"Life on the Vine" Preaching Project

Can People Change?

2006-01-04T09:03:00.000-06:00

If you have ever served as a preacher or elder you have a story or two about a fellow elder or minister who have been the tough one to get along with. Aside from personality differences, what are we doing in our churches to help shape leadership around the character of Christ? This has been one of the discussions surrounding the "Life on the Vine" project; that is, can people's character change over time to look more like the gift of God's Spirit described in Galatians 5?

Or is this asking too much? Is it a foregone conclusion that every leadership group will contain some mean people?

Response on the Vine

2005-11-08T08:46:00.000-06:00

While many of us are still winding down our "Life on the Vine" series, there is still work to be done. ACU's Ministry Summit on April 20-21 will host Philip Kenneson as our speaker, review this project among others, and ask questions as to the nature of other similar projects that ask, "What is the gospel in this culture?"

I would be curious to see a discussion begin here as to what your church's response(s) has been to the sermons and small groups materials on Life on the Vine. Have people talked more about virtue, that is, how the sermons and studies have affected personal piety? Have your members talked about the shared nature of the fruit of the Spirit with other people? What has the response been like?

For those of you who have preached or taught the fruit of the Spirit at other times than this project, what has been the primary emphasis? What did you stress as to what the list of virtues is really all about?

SELF-CONTROL Sermons

2005-11-03T21:37:00.000-06:00

Please place your self-control sermons on this post as you preach them.

The Toughest Virtue

2005-10-31T08:30:00.000-06:00

Self-control. We really need to get a discussion going on this one.

Not only do we not live in a culture that nurtures self-control, most of the values around us encourage excess. How can we possibly have a voice in this sermon that will be heard when the majority of our people will leave the sermon and go to an all-you-can-eat buffett? (Too cynical?)

And where do we begin? Should we bring up physical things around us every day? Our society's lack of discipline when it comes to expressions of anger?

Then add to this mix: "Self-control" is the only one of the nine virtues listed in Galatians 5 that is not an attribute of God. The other eight say something about the character of God, and are listed in Scripture as a descriptor of God. But self-control is not. What to make of this? Where, again, is God in the mix of this discussion.

Back to an earlier post: When we arrive at such virtues as patience, kindness, and gentleness, it seems that an awful lot of the weight falls on us. If we are to cultivate gentleness, for example, doesn't that seem to ask us to be gentle with those around us? Where does self-control fit into this mix?

Where God is in all of this? How much of the virtue of self-control is given as a gift from God? How much is dependent upon how hard I work at it? I know that Galatians 5 seems to suggest that these are "gifts" for those who live by the Spirit of God. I have been trying for years to live according to God's will, but lack self-control in a number of areas. What gives?

Penny for your thoughts...

GENTLENESS Sermons

2005-10-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

Please place your "Gentleness" sermons here.

Being Gentle

2005-10-26T08:43:00.000-05:00

Many of us end our sermons with a few suggestions as to how we might cultivate the particular virtue of the week. I am having a little trouble getting beyond "gentleness" as treating others with respect. Help.

Please post some comments on what it is to cultivate gentleness. How might we help our congregations to practice this in various ways during the week?

FAITHFULNESS Sermons

2005-10-24T19:04:00.000-05:00

Please continue the "Great is Thy Faithfulness" conversation below, but if you would like to go ahead and post your FAITHFULNESS sermons here, please feel free to do so.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

2005-10-23T08:01:00.000-05:00

There are so many approaches to faithfulness that the secret to this sermon may be tightening it up to a specific point. Marshall Keeble was asked one time, "How many points should a sermon have?" He replied, "At least one."

The word in Galatians 5:22-23 is pistis. But many scholars translate it "faithfulness" even though the word is simply "faith." What are some of the angles we might take in this sermon?

GOODNESS Sermons

2005-10-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

When you have preached your "GOODNESS" sermon, if you would place it in the comments section of this post, that would be good.

How to be "GOOD"

2005-10-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

Like most of the other virtues listed in this list called the “fruit of the Spirit,” this one—“goodness”—can probably be translated a number of ways. The Greek root word, agothos, is usually used in literature before the New Testament to mean moral goodness in relation to God or the gods; it also has an aesthetic dimension regarding what is beautiful and free from blemish. (One could see how we could take this a number of directions in the sermon.)

In Plato’s writings, the good—still, agathos—is the power to preserve life, the ultimate concept, whereas evil is what destroys. Aristotle took it further to seek “good” in all human relations, even defining the human condition as a seeking of good in his Ethics. This may be why Titus 3:1 reads, “to be ready to do whatever is good (agathon)…” as opposed to doing evil. As an act of redemption, God works for “good” with those who love Him, as in Romans 8. Ephesians 2:10 says that God created us for “good” works.

One angle, at least, is to approach Romans 15:1-6 as the standard of active “good” among God’s creation, namely His people. It extends the earlier virtue of “kindness” in that the text moves toward “good” as building up your neighbor, an obvious tie to “love” as well. “Goodness” as a virtue is not so much a state of personal existence, but rather, like “peace” is more about an outward dimension of how we approach others. In this sense, one cannot be “good”—one cannot practice agathos—as an individual.

So how do we preach on being good?

KINDNESS Sermons

2005-10-03T09:11:00.000-05:00

If you would be so kind as to kindly place your KINDNESS sermons in the comments section of this post...

What is Kindness?

2005-09-27T13:59:00.000-05:00

Chris Stewart got me thinking about the definition of kindness. It seems to me that we often accept simple politeness for kindness. In our culture we describe a kind person as someone nice. Being kind is about being nice to someone else. The definition of kindness that draws us back to the nature of God says there is more to kindness than being nice.

Taking off on our agricultural metaphor, kindness has to be some sort of ground cover vine or grass. It is a the raw material that makes up the social fiber. Kindness is at the root of hospitality. I think most of us understand how the concept of hospitality has become warped in our culture. (Jeff, you did a recent series on hospitality - any way we can see it?). In ancient times hospitality was more than just being nice. It was required by the gods. Those who didn't show proper hospitalty were as bad as horse theives. To deny hospitality was to violate the basic covenants of human co-existence. When you think about it, especially in the ancient context, it makes sense.

What is the alternative to kindness? Kenneson says it is self-sufficiency. Take self-sufficiency to its extreme and you have a sort of Mad Max Thunderdome world. I saw glimpses of this world on the streets of London. Beggars stole from beggars. It is self-sufficiency to the extreme. Thunderdome is fiction, but the Superdome isn't. One of our newest members was in the Superdome during Katrina. I asked him if it was mob rule and he corrected me. A life-long resident of New Orleans, he told me that gangs are absent in New Orleans, it is instead a city of "every man for himself." Kindness was absent.

New Orleans, kindness and pop culture are coalescing in my stream of consciousness here and I cannot avoid thinking of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire. So often her famous line ("I have always depended on the kindness of strangers") is ripped from its context and used to compliment nice people. Blanche is adrift in the world looking for another to show her genuine kindness. But like so many she enters into relationships that are more contractual than covenantal. She gives herself to strange men so that she can get what she needs to survive - thus she depends on the kindness of strangers. (The story takes place in New Orleans by the way).

Thinking of all this I am intrigued about the possibility of "chesed"-level kindness coming to fruition among us.

Cultivating Kindness

2005-09-26T20:09:00.000-05:00

What shall we say about kindness? I thought Chris Stewart's comments in another post needed to be posted here on the main page for us to consider as we ramp up to preach on kindness. Chris writes...

What text are you guys planning to use for "kindness"? I'm chewing on Eph. 4:31-5:2.

It struck me that of the 10 occurences of kindness (chrestotes) in the NT, all ten were in Paul and 7 referred to God's kindness (justification, mercy) in the face of well deserved judgement. If we try to be "imitators of God" (Eph. 5:1) we will be kind and forgiving (4:32). Lots to unpack in this text.

As Chris writes, "Lots to unpack." Indeed. Something someone said to me this past Sunday really struck me. He said that he imagined these sermons on the fruit of the Spirit would be a great deal about us. Instead, he hears me talking more about who God is, which in many ways informs who we are. I suppose--again, as Chris writes--if we are to speak of kindness in our sermons and classes, we need to begin with God.

Any other texts come to mind as conversation partners and/or corollaries?

PATIENCE Sermons

2005-09-26T12:05:00.000-05:00

For those who preached on patience recently, or will preach on it soon, please post your sermons in the comments section here.

Somewhere Between Peace and Patience

2005-09-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

I’m going to describe someone, and you know him, or her. The person may be you, someone you know, a family member, a friend… but you know him. He is the man who spends more time watching the news than paying attention to his own life, more time reading the newspaper than reading His Bible, more time consumed with other people’s lives on TV than devoted to other people’s lives who need to hear the Gospel that he has let become a routine story. He claims to know why everything happens, all because of the sinfulness of people these days. And he knows nothing of peace.

On one level, it is easy for us to live at peace with one another in the midst of chronic disaster, knowing that we will be here for one another.

Where it has been impossible to live at peace this past month has been in our own hearts. We go to war with our worst enemy of all: Our own minds. Because of the chaos of the world these days, we war within ourselves trying to come up with answers, trying to define tragedy, attempting to explain the unexplainable heading that titles the same chapter written daily on the parchment of world history. The title is always the same: “Why Things Happen.”

Peace in that respect does not come easy, which may be why God warns us not to undertake such a foolish enterprise.

The minute you tried to explain why the Twin Towers were destroyed in 2001, you were playing a fool’s game.

The second you claimed to understand why the Tsunami hit Indonesia late last year, you were playing a fool’s game.

The minute you decided why Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, you were far from righteousness.

If you dare to yet define the meaning behind Hurricane Rita, you violate the very heart of God Himself.

To define the meaning behind tragedy is a natural impulse to calm the war within ourselves, the struggle we hold within us to be at peace with our own fears. It is perfectly natural to wonder why things happen. It is actually very biblical to ask God why things happen. But the sin comes when you claim to know the mind of God, to know why things happen, when you decide to abandon the holiness of mystery in exchange for the arrogant, self-righteous, sinful nature of leaning on your own understanding.

To say that New Orleans was destroyed because of its sin is a claim to know the motives of the Lord, and that in itself is a sin. Not to mention, such thinking is foreign to the response we must offer as Christians to those displaced by such natural disasters. Not to mention the many faithful who lived in New Orleans. Not to mention, why didn’t the hurricane go ahead and destroy Tyler as well? Is New Orleans more sinful than we are?

When Job claimed to know the motives of the Lord, God responded to Job out of the storm. And by the time God finished addressing Job, Job knew that he had sinned by claiming to understand the ways of God. As Romans 11 asks, "Who can know the mind of God?"

If you have ever been in the midst of tragedy, you know that there is nothing more offensive than when someone tries to tell you why such things happen.

It is only the God who always keeps His promises who gives us this Word through His servant in Psalm 37:7—“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”

These need to be the words of our sermons and conversations: Comfort. Comfort, O my people. God is a God who is ever present.

Psalm 103:8—“The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

God is with us.

Psalm 119:49-50—“Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.”

To those of you who have ever been displaced, by a storm, by fire, by tragedy, by death of someone you love, God is with us. God is a God of comfort who cares for us in all of our troubles. As you strive again this week to cultivate both peace and to begin thinking about cultivating patience, hear these words that must define our lives this week, words far greater than useless answers to why things happen. Instead, we live by these words from

2 Corinthians 1:3-4—“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

God does not want a chaotic creation. There is nothing about these tragedies that pleases God. God longs for His creation to know Him. God’s ultimate desire is to bring peace to the entire creation, which is why peace and salvation go hand-in-hand.

Good Things Come in Threes

2005-09-25T16:32:00.000-05:00

I keep wondering if there is anything to the order or to the number of virtues listed as the "fruit of the Spirit"? Some commentators think there are three groups of three: The first three deal with virtues and attitudes, the second group of three deal with the ways we express our attitudes to others, the final three are more inward. I'm not so sure it is all that neat and clean. Still, I have noticed that preaching through these one-by-one has allowed for some possibility for progression. For instance, is it possible that peace leads into patience? Could it be that you cannot practice "kindness" without learning how to live at peace with others (and yourself), as well as "patience" as an act of kindness? Do these virtues overlap in significant ways?

Be Patient with my Rant (Post)

2005-09-23T08:08:00.000-05:00

Patience - This is the one that gets me. We live in a world of haste and impatience. The way we have ordered the Christian life and the life of the church is impatient. I recall Robert Weber saying something profound at a worship conference: "We don't linger over the Lord's Supper."

Perhaps it was Weber or perhaps it was someone else (John Mark Hicks?) who mentioned that he had spoken to a church leader who bragged that they found a way to complete the service of the Lord's supper in 10 minutes. The response to this was, "But why would you?"

Worship is impatient. It must be knocked off in an hour. Our LIFE Groups will be impatient - they cannot linger over the word but must complete the lesson in the alotted time. We are Fed- Exxed out of our Air Mail chutes. When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. Now! Now! Now! Now! What is the call word of the age? "Git-r-done"

How many of us have gone to another place where the pace of life is slower. Some adjust quickly to it (I do). Others may find it frustrating. I recall being on the Island of Arran just off the coast of Scotland years ago. There's one bus that runs around the perimeter of the island. And it is never on time. Hurry and busy are not welcome on Arran.

Of course, I wonder if the Margarita-ville attitude to life is really patience or is it just laziness? Maybe patience is the ability to resist the anxious viruses of our age. The ability to linger at the Lord's Table while the culture screams at us to "get back to work" or to "get worried about the next great threat" is more than passivity it seems. It is an active and bold decision worthy of any of the Biblical greats. It is the bold character of Christus Victor who takes up his cross when all the rest of the world is screaming their collective heads off - some want to fight, some want to crucify, some want to gamble, and some want to go back to the business or pleasure that was interrupted by the problem of the Nazarene rabbi. But Christ is ready to linger at the table of the Lord.

Peace and Patience

2005-09-22T10:22:00.000-05:00

As I have prepared for the patience sermon, it has become fairly apparent that peace and patience go together more than I once thought. In some ways, encouraging people to cultivate patience will be an extension of cultivating peace. Something to think about.

A Little Patience

2005-09-20T09:01:00.000-05:00

Oh Lord... Grant me the patience to preach on patience. I think we should begin our sermons with the following line if my assumptions about the human condition are halfway on track: "I'm either the most qualified or the least qualified person to preach on patience, depending upon your point of view."

Patience. Where should we go with this one?

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that "love is patient." What does that mean?

If we take a "patience as salvation" approach, what about Romans 8:22-25 and the hope by which we wait patiently for God's groaning creation to reach completion?

What about patience as a characteristic of God that sets an example for our lives in Psalm 103:8--"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

What other passages?

And then to the big question: How do we set this up to help our people cultivate patience?

PEACE Sermons

2005-09-18T15:06:00.000-05:00

To everyone who preached their PEACE sermons or will preach the sermon in the next couple of weeks, please post them here.

PEACE Sermon - Michael Harbour

2005-09-16T11:51:00.000-05:00

Here is a sample PEACE sermon by Michael Harbour. Critiques? Observations?

-------------------------------

Cultivating Peace – A Sewing ProjectSunday, September 25, 2005 Southeast

Integrity.
Integrated.
It means to have all the parts working together as they should work.
It means to be whole.

To lose your integrity.
Disintegrated.
It is to come undone. (Makes me think of the Guess Who – It’s too late, she’s gone too far, she’s lost the sun. She’s come undone.)

And I think we know some about coming undone.
We have relationships that come undone.
What happens to you when you lose your job? Or when the financial crisis wave sweeps over you? What happens when you get a diagnoses that changes the direction of your life, or somehow has the capacity the change your identity?
Disintegration. We are so tempted to come undone. Do we have a choice?

The work of God is the harmony of creation.
Everything working together, as it is designed.
It seems to me that if God is interested in having things knit together in a harmonious way, then we do in fact have a choice.

We are thinking today about peace.
What does peace mean?
We often think in terms of the absence of conflict. If you are not fighting, you have peace. The Bible, however, has a more positive idea of peace. The word that would characterize biblical peace would be wholeness. Probably, this is also what it means to be saved (being made whole, or even being healed).

The Hebrews called it shalom. Shalom (or eirene in the New Testament - Irene) is well-being, wholeness and harmony that pours out from you and is the character of your relationships. It is the ability to be non-anxious. It is a relationship intensive idea. This is not just being non-anxious in you. It is to be okay with God and with people because you are integrated- together.

Peace is not a state of mind (or only a state of mind), but is intended to be a way of life.
How common is peace, in your experience? How might we come to have peace?

James 3:16-18 (NRSV) 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Envy and selfish ambition are integrity issues. They speak that inner voice language, that whispers in your ear that says, “What I have and who I am, is not enough.”

And I think this comes out of the story that we tell ourselves about the nature of life.
We think that the story is about establishing ourselves.
What is the life-story about? Is it about getting fed?
I am going to perform at work so that I can get fed.
I am not going to rock the boat, because if I do, I won’t get fed.
Or: I am going to rock the boat, because if I don’t, I won’t get fed.

Sometimes I think that the story that we live by is one of power and privilege.
When we are not worried about survival, we are spending our time and energy doing what we want.

We rub up against other folks who have other interests, other ideas, other opinions.
We put those interests, ideas and opinions out there as a contest.
This is the culture war.
It is hard to be integrated with folks who have strongly held, dogmatic opinions. I grew up a Democrat. My grandfather was so adamant that he once said that he would not vote for Jesus, if he was registered as a Republican. When I was a restaurant manager, I was a Republican. Now I describe myself as something different.

Labels are hard…but I think I could see myself as a Christian Anarchist. Anarchy sounds horrible. It means that no one is above. When modified by Christ, however, I think we could find a very peaceable place. We have a king, but it is not Caesar, not earthly. Our allegiance is not, finally, to the flag. Not to one nation, under God. Our allegiance is to God.
God still has the rule in place….that knowledge of good and evil.
God is still the One who knows and determines what is right and wrong.

We are one in Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek (cultural divide), male or female (gender divide), slave or free (class divide). The rich are not above the poor. Skin color, or language has no clout, or credit, or demerit. Weak and strong, we spoke of when thinking about love. The strong yield. We are one. At least that is what we say. That is the ideal. We fall short.

Paul says to the Christians in Rome…and to you and me…

Romans 14:15-19 (NRSV) 15 If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. 16 So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. 19 Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Peace.

How can you cultivate peace among you? We will have to plow up some fallow ground, some untilled soil.
We cultivate through…

1. An Enriched Understanding Of Our Baptism. In baptism, we are all called to die.

Baptism is not just for individuals. We are being incorporated into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Gal 2:20). We are dying to self-interest and proclaiming Jesus as Lord.
Parts of the body are not more important than the body. Parts exist to facilitate the well-being of the whole. “You are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19). A finger has no utility without a body! A finger does not have unmitigated access to the head.
As a central and abiding practice of the church, baptism is a public and political act that announces to the world our change of allegiance and proclaims to our fellow members our interdependence as members of the one body of Christ.
If you have not been baptized….you need to be…to live a different kind of story for your life….the Jesus story.

2. Build One Another Up – our freedom is not our personal private possession.

Why should Christians not have lawsuits among them? (1 Cor 6:7) Self interest is not central to the Jesus story.
Use your words and actions for edification (Eph 4: 29). Our primary mission in life is not to guard our own well-being.

3. Admonish One Another. If community wholeness was a mutually held interest, we could be bold to speak to one another in a way that was challenging without people running away. Jesus did not come to bring cheap peace (lack of conflict), but to bring shalom.

4. Forgiving One Another…we can have no wholeness unless we are willing to be received back into community…and to receive others back into the fabric of our lives. We fall short. Until we learn to have our hearts and arms open, knowing that it can be painful to do so, we will not know peace.

Integrity.
Being knit together into an amazing fabric, our lives being whole, and your communities being whole.
That is what we are seeking.

Shepherd’s BLESSING: 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NRSV) 16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with all of you.

Possible Directions for the PEACE Sermon

2005-09-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

What about the sermon text as Ephesians 2:1-22?

Could we think about peace as salvation; peace as God’s way of seeking to make us whole in a world characterized by “not peace” or even fragmentation. We are not Buddhists. We are Christians. But sometimes we act more like Buddhists thinking that peace is a state of mind or a state of being which characterizes the self. In other words, we have been led to believe in a society that mixes religious thought that peace is all about my own inner tranquility. Problem is, that has nothing to do with the “peace” of Christian Scripture, for peace in the Bible is relational; it is inherently social; Scripture speaks more often about “the way of peace.” What other aspects of peace in Scripture might we need to explore here?

Also, to think of peace as Sabbath and how we cannot find peace that we want because we do not practice Sabbath. Where does Sabbath fit into these conversations?

Like last week when we considered joy, once again that which most often gets in the way of God’s peace is ourselves. We give in to the temptation to lead fragmented lives defined by difference: Public and private, physical and spiritual, church and secular, rich and poor, male and female. We live in a society marked by differences.

Can we learn how to build one another up, not threatened by our differences, who has more money, who acts like they have power, who gives dirty looks across the room? Can we forgive when we have been wronged, and ask for forgiveness when we have wronged others? Can we be mature enough to still be at peace even when we don’t get our way?

Three suggestions on how can we cultivate peace:

1. Reflect on who you are in public and who you are in private. If those do not measure up, you cannot live in peace. Your self-inflicted fragmentation will always stand in the way of God’s shalom.

2. This week, watch the people with whom you associate. Do they divide your loyalties?

3. Make a list of people from whom you have withheld forgiveness.

Peace, perfect peace

2005-09-12T17:21:00.000-05:00

We may have planned the series all wrong. We should have coincided the JOY and PEACE sermons with Christmas time considering everywhere you look at Christmas the two words appear. How do people in your congregations, people in your extended families--and maybe even you--understand "peace"? What is it to talk about "peace"?

To then follow up the answer(s) to that question, how shall we address yet another virtue culture has largely co-opted for its own purposes?

JOY Sermons

2005-09-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

To everyone who preached their JOY sermons or will preach the sermon in the next couple of weeks, please post them here.

Joy and 9-11

2005-09-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

At first glance, it seems inappropriate to bring up Joy on 9/11. After all, this was the day that the tone of chapel at ACU changed significantly from what I heard. The theme of preaching following 9/11 was sobering. There were calls to go to the house of mourning rather than laughing. Also, 9/11 and the following days were days in which David Letterman was very chastened. Dan Rather was the first guest on the show and he cried.

But in truth, the odd coincidence of Joy and 9/11 asks us to reflect on the nature of real joy and where we are now. . .

We have left "the house of mourning," but is our society any more joyous? Were we joyous before? (9/11 was big, but we had all been through Columbine just two years earlier).
I think this reflection causes us to differentiate between joy and entertainment.

When everyone was asking if things would return to "normal" after 9-11, I think they were hoping to return to the pseudo-innocence of frivolity, irony, and entertainment. I think this gives us an opportunity to name true joy. True joy isn't a fragile fruit that withers in the heat of the day or is susceptible to blight. It is a hardier plant that blooms in the most unexpected places.

Final Two Small Group Lessons Posted

2005-09-06T08:44:00.000-05:00

All ten lessons have now been posted on the Quail Springs site. Please reply to this blog posting if you have any trouble accessing the material there.

The lessons may be accessed by clicking on the link provided below at the post "First Two Small Group Guides" or by following these instructions:

Our website is located at www.quailchurch.com
Click on "Ministries"
Choose "Connections Groups"
Click on "Downloads"
Click on "Life on the Vine Discussions"

LOVE Sermons

2005-09-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

To everyone who preached a sermon on LOVE this weekend, and all LOVE sermons to come in later weeks for those who will preach the series later: Will you please post manuscripts or drafts of your sermons in the "comments" section here?

LOVE - A Note on Sermon Form

2005-09-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

As we preach through these sermons--and by the way, those of you who preached on Love today, I hope it went well for you and your listeners--a conversation on form might be helpful.

I know the arguments. I know that some say form is not as important as content. But if what we are trying to do is encourage people to consider aspects of the fruit of the Spirit of God in light of contemporary culture, form might play a key role.

For example, this morning on LOVE: I introduced the sermon with talk about how contemporary understandings of love are warped by our understandings of market-exchange economics. (See previous posts.) I then moved into Galatians 2, and the ways it sets up the first parts of Galatians 5 leading into 5:22-23. After considering Galatians 5 for some time, I offered an illustration of how God's love is different from our "exchanges" vis-a-vis Hosea, surely one of the ultimate examples of absurd love, at least absurd by our measurements. After a closing remark, I offered three suggestions as to how we might cultivate love this week.

I think that last section is crucial for setting up a hearing for these sermons that is more than just setting up a hearing for the sermons. These sermons have to be all-out invitations to spend the week cultivating love and subsequent virtues, not just informative sermons about the topic of love one week and joy the next. These sermons need to send out, not just add to conversation.

First two small group guides

2005-08-31T16:32:00.000-05:00

Great news! The first two group lessons are posted on the website of the Quail Springs church in OKC. Thanks to Trey Finley and Quail for loaning us the space!

Here’s the URL. It’s messy, but it does the job.

http://www.quailchurch.com/cgi-bin/DownloadList.cgi?section=connection&cat=Life%20on%20the%20Vine%20Discussions

One Big Fruit

2005-08-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

Too often we hear the language of the "fruits" of the Spirit (plural) when what Paul writes is "fruit" of the Spirit (karpos-singular). It may be tempting to assume that "love" is to be the main fruit while the other eight listed merely describe the first one. To be sure, Paul gives love preference, as in 1 Corinthians 13. Yet it is more likely in Galatians 5 that Paul sees all nine as one in the sense that you do not get to choose which of the nine you like best: "Oh I sure like gentleness and joy, but that whole self-control business is for the birds." Not quite. Rather, it may be helpful as we preach and teach from Galatians 5 to note how all nine are to be cultivated in our daily lives, not just the ones we prefer.

A couple of notes from Richard Longenecker's commentary in the Word series:

Longenecker quotes C.K. Barrett: "If Paul had headed his second list (5:22, 23) 'works of the Spirit' it would not only have led to a clash with 'works of the law,' it would have been positively misleading."

One other note: "Though indeed the virtues listed are given as gifts by God through the Spirit, one must not 'unpack' the metaphor of 'fruit' in such a manner as to stress only the given quality of the virtues listed, implying an ethical passivity on the Christian's part. For as the exhortations throughout this entire section suggest, combined with the givenness of these virtues by God is the believer's active involvement in expressing them in his or her own lifestyle--or as Paul puts it pointedly a couple verses later: 'Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit' (v25)."

Introductory Sermon

2005-08-29T03:43:00.000-05:00

For those of you yesterday who preached an introductory sermon on the fruit of the Spirit, please place excerpts from your sermon here in the comments section...

Love Actually...

2005-08-24T09:14:00.000-05:00

As we spend time these next couple of weeks thinking about both LOVE and JOY, these sermons will set the tone for the way people will receive the material, not as sermons about virtues, but new ways of life in the midst of culture.

As we prepare to finish our LOVE conversation and move onto JOY, it strikes me in keeping with Kenneson's analysis that I have too often equated God's love with the quid pro quo capitalism of my own society. In other words, it is too tempting for me to think that love is the same as "equal work, equal pay." How much of our understanding(s) of God's love is conditioned by a theology that sees God as the great favor-granter? How do we speak of love vis-a-vis Hosea to people accustomed to an evangelical climate that sees God as having it all worked out ahead of time?

What about other texts for the sermons on "Love"? Do we need to touch on 1 Corinthians 13 and the way Paul defines/describes "Love" using two other fruits of the Spirit: Patience and kindness? Is the goal of the sermon to define "love" or something else? In other words, do these sermons need to be the last word, or simply a word?

Fruits in Other Places

2005-08-17T04:40:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the title of today's post. It sounds like a bad country and western song. I intended it to sound more like an astute observation about the other places the fruits of the Spirit surface in the New Testament other than Galatians 5:22-23. The obvious ones are Colossians 3:12-15 where they are more narratively situated than listed, and 1 Corinthians 13 where "love" is defined using two others: patience and kindness.

I would be curious to hear your impressions on these overlaps, as well as other places the fruits surface, whether separately or together....

A LOVE question and a brief reintroduction...

2005-08-12T17:15:00.000-05:00

To those new to the blog, we are well underway on our work on the first sermon in the series on "LOVE." To reintroduce the project, basically this collaborative work grew out of a series that began at ACU Summit earlier this year, and the website, www.saltandlightresources.com. The idea is to work together on sermons on the Fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5, using Philip Kenneson's book, Life on the Vine, as a conversation starter. We have talked quite a bit this week about the biblical text, but not much on the cultural analysis Kenneson offers in his chapter on "Love in the Midst of Market-Style Exchanges." How do you plan on addressing these ideas in the LOVE sermon?

Introducing the Series

2005-08-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

Chris Stewart said...
How are you guys going to introduce this series? Do you plan to do it with the "love" sermon on the 4th? Or will you intro it the week before?

Jeff's Reply . . .
My original plan was to have the September 4 sermon on “LOVE” be the intro sermon, but if you want to use August 28 to do an introduction, that would be fine too. My rationale for beginning on September 4 is to introduce each fruit/virtue week-by-week as stand-alone sermons within a bigger matrix of cultural analysis and biblical spirituality. (Those are pretty loaded terms, are they not?)

So far the texts for the LOVE sermon that have surfaced are Hosea 3:1-2, Luke 6:32-36, and the times “love” is used in Galatians. These texts on the table, I will probably use the Hosea text as primary as a way to show God’s love in perfect ways, and then introduce Hosea into the bigger Galatians conversation as a way to go back to Chris Stewart’s concern about introducing the bigger picture of the series.

There are also a number of people in the congregation where I preach who are reading Kenneson’s, LIFE ON THE VINE, not to mention a couple of Wednesday night classes who will be in conversation with the material each week. I also know there are a number of churches preparing to use LIFE ON THE VINE in Sunday evening small groups. This curriculum is being completed as we speak. If you would like a copy of it, leave a comment here with your other comments, or email me directly.

Discussion: Love

2005-08-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

As we prepare to preach on “Love in the Midst of Market-Style Exchanges” how can we make this sermon more than an encouragement toward being a more loving person? What areas of our culture do you think need serious critique, and on the flipside, what areas of our culture fight the powers that be? Let’s begin the discussion here, and then move later toward sermon form, style, and further content.

Salt and Light Article

2005-07-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

Be sure and read the interview with Philip Kenneson at Salt and Light Resources.

Read the interview A View From the Vine

Welcome to the Project

2005-06-28T17:29:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Here is the first official kickoff email of our LIFE ON THE VINE project for www.saltandlightresources.com.

This has been an exciting project already, and I hope you have found Philip Kenneson’s book to be engaging. I have talked with Dr. Kenneson on a few occasions, and have an interview with him that should be published at www.saltandlightresources.com very soon. If any of you know of other preachers who would like to participate in preaching through the Fruits of the Spirit in September and October, please ask them to email me this week.

For the preachers, over the next week—between now and Thursday, July 7—do some brainstorming work on your opening sermon about the fruit of LOVE. Michael Harbour has been kind enough to share his “Cliff’s Notes” on the introduction and chapter 1—which I have attached; let me know if you cannot get it through Word—as conversation partners with your reading. As you read through chapter 1 and Michael’s notes, formulate possible texts from which to preach—other than Galatians 5, of course—and respond back to this list with a “Reply to All” so that we can see your work. We might also formulate focus and function statements for the sermon as we pick the text and direction. In other words: “What is the text saying?” and “What is the text doing?”

Also, to John Grant: I think I have everyone on this list who is a part of the curriculum project, but look over the email list. Jennifer Christian and Judy Anders will use the curriculum to teach a Ladies Bible Class here at Glenwood, so I included them on this list as well.

By way of reminder, here is the preaching schedule for September and October:

9/4 Love
9/11 Joy
9/18 Peace
9/25 Patience
10/2 Kindness
10/9 Goodness
10/16 Faithfulness
10/23 Gentleness
10/30 Self-Control

Thank you so much to each of you for your participation and interest in this project.

Jeff Christian