Posts Tagged ‘sermon series’
Can You Talk About Sex In Church
I wrote this devo for our church website yesterday. I’ve added a few more thoughts…
On April 3rd, we’ll start a new series called GOODsex. I told a buddy of mine this and after an awkward pause he says to me…”Can you talk about sex in church?”
I guess it’s a fair question. Most of the messages I got in church about sex was to “NOT TO.” It was this evil plague of desire and sin. And if you’re married…well, you can have sex with your spouse but you better not enjoy it too much because…well…it’s this evil plague of desire and sin. It was so bad that at every church potluck someone would bring a cake called “Better Than Sex Cake.”
Guess what I know now that I’m older? Sex is about desire, it CAN be a plague as well as a blessing, it’s designed for married people to enjoy to the fullest, and those people who named the “Better Than Sex Cake” are at best in need of our prayers and pity or at worst liars.
Know what else I’ve learned? The Bible is full of sex. God has plenty to say on the topic, all of it as relevant today as it has ever been, all for humanity’s benefit and pleasure. And so few of us are listening. So get ready to learn about GOODsex.
Let me tackle a few questions before we get started…
Why talk about sex in church?
Because it’s in every other single piece of media that we interact with. We’d better have a biblical, redeemable understanding of the topic if we are going to be able to deal with all of that kind of noise.
What about the children?
Every parent has the responsibility to train their kids in the area of sexuality. So we will have alternatives for those kids in 4th grade and younger, but let’s be honest. Sex is everywhere in our culture. Our schools are teaching sex education at younger and younger age. In Kindergarten and 1st grade now they are teaching kids what a “bad touch” is. Our media is targeting younger and younger kids with sexuality with kid ‘soap operas.’ Our music industry continues to turn out a ridiculous amount of music about love, sex, and dating.
In short, our kids are getting their messages and information about sex from every single source in their life except the Church and their parents. That has to change.
So…won’t you offend somebody by doing this?
That’s not the intention. However, the reality is that whenever sex is the topic – that’s a real possibility. Here’s what I’m saying – the goal is to learn from the creator of sex on how to have good sex in the best possible way. Sex was God’s idea. It was his first wedding gift to Adam and Eve. Over the years, we’ve ruined it and made it the mess that is today. I think He still speaks to this topic, can still heal and redeem in this area.
Why now?
Both our 5th/6th grade class and our student ministry will be tackling this issue starting April 3rd. But it’s short sighted to think that this topic only applies to teenagers. There is much here for the single, the daters, the engaged, the married with kids and the married without kids.
We’ve been silent for to long on this subject.
The LIFE Series takes a twist
Our current series has an interesting story behind it. Our mantra at Western Hills is Love God, Live Connected, Serve All. A believer needs to traveling in these three key areas – worship, transformative small group, and service – for them to be maturing in Christ Jesus. The church then is a conduit to participate in these activities. Those two simple statements pack a lot of punch in terms of programming (or lack thereof) and preaching. Quite bluntly it means asking the question is what we do and what we say line up with Love, Live, and Serve?
Take our current series (LIFE: Living Connected in a Disconnected World) for example. When we put this on the calendar (last year) it was a value decision. If Love, Live, and Serve are real values and really core, we are going to HAVE to teach on them…consistently and creatively. Not enough to JUST illustrate them, put them on the walls, in the bulletin, and in the announcements.
While the last 4 weeks of this series have been good, I’m amped about how we are closing out the series over the next 4 weeks. We’ve looked at the theoretical and practical implications of living connected and why it’s important. Now it’s time to hear some real life stories how a life group experience really changes people and how that change impacts the world around them. Here is the journey in front of us for the next 4 weeks. I’m super amped about the twist in the series!!
John Mark – how he discovers his identity and gifts.
Barnabas – how an investor of resources and time develops others.
Ruth & Naomi – how fierce loyalty and belonging led to believing.
Zipporah – how keeping others accountable led to the Exodus.
LIFE Week 2 Thoughts
The progression seems simple enough –
We are spiritual beings first therefore real meaning of life is going to found in the spiritual.
We were created and designed for intimate relationships. Relationships have great meaning to us.
God designed these relationships to be both vertical (with Himself) and horizontal (with others).
The best way to develop and deepen these spiritual relationships is in the context of a smaller group.
The purpose of a Life Group is to connect with God and others for the purpose of life change – to look more like Jesus.
2 Incomplete Small Group Experiences that get confused for a Life Group.
#1 – Ministry Teams – groups that are organized and function around a task.
#2 – Bible Studies – groups that are focused on knowledge.
It’s possible to be active in both of these of groups and never connect with God or experience life change.
The key to it all is authenticity. When we take off our mask and reveal who we really are – our hurts, fears, failures.
The mask we wear is a double-edged sword. We wear it because it does offer some form of protection. One of the greatest fears we have as people is if they knew who I really was, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.
The same mask that offers a little protection is also the exact thing that prevents true healing. Jesus will always demand that the mask come off first.
Mark 5 is a tragic tale of an entire community that didn’t want to be authentic.
Authenticity will cost you something. It’s expensive. It’s worth it – but it does cost something.
Hostage: Addiction
Another incredible morning. Sermon will be uploaded soon (whillschurch.org). We had some MAJOR glitches behind the scenes this week. The worship center computer crashed plus the projector wouldn’t come on and had to be reset. On Thursday, it me that we needed to serve communion. Gary H. did a great job at getting us set up to do this. In the middle of dealing with all of this God reminded me that if you let it, the non-important will distract you from the vital. I’m so glad we didn’t.
Addiction comes in all sorts of sizes and packages. Some more acceptable than others, some easier to recognize than others. But all addictions have one end in mind – total dominance and control over a person. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, porn, eating, greed, pride — the inevitable end of every addiction is to consume.
Addictions consume, control, and rob people. It becomes their god.
Paul’s journey in Romans 6,7, and 8 has great insight for addicts. I don’t do what I want to do but the evil I don’t want to do I do. The solution is to feed the “Good Wolf.” (Confused? Listen to the sermon! ha ha)
Romans 8:1 is the most scandalous verse in scripture. How ridiculous is it to say there is NO, none, nada — zip — condemnation for those IN Christ Jesus? Our bodies and emotions don’t believe this truth of scripture most of the time. Yet, this truth stands in the middle of our messes as God’s declaration of what He wants to do, WILL do and IS doing for those who place their life IN Christ. It’s nothing sort of scandalous.
It doesn’t remove our need for God AND our need for a place to share the LAST 10%. It does provide the basis for such a context – since there is no condemnation, I can BE accountable.
Next week: Anger
Hostage: Worry Thoughts
Another great weekend. I was pleasantly surprised with our crowd given this was Memorial Day weekend and the first real weekend of good weather around here. I remember last year, church felt like a ghost town. Not at all this year.
I was also totally surprised by how few people knew who Bear Grylls was. He is the patron saint of worrying about things that will probably never happen. I love his shows, his accent, his charitable works, and I think I’d like to hang with him — as long as I didn’t have to eat like him. I’m glad I showed the two clips of his shows because if I hadn’t – the joke/illustration would have completely been lost. Plus now our congregation knows the awesomeness that is Bear Grylls. Thank God for technology, huh?
Worry is sneaky because many of us don’t see it as a sin AND because it tricks us into thinking we have control over more than what we really do.
Worry is saying to God “I don’t think You are big enough to handle my problem.” Worry is the loss of perspective of big God is.
The weapon against worry – Matthew 6:33-34 — Seek first the Kingdom of God. Let God consume us and that will put in proper perspective our problems. God has given us a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.
A sound mind is one that does what God asks me to do, gives to God what I cannot do, and trusts God no matter what happens.
I do think the ‘sound mind’ piece can often be missed. I have this conversation over and over and over again in all my years as a pastor — if you’ll do what you KNOW God wants you to do (His Word, serve, worship, give) it will be easier to recognize His voice when He speaks. If you NEVER do what is CLEAR that God wants us to do, you’ll NEVER recognize His voice in the more subtle ways.
Next week in Hostage is ANGER.
First Thoughts On New Series: Hostage
Wow. What a start to a series.
Yesterday we dealt with bitterness and I’m already hearing God-stories. The highlights for me:
The only solution to bitterness is forgiveness. Only those who’ve been forgiven can really give forgiveness.
And forgiveness is NOT about justifying the hurt. It’s about moving us to a place to be healed. Without this healing, we’ll end up poisoning ourselves as well as those around us.
Had the opportunity to pray with people for forgiveness and a new start.
Going to be a great series….going to see a lot of healing over the next few weeks.
Reflecting on the Broken Dreams series
Today we wrapped up Broken Dreams and the series turned out to be much ‘heavier’ than any of us anticipated. I don’t think that is a bad thing, just an observation.
Abraham’s life is a study in 2 steps forward, 1 step back (sometimes more than 1 step) kind of faith. And God is both ruthless and patient with him. He’s patient in that He doesn’t choose to take away the promise. He’s ruthless in that He allows Abraham to deal with the full measure of his choices, Lot as well.
I think more of us can relate better to Abraham than any other character in the Bible for this reason. Most of our walks look exactly like this – trust, trust, not trust. Hear the voice of God then run ahead of Him to ‘help him out’ and end up messing the whole thing up worse than it was in the beginning. Having pockets in our life where we feel this huge sense of entitlement – I deserve this – only to later realize how immature and foolish that line of thinking is.
The thing about Abraham is that he finished well. The last few years of his life — from the birth of Isaac forward, we see a man who for the most part walks by faith with God. It may have took him over 100 years to get to that point – but he did.
We (Creative Team) picked up on the theme of Broken Dreams because the more we looked at Abraham’s life, we saw all these fragments of decisions in his life – Lot, his dad, his relationship with Sarah, Ishmael. These fragments were once whole pieces of a dream of a life that he and perhaps Sarah had envisioned for themselves. And like all of us – life happens and these dreams began to break.
Yet we noticed that when God was seen as a resource – the Source – something different happened. Redemption. Healing. Refocus. When they tried to fix the brokenness on their own with their own schemes, it always ended worse than when they started.
Until Isaac. By the time God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, all of that had changed. Abraham now trusted God no matter what the outcome or directive. He knew better. He had the scars to prove God’s character. So now what normal people would call broken dreams, Abraham would call opportunity for the holy.
It was a good series and one that I hope gave our congregation some insight in how to deal with the broken dreams in the own life.
Lot Rewind
Yesterday we finished Lot’s story in our series on Broken Dreams. I can honestly say it was one of the heaviest messages I’ve preached. The story is the most bizarre in scripture but the principles that it teaches are the kind that just cut to the bone.
And God intersected my life with Francis Chan’s question “Has your relationship with God changed the way you lived?” last week. I think specifically for that message.
Broken fixes to our broken dreams often end up worse than the broken dream itself.
Lukewarm living for God has the same end result as outright defiance.
Lukewarm living makes us a joke with both are “friends” and our enemies.
We all eventually get what we really want. Lot’s wife really wanted to go back to Sodom, so God gave that to her. Lot really didn’t want to go back to God or Abraham, that’s what he got as well.
When we try to ‘fix’ our broken dreams instead of waiting on God, it’s a statement of how little we trust Him and that what He has for us on the other side of the door is bigger, better, and deeper than what we have on this side.
Broken Dreams: Life of Abraham
This Easter we will dive back into the book of Genesis focusing on the life of Abraham. Easter? Abraham? Genesis? Broken dreams? How does it all fit?
If you think about it, it all fits very nicely. We’re introduced to Abram in Genesis 12 with God giving Abram His dream for his life. That his offspring would be a great nation, that God wanted to bless the whole world through this nation. That is quite a dream.
What unfolds next in Abram’s story is a series of broken expectations, promises, and dreams. Nothing seems to go the way he thought, nothing seems to be working. It’s a life of broken dreams. Some of the brokenness was self-inflicted. Some of it was God-inflicted. All of it hurt. All of it had consequences.
It’s in the aftermath of the crash that we find out what God was up to.
And that’s the journey this series will take. I’ll connect the dots to Easter on Sunday morning.
Broken Dreams Trailer
Here is the new trailer for the series we will start on Sunday. Broken Dreams…
Sunday Should Be The Most Dangerous Day Of The Week
“There is no way we could ever pull that off.”
That’s a direct quote from a pastor friend of mine when he heard about our current series Sacred Rituals. He saw our trailer for the series and when he heard that we played that music while we shared communion as a church two weeks ago — he said those words again.
So I asked …”How come?”
“It’s too risky. You didn’t pass the communion around, you played a chant, you’re hanging stain glass everywhere…” Then he said those words again – “There is no way we could ever pull that off.”
“I still don’t quite understand. Why couldn’t you?”
“It would be so far outside what people expected….”
Our conversation shifted in the awkward moment of silence that followed. I wish we had continued the conversation…maybe we will one day. I know what I’d say now. I’d challenge him a bit that our role as worship leaders is consistently create a context for others to connect with God. It’s Jesus they need, not another well planned worship service that will teach them another Greek word they will never use.
And by that mandate alone — Sunday should be the most dangerous day of the week for us. If the goal is to connect people with God, who knows what He’ll do when He gets a hold of them. We’re talking about God and He’s ‘not a tame lion.’
The point is – our worship services should be anything but predictable, boring, and static. Mainly because God is none of those things. There is no way on the planet that should be ‘business as usual.’ What is ‘normal’ when talking about the presence of God? I’m reminded of a Sally Morganthaler quote — when we show up for worship, we should be wearing life vests and crash helmets.
There should be a sense of wonder and trepidation every Sunday morning. We want an opportunity for a ‘holy moment’, a ‘thin place’ experience where the veil between the mundane and the Holy is merged. Why? Because it’s the seedbed of transformation. It’s fuel for the soul, sometimes it’s healing for soul. Because people need God Himself more than they need to be informed or entertained.
BUT that’s not ALL that worship is. Worship is larger than just the service, the encounter. It’s also a living sacrifice. Practically speaking, a living sacrifice is when Jesus gets the last word in every decision, thought, and deed in my life. If I start living like that… If I start worshiping like that…
I’m convinced the same sense of wonder and trepidation WOULD be available to me every day. And Sundays would be so much more sweeter, deeper, and yes…dangerous.
Some Random Thoughts Looking Ahead
We start our new series Sacred Rituals on Sunday. (Trailer here and we didn’t get 20 comments, so Rick is off the hook.)
I hope we’re able to do more than just educate about the rituals but also experience them.
I hope people reach a new level of awe and wonder with God as a result of these ‘rituals.’
I hope we (the church) never lose sight of why we do what we do. Even if it means we shake things up to help us remember.
I hope our services continue to be places of encounter and experience of the Holy, not just a ‘good show.’ The rituals help in this journey.
The ‘sacred rituals’ are sacred because of their object, not because of who can perform them. They are for ALL followers of Jesus.
Everything starts with communion. Real communion with Jesus. Worship, baptism, generosity, community — all begin with communion, not the ‘act’ of the cup and the bread but what the cup and the bread represent. That we are part of Christ…because of His act, His movement, not ours.
The Origins Posts
This has been undeniably my favorite series I have ever been a part of. The partnership with Circle of Friends, the Friday Night Artwalk, the art, the content, the stories, the worship….just the whole experience has been phenomenal.
And the journey will continue for at least a little while longer. Warehouse 414 is displaying the art until the end of the month and you can still bid on the art until February 27. All proceeds go to this incredible program – Circle of Friends that is connecting special needs teens with other students to make their high school experience a positive one.
The Story of Origins, Part 1
The Story of Origins, Part 2
Origins: Earth
Origins: Humanity
Origins: Sin
Origins: Murder
Origins: Redemption
Origins: The Nations
Origins: the Nations and How God Is Selfish
There are two things I walk away from the Origins with concerning my theology of God. First, He’s selfish. Second, He is complicated.
I admit that ‘selfish’ is a strong word but I really can’t think of a better one. In humans, this extreme focus on self is called narcissism. And let’s be honest…it never goes well. If I really lived that way all the time, got what I wanted, when I wanted it and how I wanted it…it would be as close to hell on earth as I can imagine. How many times in my life have I been thankful that I didn’t get what I want? How many times has it turned out that what I wanted and how I wanted it would have ended up killing me?
But God functions this way – wanting to be the center of our life, always and forever. He wants us to have what He wants and how He wants it. So what’s the difference? It’s obvious that the difference is that God is good…all the time. Goes back to starting our theology in Genesis 1, not Genesis 3. He’s selfish because that’s what is best for us all. Anything other than God in the center of our lives is death, mayhem. Impossible to miss that in the first 11 chapters.
It’s also impossible to miss how complicated God is at times. This is a comfort to me, honestly. Growing up hearing the simple explanations of God and His word not only left me hollow but unsatisfied. This simple understanding led to some incorrect conclusions about God. Every story in the first 11 chapters has the temptation to be understood in simple and wrong terms. “God confused the languages because humanity was becoming more like Him and He wanted to stop that.” Well…okay but is that it? I mean, really…God has a complex thinking that there is a chance we’ll evolve and His job will be in danger?
There is always more to the story, more to God’s response than just the obvious. And that’s a good thing. It means that God is deeper, truer, and larger than I am or what I can imagine. And that’s exactly the kind of God I need at my center. Not the Tin Can, “Everything Will Be Alright In The Morning” God that my youth rebelled against.
The Tower is testament to this. You can hear my full rant on this here, but suffice to say that every response of God will be more than just judgment, more than just reaction. It’s full of His protection and provision as well…even when I can’t see it at first.
The artwork is by Lisa Peterson. Every culture and language originated out of one ‘hand.’ The colors and the pageantry of all the different worlds and how the most unifying feature of any culture is its language. Modern linguists are fascinated how all the different languages have similarities to each other.
In the end, all these cultures will be reunited. They won’t lose their distinctiveness or their flavor. Their unifying feature will no longer be their language or their color, but Jesus himself. We get a glimpse of this in Acts 2. The full picture will come later. Lord, hasten the day.
Origins: redemption artwork and thoughts
Noah’s story is NOT a kids story. Every children’s bible I’ve ever seen has it in there with cute little pictures of bears, elephants, and giraffes. I’d love to know how many kid books have been written on Noah. It has to be the most retold story in scripture.
As I stated this past week, I’ve yet to see a kid’s story deal with the 3 core difficult pieces of this story. Who exactly were the sons of God? What does it mean that God grieved and was sorry he had made mankind? By destroying the entire human race (save Noah) and the land animals, Did God call into question His goodness?
The Flood can be interpreted in two very different ways. It was the reaction of an angry, hurt, disappointed God. That mankind deserved this and God wanted a do-over. Somehow the killing of all of those people and animals appeased him. The rainbow stands as his apology of sorts that He won’t ever do it again. Noah somehow was the best of the worst and was ‘saved.’
Or maybe the Flood was just God bringing to the forefront the natural consequences of the choice humanity was making at that time. If the end game of all sin is death and something innocent dies with sin. If the utter reality of all sin is the ambushing of the human spirit and soul, God just brings the inevitable to the forefront with as little suffering as possible – relatively speaking. If every inclination was evil, death was the conclusion. The Ark then becomes a story of redemption.
How we view the story really hinges on how we view sin. Is it as bad as scriptures say it is or is just a flaw, a minor bother? Is sin really deadly or more of a nuisance?
Sherri was our artist for these pieces. Sherri has both learning and emotional disabilities that make expressing herself difficult. Art has given her a venue to show the rest of us what she sees and feels.
Art, ORIGINS, and Circle of Friends
I had this crazy idea one day last November while visiting Washburn Rural High School. The backstory: I’m a bit of an art geek. Yes, it’s true. The Denver Art Museum was a haven for me. In fact, last month I took the kids to the Kemper Contemporary in Kansas City. They like it as well – at least the older two.
There is something that happens to the human spirit when it observes good art. I’m not sure if it’s completely fair to call it worship but I don’t think that’s all that far off either. So I’ve had this desire to include art any time it’s possible in the context of worship.
Back to my crazy idea – I knew we were going to do this series on ORIGINS and I wanted to have dramatic art pieces that went along with each of the stories. But who can paint 12 different paintings, 6 different themes with the first one just a few weeks away? That’s when I saw the painting at WRHS. So I asked around to see who painted it – turns out I knew him and his mom worked at the school.
That’s when I first heard about Circle of Friends. I walked into the mom’s office and there was even more artwork. Most of it done by disabled kids. Circle of Friends paired disabled kids with ‘abled’ kids for the purpose of creating a ‘normal’ high school experience. Lunch buddies, class buddies, peer tutors and art are just some of the ways this club is bringing healing to these students.
I asked about the possibility of these kids in this club painting the stories of Genesis – no rules or direction other than read the story first. What could they come up with? Would they even be interested in doing something like this?
The answer was an overwhelming yes. All of a sudden this whole project kind of generated a life of its own. Hobby Lobby sold us the canvases at an incredible discount. The idea of selling of them to benefit Circle of Friends turned into an auction, turned into an auction on the Topeka’s First Friday Night Artwalk February 5. Warehouse 414 stepped up and said they’d sponsor it for us.
All of this is great and there is no telling how all this will play out but I’m struck by a couple of observations.
I’m hearing from some of the students that are painting that this is the first time they’ve ever read these stories in Genesis. For some, it’s the first time they’ve ever read a Bible at all.
When the pieces are revealed, there has been this pause…this holy silence of wonder. Then applause. I think the art for some is ministering to a place in their soul they didn’t know existed. And they’re liking it.
It’s another avenue to connect and serve the community around us. With budget cuts, the arts are going to suffer the most. And when the arts are left out of a kids education, we all suffer from it in the long. I think beauty and the appreciation of beauty is part of what makes humanity very different from every other being alive. When we lose this, we lose a part of what it means to be human.
What an opportunity for us..to provide a context for artists to experiment with these stories, our stories. A chance for some to hear God’s story for the first time. A chance for us to see God’s story through a different lens.
If you haven’t seen these paintings, you need to come by and spend some time in our worship center. For those who are out of town…I’ll try to upload some pictures later.
Origins: The Next Sermon Series
Here’s the next series we are doing…
whyChurch Series Starts Sunday
I have a love-hate relationship about my time in the Army. Hated the 18-20 hour days. Hated being in the woods 20 to 30 days at a time. Hated the cold, wet marches with 45lbs of gear on my back. Hated the food for the most part. We had a lot of different meanings for the letters MRE.
But I loved the toys and getting to blow things up. I loved having a mission that focused all of our decisions. Loved the leadership development, having a team focused on an important task where much was at stake. Putting our lives into the effort. It really wasn’t just a job. Loved the process of developing leaders — where the goal was to develop people to be better. And I loved serving my country. It was hard but it was rewarding.
What’s this got to do with whyChurch? Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at Jesus’ mission for the church, what WH is doing to fulfill that mission. We’ll take a trip down memory lane as well as look at the future of what implications His mission has on us.
Here’s a nugget from my notes so far:
The mission of God can be first seen in Genesis 12 with Abram and gets sharper in focus leading up to the arrival of Jesus. Jesus brought a laser focus to His mission by using simple, powerful stories that captured the heart. These simple – not easy – stories were given to us so that the focus would be on DOING the mission, not defining it, dissecting it, or discussing it.