The Hard Work of Appearing Effortless 5.1.2025

I honestly don’t really know where to start this week. I didn’t quite finish my message yesterday and had a coffee meeting this morning. I finished my final edit around noon-thirty and have spent much of this afternoon tool-sharpening and dirt-turning. During that process I did a fairly routine search for “Sermon writing software.” Oh, my goodness! The marketplace has really taken off for software specifically designed to “Ease the burden” or “Save time” so that busy pastors like you and me can do the “important” work of ministry. 

    Excuse me…preaching is the important work of ministry. And I know that you might think that I rant and rave about this all the time. You would be (partly) correct. 

    This is important because there is embedded epistemology and an unspoken ideology that drives much of this work. I think that both the thought process (epistemology) and the thought content (ideology) undermine productive thinking and productive habits. 

    There is one particular phrase that caught my eye this afternoon. I will focus on that phrase this week and over the next several weeks we will examine some of the epistemological and practical consequences of how we choose to work. And I apologize. Epistemology 3 times (now four) in a single article is, I know, pushing the limit. The phrase that caught my eye: “Effortless sermon preparation.” This phrase was prominent in the marketing for one of the emerging generation of AI powered sermon writing tools. There are many. I sort of stopped counting around four. They have the same general structure. This basic editing function became prevalent in Logos and two older pre-AI tools Sermonary, and Sermon Central Sermon Writer. As those two tools added AI, they met with competition from the numerous start-ups offering to help us. My contention is that, if you don’t know how to do something, having a tool do it for you, doesn’t mean that you now know how to do it. It just means that you know how to get what you want or need from someone else’s work. I think you know what the word for that is but let us set that aside for the moment and consider what it really takes to appear effortless in the pulpit. 

    Work. It takes hard work. When a person begins preaching, he or she will spend way too much time in the pulpit thinking. Thinking in the pulpit will always look stilted and clumsy. When we are young, we also take messages into the pulpit with unanswered questions or unresolved issues. Rather than providing a message from God we invite people to help us answer our questions or resolve those issues. There may be a time and a place for that, a seminar or lesson perhaps. At least once a week every Church needs a preacher who can stand up, speak with conviction, and say— “Thus says the Lord.” When we do that—when we proclaim convictions rather than process it can look effortless. 

    Again, work is what makes this happen, not short cuts. If you are too busy to do the hard work, you have a misunderstanding of what the preaching ministry is about. You don’t need a new tool; you need a new outlook. 

    To explain this, I want to use three illustrations from other areas of life that will be helpful in understanding how this new generation of tools will handicap or hinder your growth as a preacher. Despite all the promise of saved time and greater opportunity these tools are tools. Good shovels are still shovels. At some point we must simply make the commitment to being better diggers. Now, I’m a tool guy, don’t get me wrong. I have invested time, talent, and treasure in acquiring and learning how to use the best professional tools for ministry. The best tool in the hand of a fool is a weapon. Let’s keep that in mind, shall we? 

Training Wheels

    Very few people climb on a two-wheeler when they are 5 years old and master the process all at once. Balance, inertia, and effort all contribute to the process of riding a bike. So, when we are young and just starting out, we begin with training wheels so that, if we omit one of the factors that keeps us upright, we won’t topple over. Once we master the whole process the training wheels are superfluous—even an impediment. Dad takes them off the bike, and away we go. 

    This new generation of AI tools has the feel of training wheels, without the implicit bargain that they are temporary. 

Shallow Pool

    I am not a swimmer. I have had lessons, but for reasons my wife and I cannot figure out, I don’t float. I know what swimming is. I know the technique; I know the theory—I just can’t. A couple times a year I hit the pool (Usually at Christian Service Camp). I can flop around enough to not drown myself. 

    One temptation is to get into the shallow end of the pool, walk out till the water is just below my mouth, flail my arms and call it swimming. However, since I’m standing on the bottom, I’m not swimming. It doesn’t matter what I call it. I’m standing upright. And this new generation of tools which does all the heavy lifting of sermon preparation gives the false impression that the user is swimming when what they are really doing is standing on the bottom of the pool. If you took away the tool and expected them to do the same work, they would sink to the bottom. 

Microwave Oven

    My Mother and Father taught and expected their five children to learn how to cook. When I was in Jr. High and High School it was not uncommon for me to be required to cook dinner for the family which I enjoyed far more than doing the dishes. Of course, now, we have Microwave ovens and pre-prepared entrees that can be popped into the machine, heated quickly, and eaten on the run. Using a microwave is convenient. It saves time. It is helpful and at times, essential. But using a Microwave is not and will never be cooking. A person who thinks that they are cooking when they pop a TV dinner in the Microwave is deceiving themselves, and generally, no one else. 

    In the same fashion the new generation of AI tools is not by its nature new content. It is not designed for your people in your town. By its nature it is generic, reheated, rehashed, even regurgitated information. 

    Which brings us to the moral question.  I found this phrase on one site. “…**** is designed differently. Instead of requiring users to purchase individual books, it leverages hundreds of billions of data points curated from reliable, trusted sources.” I own the books in my library, whether found in Logos, Accordance, or Paper books. I don’t “leverage hundreds of billions of data points, I READ THEM. At best Artificial Intelligence does a quick search of masses of data, and at worst it steals the data. If I go to the local Italian restaurant, buy an entree, set it on the counter, and then re-heat when I am ready to eat, I HAVE NOT COOKED anything. And anybody who shares the meal is not fooled. 

    So, what exactly is the take-away here? Appearing effortless takes hard work. There are no short-cuts. You have to do the work. You must buckle down. The term artificial intelligence is a classic overstated misnomer. It is neither artificial nor intelligent. It is a parlor trick done on massive data sets—which are often not even the intellectual property of the entity doing the crawling! The data is real. The computers are real. God knows the electricity is real. It’s not magic, it is merely the next evolutionary step, not in thinking but in information processing. And all that money, all that energy, all that processing power is implemented to mimic the three pounds of God-given installed intelligence on your shoulders. Use your brain, wield the tools, deliver your message.

 

The After Party 4.24.2025

     Easter is a big day. Though Christmas gets the bigger headlines and more decorations virtually every Christian (please, oh please) understands that the consequences of Easter are far greater than Christmas. Incarnation is a central theological truth, necessitated by the scheme of redemption. We need the cradle to get to the cross, but without the cross the cradle becomes an empty symbol. Together they are emblematic of the self-emptying of Christ by which our common salvation is wrought.

    Among those who have big celebrations or big parties there is a thing called “the After-Party.” The after party is a more exclusive, elaborate, and (sometimes) excessive party which comes after the “main” party. In High School we had Prom, which was formal with a big-band, and spectators. The Post-prom featured casual dress and a rock’n’roll band (Ah the 1970’s). The big change from after parties then and now seems to be the exclusive nature of such gatherings. 

    I think we need to make sure that we don’t simply think of regular worship, “normal church” as some kind of an exclusive gathering for those who are on the “invite” list—an after party for the informed. Weekly Church is not more exclusive, elaborate, or excessive than the big holiday celebrations which have become the norm in the American Church. Weekly worship is essential to who we are as Christians and the heart of redeemed life in Christ. 

    Big events like Christmas and Easter should not detract from regular, consistent worship. Rather, these big events should provide restorative energy for our ongoing work of worship and service. In the contemporary Church, faced with many temptations to conceive of our purpose as something other or different than proclaiming the gospel of the living Christ, it is essential that we keep our central purpose in mind. The big days: celebrations like Christmas and Easter are benchmark reminders—not of something essentially different from what we say and do every other Sunday of the year, but emblematic of our central purpose of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

    Rather than a bigger, or more exclusive party what we need in the aftermath of Easter is a bit of a rest that provides refocused energy and purpose for the balance of the year. As a preacher-scholar-pastor you will probably be somewhat winded after Easter. We generally have additional gatherings for worship, parties, and other events. This is also true with Christmas, but there is a signal difference during this time of year. Rather than being followed with the post-Christmas and New Year’s, lull (we actually had to cancel worship for Snow the very first Sunday of the year) of long, uncommitted weeks we jump right back in with Baccalaureate activities this coming weekend. Then on to Mother’s Day, graduations, etc. After Easter the year really rolls forward. Ordinary Time follows Pentecost and Summer flies past before one can even acknowledge it. 

    Weekly worship and study is the thing we do. It’s not an After-Party. It is the point. It is always tempting to elevate the extras to a point of preeminence, and to see them as preferable to the seemingly mundane details of weekly living. Perhaps that is why the broader Christian community is constantly looking for something to excite our attention. We have taken for granted the simple weekly rhythms of Biblical Christianity—Word and Table, story and sacrament.

    These big days should not be self-referential. They should be annual mileposts that remind us of our ongoing work of devotion and discipleship. In 2025 Jesus remained alive on Saturday 19 April. On Easter we celebrated a finished event. That finished event should inform everything about our work of discipleship. We are barely into the second quarter of the year. There is much to do, much to say, much service to render. Easter was an opportunity to refuel and refocus. Now, to the work.

Holy Week 4.17.2025

    If we take Holy Week at all seriously, we will likely find more holiness in all the other weeks. The root idea of holiness is, of course, separateness. God describes himself as holy, and those things He sets apart—the seventh day from the first six—as holy. This process of separation extends to the relationship between God, and every other thing in the universe. Because we humans are made in His image, we are able to recognize this distinction, this set-apart-ness, which allows God to begin the process of His own self-revelation to us. 

    This is possible because the essential unspoken issues for “holiness” are “For whom?” and “To what end?” Holiness is then to be understood first, as a quality, but more importantly, relationally. One of the subplots of the Bible is God’s own undertaking of closing that gap, eroding that separation between Himself and humanity, a gap that became drastic, destabilizing, and destructive in the fall. 

    The historic Church sets aside this week not to minimize the importance of all other weeks, but to enhance their importance. During Holy Week we compress and vividly commemorate those long-ago events to remind us of God’s great reach across the void of sin to reclaim and redeem us. The self-emptying act of Jesus—God’s ultimate act of love was the embodiment of one of His central messages. “The first shall be last, the last shall be first.” He became the least so that we might partake of God’s best. He became common, in order that we might become Holy. He was cast out in order that we might be fully included.  The single word to describe the divine deed of Easter week is “Gospel.” Good news. 

    What some see as a tragedy, believers understand to be victory. The canyon which guaranteed God’s Holy apartness, is bridged by the bleeding flesh of the Son. In His resurrection He conquers the sin which, for most of our lives drives us further apart from Him. He distributes His Holy Spirit to every believer in order that we may increasingly decrease the distance between ourselves and our loving, triune God until that day where we are welcomed into His eternal presence, where there is no more sundering sea.

What More? 4.10.2025

     “He gave His life, What more could He do?”

    So goes the key thought of a chorus familiar to many. Written during the "First Wave" (my phrasing, feel free to use) of contemporary style worship music the chorus Oh, How He Loves You and Me asks a simple question of disciples. What more, really, could Jesus do to save us beyond the events of the passion. It would appear to be a question that needs to be routinely re-asked, lest the rhetorical answer be forgotten. 

    Though it seems to be getting a bit long in the tooth, the chorus does exhibit, if even hesitatingly, the beginning of the ongoing deconstruction (yes, you read that correctly) of Christian theology and practice by believing Christians which began seeping into our minds in the mid-twentieth century. Though many who do not understand, rail incessantly against Structuralism, Literary Theory, Post Modernism in general, and Deconstruction in particular, they have unwittingly participated in the ultimate project of these multidisciplinary approaches to truth. 

    When we strip away all the hoopla, the DEI drivel, the whining and complaining, the fear mongering, duplicity, and theory, “Deconstruction” for us, amounts to nothing more than the latest attempt to shift the object of Christian faith. The Enlightenment began the process that ultimately resulted in sociology, anthropology, and literary theory getting their shot at the Bible. And while all those disciplines are useful in helping believers understand scripture, they can also be combined and leveraged in such a way that they create a shift in community perception. Which these disciplines did and continue to do and even the simple chorus Oh, How He Loves You and Me did not escape totally. 

    In the Bible, as much as may be said about sinful humanity, (us, as it were) God is both subject and object. In the New Testament this concern with God becomes particularized (Uh, shall we say Incarnate) in Jesus. The Enlightenment project has never been merely about the way we study, or even how we study the Bible. It has always been about shifting the subject, the object, and the topic of the conversation from God to us. Sociologists and Anthropologists talk about people groups. Literary Theorists pit Readers and Communities against Authors and their Texts. All the conversations about “what is real” whether complex or simple are designed to delude us into flipping the subject and object from God to Us. Or to be as blunt about it as possible to make the conversation about me, not Him. 

    So, the chorus in question asks rightly, “What More?”, though it still cannot help but hedge its bet by asking the question in such a way that the primary concern is not His deed, but our need. “…Oh, How He loves you, Oh, how He loves me, Oh how He loves you and me!!” 

    Most of the drivel about the damage that deconstruction does considers it an external threat to the Church. That threat we can deal with. The real issue is the extent to which the Church has adopted, leveraged, and been formed by the very threat we decry! There are many issues I might untangle, let me give you a just a brief idea of how the full Post-Modern project has practically defined the current Christian era. I will use the (for me) common grid of Biblical, Theological, and Historical analysis to describe the inroads the Post-Modern project has made into the believing Church. Let us briefly consider three examples. 

Biblical 

    The question “What does this text mean to you?” is a primary exhibit to the triumph of the ethos of Post Modern thought in the Church. I’ve heard it at hundreds of studies and classes and, sadly, even in sermons. It is so commonplace that few even recognize how radical or dangerous it can be. This question encapsulates the move, in Biblical study(ies) from what God thought and revealed through the author of a text, to the reader. 

    Many, to be sure ask this question not in an absolute sense but in a hasty move towards applying the truth of a text to current contexts or situations. Be that as it may, as commonly used the question misses the mark making the reader(s) the ultimate source of meaning rather than the words of the text as they communicate the intent of the Author. 

    What to do? Preachers certainly, and all teachers assuredly should be taught or learn how to analyze the objective content of the texts we preach or teach before moving on to matters of application. What more could He do? Is a question not answered by introspection but by inspection of the relevant New Testament texts; Gospel and Epistle for universally applicable truths that are derived from the texts which speak to every disciple who wishes to be obedient—regardless of what the personally think the text means. This kind of discipline allows for growth and often requires changing one’s mind. 

Historical

    The assertion “This is the most important time, ever!” Is of course, perennial. Virtually every generation views the entirety of God’s work through the lens of contemporary culture and events. From this tendency, the Church has seldom escaped. Yet, it is always necessary for disciplined reflection to keep the present in balance with the past, and to keep what is immediate in balance with the eternal. 

    We live in an increasingly self-focused generation, compounding risk of historical myopia. Every event is the best, worst, grandest, most important—ever. This is nothing more than narcissism run amok. Do important, even significant events happen in the present? Yes! Perhaps it is ironic that knowing this requires the perspective of historical analysis to make that judgement. You can’t, by definition, know it now. The significance of any historical event, even those occurring now can only be known as the broader historical context expands. 

    This is but a single example of how Post Modernism has altered our perception of History. Someone who thinks that the present is the only reliable gauge for God’s work will be tempted to discount, discredit, or dismiss the very history which has formed the present within which we are embedded. 

    This prejudice also dislodges the centrality of the crucifixion as the central event in the history of the Christian faith. Jesus did and has continued to do many things throughout the history of the Church. But none compares to His defining dying declaration of the cross. 

Theological

    The next assertion, as is appropriate in discussing contemporary theological developments is synthetic, constructed from various observations of the current theological climate of the broader Christian community. As such it is it is emblematic of the problem. “God wants you to be happy, wealthy, healthy, and in power.” This is a central underlying tenet of contemporary Neo-charismatic Apostolic thinking. It is the heretical focus on my needs, my wants, and my temporal satisfaction as the key to understanding the purpose of the Church. Rather than the big picture, every divine concern is collapsed into the individual’s perceived need. Not only is it heresy, but it is also nonsense. Lacking a rigorous hermeneutic of Scripture and being almost willingly blind to actual History it is inevitable that the theological system which has infected much of the Church is based on individual ego satisfaction. 

    I will keep this discussion short as I’ve already taken more of your time than I had intended. First, it is a Theology which ignores the past. Second, it is a Theology which ignores the global nature of the Church. Third, it so marginalizes the Cross, that other important theological doctrines (Christology, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Pneumatology…etc.) are either ignored or completely redefined. If you think you have new revelations from a new Apostle, it is clear that the Bible and History have no role in your theology. Call it whatever you want but it is not in any since historic Biblical Christianity. 

Nothing 

    Jesus loves us. He died a brutal death in order that we might be saved. He was raised to empower our inclusion in His own eternal life. That is Gospel. We squander our resources on things not a part of the Gospel. Some are important and need done in a world far more complex and advanced than was the first century. But what we think and how we act are grounded in scripture and resonate theologically and historically throughout the ages. 

    And yes, every age makes it “All about us.” I understand that basic truth of human nature.  But it seems that the twenty-first Century Church has taken that human proclivity to the extreme both within and without the Church. Our task as believers and our calling as preachers is to constantly make our message center on Jesus. We must work hard to keep that promise because we are swimming upstream against some powerful cultural trends. The solution is to first recognize them and then to begin to push back. Not through dominance but through pastorally driven preaching and teaching. 

    The question at issue, “What more could He do?” Is, of course, rhetorical. It’s not intended as a riddle. It is not ironic. It is not mysterious. What more, could He do? The simple answer is “nothing.” 

Jerusalem Fog 4.3.2025

     From the gospels we know all about the last week of Jesus’ life. We read about the conversations, controversies, and the conflicts. He teaches the curious, the crowds, and the committed. We move with Him back and forth to Bethany, through the festival crowds, along the streets of the city, through the temple and into the collective memory of the Church. Easter season should be a time to reinforce what the Scripture clearly teaches and to remind us not only of our debt to Him but the high cost of our discipleship. 

    This clarity requires yearly reflection, largely due twenty centuries of wishful thinking and the current tides of theological confusion. A central reason for this yearly journey to Jerusalem to share the passion week with Jesus and His disciples is to cut through the Jerusalem fog. We can never know perfectly the precise parameters of historical occurrences, but we can know perfectly those things God has chosen to disclose in His word. Far too often, even that knowledge eludes us as we construct elaborate edifices to our own cultural compromise and declare that to be the faith once for all delivered to the Saints. Easter provides the searing sunrise to cut through the Jerusalem fog in order that we might rightly understand the way of the cross and the victory of resurrection. 

    If we are to see clearly and understand accurately who Jesus is and what His intent is for His people, we must dissipate the fog as effectively as possible. We live in an age of rapid, nearly instantaneous communication. In the satisfying comfort of the Western world, we seldom are confronted life-threatening challenges to our Christian faith. A people who are accustomed to considering the slightest disagreement to be some kind of underhanded persecution is a people whose vision is still obscured by the Jerusalem fog. 

    Jesus died for us. Jesus’ death was and is formative for the Church. Earliest Christianity was cruciform from the very beginning. The terms of entrance include a decision to bear our own cross. For Jesus, paying the price for our salvation meant being borne by the cross. Not much room for negotiation when Empire holds the chips, and the price of Kingdom is paid in blood. To wear the name of Christ, twenty centuries after that initial Easter, while being insufficiently informed or even dismissive about the nature of the Christian faith is inexcusable. Ignorance can be fixed. Intransigent blindness first baffles and then disgusts the true disciple. 

This season reminds us of some clear points of reference which point us to the truth of our mutual faith as the fog burns away and we can adjust our bearings in the wakening dawn. These are the key focal points for all believers whether those who fast for lent or those who prepare by spending more time reflecting upon the details of their discipleship. 

• Jesus
• Scripture
• Cross
• Resurrection

    We must keep these especially before our minds because even as our eyes see more clearly as the fog burns off there are other obstructions that rise to distract us. Culturally derived Easter practices can easily find us replacing Jesus with family and Scripture with tradition. We may be tempted to exchange the foolishness of the cross for something more user-friendly and appealing for the sake of filling the pews, forgetting that the glories of resurrection can only be realized after the Lamb has been slain. 

    Because Easter has been celebrated since the beginning of the Christian faith there are no real secrets. We don’t celebrate Easter because we are unaware of the events of the week or the meanings of the moment. We celebrate because we do. When necessary, I can make it from my home to the Church house on a foggy day, with little difficulty. Even when the fog is as deep as pea soup, and the threat remains from other drivers, pedestrians, and the occasional squirrel I know where I am going, and the fog is but an annoyance. I prefer to make the trip on a bright sun kissed day. The destination is the same, but one journey is stressful, the other often, pleasant. 

    The Church is in a fog bank, but it is not entirely a natural phenomenon. We have allowed the   accretion of cultural religion to erode the revolutionary and counter-cultural nature of the Kingdom. Anytime the Christian faith has been appropriated or approved by Empire it has suffered. People are often as fog bound as they wish to be. It is time for Kingdom people to catch the Easter vision of our suffering Savior whose call to us is to share in His suffering. Kingdom means an apparent weakness that loses itself in service to others. Kingdom means love over all in obedience to the One who loves us best and loved us most. Each of us is called to help the Church see clearly through the fog into the embrace of Jesus and the Father’s saving grace.