Week 51 How Far Do You Push It?

Week 51 begs a theological question:

How far do you push it?

Christmas preaching is a mixture of the best and the frustrating. If you do an Advent series, you have to come up with 4 preaches telling the Christmas story (that everybody knows) in a new, fresh way. Every year.

Think about Easter:

1 Sunday a year and 173 chapters in the New Testament dealing with the death and resurrection of Jesus - the why, the how, the so what. Lots of material to preach from.

Christmas:

4 Sunday preaches a year and Matthew has 1 chapter, Mark zero, Luke 2, but 1 very similar to Matthew, and John none. Three/two chapters for four preaches.

Aargh.

So what do you do as a preacher.

Repeat stuff - because people forget?
Avoid it.
Change Advent to just one Sunday instead of four.
Borrow other people's stuff!
Pass the baton to other staff to preach.
Delegate Children's Ministry to do a Christmas pageant.

The list goes on .....and I've tried most of them.

This year I pushed it.

Week 1 - give everyone a free lunch!
Week 2 - teach heavy doctrine.
Week 3 - preach heresy (or 'sounds like' heresy)!

Ever said something and I simultaneously sounded wrong, but really intriguing?
Ever scratched at something and wonder if you've scratched too far?

The line was "Jesus failed ".
When I first said it you could feel the audience collectively take a double-take ...including the unchurched guests.
"Did he really say what I thought he said?" "I must have misheard him!"

But then I repeated it with greater emphasis:

"Jesus failed many times!"

Christmas is so incredible.
God taking on flesh.
Virgin birth.
Miraculous signs in the sky.

We've all preached them.
But after 76 preaches, not that the miraculous should ever become common ....but it's hard to keep it at the same level. 76 preaches pushes you deeper and further into all that Christmas is.

Fully human.

What does that mean.

Chalcedon defines it.
Orthodoxy insists upon it.
Salvation depends on it.

But how far do you push it?

This past Sunday we pushed it. Not heretically ....but in thinking fuller about who Jesus was and how he redefined humanness.

It will come online in the next few days www.redeemerschurch.com - explore Sunday messages for December 19, 2010.

Comments afterwards ......more than any other preach in 2010.
People leaving the church because of it - still to be determined!!

Week 50. Got Nothing New.

Week 50.

This is a leadership blog.
Every week for 52 weeks of the year some leadership thought or idea.

Have you ever reached a point where you've got nothing to say?

No new idea.
No new suggestion.
No new insight.

I was counting the number of books I have in my office (479!).

Got me thinking that perhaps for 2011 I should not buy any new books but reread all 479.

Do we need another new ideas, another suggestions, another insight ....or is there already enough written.


Maybe this blog, if not the next 54 blogs, should be remembering all the leadership ideas, suggestions and insights I've read or heard over the past 20 years.

Maybe I should let some of the best leadership learning's I've had resurface and focus on trying to do them in 2011.

Here's the top two I learnings in 2010:

"Truth is the kindest form of management." (Bill Hybels)

"When uncertainty is gone your leadership is no longer needed." (Andy Stanley)

Add in a third - "Make sure its not too trivial to be truth." (Dallas Willard)

Maybe rather than read new ideas/suggestions/insight, maybe I should deliberately practice these three leadership insights more and more in 2011.

Maybe.