Unity 08

NPH is no politico. Granted, we'd sooner watch an episode of the West Wing than eat, and, granted, we signed a petition on Friday night to put a Green Party candidate on the Missouri ballot, and, finally, granted, our car dashboard is peppered with "I Voted" stickers: NPH is no politico.

So NPH would like our readers to know about Unity 08, an online drive to nominate a third party candidate for President in 2008 using an entirely online convention.

We signed the "Declaration of Independence from Politics without Purpose." You should too.

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Zinedine I'm-freaking-crazy-Zidane

The World Cup is over, and NPH is sad. We're sad for the losers, France. We're sad for the French star, Zidane, who lost his head in the overtime period and headbutted an Italian player and thus got sent off. He missed the penalty shootout, and he wasn't even a part of the medal ceremony. And that's how his great career ends.

 We're sad for the wife, who is nearly in tears over the French defeat.

But mostly we're just sad that it's over. I don't care how American you are, how much baseball or football or Nascar you watch, the World Cup is the greatest sporting event in the world. Now that it's over, I sort of feel like a 10 year old when the amusement park closes.

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The Royals Are Suite

NPH is lucky to have cool friends. Because having cool friends means that sometimes you get to do things with your cool friends' cool friends. Case in point: last night NPH and the wife got invited to attend a Royals game and sit in the Fred Patek suite. Our cool friends (pictured right) have cool friends who work within the Royals organization and who hooked about 10 people up with seats in the suite.

I've been to a lot of Royals game in my time, and this experience was one the coolest. The suite is right next to the press box, so you essentially have a press box view of the game. Not to mention the ginormous bowls of peanuts and popcorn, the free hot dogs and soda and beer--it was awesome. Thanks cool friends, and thanks cool friends of our cool friends. It it's ok, NPH would like to call you guys our cool friends too.

Click here to see compelling video (registration required) from the game. The cool part's at the end.

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David Buttrick and Situational Preaching

Tomorrow NPH will preach about "Freedom." In what could be called a hasty move, we advised the church worship team to designate a certain number of themed worsip services that would be aimed at guests, guests we would intentionally invite over a number of weeks. Last December was our first, a "Lessons and Carols" service during the second week of Advent. Tomorrow is our second. We've called it "Freedom Sunday," and have invited scores of guests to come.

So here's NPH's quandry: to preach to a congregation made up of well-known congregants and totally unknown guests . Give me one or the other. I can preach to people who I don't assume to believe what I'm saying, or I can preach to people who I do assume believe what I'm saying; preaching to both at the same time is tricky.

So I have resorted to that master homiletician, David Buttrick, whose Homiletic I think is an invaluable tool for preachers. The book has two whole chapters on "Preaching and Praxis," that is, preaching from situations and not from texts. What Buttrick lays out is a process for describing a situation as it is today (say the problem of media violence), then re-reading that situation and challenging it through a Christian consciousness. It involves bringing the gospel to bear on the situation and then recommending a new understanding of it as well as a new way of living in light of the new situation. Clear enough, right?

Well, the challenge NPH has is describing "Freedom" as a situation. My intent is to describe the situation of "freedom in 21st century America" by pointing out all of the things we are free to do, the way that freedom is so deeply ingrained in our self-understanding. Then I want to challenge that description of freedom with a little Bob Dylan "Everybody's gotta bow down sometime" kind of thinking. In other words, we're not as free as we think we are, because we all serve something, whether we acknowledge it or not (if I hadn't used it last week, I would drop the G.K. Chesterton quote about the world being made up of two kinds of people: "those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.") The we'll bring the gospel to bear on the situation of freedom in 21st century America. Using The Theological Dictionary of The New Testament, we're going to come with a little bit of Pauline true-freedom-is-freedom-from-yourself. That's right, we're going to drop the New Testament claim that no individual is free apart from the knowledge of Jesus, because only through Jesus do we see what truly human freedom and truly divine freedom really is--a giving of one's self for another. The gospel claims that real freedom is had by laying down your own claim to yourself and accepting God's claim on you in Jesus.

It works well enough as a paragraph; now if I can flesh it out into a real sermon, that'll be great. Wish me luck!

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out of the box

NPH really likes Douglas Rushkoff. We're read "Coersion," and his new book, "Get Back in The Box," and we've viewed and re-viewed his Frontline documentaries "The Merchants of Cool" and "The Persuaders." NPH posted a comment on his blog and got a response; we even got an email from him.
So NPH is happy to share this brief excerpt from a Rushkoff lecture. Enjoy.

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Lunch

The lunch with the colleague was splendid. As I had already discovered, the colleague is a delightful person with a heart for ministry. That he occupies a place further to the right than myself when it comes to issues of church controversy doesn't alter the fact that he cares deeply for people and earnestly wants to do the right thing.

We talked for nearly three hours. He ended up by saying that he could see why a colleague like myself would have been offended by the ad, and that such a concern never entered into the decision to sign it. For my part, I ended up being able to say that I could see, and would defend, my colleague's right to sign it.

The whole thing was a test of the oft repeated maxim that "people of good faith my disagree on non-essential issues."

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For Chris

I'm Sorry. I'm so freaking sorry.

NPH is a bad blogger, one who writes in spurts about specific subjects in which I take an immediate interest. Blogging is, for me, a diversion. It's a way to write and think about things that are not immediately related to the day-to-day work of being a pastor of a small church in the Heartland. So, as my drive for my church-work goes, inversely goes my drive to blog, and vice versa. This has been a busy church week.

But here's something to chew on: NPH is having lunch in about 20 minutes with one of the colleagues behind the paid advertisement that so upset me a couple of weeks ago. In the immediate aftermath of the ad, I ripped off a hasty email to said colleague expressing my disappointment and desire for an explanation. Today's the day I get it. I have to admit, I feel a bit the fool for my poorly-written complaint to my colleague, and I'm hoping they don't hold me to account for it.

Sometimes I'm a drama queen. But, then, I was pretty perturbed, and for good reason.

Now Chris, GET BACK TO WORK!

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