Our Reading Plan for 2012

Last year, we set a challenge to read the entire Bible straight through as a church. I started off the first part of the year doing a decent job of reminding you, but then I fell out of the habit of keeping the idea before you and encouraging you. That's not setting the best example of persistence, and that was just in reminding you to read, which is far easier than keeping up with the actual reading!

The advantage of the plan for 2011 was that we were reading the entire Bible, and doing so in a more chronological fashion. Reading large sections of Scripture allows us to see themes and the big picture, but it is harder to keep current with a larger reading plan. If you fall behind, it can feel overwhelming to get back into it. That's when many stop following the plan, even though it's easy enough to just start back up on schedule and not worry about the parts that were missed. Missing some is better than missing all.

We have a new plan for 2012 with a different strategy. We want to use a variety of strategies over the years - sometimes the whole Bible, sometimes just certain parts; sometimes sequential, sometimes chronological, sometimes thematic.

Our plan for 2012 is to read the New Testament together. But we're going to read it together in a unique order - instead of reading it sequentially, we're going to read it somewhat chronologically. Reading sequentially would put all four Gospels up front, so I'm putting one Gospel per quarter. We start with Luke, because I want to then use Acts as the timeline (Acts is Luke's sequel to his Gospel). As we reach a given location in Acts, such as Galatia, we will set Acts on "pause" and then read the epistle related to that location, then resume where we left off in Acts. (Even though each epistle was written later in time than when Paul was at that city in Acts, this plan will keep things together geographically.) After we're done with Acts, we'll then read the remaining books of the New Testament.

The organization may be a little complicated, but following the plan won't be - just follow the schedule we are providing. The readings are not long, and are grouped by week, not by day. That gives you plenty of flexibility to get your readings in with consistency.

You can get a printed copy of the plan from the table in the sanctuary or from the church office. You can get an electronic copy by clicking here (http://doiop.com/GF2012Plan). Also, if you go to our website, wait for the reading plan graphic to cycle through, just click on that picture and you'll get the plan that way.

Since the readings will be much shorter this year, I want to challenge you to a very important reading technique - read each section at least twice (I recommend three times). That will increase your comprehension and retention. Statistics suggest that retention almost doubles when the material is repeated, and can approach 90% if the material is covered three times.

Read with us! And I'll try to do a better job of reminding you.

Christopher Hitchens is Dead

British philosopher, debater, and writer Christopher Hitchens died on December 15 from cancer. Lauded as one of the world's top intellectuals, Hitchens had venomous attacks for people across the political map. But perhaps he is best know for his atheistic views (e.g., his book God is Not Great).

Hitchens promoted himself as an "antitheist," which he described as more than an atheist - someone who is happy that there is no evidence for God. (I find evidence all over the place - evidence that he chose to interpret a different way. So, his claim is not that there is no evidence for God, but that there is no evidence for God that he was willing to accept. That creates a convenient, self-fulfilling worldview.)

I take no glee in his passing. I have no smug quip. I believe Hitchens is no longer an atheist or an antitheist, but it's a tragic realization. Nothing to gloat over.

I hear so many skeptics today echoing Hitchens' view about religion, that any belief system is ultimately just a mechanism to control people, to take away their individuality and freedom to think for themselves. So many people parrot these ideas. To be fair, there are some pockets within the Church (past and present) where you can accurately level this charge.

But it's not generally accurate. It's not an accurate description of thousands of churches today, and it is especially not an accurate description of the Christianity Jesus gave us. Wherever the church has tried to exercise this kind of control, it has done so by departing from the words of Christ. We can only do as Hitchens describes by contradicting Jesus.

The Christianity Jesus taught was very much the opposite of this charge. He taught His disciples to bear witness, to extend the offer of salvation by grace through faith, to consider the reasons for faith, and to come to Him of one's own accord. But He also taught them to "shake the dust off your feet" in response to those who reject the Gospel. Rather than try to control them, let them be! Likewise, when the Jews refused to accept Paul's teachings, he let them be and turned to those who would listen. This is hardly an effort to control anyone's thinking. John 6:66 is a prime example of people leaving Jesus because discipleship demanded too much, and Jesus did nothing to try to stop them, manipulate them, or control them.

For those who do choose to believe, Paul talks about loving one another, praying for one another, helping one another, even appealing to one another when they are caught in sin. But if people persist in rebellion, he doesn't advocate trying to control anyone. Rather, he tells the churches to disassociate with them until they are willing to repent and be reconciled. The goal is voluntary reconciliation. People are left with the freedom to pursue their lives contrary to the teachings of the church (just not allowed to bring that willful rebellion into the fellowship). The hope is always to be reconciled, but the fact that this is a hope shows that people are not being controlled or being stripped of their individual responsibility to think for themselves.

"Unity" is a common theme in the teachings of the New Testament, which is something we need when we have differences, not when we are being controlled and de-individualized. Paul taught grace for others who hold different opinions on the minors (see Romans 14), allowing God to be the change agent rather than trying to enforce that change ourselves.

The charge that Christianity is a controlling organization is an impossible change within the evangelical church, because there is no overarching hierarchy or authority (other than Christ). There's absolutely no mechanism to exercise control at that level. Clearly Hitchens did not spend enough time talking with church leaders of evangelical churches to see just how uncontrolling most those churches are. (I restrict this to evangelical churches not to suggest that other churches are controlling, but just to stick with what I know best.) Sometimes, it would be convenient to be able to have that control - we really need more children's church workers!

Hitchens' error is tragic for himself. His tragedy has been multiplied to all those who repeat his charge against the Church. Too many, I have seen, repeat his accusation without ever bothering to find out for themselves whether or not it's generally true.

An Important Conference in Olathe on Purity

Several weeks ago, we had an important message about sexual purity. Dr. Ratliff and I shared some of the  effects, causes, and helpful resources for dealing with the epidemic of impurity that is affecting every aspect of our society, including the Church. Your comments were very positive about how we addressed the topic in a straightforward, non-judgmental way. There were a number of people who have started taking steps toward more purity in their own lives, which is fantastic news!

We don't intend to put this topic to rest. We need to talk about it frequently and in different ways. Several of you asked us to make sure we don't ignore this topic going forward. We won't.

To that end, I want to recommend to you three related conferences coming to the Kansas City area (hosted conveniently in Olathe), all on this topic of purity. These conferences are designed to address many different aspects of purity, through both plenary talks and breakout sessions. Dr. Ratliff will be one of the breakout session leaders.

The conference for men is "Men of Valor" (Jan 27 - 28), the conference for women is "Women of Virtue" (Feb 3 - 4), and the conference for both college students and youth is "Youth 4 Truth" (Jan 27 - 28). Both the men's and women's conferences include both genders for the Friday night portion of their respective conferences. The college and youth conference has different venues for each gender. You can register for any of them at http://kcmov.eventbrite.com/.


There is no one who is unable to benefit from these conferences - they are not just for those who have acute struggles in the area of purity. Purity is a topic that we all need to learn more about, especially living in a culture that is progressively more sexualized - a trend that our children will face even more strongly that we have. These events are for everyone.

Please consider attending the conference that applies to you. They are not that expensive, and well worth it.

And we won't be done with this topic after the conferences. We will continue to lift one another up in this difficult area of life.

Happy Merry Greetings for the Season Holiday Christmas Whatever

And just like that, it's the Christmas season! It's like the season lurks right around the corner, out of sight, and then all of the sudden, jumps out right in front of us and says, "Gotcha!"

A new holiday tradition has emerged over the last few years. Now, part of our Christmas is the fuss over which greetings employees use in the stores. Many stores no longer allow their employees to wish their customers a "Merry Christmas" (or at least not until the customer says it first), but that they should opt for a generic phrase, like "Happy Holidays." And part of our modern tradition has become that others raise a big fuss over the stores and how they avoid using the word "Christmas" anywhere.

Usually, it's not the employees' fault - they are just doing what they were told to do by management. But they are also often the ones who hear the bulk of the complaints. I feel sorry for them - people just trying to earn a  buck caught in the middle of a culture war that they did not initiate.

Personally, I don't intend to demand that anyone else honor the holidays I honor. In fact, I really don't want to put the responsibility of continuing on Christmas tradition in the hands of a retail store. There's so little that retail stores have to do with Christmas, and making secular institutions give lip service to my second favorite holiday is of no value to me. I am, however, saddened that "Merry Christmas" is apparently so offensive and damaging to hear. I would be perfectly happy if stores displayed "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Hanukkah" and "Happy Kwanzaa" - I think there is value in stores showing deference to all their customers, rather than blending everything into a bland "Happy Holidays" meaningless vanilla phrase.

Let me offer an alternative suggestion that I'm going to use this year. Rather than jumping on anyone's case demanding someone else honor what I value (in the true Spirit of Christmas!), when someone says "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings," I intend to ask, "Which holiday are you celebrating this season?" - and to ask with genuine interest in the person and their values. Depending on the situation, perhaps I can then share which holiday I'm celebrating (and perhaps even why it's important to me). Perhaps I can ask additional questions to find out more about the person and what they believe and why that's important to them. Perhaps I can just leave with them knowing that I value them and that I don't blame them for the whole mess of genericizing the holidays.

Use the times to promote the love of Christ - that's a stronger Christmas message than, "I demand that you tell me something you might not even believe."

(If you desire to fight the trend, consider instead a kind letter to the management.)

The Value of the Value of Repetition and Repeating Things

There are just a few simple things that have been the most helpful to me in trying to understand Scripture:

• Understanding the basic structure of a passage
• Having a basic understanding of the flow of biblical history (so that I can see where a particular passage "fits" into the overall story)
• Learning to ask good questions of a passage (which I wrote about earlier)
• Summarizing a passage in one coherent sentence
• Reading a passage several times

I want to address the last one - reading a passage several times.

Whenever you choose to spend time in the Word, purpose to read your passage at least three times, and preferably five times. Whether it's a big passage or a small passage, make reading it several times just part of your habit. And certainly, you can't read it too many times. Certainly, reading it one time is the way to get the least out of a passage, short of not reading it at all.

Through this practice, you will see things in the passage on the second, third, or fourth pass that you didn't see the first time. The first time you read something, you're focused more on the new words, phrasing, and more obvious parts of the passage. When you read it a second time, you already know where the passage is going, for the most part, and so your mind will naturally scour for new things, different angles, nuances, repeated ideas, and so on. Every time you read it again, you will pick up something new, or at least become convinced of the main points.

Scripture is a treasure trove! And we get more out of it by reading the passage before us more than one time. Why would we not want to get more out of it? And the time invested is not that much more, and certainly beneficial.

This also works for larger passages. I tried this some time ago for a pretty long passage - the entire book of Romans. I did not stop at any particular point to dig in deeper - I kept right on reading beginning to end, and then again. And as much as I've studied Romans in parts, I still saw new things in Romans I had never seen before, even though I've taught the book section by section. Now, all the parts make even more sense.

In your small groups and Sunday school classes, you might try this on occasion, when appropriate. There are many ways that we read Scripture in a small group, and we often butcher the passage in doing so. We either read too much to digest, we stumble over the words from reading aloud, or we stop at awkward places. How about reading the passage straight through one time, then either reading it again straight through, or just rereading each section as you intend to discuss it?

Another tip that helps: Read the same passage in more than one (good) translation. You get the benefit of repetition, but also the benefit of a few different words to address the same ideas. That broadens our understanding of a passage.

Hmmm ... I don't practice this reading technique in sermons. I'll have to think about how to do this without belaboring the message.

Rooted in Failure

After one of the World Series games last week, I listened to one of the players being interviewed, and he said one of the most profound things I've ever heard in a post-game interview. OK, OK ... the competition for profundity in pro athlete interviews is not the hardest competition in the world to win, but even so, it was a gem.

I didn't write down the exact quote, but the gist is this: "Baseball is rooted in failure." The team just won the game, bouncing back after a previous loss. But even after winning, that was his thought: baseball is rooted in failure. Sounds odd. But it's fantastic.

His point is this: The goal of training and playing the game is to push until you fail, learn from your failures, and then become better. Reaching your limit or facing an opponent who's stronger than you, "failing" in that sense, and then using failure to improve toward excellence. You reach the World Series by failing ... repeatedly ... even intentionally. Without failing, a team (or a player) will never become good enough to make it to the Series - you cannot reach excellence without failing. Keep pushing to point of failure ... then figure out how not to fail in that way again.

This is more than saying that failure is inevitable, so react well when it happens. It looks at failure not as an unwelcome, unavoidable guest, but something that should be sought out in order to be overcome. This player sees Failure as a useful tool towards excellence.

That's baseball. Or other sports. Or even business. And this player was not claiming to spout biblical truth for Christians to follow. But is there a lesson for followers of Christ in this? I think so.

First, this is not to say that we should push until we fail in sin, and then figure out not to sin next time. I'm not going in that direction at all.

Second, neither am I talking about trying to become more acceptable to God or more righteous. In Christ, we have Christ's 100% righteousness as our own and are perfectly accepted by God because of grace alone.

Third, I see Christians across the country afraid ... fearful! ... to take risks for the Kingdom of God because of a fear of failure. They avoid failure, and in order to avoid failure, they avoid risk. Here's the dirty little secret - that is failure!

Rather, we can look at excellence in advancing the Kingdom of God as something we can achieve only by pressing in the right directions until we "fail" by reaching our limit or facing challenges that are stronger than we are. And then we figure out why we failed, and then how to become better at our goal. We need not stay in mediocrity. And if we can see Failure as a useful tool towards excellence, we can in fact become more excellent at the mission Jesus gave us to do.

We can not succeed at all, of course, without the empowerment of the Spirit, but certainly we can became more capable vessels by seeing success to be rooted in failure.

The Intangible "Thing"

This week, Lynne and I enjoyed a visit from the department chairman of Talbot School of Theology, my alma mater in Southern California. Mick and his wife Rolane Boersma minister to graduates by scheduling annual trips to visit the alum in a given geographic location. Dr. Boersma also taught several of my classes in pastoral ministry when I was working on my M. Div. degree.

One of the things I shared with Dr. Boersma is my gratitude for his role in instilling in us students an intangible "thing" - an immeasurable quality that so many Talbot graduates have that defines how we view all of ministry. It's hard to explain, but it's an entire understanding of the role of the pastor. I'm not saying we're necessarily better pastors than those from other seminaries, but that this immeasurable "thing" makes us better pastors than we would be otherwise.

As we have moved from place to place, I've met a lot of pastors who studied in a variety of seminaries. Many have it, even though they didn't attend Talbot. But many are missing that intangible "thing." Talbot is one of the few schools that, in my experience, consistently produces pastors who have it. More than a few times I've run into a Talbot graduate who I didn't know while in school, but feel a stronger connection within 15 minutes than I have with some pastors I've known for years. It's that intangible "thing."

Dr. Boersma (along with many other faithful men and women who teach at Talbot) is particularly responsible for instilling this intangible "thing" in thousands of graduates over the 25 years he's served so far at Talbot.  For that, I am unceasingly grateful to him.

I'm glad for the opportunity to tell him that face-to-face.

Consider talking with those who have invested so much in you and tell them how you appreciate who they are and what they've done.