Help Write a Sermon on Baptism

In a couple of weeks we'll be baptizing a dozen or more belivers at Fall Creek, and I'm working on a sermon based Eph. 4:1–16. I'll be keying on verses 4-5:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

The Big Idea: Christians are members of a community and cannot remain healthy outside it.

Many Christians think of participation in a local church as optional and their commitment to fellow believers is low. But without the benefit of strong relationships in a community of faith--that is, the church--Christians really cannot grow (in spite of what Barna may say ;-) We are made for each other. Every Christian has a role to play in the life of the community, so church isn't primarily about what we gain but about what we contribute to others.

This is a totally foreign concept to most Christians, since the way we generally approach church is based on our own preferences--whether we like the music, preaching, kids' programs, etc.

So . . . . give me a hand on this one.

Does this concept make sense? Is it biblical?

Which ideas here need to be emphasized?

What creative ideas would help communicate this concept? (e.g.., images, graphics, music)

In particular, how would this apply to the life of a 15-year-old kid? A 40-year-old parent?

What would motivate anybody (you?) to get more deeply involved in the community of faith?

What do you think?

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Knowing God

Most of the people I know are on a diet, which shouldn't be surprising. I've read that some 61 percent of adults are on a diet at any given time, with nearly 1 in 5 dieting constantly. We spend some $35 billion a year on diet products, and I recently saw that three of the top 20 books on Amazon.com were diet books.

Oddly, we don't lose weight. About 98 percent of us gain back all we lose from dieting. Some 90 percent gain back more! It could be that we know what to do (eat less), but just don't do it. Clearly, if weight loss could be found in a book, we'd all be thin.

I notice a similar phenomenon in spiritual life, in which we seek the answer to our problems in best-selling books. In particular, we seem obsessed with books about finding God's blessing and our purpose. If the numbers are right, we've consumed over 40 million copies of such books in the last decade.

So why do so many of us continue feel unsure that our lives are not exactly on track or that we've discovered our purpose? As with dieting, it could be that what we need isn't found in a book. Not the books we're reading, anyway. What we need is to know God.

Ahh, but how to do that?

A.W. Tozer, a spiritual giant of the last century who wrote such classic books as The Pursuit of God, said this about knowing God: "The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian."

In other words, if you would know God, know his Word. God wrote a book, so read it.

Oddly, the best-selling book of all time, the Bible, may be the least read. I've seen stats saying that 93 percent of households contain a Bible, and the average number of Bibles per home is three. Everybody who wants a Bible has one. Yet we spend a good deal of our time doing other things in an effort to know God, besides reading Scripture.

As both an author and publisher of Christian literature, I've got no beef with reading things other than the Bible. Your reading habits pay a lot of the bills around here. Yet we have neglected what Abraham Lincoln called "the best book God has given" to us.

Scripture--along with prayer and corporate worship--forms one leg of the iron triangle of spiritual formation. You cannot know God without knowing his Word.

When was the last time you read it?

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Book Review: Through the Storm

Through the Storm by Lynne Spears with Lorilee Craker
Thomas Nelson
$24.99, Hardcover, 212 pp.

Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have written a book review that reached the dubious conclusion, “People who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing they like.”

He might have been describing celebrity memoirs of the current era, particularly this as-told-to rehearsal of the rise and fall of Britney Spears by her mother, Lynne.

Beginning with her own upbringing in the rural south, Lynne Spears describes her family’s life and the ascent to celebrity of her daughters, primarily Britney. The theme of the book is that the elder Spears was too trusting of people and unprepared for the deluge of attention by the public and manipulation by industry insiders that accompanied her daughter’s rise to stardom.

That theme wears thin as Lynne Spears seems to assign responsibility for all events in her life to someone other than herself. The phrase “against my better judgment” becomes a mantra that she invokes when describing nearly every choice she made, from decisions concerning her marriage to her alcoholic husband to the choices that advanced Britney’s career.

The book climaxes with Britney’s temporary committal to the UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluation, an event which Lynne describes as the catalyst for freeing her daughter from her most manipulative handler and regaining control over her life.

Despite her too-much-protestation of naïveté concerning the ways of the world, Lynne Spears comes across as a sincere woman who values family and wants the best for her children. The book is a poignant reminder of the fact that tabloid celebrities are not the cardboard cutouts presented to us but are real people with families, hopes, and dreams—just like the rest of us.

If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this one.

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Get BibleBuzz on Twitter

Lots of my friends are using Twitter, so I created BibleBuzz, a micro-version of my daily Bible Blog for that forum.

If you are using Twitter, or if you would like a daily nudge to read your Bible, delivered via text message, check it out here.

(My personal Twitter updates are here.)

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Advice on Writing a Memoir

“Will you publish my memoir?”

As editorial director for a Christian publishing house, I get asked that question quite often. Generally, the questioner has had a life-changing experience and is eager to share it with others. This profoundly affected me, they figure, so it will interest everybody. Often, they've written a personal journal that they hope to rework as a book.

My standard reply is that memoirs are a hard sell with the reading public. That statement is met with universal skepticism. “Ever heard of Eat, Pray, Love?” they ask me. Or, “Seems like it worked pretty well for Tim Russert.”

It’s true that some memoirs can be highly successful. In fact, my wife, Heather Gemmen Wilson, is primarily known for her best-selling memoir, Startling Beauty.

But unless the writer is extremely well known or the experience is truly unique, most readers will not be interested in a book about someone else's personal experience. Here are five questions to ask yourself before getting to work on writing your memoir.

1. How many people know you?

Billy Graham, Barak Obama, and Bill Clinton have all had successful memoirs, partly because they were well known to begin with. Sadly, if people don't know you, they probably won't be interested in your story. Name recognition is a tremendous advantage.

So if you’re not a celebrity or don’t have a significant speaking platform, can you still sell your story? Sure, as long as you’ve got a compelling experience.

2. Is your experience unique?

Remember that Tragic and unique are not the same thing. A great many people have been divorced, lost a mom to cancer, or survived child sexual abuse. Those experiences alone are not sufficient to make a memoir successful.

What’s unique? Losing your husband on 9/11 after he galvanizes the nation to resist terrorism with the words, “Let’s roll!” (Lisa Beamer, Let’s Roll). Or being tortured by your parents, kept as an animal and finally treated as a slave but surviving to discover what real love is (Dave Pelzer, A Child Called It).

What if your story is not spectacular, can it still make a good memoir? You bet. But if it is not unique, it must at least be a compelling story.

3. Does this make a compelling story?

Many of the memoirs pitched to me are really a collection of interesting experiences. Many people, especially if they've been through a war, a family breakup, or a serious illness, have had experiences that are genuinely terrifying, tragic, and even humorous. Usually, that's the extent of it. Their story isn’t really a story; it’s a series of random events.

To make a compelling memoir, the book must be have all the elements of a good drama—a hero (you, probably), a central conflict, a cast of characters, and a climactic resolution. A good memoir reads like a novel. BTW, that's exactly what got James Frey into trouble with his “memoir” A Million Little Pieces. It actually was a novel.

What is the central conflict of your story? “God helped me cope,” “I eventually got over my trauma,” or “I learned that God is good” probably don’t count as a compelling dramatic conflict.

So if I’ve got a great story of triumph, survival, discovery, or achievement; will that get me published? Maybe. If you can write your story well.

4. How well do you write?

Even if you do have a unique experience, you have to be able to tell the story well. Publishers generally are unwilling to pay for writing that they have to rewrite in order to put into print. If you cannot write extremely well, you’ll probably have to hire someone to write for you—which is completely legitimate. Many memoirs have two names on the cover.

Get feedback on your writing form someone who doesn’t care if they hurt your feelings (i.e., not your spouse, your mom, or anybody at your church).

So, what if my prospects for getting published appear slim, should I write my story anyway? Good question. It depends on your answer to our last query.

5. Why are you doing this?

There are lots of reasons to write besides becoming a best-selling author. In fact, that’s the worst reason to pick up a pen—since it probably won’t happen. Other reasons are:

To support your speaking ministry
To process your thoughts and feelings
To practice writing
To preserve a record of your experience
To share your experience with friends and family

A publisher can tell you whether or not they will publish your book, but nobody can tell you not to write it. That’s a decision for you to make.

So will I publish your memoir? Probably not, because we don't specialize in that type of writing. But lots of people do, so keep trying. And good luck!

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Book Review: The Faith of Barack Obama

By Stephen Mansfield
Hardcover, 164 pp., $19.99
Thomas Nelson

Who is Barack Obama?

Most of us in the Christian faith community (what we, in simpler times, called the church) are more used to asking that question about Jesus Christ.

That the character of a person, especially a presidential candidate, is primarily understood in terms of his or her personal faith is a revealing of these times.

That fact is also what makes Barack Obama, in Stephen Mansfield's view, the Everyman of the new millennium. He is a spiritual pilgrim who talks as openly of his faith as of his political views and, indeed, insists that the two cannot be fully separated.

Mansfield's brief book surveys Obama's early life, his association with Trinity United Church of Christ and it's controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and his current view on the relationship between faith and public life. What emerges is a man of decided religious faith, but one that cannot be neatly defined by labels such as evangelical or mainline. The author pictures Obama as an aggregate of races, classes, and Christian theologies--not unlike the millennial generation from which he has drawn such avid support.

The book helps to understand Obama's faith and, to an almost equal extent, the current landscape of church/state politics. Two especially helpful chapters are one that contextualizes the controversial Jeremiah Wright in the landscape of Black theology and another that places Obama in a quartet of faith portraits alongside John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Mansfield's conclusion is that Obama may be in a unique position to heal the national wounds by bringing faith and politics together in a kinder, gentler way.

The significant weakness of the book is that it relies so heavily on Obama's own book that it at times feels like a book report for The Audacity of Hope.

Overall, an interesting and helpful book.

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Why I'm in Publishing

My son called from Iraq at 5:00 this morning. Uriah is a lance corporal serving with the Marines. He'd gotten ahold of some talk time on a satellite phone, and he called to say hello.

"Where are you?"
"Out in the desert. Sitting in a humvee."
"Oh. What are you doing?"
"Nothing much. We just blew up a bunch of C4 that we captured. That was pretty cool."
"Hmm."
"So what's going on at home."
"The usual. I got a haircut. Probably mow the lawn later."
"Cool. Well, I better get going. There's a bunch of tanks rolling by, and I can't hear too good."
"Ok. I love you."
"Love you too. Bye."

That was it. We used one of the most amazing communications devices ever produced to talk halfway around the world in real time about nothing. Which is exactly what most of us do with most of our words all the time. Think of the typical content of a cell phone call or an IM or a text message.

"Wasup"
"idk"
"brb"
"k"

We have communicators that Captain Kirk never dreamed of, and we use them to transmit nonsense to people who are in the same room. The main reason we use instant messages in my house? To call kids to supper.

Yet there is something comforting and good about hearing my son's voice from a war zone. Even if his only thought is that he's bored. And there's something healthy, even necessary, about getting a text message from my wife that says "ily" while I'm sitting at yet another airport.

Beyond the words themselves, these devices allow us to touch one another over vast distances and great barriers. And if the content of our messages is mostly routine, that could be because most of our thoughts are rather normal. So what? The important thing is that we share them with one another. There is incredible power in saying simple things like "I'm OK," "Talk to you later," "Please come here," and "I love you."

Words inspire us, comfort us, challenge us, and enliven us. Whether written or spoken or drawn in the sand, it is words that connect us with God and connect us with each other. We can't live without them--or at least not very well

When people ask me why I'm in publishing (as they do with surprising frequency, as if this were an odd thing to do with my life), I tell them that words have incredible power--for good or evil--and I want to broadcast as many good words into the world as I can.

Sometimes, those words are delivered by a text message that says "imy bby, c u soon." Sometimes they're in a book that says, "Your life matters to God, please don't waste it." And just occasionally, they're on a satellite phone call that says, "I love you son, and I'm proud of you. Come home soon."

Either way, I know that my words matter--and yours do too.

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