Fall header
December 5, 2007

 

 

 



In this Edition:
Vervent Video
To the Point
Thinking Aloud: Not a Good Sabbath
Cutting Edge Book: Benedict XVI and his church
Resources & Ideas
Calendar of Events
Vervent Video
Seven minutes or less-a great way to meet visitors.

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To the Point:

If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had.
- I.F. Stone

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.
  - Robert W. Sarnoff

God would be well pleased if on Christmas each church would have a Christmas tree on which shall be hung offerings, great and small, for these houses of worship.... The tree may be as tall and its branches as wide as shall best suit the occasion; but let its boughs be laden with the golden and silver fruit of your beneficence, and present this to Him as your Christmas gift. Let your donations be sanctified by prayer.
 - EGW, Adventist Home, 482

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
  - Henri Poincare

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
  - Will Rogers

The first casualty of war is the truth.
 - Aeschylus, Greek writer (525 BC-456 BC)


If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.
 - George C. Marshall

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
 - H. L. Mencken

Got a favorite quote? Send it to BestPractices@ameritech.net
Loren's picture 3Thinking Aloud:
Not an Especially Good Sabbath
by Loren Seibold

This past Saturday was the first rather cold Sabbath morning of the year; folks dribbled in late, as they generally do when it's cold.

During the first song, the praise team's sound system fed back so thunderously that I nearly jumped out of my skin. And it kept happening. We're trying to lead people in a moving worship service, while they're holding their hands over their ears! Some of my church leaders had prepared a delightful video offering appeal for our annual Christmas giving project. I was looking forward to showing it, but the picture froze and the audio was unintelligible. The audio-visual guys messed around awhile, then shouted from the balcony, "I think we got it now." But they hadn't. By the time we figured that out, there was no time for my sermon. We finished communion and sent everyone off to Sabbath School, while I hid out in my office, praying the second service would go better.

It didn't. The AV guys still couldn't make the offering appeal video work, though they'd fiddled around with it all through Sabbath School. More noisy fumbling while we all waited. Finally I told them to give it up. I apologized to the congregation and tried to explain the Christmas project myself. Awkwardly. In fact, every transition between service events was awkward. Even our normally excellent choir was affected. Inside, I felt as tight as a fist. Before I preached, I prayed for peace. It didn't seem to help much. My sermon felt (to me) labored and artificial, and I was sure the congregation was losing interest. In communion, the deacons ran out of bread and wine, and we waited long, uncomfortable minutes while they consulted with one another and ran back and forth for refills. So much for smooth, non-intrusive transitions.

By the time I said the benediction, that recording that sometimes plays in my head was telling me it is about time I quit this job and did something for a living that doesn't require leadership (of which quality I felt I demonstrably lacked) like selling insurance or pasting up wallpaper!

Afterwards, some of my friends assured me that most of what had knotted me up inside wasn't as bothersome to the congregation. The Holy Spirit had been at work, they said, though I hadn't felt it.

An afternoon nap was restorative. But I'm still not sure who to blame for this Sabbath train wreck. Satan? (That strikes me as an excuse; Satan's always against us--nothing new there.) Myself? The cold weather? The AV team? The impersonal laws of physics, as manifested in the AV system? Some of all of these, I suppose. Next week, I hope and pray, will go better.

Have you had Sabbath where things went really wrong? Tell us about it in a sentence or two.

Cutting Edge Book
A Church in Search of Itself: Benedict XVI and the Battle for the Future
by Robert Blair Kaiser

Point: The Roman Catholic church is in crisis, and the election of Benedict XVI is a symptom of it.
Key Concept: The Catholic church is not the monolithic organization its heirarchical structure makes it appear. Deep fault lines are opening, concerning sex, culture, nationalism, clergy, money, and Christian service.
Pros: Kaiser is a clear and direct writer, who can make even rather esoteric concepts accessible to laypeople as well as us Protestants.
Cons: The RC church is such a huge, self-sufficient, self-referential organization, with its own jargon, that
even with good writing you may occasionally have to google a word or concept to understand it.
Why you should read it: The Roman Catholic church is the largest Christian body in the world, and arguably the most influential. There are a host of reasons--prophetic, ecclesiastical, political, theological--that Seventh-day Adventists should understand our historical arch-nemesis. I was fascinated by how many of the problems they face have an analog in our own church experience; despite different theologies, all institutionalized churches have similar challenges, and all church heirarchies similar temptations.
- Review by Loren Seibold
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Resources, Reflections, Ideas, Links
from
Loren Seibold, Best Practices editor

  • We awoke to a snowy white world this morning in Ohio. The changing seasons are such a blessing! If heaven really is a perpetual Florida with jungle animals, as the pictures show it, I'll miss the season's first snow.
  • By popular demand: we now have an archive of previous Best Practices. You'll find the archive homepage here.
  • Some great links for thinking pastors this week:
    • The e-mailers been busy telling us to fear the new movie The Golden Compass. Though not much of contemporary culture deserves our defense, you still might like to hear the whole story, since your church members may well see it anyway. The Atlantic Monthly has articles in its December issue with a balanced assessment. Check here and here. (Though I doubt it will calm those who enjoy feeling outraged.)
    • Which must lead one to ask: Do you ever feel like Christians do absurd, non-Christian things with theology? Dan Day, executive director of Vervent, sent me this great piece, which, though undoubtedly controversial, makes a point I tend to agree with. What do you think?
  • Reggie Phillips writes, "At a local pastor's meeting I was introduced to Pastors Retreat Network. I already signed up and was accepted for a free 5 day retreat. They seem to be familiar with SDA's, and the director in Texas was a vegetarian and so had no problem with our diet." Anyone else have information about this?
  • Tim Garrison writes, "When I was at the National Outreach Convention I learned of the Energizing Smaller Churches Network (ESCN).  They hold local conferences at different locations all over the country. For locations and information check out www.escnetwork.org."
  • NAD Pastoral Evangelism Initiative '09: I've put three PDF documents on line for your reference:
    • First, the official outline from the NAD.
    • Ohio has already begun planning! I've put up the document that our leadership team put together. I like the cooperative and holistic emphasis. See what you think.
    • I've also left the stat sheet on church planting.
  • Last month I mentioned the The Adventist Channel's new relationship with biggytv.com. Here's more about it.
  • A. Allen Martin of the SDA Theological Seminary sends out a quarterly newsletter about young adult ministry called Catalyst. I've put a PDF of it here that you can download. Contact Dr. Martin to get on the list.
  • The 12th Vervent Pastor's DVD is out. You can get it from the ministerial director of your conference. Some of the features: "When a Pastor Messes up", "Thrift Store", "Calvary's Blood Drive," "Extreme Home Repair and "Web Ministry." Resources include worship vignettes, newsletters, worship backgrounds, and Spanish resources. For more information contact Dave Gemmell at the Vervent.
  • Southern Adventist University has created a film called "The Secret of the Cave" with some instructional and evangelistic possibilities. I've posted a PDF of the press release here, so you can read about it.
Share your thoughts with us at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
Events
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NAD Church RESOURCE Center
Best Practices is an e-publication of Vervent
NAD CHURCH RESOURCE CENTER
Editor: Loren Seibold
Senior Pastor, Worthington Ohio Seventh-day Adventist Church