OpenSource Pastor

Loved to Love

"Loved to Love" Based on 1 John 4:7-21. Preached on August 24, 2008. Third in the series Five Marks of Christian Living.

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The Mark of Prayer

This week I began a series of sermons entitled the Five Marks of Christian Living.  The first mark is The Mark of Prayer.

Download 080810-5Marks.TheMarkofPrayer.mp3

Leadeship Summit

Look for more info at the completion of the summit

Dead Sea Scrolls

Yesterday I went to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the NC Museum of Natural Science.  Doug and I were first relieved that we were able to walk right in. Crowds have been quite large on the weekends, and even steady on weekday mornings. If you go I suggest weekday afternoons. You'll enjoy the time.

The exhibit is fabulous. You really get a sense of ancient Mediterranean life. Moreover, you get a feel for the world where the Dead Sea Scrolls lived. Not having traveled to the Middle East, I was drawn by the pictures and video in the context of an arid desert that set high above the sea of salt.

The exhibit presented the Dead Sea Scrolls as living artifacts of a people who lived longed along. The Essenes lived in a fortified community in the area of Qumran. Their community reminded me of the descriptions of monastic life in the ancient world and the early Christian communities.  Based on what I saw yesterday I would accept their community being a family community - men, women, children, grandparents - who came to Qumran as a sect of people seeking refuge in the light of those who wanted to shine light into the darkness. 

Moving through the exhibit we worked ourselves from community context to community work to the heart and soul of community life.  The Dead Sea Scrolls were the holy words of YHWH that provided the guidance of life.  They were ancient words even for them that were the rule of life.  Just there very act of preserving the Scrolls showed me their desire to keep the Word of the Scrolls safe and avaiable for them and future generations. They surely did not know their work would inspire generations two mellenia later? 

While scholars decipher the message and teachings of the Scrolls I'll hold to the inspiration discovered in the practice of this religious community. The Dead Sea Scrolls preservation of the Ancient Words that live in the Spirit of God, the Word of Life.

Foundations: We are the Body

Preached Sunday, August 3, 2008.

Download 080803-Foundations.BodyofChrist.mp3

Foundations: Living Word

The following was preached Sunday, July 27, 2008. It is the fourth in a series of five messages on our foundational beliefs.

Download 080727_foundationsliving_word.WMA

Old host issue

I looks as if podcast posts before Jul 1, 2008 are no longer available. Pardon the interruption. If I am able I will repost fresh links here.

Thanks to David P for the clue ...

Foundations: The Holy Spirit, Our Empowering Comforter

The following was preached Sunday, July 20, 2008. The third of five sermons on foundational beliefs.

Download 080720-Foundations.HolySpirit.wma

Leadership According to Nelson Mandela

Time magazine recently posted a wonderful article about the leadership lessons of Nelson Mandela. Here's a quote from the author:

I've always thought of what you are about to read as Madiba's Rules (Madiba, his clan name, is what everyone close to him calls him), and they are cobbled together from our conversations old and new and from observing him up close and from afar. They are mostly practical. Many of them stem directly from his personal experience. All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

Read the complete article by clicking here

The eights lessons are:

1. Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it
2. Lead from the front — but don't leave your base behind
3. Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
4. Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
5. Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
6. Appearances matter — and remember to smile
7. Nothing is black or white
8. Quitting is leading too

Congregational Accountability

Jay Voorhee's The Pastor's Study has a great article concerning congregational accountability in this age of calling for clergy effectiveness. Here's an excerpt:

Yes, the pastor is the appointed leader of the congregation, and as such represents the congregation to the general church. Yes, there is a sense in which the accountability of the pastor is a form of congregational accountability. However, as any pastor will tell you, there is a limit to what he or she can do in a congregation that is dysfunctional, hard headed, and simply isn’t particularly concerned with being anything beyond what they already are. Ministry for the transformation of the world requires a partnership between pastor and congregation, and there are situations all through our communion in which congregations aren’t willing to be active participants in that partnership. “What?” Us be in ministry,” they say. “Isn’t that what we pay the pastor for?”

The first guest comment is mine and I post it here for your reading:

Mutual accountability, how novel! I'm amazed at the call for greater clergy effectiveness and the heightened evaluation measuring that effectiveness. But what about the effectiveness of our laity? divdivIf I recall Wesley was BIG on the quarterly examination of the whole band. I would love to see a rekindling of such accountability with preparation. For instance, our conference is pushing the Academy for Leadership Excellence. It primary focus in its infancy has been training pastors for effective leadership. What if in the expansion of the program we began training the laity as well moving in the near future (next quadrennium) to requiring all lay leadership in key church positions (start with the council and committee chairs) to have gone through a minimal amount of training. That way pastors and laity are receiving like training for like leading.