Daily Dose of Calvin

We have here also a type and a pattern of the call of us all, by which our beginning is set before our eyes, not as to our first birth, but as to the hope of future life, — that when we are called by the Lord we emerge from nothing; for whatever we may seem to be we have not, no, not a spark of anything good, which can render us fit for the kingdom of God. That we may indeed on the other hand be in a suitable state to hear the call of God, we must be altogether dead in ourselves. The character of the divine calling is, that they who are dead are raised by the Lord, that they who are nothing begin to be something through his power. The word call ought not to be confined to preaching, but it is to be taken, according to the usage of Scripture, for raising up; and it is intended to set forth more fully the power of God, who raises up, as it were by a nod only, whom he wills. - John Calvin, Commenting on Romans 4:17

The Alban Institute - 2009-08-31 The Bivocational Congregation

This is worth reading, from the Alban Institute:
The Alban Institute - 2009-08-31 The Bivocational Congregation

Craddock on Preaching III

Here's my summary of what Fred Craddock had to say about preaching after watching the four-video series:
1. Get into the text: study, reflect, consult commentaries, etc.--go into the strange world of the Bible
2. Get out of the text: interpret: what does it mean today?
3. Get a message that can be put into one declarative sentence; if you have more than one from a particular text, choose the one that fits you, the congregation, and the occasion, and save the others for another time.
4. Craft a sermon: start with the message (see #3) and use that as your conclusion; otherwise you'll use up all your good stuff in the beginning

Craddock on Preaching II

Just watched the third tape in the Fred Craddock series; this one is called "Arriving at a Message." The fascinating part was watching him work through the text (John 19:31-37, surely a text that is seldom preached; it is not in the Lectionary) and ask himself questions about it. He actually arrived at not one, but three possible messages. He chose one ("don't try to do all three") and told us that if we saved our notes in a file we would have the other two messages whenever we came back to that text.

I sorta do it that way, but not nearly so well.

Craddock on Preaching

I try to read a book on preaching about once a year, just to see what other people are saying, and to re-energize my own preaching. This year, though, I'm watching a set of videos I scored from the Presbytery office. They were among the leftovers from when we maintained a resource center.

Anyway, the videos are a series of lectures the legendary Fred Craddock gave in 1986. The first was "getting into the text," and the second, "getting out of the text." In the latter, he talks about something I had never considered: the fear of interpretation. He noted that there are some preachers who say, "I don't interpret the Bible, I just tell people what it says." And of course we should be legitimately concerned lest we substitute our interpretation for the meaning of the text. But Craddock emphasizes that interpretation is an essential part of our calling as pastors and preachers, as it is of many callings.

Parents, for example, interpret to their children all the time. "What's that noise?" "It's just the wind making the tree branch brush against the window. Go back to sleep." Doctors interpret all the time. "I've had this pain in the small of my back for about two months now. What is it?" Craddock says that an uninterpreted pain is the worst pain of all. If I know it's cancer, I can deal with it. It's not knowing that's the hard part, and we need the doctor's interpretation.

In case we're not convinced, Craddock goes on to point out that Scripture interprets Scripture. It's the living text of Scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit, that keeps us from substituting our own interpretation for what the Bible actually says--at least on our best days.

Humor in Calvin?

Two weeks ago at the Calvin Jubilee at Montreat, I was in a Q&A session with Randall Zachman, an Episcopalian who teaches Reformation Studies at Notre Dame (really!) when someone asked, "Did Calvin have a sense of humor?" Zachman simply answered, "no." And I have to confess I don't much humor in Calvin; joy, yes, but no humor, except of the cutting, sarcastic kind.

However, today, while looking at Calvin's comments on John 6, I noted this sentence: "Christ did not provide great delicacies for the people, but they who saw his amazing power displayed in that supper, were obliged to rest satisfied with barley-bread and fish without sauce." There's a Frenchman for you! The greatest hardship he can imagine is going without sauce. I don't know if Calvin intended it to be funny, but I think he just might have.

Multi-site pastors

I was intrigued by John Pehrson's piece in the e-news for today about "multi-site pastors," i.e. pastors who oversee the life and ministry of a local congregation but who leave the preaching to a video feed from a "tall steeple" (or more likely "megachurch") preacher. Like John, I don't know what to think about this phenomenon. My first reaction is that the best preaching is done by preachers who know the congregations they are preaching to. (I heard Tom Long say this at a workshop once) But there are many gifted pastors who are not gifted preachers, and their gifts might be put to better use if they were delivered from the burden of weekly preaching. I wonder if this model might be modified to something like this: a cluster of churches who are served by a group of Ministers of Word and Sacrament and Commissioned Lay Pastors, with one of the group designated as The Preacher, with his/her sermons shared via video from one of the congregations. Ideally, each congregation would take it in turn to host the preaching. This would preserve the personal contact. Obviously the technical aspects would have to be worked out, but the idea interests me.