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Pastor’s Retreat Network

Published
by
michael lee
on 8 August 2006
in church
. 5 Comments

I got an email this morning. Ok, I got 57 emails this morning, but most of them involved offers to sell me life insurance, pills to help me lose weight, and pills to make me gain weight in one VERY specific area. So, the one email that I’m talking about was addressed to me from Debra, whom I don’t know, asking if we would mind shilling for her ministry on our little blog here at Addison Road. She phrased it much more politely.

My first thought was, “I don’t want our blog turned into a church bulletin board to promote everything that anyone things is worthwhile. I have integrity! I have honor! I have paid ads for that kind of thing!”

But then she said the magic words … “I will gut you like a fish if you don’t post a link to us!”

She sounded like she meant it, and I don’t want to be gutted like a fish. Especially by someone who, I can only assume, is a very decent and morally upstanding lady when not threatening bodily harm to bloggers in order to coerce them into compliance with her marketting scheme.

I went back to look at the website for the ministry she was promoting, and, with sudden new clarity to rival that of the great scales falling from Paul’s eyes, realized that it was a worthwhile cause, and that I should shill it. Shill it from the sea shore. Shill it from the plains. Shill from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Shill it from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; shill it from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Shill it from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Shill it from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every blog, shill it!

So, here’s the link.

Pastor’s Retreat Network

They provide retreats for Pastor’s and their spouses. In Debra’s own words:

The United States is currently losing approximately 1,200 small churches and 1,500 pastors each month. One of the reasons is that the work of ministry often takes precedence over their personal relationship with God – the reason they entered ministry in the first place.

While a pastor’s job can be exceedingly rewarding, it also can be weighed down by the responsibilities and stresses associated with serving their congregations. Their ability to succeed and thrive in ministry is deeply rooted in the quality of their personal relationship with God.

That relationship can best be attended to and developed during times of solitude, prayer and reflection, and in company of others who share a similar calling.

The cool thing about it, the reason I posted the link, is because they decided that they would make the retreats free. The ministering couples pay nothing, the cost of the retreat is paid for by private donors. I think this is cool. I also think this shows a lot of insight into the realities of most ministry positions.cederly pastor's inn

So Debra, please don’t come to my house and gut me like a fish. I posted your link.

I know we have several people in full-time ministry who read the blog, mostly in the wee hours of morning when they think dark thoughts about what it would be like to quit the ministry and become auto mechanics or ballerinas. Just saying, maybe you need a minute away from it all. Check out the site, request an invitation.

Sermon Prep (part 1)

Published
by
michael lee
on 24 July 2006
in church and faith and theology
. 11 Comments

Posts in the Sermon Prep: Sodom series

  1. This morning’s sermon will be on …
  2. Sermon Prep (part 1)
  3. Sermon Prep (part 2): Lot
  4. Sermon Prep, part 3
  5. Sermon Prep: Finished!

(You can follow this whole thread by tracking the tag “sermonprep” in the site archives. Or, just click here.)

Remember how I decided to use all ya’ll to help me with my sermon prep? Well, the day is fast approaching, and I thought that, in the absence of any real content to add here at Addison Road, I would instead post my sermon prep here for you to peruse.

I imagine this will be similar to the sensation that most sane people have when they look at serial killer art: it wouldn’t be interesting, except that it comes from such a disturbed mind. Enjoy!

I start with a legal pad, a comfy writing utensil, and as many good verbal translations of the text as I can find. NASB is usually my first pick. Every major character or prevelant theme gets its own page in the pad, and I jot down clusters of questions or initial thoughts that come from the text. I tend to go translation by translation, and do a straight read-through rather than go verse-by-verse from translation to translation, scouring for distinctions in syntax. I’m not poking in the valleys yet, I’m looking for the mountains, the big things that were the most important to the author, and so should be most important to the reader trying to understand the text.

The text for this Sunday is going to be Genesis 18:16 - 19:29. So far, I have pages on my legal pad for Abraham, Lot, Sodom (city), Sodom (biblical references), What was Sodom’s Sin? (this one might stir up some firestorms), Justice and Righteousness, and Faith.

Here’s part one:

Abraham
He’s the one already safe from harm in this story - the covenant is begun, promise given, he’s miles away from the city of Sodom.

18:17 What’s the significance of the Lord’s inner dialog on whether or not to tell Abraham? Perhaps he knows that Abrahams bargain will fail? The subordinating conjunction “since” seems to be a non-squitur here. How does Abrahams place in the covenant promise have any bearing on whether or not God reveals his plans to him? Is this just to highlight his position of safety in the narrative that follows?

He pleads for God’s mercy on behalf of the whole city, for the sake of the righteous.

Ink is significant - why is so much space devoted to Abraham’s “used car salesman” technique of bartering God down to 10 people?

18:25 “shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” this looks like a common OT technique for petitioning Yahweh - appealing to aspects of his nature as the basis for him ammending his actions. c.f. Moses with Israel. Not “do this thing for my sake” but “do this thing for your own sake, since it is within your character to do so.”

What’s the right response of those who have already been saved from judgement toward those who have not? Interceding prayer, passionate concern. There is no room in this story for human judgement, for people standing on the sidelines and cheering on the destruction. If we can talk about God’s righteous judgement and great wrath without our hearts breaking, we have not understood how deeply his grace reached down to us.

19:28 The last thing Abraham knows in this story is that his intercession didn’t work. When the angels leave him, he knows that his bargain is in play, and the next thing he sees is the ash and smoke of the wreckage.

Previous in series: This morning’s sermon will be on …

Next in series: Sermon Prep (part 2): Lot

This morning’s sermon will be on …

Published
by
michael lee
on 29 June 2006
in church, faith and theology and miscellany
. 24 Comments

Posts in the Sermon Prep: Sodom series

  1. This morning’s sermon will be on …
  2. Sermon Prep (part 1)
  3. Sermon Prep (part 2): Lot
  4. Sermon Prep, part 3
  5. Sermon Prep: Finished!

So, on July 30th, Pastor Doug will be gone, and I’ve got the keys to the pulpit. I’m not getting struck by inspiration at this point, so I may bail out on preaching and just show a veggie-tales video.

But, in the fine tradition of us using Addison Road people to do our homework for us, I thought I’d open it up, and see if you all have any ideas. If you had a mic and 300 people for 30 minutes, what would you talk about?

(You can follow this whole thread by tracking the tag “sermonprep” in the site archives. Or, just click here.)

Next in series: Sermon Prep (part 1)