1055--preaching in OT & NT

            This is another one minute version of the two minute commentaries I wrote in December, 2010.  This one is a shorter version of #55 on preaching in the days of the Old and New Testaments.

1055—preaching in OT & NT

            This is Simple Church Minute.  What was preaching like in the days of the Old Testament?  Prophets spoke sporadically.  False prophets also spoke. Sometimes the people apparently preferred the false prophets. The people were allowed to interrupt and ask questions.  As Israel was both an ethnicity, belief, and sometimes a nation, the king had spiritual responsibility, usually for ill. Prophets and priests spoke from the burden of their heart, but not with the rhetorical manner that the Romans would later be known for. 

Jesus also spoke in the traditional Jewish manner, even allowing for the trick questions of the religious leaders.  The early church did the same. Assuredly Jesus taught the 12, who taught the early church. At that time, preaching meant dialogue; speaking indicated oratory or at least monologue.  Oratory as status quo ritual was, though, a Roman cultural tradition that came to the church before most other ones.

  You can find out more about simple worship in this area at www.hrscn.org.

On this and many of these writings, I have taken this information from George Barna and Frank Viola’s Pagan Christianity, which, in turn, has the historical footnotes.

Celebrating my birthday

Today is birthday 58 for me today.  Actually, I am writing this last Saturday evening, as I will be busy working today.  I cannot help but realize that I would not be writing what I am now writing without all the previous things in my life happening.  I think back to the weekend before I graduated from college, when I visited North Park Seminary in Chicago.  A brother and former roommate was going there, and set me up to talk to a couple of his fellow students and the college president.  I can still say that of introductory meetings (including initial job interviews), this was the best one I ever experienced.  On the way driving across Chicago, heading home, the Spirit spoke into my mind, "No."  I knew I wasn't supposed to go there.  I graduated and stayed with the company I had been working with for a couple of years.  Over the years, it seemed like I was going nowhere, that I had wasted my ability.  I certainly have felt that way many times over the years.  I can look at statistics that say that economically I have done poorer than the average person with only a high school education.  Still, I can look back and say that I have worked as unto the Lord not man.  That also meant overtly choosing not to desire a promotion when that demanded unethical behavior, which seems to have grown more and more common over the last few decades.  Maybe that made it easier for me to accept the idea that helping the poor is important for the church, and putting on a professional stage show is not (although it sure can be fun).
As I write this, I know that few persons read this blog at this time.  Most of the point is to have the transcripts of the commentaries publicly available when I finally get them to radio.  This is because that too often I have heard well known Christian speakers, hopefully accidentally, slip logical fallacies and twisted facts into their speeches.  If no one cannot ask questions, it is easy to say fact a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i ,j...z, and have no one, or almost no one notice that point r is fallacious and invalidates the whole argument.  That's why every member ministry is vital to all believers.
I bought myself "Is God a Moral Monster?" by Copan, "The Pastor Has No Clothes" by Zens and Cole, and "Science, Creation and the Bible" by Carlson and Longman.  Given when I bought them, maybe I will have them by today.

1063--on how we learn

            Back in December, 2010, I wrote a series of slightly over one hundred two minute commentaries with radio in mind.  Below, I have shortened #63 to fit a one minute time frame.  As I state as part of the longer commentary, the statistics quoted in this commentary come from the National Teaching Laboratories, Bethel, Maine.

1063—on how we learn

            This is Simple Church Minute.  We retain 5% of what we hear in a lecture, 10% of what we read, 50% of what we discuss, and 90% of what we teach others.  Why, then, in traditional churches, is the emphasis on teaching by lecture without discussion, testing, or any way of guiding others to teach it in turn?  First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 11 tells the believers to build up each other.  The reason is the early church followed the Jewish tradition of having dialogue, but when the Roman Empire legalized Christianity, having oratory, buildings, paid staff and collecting money to pay for the previous three was forced onto a church that was turning into an organization like the religions they were familiar with.  While believers got rid of the erroneous theology that came with it during the Reformation, these practices have continued in the West.  It is notable that in the Middle East and Asia, where in many countries being a believer is illegal, these practices couldn’t take place, but people are coming to faith in Jesus as in the days of the New Testament. For more info on simple worship, visit www.hrscn.org.

2063--preaching as oratory

            For anyone stumbling across this blog for the first time, the original idea of it was to post a group of two minute commentaries about simple worship of Jesus, with most of the commentaries based on the points with regard to this subject made by George Barna and Frank Viola in their book, Pagan Christianity and Wolfgang Simson in his 15 Theses for the Re-Incarnation of Church.  Those appear in a group of blogs I posted in December, 2010.  They were written for radio, but so far, I have not had the money to broadcast them.  Additionally, either one minute or five minutes are time frames more amenable to stations in my area, so I am rewriting some of the major thoughts expressed in the December postings to fit both the smaller and larger time frame.  What is below is part of this project.  The commentary below is written for a five minute time frame, and is a mixture of the commentaries numbered 55 and 63 back in December.

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  According to the National Teaching Laboratories in Bethel, Maine:  we retain 5% of what we hear in a lecture, 10% of what we read, 50% of what we discuss with others, and 90% of what we teach others. I think the exact percentages of that statement would be impossible to prove, but the general idea is clear—the more involved we are, the more we learn.  If that is the case, why do traditional churches rely so heavily on lecture? Particularly, when First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 11 tells us to edify, or build up, one another, and that’s next to impossible with only one or two persons doing the lion’s share of the communication.

            In the days of the Old Covenant, prophets spoke intermittently.  False prophets also spoke.  The people were involved, and were able to interrupt and ask questions.  In many cases, the people did not accept the true prophets, and accepted the false prophets.  Since the people of Israel was an ethnicity, there was degree to which the king was also a spiritual leader, in addition to the priests and prophets, sometimes for good, more often for ill.  Prophets and priests did not speak from a script, but spoke from the burden of their heart.  Rarely, the prophet acted out his message.  There was no regular preaching in the synagogue that was like the modern sermon.

            When Jesus announced his being the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 61, as recorded in Luke 4, his being allowed to speak was because it was a tradition that all Jewish males were allowed to take a turn at speaking.  When Jesus began his ministry, he also did not speak regularly to the same audience, although he taught in various ways the disciples that were with him those three years, and probably taught, to a lesser degree, the seventy who he sent out in Luke 10.  His teaching took many forms, but what we have recorded is sporatic, spontaneous, informal, and oftentimes in the form of back and forth dialogue, even the trick questions of the religious leaders.  It was consistent with the tradition of the day, except that Jesus allowed women to listen to what he said, which the rabbis did not.  When one looks at the book of Acts, we see teaching that was sporatic, a dialogue, allowing for interruption and feedback, unplanned, without rhetorical structure, and delivered on special occasions to deal with special problems.  Romans 12 and 15, Colossians 3, and First Corinthians 12 and 14 indicate that ministry was by all the church for all the church.  History shows that in that day what Paul and others meant by preaching was dialogue, and monologues, as exemplified by Roman-style oratory, was referred to the Bible by “speaking” or “spoke.”

            After the Roman Emperor’s quote unquote conversion, by the economic power of the Empire, the pagan tradition of speechmaking solidified as a practice in the church.  Many persons, male only, as it was a male dominated society, some with an honest desire to serve God, and probably a few not so much, as the government whether intentionally or not created regular gigs for orators, prompted the tradition. 

Whether one is right or wrong, for many of us it feels good to have others just stop everything and listen to us.  This works even more if they are friendly people, who won’t criticize us in public, or at all, without regard to how off track we get, and we all make mistakes.  Every person needs another person to speak words of correction in one’s life, which we know is doing so for our benefit.  That is what dictators do not do; only God is right all the time.  In our culture, many sermons do not get above new believer level.  Lastly, edifying each other works only when a group is far smaller than our culture’s traditional churches, many of which are so big no one knows everyone’s name, much less actually know all the other people.

  To contact me, you can email me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or phone me at 757-735-xxxx.  To read a transcript of what I just said, my blog is tevyebird.blogspot.com, and this appears as the post of July 30, 2011.  For more info about simple worship in this area, visit www.hrscn.org.

2094--organic church

           

            For anyone stumbling across this blog for the first time, the original idea of it was to post a group of two minute commentaries about simple worship of Jesus, with most of the commentaries based on the points with regard to this subject made by George Barna and Frank Viola in their book, Pagan Christianity and Wolfgang Simson in his 15 Theses for the Re-Incarnation of Church.  Those appear in a group of blogs I posted in December, 2010.  They were written for radio, but so far, I have not had the money to broadcast them.  Additionally, either one minute or five minutes are time frames more amenable to stations in my area, so I am rewriting some of the major thoughts expressed in the December postings to fit both the smaller and larger time frame.  What is below is part of this project.

2094—organic church

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  What is meant by “organic church”? When we speak of organic gardening, we mean food grown without man-made chemicals or genetic engineering.  Organic healing deals with the use of natural products, as opposed to man-made substances.  Early in the 20^th century, former pastor T. Austin-Sparks coined the term “organic expression of church” or “organic church.”  One statement he made on this idea is (and I quote):

            “God’s way and law of fullness is that organic life.  In the Divine order, life produces its own organism, whether it be vegetable, animal, human, or spiritual.  This means that everything comes from the inside.  Function, order, and fruit issue from this law of life within.  It was solely on this principle that what we have in the New Testament came into being.” (unquote)

            The Koine Greek word “ekklesia” that is translated “church” in our English Bibles was a secular word, meaning close to our current word “group” or “town meeting.”  An example of that is that it also was used by Luke in Acts 19 to describe the mob that protested the work of Paul in Ephasus.  There was not only no religious connotation to it, but also no connotation to a formal organization, official human leadership structures, or any ritual as a right way to worship.  We are told the early church of believers in Jesus met daily, went from house to house, and cared for others spontaneously.

            Therefore, organic church speaks of church as it was lived in the days of the writing of the New Testament, as opposed to adding man-made organizations, programs, and methods.  This, so far in history, seems to be most easily done when there is such overt opposition by a government or social group that we believers cannot add organizations, programs, and methods, but that does not necessarily have to be the case.

            We see in the Gospels that some came to believe on Jesus while He walked the earth. After the Holy Spirit came upon the early believers in Acts chapter 2, many others came to faith in Him.  They became groups of people small enough to know each other, and they met regularly to worship Him and build up each other.  By the way they lived their lives to honor Jesus and care for those around them, others came to faith in Jesus. The churches, that is, these informal groups, grew and reproduced into more groups.  Miracles naturally happened. Some believers felt compelled to take the message to other cultures.  Status quo groups such as the government and Judaism opposed the church, but the church grew in spite of it, and possibly even because of it, because standing for truth in the face of overwhelming opposition, without a monetary or political motive will draw attention because of the seeming courage involved.  Due to the opposition, even though the surrounding people respected the believers, only those who truly came to believe on Jesus joined the church.  Jesus, not any human, was necessary to lead the church’s worship,  which was understood to be how one lived one’s life each moment, not just how one interacted to a religious ritual.

With no organization, there was no need to collect money except when there was an evident need, such as the church in Jerusalem, which had an unusually high number of elderly persons because many elderly Jews who lived outside Israel wished to die in the city, and when they came, some heard the message and believed.

            The church grew naturally.  There was no need for a professional class of ritualists, unlike anything the world had seen.  When the opposition to the church drove believers out of cities, such as the Romans did to the population of Jerusalem in 70 and 130 AD, they wound up scattering and spreading the message of Jesus in all directions, like seeds in the wind.  The church being transient was not a problem, but an opportunity.

              You can contact me by email at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-xxxx.  To read what I just said, I have it on my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, on the blog dated July 28, 2011. You can find out more about simple forms of worship in this area at www.hrscn.org. 

            There is someone working on posting the complete works of T. Austin-Sparks on the internet at www.austin-sparks.net.

            John Zens makes the observation ekklesia meaning “town meeting” in his book, The Pastor Has No Clothes.

            Historical footnotes to many facts that are behind statements made here can be found in George Barna and Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity.

 

2004--Measuring the Fruit of Wholeness

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Today, I'm reading an exerpt from the blog of pollster George Barna, dated May 8, 2011, on "measuring the fruit of wholeness."

(see www.georgebarna.com, posted under Leadership, with the quote being all of the blog except the last paragraph)

You can find out more info on simple/organic church at www.hrscn.org.  You can reach me via my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com or at (phone).
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This may come across as not being specifically pertinent to the subject of simple/organic church, but the underlying point is--in an institutional church situation the type of caring described, above, is impossible for everyone, as some people will not allow others to know them that well, and the institutional situation inhibits such familiarities' growth, in my opinion.

2014--Felicity Dale 070511

           

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Last blip, I read from the blog of Felicity Dale on persons living on church payrolls transitioning to a more scriptural form of caring for the financial needs of their family so as to encourage other believers in organic worship.  In her blog, www.simplychurch.com, on July 5, 2011 she continued.

(blog, in its entirety.   The way her blog is set up, one has to go back the number of months for when you are reading this to July, 2011 to read, and July 5 will be next to last on the page.)

  You can communicate with me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-xxxx.  For more information on simple, organic worship in this area, visit www.hrscn.org.

Just a personal note:  As much as it might seem crazy to some persons, I believe that I am soon to be transitioning to a situation whereby it will be no problem in giving out my personal number, even, as this script implies, on the radio.  I just don’t know whether I’ll have the same number by the time I get these on.  Congruent with these previous two blogs, I have been dealing with the problem of employment ever since sensing the Lord’s direction not to move towards vocational ministry many years ago.