersing depths of night

through phases, too, we go —
now new, as though no sun remains
and waxing, waning constantly
’til one day bright and full for aye
when night no more obtains

iMonk Classic: Lessons from a Lousy Referee

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
From Sept 13, 2008

Note from CM: Since this is our national sports “holy week,” I thought I’d re-post one of Michael’s rare excursions into the use of sports to illustrate a spiritual point.

I’m not usually the guy with sports illustrations, but this one couldn’t be passed up. (And if anyone I know says to me that I was “secretly” talking about them, I’m going to laugh right at you, very loudly.) This is so relevant to thousands of situations, it preaches itself without explanation.

Young pastors, listen up.

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Saturday Ramblings 2.5.11

Happy Saturday! Oh we are all very happy here at the southwest branch of the iMonastery. Stuck inside after fourteen inches of snow makes us all happy. I’ve got a lot of writing and editing to do, so I won’t lack for something to keep me busy. And I hear there’s some sporting event on Sunday evening. Anyone know anything about that? Well, in the meantime I’ll be outside in the driveway, shoveling a pile of Saturday Ramblings.

This Sunday is special for Craig Gross, pastor of the XXX Church in Las Vegas, and not because of the big football game to be played in Dallas. (We will abide by NFL regulations and not refer it by its special name. We will call this game the Superb Owl. Thank you for that, Adam Palmer.) This Sunday is Porn Sunday. Gross wants to draw attention to what he calls the “elephant in the pew.” You can find out how it relates to the Superb Owl by checking the XXX web site.

Perhaps you are like I: You could care less who wins the game, you just want to watch the commercials. One commercial you won’t see is the one from the Fixed Point Foundation. Their Lookup 316 ad was rejected by Fox for having too much theology in it. I guess we can now rest assured knowing that the Bud Light commercials will be theology-free.

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Real Football

By Chaplain Mike

Don’t want to leave out our international readers with all this talk of football. Of course, in most parts of the world, what we play is called “American” football, to distinguish it from real football, known here in the U.S. as “soccer.”

Genuine football’s long and glorious history was well-represented in this famous match from the 1970’s.