Not Personal, Strictly Business. 6.26.2025.

     “It’s not personal, strictly business.” This line, featured prominently in The Godfather series of films. It was also featured in the classic romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail! In the former this sentiment was designed to serve as a reminder that even when bullying enemies or threatening subordinates that the intent of the Mob was to act in a businesslike fashion. Their perception was that, at times retribution, graft, and even violence was the cost of their lucrative business interests. So, for the Corleone’s family, “business” indicates somewhat uncivilized behavior. All the violence, intimidation, extortion play a role in defining the character of the Corleone business/criminal enterprise as well as framing the behaviors of individual characters. 

    In You’ve Got Mail, this phrase first uttered by Tom Hank’s character is questioned and debunked by Meg Ryan’s character who basically calls it a load of tauro-scatilogical nonsense. The point she is making is that this separation of work from personal and process from passion can be taken to an unnecessary and unhelpful extreme. Many people are wired to combine professional expertise and personal engagement in such a way that their entire personality is brought to bear on the work that they do. The unspoken critique of Bud Fox’s approach to business is that people who utter the phrase “It’s not personal, strictly business” are often the kind of people you want neither as business partners nor personal friends. 

    To be good at something and to have a professional stake does not mean becoming mechanical, and it should not mean abandoning personal connection. Preaching has a voice in this conversation—or dog in this fight—pick your metaphor because the place of the preacher requires us to assume and execute many roles during the week, particularly on Sunday and those rolls are a combination of hard and soft skills. They require ability and sensitivity. In short, they are both personal and business. 

      As much as I write and as often as I go on about doing the work, being prepared, and taking our task seriously you would be mistaken in thinking that I do not take this job personally and seriously. Work balance aficionados are always blathering about a person being more than what they do. And while this may be generally the case in some occupations, there are at least as many occupations where personal investment is a key element in doing the job with excellence. I want my doctor to be both technically proficient and human. This combination is particularly true in ministry. Like Paul before us and generations of other predecessors our call to ministry makes it more than just a vocation, profession, or pursuit. It must also be a passion if we are to be fully engaged in the task. My goal is to write and teach in such a way that you improve your skills and become a better preacher. My underlying assumption is that you already know that you need to be constantly becoming a better, more Christlike person. 

Consider the following passages and what they say about Paul’s investment in ministry and his conception of the task. 

“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22 ESV)

“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,” (Ephesians 3:8 ESV)

 “2Timothy 4:1   I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2Timothy 4:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:1-2 ESV)

    It is difficult for a preacher to strive for excellence week after week unless our whole person is invested in the ministry of the Word. Preaching the Scriptures puts us in the position of standing before our fellow human beings for the purpose of asking the central human question: “Is there a word from God?” Our preaching reflects not only the seriousness with which we ask the question but our conception of the answer and its authoritative voice in the world. The idea that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Amos, Peter, Paul and the rest, trembled with fear to be the human voice of the divine, and that we laugh it off by claiming “it’s only business” is not profound, it’s silly, juvenile, and frightening.

    What we must do is make a clear distinction in our own minds between the “head” part of the work and the “heart” part, recognizing that both are fundamental parts of our personality, and consequently central to doing the job of preaching with full integrity.  Let me make some suggestions, the first of which is a bit of a critique. 

    Many others who write about preaching make somber declarations about differentiating between “sermon work” and personal “devotional work". Don’t do that. If all the time you invest in studying scripture, thinking about the text, outlining, and writing about the text have so little effect on your spiritual nature that you need a separate quiet time; you may not be well suited to ministry. Preaching and teaching brings together both sides of your personality. Your self-discipline and ministry discipline will merge and be indistinguishable as you grow older. These false divisions between study for preaching and study to feed one’s spirit bring to my mind the constant parade of moral lapses of so-called ministry leaders. They have abandoned God’s call on their lives to function as technocratic cogs in the Evangelical Industrial Complex. This approach strikes me as the same things as the Corleone family moto; “It’s not personal, strictly business.” If you don’t want to go into business or be friends with someone like that—why would you want to be that preacher? 

    Next, you need to make sure that you invest in personal relationships within your congregation and community. In the 21st century calling and visiting are not as common as they once were, but this human interaction is an essential difference between serving a congregation and merely speaking to an audience. Sermons are delivered as an essential part of worship. All the things we do in worship require personal investment. Communion is an essential part of the process—as the word itself declares. Singing, prayer, even the greeting time all these things are based around the idea of personal contact within the local worshipping congregation. 

    Additionally, you should be clear about exactly how this relationship to the congregation is related to your relationship with God. We don’t work for a congregation. We serve a congregation. We are called and equipped by God. Ultimately, we answer to Him. If that does not fill your heart with awe and wonder and give you little bit of a chill, you may be missing the point. I hope people like my sermons, though that is not the goal. I don’t go out of my way to frame the text in a demeaning or demoralizing fashion, yet there are times we walk to the pulpit with difficult words. It is at those moments we need to be clear about the various configurations of our service and the clarity of our devotion. If we take the attitude that it’s merely business, we may be unjustifiably harsh with a text. If we adapt the attitude that we should not ever say anything challenging, we may water down words that need to be spoken with urgency.

    God called fully human people to be His messengers. The job requires negotiating a continually shifting set of opposites. Firm but forgiving. Corrective and instructive. Disciplined, focused, direct, indirect, opaque and clear. Human beings don’t just divide into simple categories of business and personal. We are everything we are, all the time. Ministry is the wrong task for those who enjoy simple, easily understood, reductive approaches to living. A reductive approach to humanity is ultimately demeaning, which seems to me to be the incorrect approach considering that the Word became flesh—accepting that very complexity as a part of His saving intervention. Be like Jesus who embraced the fulness of ministry with His entire person. At the end of the day trying to be like Jesus is always a good strategy. 

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat 6.19.2025

     Sunday was Father’s Day. I went home after worship, took a wee nap and then looked for a movie to watch. I had already titled this week’s essay, in keeping with the “Movie lesson” theme chosen for the month of June. And against all odds I discovered that it is the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws. Of course I watched it. Same movie, same thrills and chills. Same issues. Same shark, victims, and fishermen. 

    There is a point in the shark hunt where, when chumming the water with bloody fish parts, that chief Brody comes face to face with the star of the show. The shark surfaces and threateningly bares his teeth. Backing into the cabin of the fishing boat Brody, in a wide-eyed stupor mutters to Captain Quint; “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Though this line fits perfectly into the plot of the movie, foreshadowing the ultimate fate of the boat as the shark eats his way through the craft to get to the sailors, it has resonance in many other areas of life. And yes, as you might guess, my purpose is to apply it to the process of preparing and delivering sermons. 

    There will be times when the job seems far bigger than your ability to execute. Texts will seem obscure, the words will not flow, thoughts will not align, and at final glance, your message cannot be fixed regardless of how diligently you edit it. Beyond preparation there will be external, congregational, and personal circumstances that impinge on the process, leaving you short of time or energy for this, your most important work. Your eyes will glaze, you’ll back into the cabin, look at Captain Quint and mutter “I’m gonna need a bigger boat.” 

    Well then, if you are ahead of your work, it’s Monday and you have plenty of time to get your Sunday sermon into shape. What to do? Where to start? How to proceed? Here are some suggestions.

1. Reread past work. Your previous work on this text, previous sermons you preached from it, and your notes from preparing your sermon calendar. It is possible you have overlooked something or let a particular planned emphasis slip your mind. 

2. Sequence this sermon with last weeks and next weeks. Read them together. Read them in light of one another. When you constructed your plan, you surely had an idea how this would all work. 

3. Go back through the lexical, grammatical, and syntactical details. Not for golden nuggets or magical insights but to “chum the water” and get your brain working through the text. 

4. What’s the goal? Jaws is not a movie about shark observation, or shark ecology. Jaws is a movie about killing a man-eater! It is a quest movie. There is adventure and camaraderie. There is flight, fright, and ultimate vindication. Movies have plots, sermons have “propositions” or main ideas. Is it possible that you have designed a structure which does not explore and expand your plot?

    Perhaps the bigger boat you need to write clearer, more compelling sermons may not be a new boat at all. Maybe you just need to master all the tools available to you in the boat you are already in. In the movie there appeared to be a clear disconnect between the tools needed and the tools available. The shark was killed and the quest brought to a successful close using only the tools already available. I am convinced that there are times that we think our tools are inadequate when they are not. Sometimes we are looking for a bigger boat when what we need is to do a better job of using the boat we have. 

    Strap into the fighting chair. Make sure that you’re focused on your line. Understand what your purpose is and follow a plan of execution. You may need to shift tactics or reimagine how to use a specific tool, and you may find that failure leads to ultimate success. You don’t need a bigger boat. You need to work on being a better captain.

Make Every Word Count. 6.12.2025

     “Take your stinking paws off me, You d***d dirty ape!” This was the first sentence the titular Apes had ever heard a human speak in the first film in the original Planet of the Apes film franchise. It shocked the apes who heard it in the movie, and it was a little shocking in our living room back in 1974. Within the universe of the movie, the “Apeverse”, if you will, this sentence was particularly shocking because in that world humans, (you’re just going to have to trust me on this) had lost the capacity for speech. 

    In that Apeverse astronauts, the central character Taylor, being played by Charlton Heston, crash landed on a planet they have presumed to be outside of our galaxy, when in fact, having traveled forward in time they had landed on good ol’ earth. They found the planet greatly changed by the human propensity for violent destruction. After nuclear holocaust the world had been subdued by the advanced race of Apes who in their various species and castes had come to rule. Humans were speechless wild animals, hunted for sport and subjected to laboratory experiment. 

    When Taylor is injured during his capture, he is temporarily unable to speak. Boy were those Apes surprised when they heard those first words! They were a turning point in that first film and have become a familiar trope both in the various Planet of the Apes franchises and in other popular media. 

    As was the case last week, we now come to the point where I must tie this discussion into the work of preaching. Whereas it may not have been Taylor’s focus in the movie—he was clearly quite upset at his unfair treatment, for us, his lucid, if brief outburst, can serve as a reminder of the need for focused, clear, well-edited writing. 

    The sentence in question is ten words. Ten words that are on point, specific, and transparent. They specify an action as well as clearly identifying what Taylor thinks of his captors. Even the swear word shows that the speaker is not only emotional, he is in fact outraged by his treatment by those he thinks are “beneath” him. Despite his circumstances and the crassness of what he says there is a kind of direct eloquence to what Taylor says. No one would doubt his emotional frame of mind nor his meaning. They may not like what he says, even less the tone in which he says it, but there is no doubt about the message his words convey. 

    Clearly, I do not know and am unable to discover the process by which these famous words came to be written. I have not (unfortunately) read the original novel by Pierre Boule nor have I read the screen play. My observations are based solely on what we hear in the movie. And that is enough. These ten words were not likely written as they now stand. Despite its brevity, the sentence gives evidence—as virtually all good writing does, of being edited into its current form. 

    Beyond spelling and punctuation, good editing addresses three aspects of writing. It deals with form (structure), content (information), and context (appropriate to genre, intent of the work, and expectations of the audience). This brief sentence exhibits a clear structure. Strong verb (take), clear object (your paws), a single prepositional phrase that clarifies intent (off me), followed by similar pointed second clause which structurally and emotionally intensifies the message of the first clause. 

    Overthinking on my part? Perhaps.  My point is that memorable sermons will be composed of  effective sentences, and those sentences require editorial attention. Editing takes time and space. And while the time may seem like a poor investment, well-edited work has clarity and specificity that poorly edited work does not. Writing can be done quickly. Composition is the process of getting words onto the page. Editing is an act of revisiting and reviewing. Not merely revising and reconsidering but coming back to our words for the purpose of providing texture and color. Sometimes this process means addition and other times it means subtraction. Editing is the “work” part of the process. Well edited sermons will preach better and sound better because the bumps have been removed, the potholes filled, and the shoulders smoothed. 

    We must take particular care how our written words will sound. Preaching is written for the ear.  As speakers we must be more diligent to make every word count. As I have transitioned through the years to a richer and fuller manuscript, I have discovered that it is far easier to be precise in choosing and deploying words because I know that I will not need to retain large blocks of text in my memory. Do I still have those blocks somewhere in the wet ware? Yes, I do. But it is not retained because of a specific act or process of memorizing, but through the concerted effort at proofing, correcting, editing, abbreviating, expanding, and constructing what I write rather than just tossing it at the page. A well-conceived program of process-driven preaching is built around repeated trips through the text to revisit the points of exegesis and refine what you write. You don’t memorize because you focus on memorization, but because you are repeatedly immersed in the words you are writing. People don’t memorize song lyrics because they try to memorize them. They become lodged in memory by repeatedly singing them. Our written words are likewise embedded in our memory by continually refining them. 

    He may not have written them himself, but Taylor’s words counted. Every single one. They expressed exactly what he was thinking, revealed his emotions, and dramatized his outrage. Ten words did all that because they were the right words and every single one was correct in form, content, and context (Paws instead of hands). 

    Preaching can be hard, brain-breaking work. What is the point if we do not try and do the best job of it that we can? Why choose words that almost say what the Spirit puts in our heart when with a little work we can find the right word to explain the text and make God’s message clear and understandable? Words are valuable, powerful, and durative. Make every one of them count.

Giant Rabbits Always Run in Slow Motion. 6.5.2025

    The Night of the Lepus is to ridiculous movies as Everest is to mountains—the pinnacle. You may not have heard about this cinematic gem, and I don’t know why it popped into my head today, but it was the height of the 60’s 70’s magic that was the movie experience. 

    The “plot” (to be gracious) involved a military-industrial accident that resulted in your basic rabbit growing to giant sizes which was also compounded by them becoming vicious. Of course, the hijinks of nefarious horror ensue. In the end, the rabbits are vanquished, and order is restored. It is your typical gigantism/horror movie—think Godzilla if he was furry and a bit more “reasonably” sized. 

    One thing I noticed, virtually every time I have screened this “howler” (fear or laughter—who’s to know?) is that every time the rabbits attack, every single time--they run in slow motion! This effect was probably driven by 

1. Technology. It was many, many years before primitive CGI, Pixar-driven animation, and early forms of AI. 

2. Budget. This was clearly a movie made on the cheap. 

3. Subject. How does one actually make a bunny, a furry, cute bunny—even an enlarged bunny look menacing? One tack, taken by the Monty Python group in Monty Python and the Holy Grail was basic absurdity. It would appear that the Night of Lepus people were, for some reason, desperately serious. 

    So, it would appear, at least in the universe of Night of the Lepus, that giant, mutated, blood-thirsty rabbits, always run in slow motion. No explanation, certainly no justification, no un-examined plot point. The rabbits simply, always run in slow motion. One assumes that the director thought that this made the rabbits more menacing. Enlarged rabbits, enormous teeth, exploding suspense say to the audience “Hey, these rabbits are so seriously menacing that you can’t even get the full effect unless they are also always running in slow motion.” 

    At this point you might be wondering exactly what, if anything this has to do with preaching. Let me explain. Preaching professionals have been taught for some time that illustration makes the sermon. So much is this the case that many preachers spend much of their preaching preparation time looking for, honing, or incorporating illustrative material into their messages. It is not uncommon for a preacher to discover a good illustration and then, getting the clever’s, as we all sometimes do, decide to develop an entire message around that illustration. The final part of the process is embarking on a stroll through Holy Writ looking for some scripture, any scripture for which the clever illustration might be appropriate. 

    This is to go about things in entirely the wrong fashion. It is only when we fully understand the text, its context and background, its setting and situation that we can appropriately illustrate the truth that is exposed by detailed exegesis. Speaking from experience, if I start with a “good illustration” I probably have not done and will not do appropriate work on the text. So, the first application of the “Giant rabbits always running in slow motion” observation is that there really is no substitute for doing the work in proper order. Illustrations are helpful and appropriate so long as they do not distract. Illustrations that are “Giant rabbits always running in slow motion” are no more than a distraction. 

    The second application comes from the earlier list that examines the director’s justification for this GRARiSM (Giant Rabbits Always Run in Slow Motion) phenomenon. Some things are technically, or technologically undoable. We presently have great tools for studying scripture and constructing compelling sermons. However, not all ideas work and sometimes it’s because there is no way to actually articulate the idea. When working to fashion a sermon this is the sort of material that should wind up on the cutting-room floor. Some things in the Bible cannot be upgraded, undersold, or even understood. When we attempt this move in a sermon all that we are really doing is calling attention to the fact that GRARiSM.

    In budgetary terms it is not money that is at stake but time. How much time should we spend on illustration is generally a matter of feel rather than fact, but a good rule of thumb is that an applicable illustration will legitimize itself. They will appear appropriate and clear in an obvious, self-evident fashion. In short, they need to illustrate.  If you have to invest time, tweak it, shift your understanding of the text, or restructure the whole sermon to make it fit, then you are wasting unnecessary time. It will always look like a YouTube video of the 1972 Olympics of big, scary rabbits running around, baring their teeth--in slow motion. 

    And subject matter. We tend to be rather flexible in determining how well a given illustration fits a Biblical text. Unfortunately, there are times that the connection is only made by the preacher, in the study. The worst possible scenario is when the only thing people remember about the sermon is the dang GRARiSM! If the illustration is the only thing that sticks, the point has been missed. Some things are what they are. You can’t make a horror film when your subject is rabbits! It does not matter how big they get, how much fake blood is flung about the set, or how menacingly they run around in slow motion—they will always be cute, cuddly, bunnies. 

    Ever since the prophetic work of Neil Postman we have been aware that visual communication (TV, Cinema or Video) and subsequent social media (YouTube, Facebook-X-TikTok) is primarily a medium suited to entertainment. It was during (and despite) this age of evolving media scrutiny that the focus on illustration over Biblical content really emerged as a driving force in preaching. The thoughtful Biblical preacher will always reconcile his work to the role of communicating the essential message of the complete work of Christ. While we are communicators, we are not entertainers. We should never allow our method(s) of presentation to debase the central purpose of our preaching. Consequently, some illustrations, clever as they may be, will never work. They will seem as pretentious and silly as giant rabbits, even if they always self-consciously run in slow motion.