Greatest Sermon Ever

Yesterday I preached on hell. I don't do that too often. In fact, I can't remember when I last preached on it. But I was doing a series on "unseen places", different places mentioned in Scripture that are of the unseen realm, the spiritual realm. (Heaven, hell, hades, third heaven, tartarus, etc.)

Anyway, it was a very average sermon. Very average. I was not happy at all with it. I was distracted and tired. Getting out late for Bible class, I was stopped by about 14 people wanting something from me. Of all things a fireworks company called me at church in the middle of all that asking about our Kiwanis fireworks sale (I am the president of our local club). Another guy wanted to talk to me for about 5 or 10 minutes. (That is all we had between class and the assembly). You know how it goes. 8 different things were going through my mind.

Well, I got up, said my piece, again very average. The only thing I did a little different than I normally do is I offered a real invitation. At the end, I quoted a Dr. Maurice Rawlings, an emergency room doctor in Tennessee who studied patients who had near death experiences and witnessed scenes of torment, anguish and pain in their glance at the afterlife. His quote was this, "Just listening to these patients has changed my life. There is a life after death, and if I don't know where I am going, it is not safe to die." I talked about faith and baptism and making Jesus Lord.

When church was over, several of our members (older) came to me and said that was the greatest sermon I have preached since I have been here. I finally had preached a real "gospel sermon", with baptism and everything! (Of course I have preached on baptism before, mentioned it before, even did a whole series on it before) I was the hero of the day!!! (ugh)

Note to preachers: Next time you find yourself in the middle of preaching a very average sermon, say the word "baptism" somewhere in it and you might get a raise and a Christmas bonus.

Note to everyone: The vast majority of this church does not want "gospel sermons". They want meat. They want to grow, mature and learn. Gospel sermons are for the unsaved, which we don't have too many of in our assemblies. I am proud of my church and their faith.

Doughnuts and Basketball

Is it OK to be eating a doughnut on your way to go play basketball?

Does a diet Coke help when you eat a bacon cheeseburger?

I need to know.

Divorce in the church

Mike Cope was blogging this morning about the high rate of divorce among believers. You can read his post here. Here are some thoughts I responded with.

- Preachers and elders, for the most part, are not equipped with the right tools for marriage crisis counseling. Too many times all elders or preachers know to do is go visit, pray with them, and that's about it. We have not educated ourselves with the right tools to help people survive in marriage. I am guilty of that and am trying to do better.

- Many preachers and elders, mainly elders in my experience, are not committed enough to their flock to go and get their hands dirty and help couples work through their problems. It is hard, frustrating, time-consuming work that many don't care enough to get involved in, for whatever reason, mainly too busy.

- We in the church have modeled a complete disregard for committment in relationships by church-hopping. We don't like something, we leave. Maybe that's why church goers possibly divorce more, they have that scene played over and over again right in their face. The churches I have worked with have been "severely" affected by divorce in their past.

What to do?
1. Better training for leaders, elders included, is a good start.
2. Modeling committment in the leadership. Leaders being committed to God, to each other but mainly to the sheep, showing they are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure spiritual wholeness in the flock.
3. A commitment to the teaching and practice of grace, in its various forms. People are motivated to do better and try harder when they are shown grace, instead of being shown rules and regulations and threats and hell. In my limited experience, the people who have had the most problem with divorce struggle with the concept and acceptance and promoting of grace. Anybody else found that?

Last Pic

Here's my beautiful wife of 21 years. No, we didn't get married when she was 10.

The Giddens Posse

Might as well show you the whole crew, sans wife. From left to right, Tim (16), Erin (5), Abby (10), and Megan (13).

Here is a girl who luvs her dad. Thank you, God.

Qualifications to Preach

I was just reading Wade Hodges' blog about Brian McClaren not having a seminary degree and how it is probably to his benefit, and it got me to thinking about preaching. I am pro-education. Continually studying, growing , learning all help make a better preacher. I just wonder if all the weight we put in a formalized education really is warranted? Usually, no degree means no job, at least in churches of any size. In a resume and interview, questions are pointed towards education, background, etc. It seems, at least in my experience, that very little is said about how in touch the candidate is with the One for whom the person is going to be speaking for the next 5, 10 or 20 years. A guy with a degree in Bacteriology is seen as more qualified than a guy with no degree or even with a preaching school degree. I wish formalized education was about 6th or 7th on the list and a guy's relationship with God and how well God lives, works and speaks through him was at the top. I'll take the Spirit-led guy everytime, I don't care how many letters someone has after their name.

Living Like There's No Tomorrow

Check out the words to Tim McGraw’s Live Like You Were Dying.

He said, I was in my early 40's
With a lot of life before me
When a moment came
That stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days
Lookin' at the x-rays
Talkin' 'bout the options
And talkin' bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
That this might really be the real end
How's it hit you
When you get that kinda news,
Man whatd’ya do?

He said, I went skydivin'
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named FooManChu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said someday
I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin’.

He said I was finally the husband
Most the time I wasn’t
And I became the friend
A friend would like to have
All of a sudden goin’ fishin'
Wasn’t such an imposition
I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the good book
And I took a good hard look at what I’d do
If I could do it all again, and then
I went sky divin'…….

I'm just thinking that if we could all live like eternity was just around the corner, how many of our problems would immediately be solved.