Little Green Army People: Knowing Your Role

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 14:25-33 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31:

We are now concluding our series on Toy Box Leadership. I am very glad that so many of you have commented that you enjoyed this series because I wasn’t really sure about it going into it. I can say that I have never specifically preached on leadership before, although as I said when I read this book a long time ago, I thought it had possibilities. But I’ll be honest that I have sort of thought about leadership as this separate thing from spiritual disciplines. We talk about the second of those things a lot, but we don’t really talk about leadership, not because leadership isn’t important, but because we just don’t think about it in the role of worship, I guess is the best way to say it. That somehow these two things are separate and never the twain shall meet. But a few weeks ago, in one of the daily emails I receive on church things, it had a story from John Ortberg saying how incorrect that position was. That leadership is a spiritual discipline, and spiritual disciplines include leadership. And as I thought about it, I was definitely one who kept them separate, but now see that I was mistaken. And that has lots of implications to it, including that we have to work on it for the good of ourselves, the church and living the faith. It also means that like all spiritual disciplines it comes in different forms and also has seasons to it. But that’s going to take some more thought from me on what that means, how to communicate that as well as how it fits into what we do in worship and our expectations. It definitely connects, though, to the theme of today which is understanding and knowing our gifts, graces and roles as we look at the last of our toys little green army men. And again, credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell for their idea.

When we looked at the yo-yo I said that those who study these things have said that the doll is probably the oldest toy in the world, and it’s followed by the yo-yo. Well toy soldiers are nearly as old as well. Tiny military figures have been found in Egyptian tombs. Whether those were technically toys or not is up for debate as they could have been for military strategy, but we can be sure that others were using such things as toys. Over the millennia, toy soldiers have been made out of clay, wood, flour, paper and different types of metals, including, and maybe most popularly tin. They grew in such popularity in the 17th century that they began to be mass produced for not just war games but also for massive displays to be put together of famous battles. But it was in the late 1930s with the rise of the use of plastics that toy soldiers took the shape and name by which so many of us know them – Little Green Army Men, although you can now purchase them in lots of different colors including blue, pink, purple and grey. The poses and weapons have also changed some over time. And these little figures were adopted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014.

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Romans

Some of you have heard this before, but when I was growing up and would spend time with my grandparents, to try and get me to eat my vegetables, my grandfather would always say “it’ll put hair on your chest.” I never considered that an acceptable argument for doing something I didn’t want to do, and will note I still don’t. But that’s what I always think of when I hear Paul’s words that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.” But if that’s what it takes to get hope, wouldn’t you rather pass? Not that I don’t want to live without hope, but I don’t want to suffer either, and let’s also note that anytime someone says about something that it will build character, you can be pretty sure that it too will be an unpleasant experience, like having to eat your vegetables as a child. And so, with that, we move on to today’s toy, the Weeble. And again credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell for their inspiration for this series.

This is the newest of all the toys we will look at, and thus one that many of you did not grow up with because it wasn’t yet invented, but one that your children, or perhaps grandchildren did grow up playing with. It also happens to be the only toy we will look at that has not been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. But it is based upon a much older toy. The television show Romper Room, which began in 1953, introduced a clown punching bag that was weighed down by sand at the bottom so that when you punched it, it wouldn’t stay down but would right itself so you could punch it again, and keep going. Nothing violent about that. And some of you may know the toy because there was a duplicate that had Bozo the clown on it. When toy manufacturer Hasbro purchased Romper Room in 1969, they wanted to market the punching bag idea, with a twist, and so they shrunk it down, made it solid, and shaped it like an egg, and thus was born, in 1971, the Weeble. And what made them so unique was not only their shape, but the fact that when they got knocked over, that because of the weighting, that gravity would cause them to right themselves, thus creating the famous advertising slogan that “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” Allegedly this helped introduce children to basic physics, perhaps a stretch, but it is there. Now I will note, first that I couldn’t find any reason why they were called Weebles, perhaps just because they wobble, and second now they are much shorter and squatter than the originals, allegedly because the originals posed a choking hazard, although that seems like a huge stretch to me, not because kid’s wouldn’t put them in their mouths, but because they were still really big and I can’t imagine a child actually being able to get it stuck in their throat, but there we are. And so that leads us back not really to the idea of suffering so much as to the idea of resilience because Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.

Yo-Yo: Extending Yourself

Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was

I’m guessing that most of us have probably seen an image something like this outlining the life cycle of organizations. It seems like just about every leadership seminar or workshop I’ve gone to, and definitely those that want to talk about revitalization, have used this image. Basically it says that in the beginning there is lots of energy, new things happening a great vision and direction which leads to growth, and continued climbing of the organization, but then things start to change, energy is lost, the vision gets a little less clear or a little less striven for and so the organization reaches maturity and then bureaucracy starts to set in, and it then begins a downward slide which can eventually lead to its death. Now, the reason this comes up in leadership workshops is to talk about the fact that you can stop that downward slide, give new vision, create new energy, and you then cycle back and you can start the cycle all over again, with growth, then maturity, then downward, and hopefully new vision, new energy and do it all over again. And while there is a lot to be said for that as an idea, I do think that it glosses over too many things, makes it too simple, too easy both to explain and to do, and the toy we look at today is a great illustration of what’s missing here.

But before we get into that, a quick recap of the toys we have looked at in our toy box that can teach us something about leadership and life. Although it wasn’t technically a part of this series, for New Years we did talk about the etch-a-sketch and the fact that if you have made a mistake you can simply shake it off, create a new screen and start again. And then we looked at play-doh and the reality that we are molded by the things with which we surround us, and so we need to form ourselves with the right things and the right people, and for us as Christians baptism should be our primary mold. Then we looked at the slinky-dog which is a great illustration of leadership and change. First as a leader you have to take ahold of the string of leadership and pull, and when you do that, the head of the slinky dog will move forward, but the hind end stays where it is, which means we have to be patient in our change, and also listening and watching, and preparing for the tail end to catch up, and then start again. And then last week we talked about Lego and the need for connection and building connection so we can build community. What Lego also show us is that sometimes we want to lock things into place, to glue them together, and on the organizational lifecycle that is represented on the downward slide, and so we also have to live into being open to change and trying new things, of being creative. And so today we then move onto the yo-yo.

Lego Connectivity

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was

Some of you know that besides for baseball and Star Wars I also love Disneyland, although perhaps I should throw in that I love my family as well. I follow several different people on YouTube to keep up with what’s happening at Disneyland, when I have time to watch. One of them has been a critic of Disney and its management, especially in their upkeep of the parks and the way they compare against Disneyland Tokyo, which is considered the cream of the crop. But their criticism is always done out of love; because they love Disney and everything it represents they want to call out those things that don’t match up to what they think the park can be, and in some ways, had been. But, under prior executive leadership they were directly called out for reporting a rumor they had ben told that Disney said was a lie, although it turned out not to be. But, because of the animosity that came about, this group was cut off from their press credentials in retaliation, which they took in stride, including not lessening their criticism and also enthusiastic praise when they thought it was deserved. But, now, under a new CEO, the communications department recently reached out to set up a meeting with them to first apologize for what happened, to reinstate their press credentials and also to start a conversation about some things they might work on together. I wish I would have known that last week because it could have worked great in thinking about the lessons that the Slinky Dog teaches us about leadership, and that just because people might be opposed to the direction, doesn’t mean they oppose the organization, they just don’t like the direction and that’s when listening to others can help make all of us better. But it also matches well with the direction we go today, which is the lessons we can learn about life and leadership from Lego®, and again credit is due to Michael Waddell and Ron Hunter, Jr. for the ideas of this series.

And so, let me start with the fact that the Lego organization treats Lego as the name whether we are talking about a singular or multiple Lego®. It’s like sheep or deer, whether you have one or multiple, they are the same, and the same with Lego®. Except, within the US, we have tendency to add an s to make it Legos, and so I am going to try and respect Lego® in their preference, but will probably invariably mess it up, so just keep that in mind. Lego® is now the largest toy company in the word, having passed Mattel® in 2015. And along with Play-Doh and the Etch-a-Sketch, which we’ve already discussed, it too was inducted into the inaugural year of the National Toy Hall of Fame, and was also named the toy of the century by Fortune Magazine, as well as the British Association of Toy Retailers, and it has an interesting history.

Slinky Dog Leadership

 Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was

Most of you are old enough, or perhaps I might say seasoned enough, to remember the Tylenol poisonings in 1982. Just a quick refresher, someone added cyanide to Tylenol pills in the Chicago area, which killed seven people. In the immediate aftermath there was much conversation about what to do. The FDA actually recommended to Johnson and Johnson that they only recall the pills in the Chicago area, and were opposed to a nationwide recall to try and keep the country from panicking. Members of the board wondered if perhaps it could be more targeted in order to keep the economic income down, and many predicted the end of Tylenol as a brand, and perhaps even the end of Johnson & Johnson. But instead of following that advice, the CEO, believing in the first line of their credo, “We believe our first responsibility is to the patients, doctors and nurses, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.” And so, the CEO instead recalled Tylenol from around the country, as well as working with the media to issue emergency warnings, which then led to new safety standards for bottles, amongst other things. Their response is now studied for leadership principles in times of crisis.

I’ve been thinking about that example in this past week in comparing it against the way that Boeing has responded to their current crisis with the loss, basically, of a door during flight from one of their planes, on top of their crisis in losing two similar planes to crashes several years ago in which they tried to blame everyone but themselves. But this week the CEO of Boeing said that they supported the FAA’s decision to ground these models until they found out what went wrong. But, my thought was why did they need the FAA to take this action for them; why didn’t they ground the planes themselves and have the FAA agree with their decision? Leadership is hard, but sometimes we know the right decision and what to do, to be out front, even if we might have to pull others along with us, being proactive, which is what Johnson & Johnson did, versus being pushed to do the right thing, being reactive, which is what Boeing appears to be doing.

Play Doh Formation

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was

Today we begin a new worship series that will take us to Lent looking at what toys can teach us about leadership and life. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to be doing for the beginning of the year, and so was talking with Phillip if there was something that would be helpful for our faith development activities, and he said that we might look at our goals. One of our goals is to build up our leadership, and I had in my list of potential worship series ideas a note about a book I read a long time ago called Toy Box Leadership, and to let you know how long ago, they use Blockbuster Video as an example of a company facing a leadership challenges, and they say that the decisions they make will decide if they survive or not, and we now all know how that ended. And so, I am indebted to that book and its authors Ron Hunter and Michael Waddell for providing the inspiration. And with that, today we begin with one of the staples of childhood, Play-Doh®, which was inducted in the inaugural class into the National Play Hall of Fame, whose museum in Rochester, NY, is absolutely fabulous if you ever get up that way to visit.

Now I have to say that of all the toys we will look at, Play-Doh®, is my least favorite, at least as an adult. When our children get Play-Doh®, which they invariably do, I sort of bow my head and think, oh great, thanks. Not because Play-Doh® isn’t great, because it is and I enjoyed it as a child, but it’s the fact that we end of with little pieces of dried Play-Doh® that end up all over the house, which then have to be cleaned up and invariably I’m still finding it in strange places days later. And so, I guess, it’s sort of ironic then that that is exactly the thing with which we are starting because of what Play-Doh® and baptism and leadership all sort of have in common with each other, and I bet you never thought of that combination before.

Books I Read in 2023

These are the books I read in 2023. I would recommend most, and the one I would definately not is marked as such. (This is more for my records than anything.

• 1776 by David McCullough
• A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
• A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen
• A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
• A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith by Timothy Egan
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• Advent Conspiracy: Making Christmas Meaningful by Rick McKinley
• After You by Jojo Moyes
• American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 by Cameron McWhirter
• American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherman
• Angrynomics by Eric Lonergan
• Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman
• Books by Larry McMurtry
• Breaking the Code by Bruce Metzger
• Can I Get a Witness: Reading Revelation Through African American Culture by Brian K. Blount
• Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
• Chocolat by Joanne Harris
• Church and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. Ricks
• Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump by Rick Reilly
• Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success by Ron Friedman
• Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton
• Dress Grey by Lucian K. Truscott IV
• Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World by Robert D. Kaplan
• Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn
• Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by Steve Olson
• Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero by Stephan Talty
• Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo
• Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin
• Experiencing Forgiveness by Charles Stanley
• Facing the Mountain: A true Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown
• Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition by Bruce Henderson
• Finding God in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: A Spiritual Exploration of the Star Wars Saga by Timothy Paul Jones
• Finding Me by Viola Davis
• Forgive for Good: A Proven Proscription for Health and Happiness by Fred Luskin
• Forgive for Love: The Missing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting Relationship by Fred Luskin
• Forgive: How Can I and Why Should I? by Timothy J. Keller
• Forgiveness: A Lenten Study by Marjorie J. Thompson
• Forgiveness: Finding Peace Through Letting Go by Adam Hamilton
• Full Dress Grey by Lucian K. Truscott IV
• G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
• God's Ex-Girlfriend: A Memoir About Loving and Leaving the Evangelical Jesus by Gloria Beth Amodeo
• Headhunters on My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story by Maarten J. Troost
• How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan by Mortimer J. Adler
• Into the Canyon: Seven Years in Navajo Country by Lucy Moore
• Julia: A Retelling of Orwell's 1984 by Sandra Newman
• Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
• Lead Like it Matters: 7 Leadership Principles for a Church that Lasts by Craig Groeschel
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• Lost Horizon by James Hilton
• Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
• Mecca by Susan Straight
• Midnight Sun by James Dommek, Jr.
• Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by Randolph E. Richards
• Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past edited by Kevin Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer
• Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southward
• Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
• Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder
• Not in it to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines the Church by Andy Stanley
• Party Out of Bounds: The B-52s, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia by Roger Brown
• Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
• Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians got Dumber and Dumber by Andy Borowitz
• Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness by Michael J. Gorman
• Return of the Jedi: From a Certain Point of View by Various
• Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig R. Koester
• Revelation: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels
• Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson
• Secrets Kids Know… That Adults Outta Learn by Allen Klein
• Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
• Somebody's Fool by Richard Russo
• Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival and New Beginnings edited by Reyna Grande
• Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith
• Still Me by Jojo Moyes
• Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry
• Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them by Elliott G. Morris
• Suder: A Novel by Percival Everett
• Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho
• Th Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World by Diamonds, deceit and Desire by Tom Zoellner
• The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization by Roland Ennos
• The Armor of Light by Ken Follett
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean
• The Child Who Never Grew by Pearl S. Buck
• The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
• The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies by Aziz Z. Huq
• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
• The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Thomas M. Nichols
• The Deconstructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party by Dana Millbank
• The Exchange by John Grisham
• The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
• The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and Technology Success of our Time by David A. Vise
• The Gospel According to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force by John C. McDowell
• The Great Hurricane: 1938 by Cherie Burns
• The Imaginary Girlfriend by John Irving
• The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry
• The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda was Found, Her Descendants and an Extraordinary Reckoning by Ben Raines
• The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
• The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks
• The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich
• The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New Mexico by Elva K. Osterreich
• The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks
• The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson (do not recommend)
• The Old Man and the Gun: And Other True Tales of Crime by David Grann
• The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andres Resendez
• The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter
• The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy by Timothy Keller
• The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara R. Rossing
• The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach
• The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams by Seth Godin
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
• The Trees by Percival Everett
• The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run or Ruin an Economy by Tim Harford
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Wager: A Story of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
• The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future by Andrew Yang
• The Way of Forgiveness: Letting Go, Easing Stress and Building Strength by D. Patrick Miller
• The White Darkness by David Grann
• The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History by Jill Lepore
• The World According to Star Wars by Cass Sustein
• Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
• Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
• Toy Box Leader: Leadership Lessons from the Toys Your Loved as a Child by Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell
• Train: Riding the Rails that Created the Modern World from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief by Tom Zoellner
• Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
• Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Trust by Hernan Diaz
• Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
• Upside-Down Apocalypse: Grounding Revelation in the Gospel of Peace by Jeremy Duncan
• Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America by Stephen F. Knott
• Waterloo: The True Story of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
• Wonder by R.J. Palacio
• You Don’t Own me: The Court Battles That Exposed Barbie's Dark Side by Orly Lobel

United Methodist Hymnal Songs from Revelation

This is a list of songs found in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) based on passages from Revelation. I don't know that this list is complete as the list at the back does not include hymns like Marching to Zion or Battle Hymn of the Republic, which do refer to passages from Revelation. If you know others I have missed please let me know.

By Hymn Number:
64 – Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11)
181 – Ye Servants of God (7:9-12)
325 – Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11)
327 – Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12)
350 – Come, All of You (22:17)
383 – This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5)
428 – For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5)
623 – Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9)
626 – Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion)
655 – Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14)
674 – See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12)
638 – This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion)
706 – Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4)
717 – Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12)
718 – Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7)
719 – My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17)
722 – I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16)
723 – Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5)
726 – O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5)
732 – Come We that Love the Lord
733 – Marching to Zion
734 – Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20

Alphabetical:
Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12) – 717
Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20) – 734
Come, All of You (22:17) – 350
Come We that Love the Lord – 732
Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12) – 327
Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14) – 655
For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5) – 428
Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11) – 325
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9) – 623
Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11) – 64
I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16) – 722
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion) – 626
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7) – 718
My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17) – 719
Marching to Zion – 733
O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5) – 726
See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12) – 674
Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5) – 723
>Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4) – 706
This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5) – 383
This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion) – 638
Ye Servants of God (7:9-12) – 181

By Scripture Reference:
Come We that Love the Lord – 732
Marching to Zion – 733

Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7) – 718
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion) – 626
Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11) – 64
Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11) – 325
See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12) – 674
This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion) – 638
Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14) – 655
My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17) – 719
Ye Servants of God (7:9-12) – 181
Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12) – 717
Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12) – 327
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9) – 623
For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5) – 428
I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16) – 722
O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5) – 726
Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4) – 706
This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5) – 383
Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20) – 734
Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5) – 723
Come, All of You (22:17) – 350

How Do I Pray?

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 11:1-13:

I remember sitting next to my mother one day during worship. I don’t remember how old I was, but I think I was pretty young, and everyone started saying the Lord’s Prayer and I asked her how she knew it, and she responded with something like “it’s just something you learn.” That memory stands out for me for a couple of reasons. One being that it taught me that there were things that happened in church and you just had to pick them up, through repetition I was guessing. And the second is that it is probably my earliest memory having anything to do with prayer, and in this case a prayer that everyone says together, which is not always what we think about when we talk about prayer. Of course, we do have communal prayers that we do in worship, and then there is the Lord’s Prayer, which we say together each week. But normally when we talk about prayer its about the personal kind, or of someone else saying a prayer that we are listening to. And in that, I’m sure that most of us have probably heard someone praying out loud, and we’ve said “I wish I could pray like that.”

And probably not surprisingly, Jesus was like that. In hearing him praying, which seems to indicate that he was praying out loud, not silently, the disciples come to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. That is, whatever Jesus is doing doesn’t match their own prayer lives, and so they hope to learn something in order to be better. And while we are told many times that Jesus is teaching people things, and he is even called teacher in numerous stories, this is the only time in the gospels in which Jesus is asked to give a specific teaching about how to do something, not just to answer a question. And so that seems to be one of the clues to us not only about the importance of prayer, but also that prayer can be taught, and perhaps that prayer should be taught. That while it may seem to come natural to some people, that if you are not good at praying, or don’t feel comfortable praying, that there is some good news for you, that help, through teaching is available. And because it’s a learned activity that means that you can try new things, question, experiment and even fail and all of that is okay. And so, as we continue in our series entitled How do I…? today that is the topic that we move on to, prayer.

How Do I Read the Bible

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 2 Timothy 3:14-17:

I want you to think about the first Bible you ever received, or that you can remember having. Who gave it to you? How old where you when receive it? What did it look like? Was it a children’s Bible or a regular Bible? Did it have a special place in your house or room where it was kept? Was it treated like any other book or was it treated special? Did your family have other copies of the Bible? How where they treated and where were they kept? Do you still own that Bible? If not, do you know what happened to it? I want you to think about that Bible, and then turn to someone near you and tell each other about that Bible…. I knew that my first Bible was special in some way, although I don’t remember anyone telling me it was special, it was just sort of conveyed. It was different than other books. I knew the stories where special, although I couldn’t tell you why. I mean if nothing else it’s pretty rare to have a book read in public any more and yet this book is read from every week in worship, and we don’t hear from other books in that way. But no one ever said that we read it differently or treat it differently than other books, but we did, and no one ever said this is how to read the Bible. And I’m willing to guess that’s true for most of you as well. And I’m not talking about Sunday school classes that dealt with stories, because they might have actually made approaching scripture even more troubling or confusing. And so today in our series we are going to be looking at how to read scripture, and please note that I can’t get to everything and so some of this will be a 30,000 foot view of reading scripture.

But let’s start with some basics. The Bible is widely considered the best selling book of all time, and large numbers of people own a copy, besides for being found in hotel rooms, and also report believing what it says to be true. But it might be like Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. A book that everyone has, but few people actually read, and surveys show us this general sense of misinformation. So, for example, 10% of people say that Joan of Ark was Noah’s wife. Only 1/3 can identify that Jesus delivered the sermon on the mount, and more than that think that Billy Graham gave it. 40% believe that both the old and the new testament were written a few years after Jesus’ death, and a not insignificant percentage believe that it was all written in English. Or as a Texas woman was reported to have said, although it’s probably just apocryphal, “If English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.” It was not written in English, not a word, but instead it’s in Hebrew for the Hebrew Bible, or the Old testament, and Greek for the New Testament.