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The Golden Rule of Preaching

Recent conversations in my life have started me thinking on this question: what is the best way to preach the Gospel?

After much pondering and struggling with this question for many years in my own Christian walk, the only answer I feel sure of is that there is no answer.

There are so many theological and practical debates about how we should live out our lives as Christians and how to tell other people about Jesus. Do we drink? Do we dance? Do we sing at Sunday services? Do we have electric guitars? And did you know that drums are of the devil? The debate points are exhaustingly endless and I kinda don’t care anymore.

What I do care about is if people come to know Jesus, they are reunited with their Heavenly Father and gain the counsel of the Holy Spirit. That’s all I care about. How they came to know Jesus doesn’t’ matter. Whether it was a tract, a fake $100 bill, a deep cultivated relationship, a preacher on TV, a pastor’s message on Sunday, or a crazy man preaching on the street corner, I don’t care. The reason I don’t care is because preaching the Gospel is about the Who and not the How. Who we are preaching about will always be more important than how we are doing it.

Part of the reason I have come to believe this is because we are all going to fail. There will always be a time–whether from the pulpit or from a coffee shop–when we will try to share the Gospel and fall flat on our faces. However, I would rather try and fail a hundred times than never attempt because I’m not quite perfect yet. A hundred failures is a hundred opportunities for God’s grace and power to shine through my weaknesses.

Beyond failure, I have come to learn that God reaches different people through very different avenues. Some people need to be walked, hand in hand with one person, to the feet of Jesus. Others may need to feel the security of a gathering. Still others need to be alone with Him to hear His voice. We are all different and I’ve learned to understand that our differences–when we’re not fighting about them–make us a more whole and complete picture of who God is. He is a God of diversity and creativity. He is a God who sometimes speaks in a cloud of fire, and sometimes speaks in a whisper. Jesus is a man who embraced children and cast money changers out of the temple with a whip. The trinity of God is complex and surprising. Jesus is the only way to God the Father, but I refuse to believe there is only one path to Jesus.

So here is what I have determined for myself: I am going to follow the Golden Rule when it comes to preaching. I am going to preach the Gospel in a way which I would like to have it preached to me. I will invest in relationships over time, I will teach in settings appropriate to my strengths and gifting, but you won’t find me walking the street with a stack of tracts in my hand. It makes me uncomfortable when a stranger approaches me on the street, so I’m doubly uncomfortable when I am asked to approach others. I’ll leave the street preaching to someone else who loves to meet new people, who is comfortable in that space, and who God has gifted to do that.

Most importantly, this is what I am going to stop doing: I’m going to stop shooting others down from the sidelines. I’m going to stop telling people they are ‘doing it wrong’ because it doesn’t’ make sense to me or it makes me uncomfortable. If I am asked for advice or direction, I will gladly give it. Otherwise, I’m going to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT unless it is to give encouragement to people who are doing something I am not equipped to do.

I recognize there is a lot of fear and doubt attached to how we go about preaching the Gospel and what it means to be associated with “those crazies”. However, if you really think about it, the Gospel is a Crazy Story. There is nothing sane about a sinless man giving up His life for the rest of us who can’t even love the people closest to us well, not to mention the rest of the world. There is nothing normal about a God who could wipe us all out with a thought, but chooses to be patient and sacrificing so we can be reunited with Him. We teach a crazy love story. Get over being crazy. Start asking yourselves the question of what’s the worst that could happen if the Gospel is preached differently than how you think it should be? If a group of believers start doing strange bold crazy things for Jesus, what’s the worst that could happen? They might fail, so what? Hopefully, they will learn from the experience and do better next time. Maybe the worst thing which could happen is that they totally skew the message (hopefully unintentionally) and preach that Jesus is chicken. So what? Do we not trust that our God is bigger than one mixed up message and that He is able to call anyone to Himself through any means? And what if someone never once speaks in front of a group of people, but spends time serving individuals and walking alongside them through the difficult parts of life? What’s the worst that could happen? They may not have as big ‘numbers’ of people they save, but since when is following Jesus about numbers?

Here is the hard truth, there are people in the world who are choosing to live separated from God. In the end, this choice will lead them to Hell because God will not force himself on anyone, and Heaven is His domain. So we need every member of the body of Christ, doing whatever it is that they do best, to reach people and introduce them to Jesus. That’s it.

If I touched a personal button, please know I am aware that this summary leaves out a lot of loopholes and past situations in which the message of Jesus has been twisted for personal gain. However, I would encourage you to examine if the stories about TV pastors embezzling money or the lazy Christian who never shares their faith are really the majority. I’m sure you’ll find they just aren’t. There are too many Christians going about their day trying to introduce people to Jesus through whatever means and talents they have for it to be true. So let’s stop policing one another about how we preach the Gospel and keep pointing people to who Jesus really is.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

March 7, 2014
Catch the Niche Wave
Recently, I was working for the art & apparel brand aHbe Racer. It’s niche is the Cafe Racer and Motorcycle scene. During my time with the company, I started to see a rise in the popularity of Cafe Racers as they made their way from a niche market to a more general market. There were two tell tale signs of the transition which made me realize the change was coming. The first sign was a Lowe’s commercial which featured a Cafe Racer in it as the hobby of a gear head. The second was a commercial for Glade duo-scents, using a cafe racer and its rider as a contrasting point to a soft and feminine character. For two major companies like Glade and Lowes to be featuring Cafe Racers meant the market scene was about to change. It was about to be a late 90s khaki and swing dancing craze all over again.

I was discussing the change I saw coming with my brother, Remy. He works as a web-strategist and gave me two prong strategy for trying to catch the wave first. I thought I would pass it along to you so that if you find your niche in the main market, you can be the first there.
- Keywords: Market Research – How do people search for you product/niche if they don’t know what it is?
1. Choose 5 – 20 friends.
2. Send a personal email requesting a favor: “Watch this national commercial (or other indicator), use Google or Bing to learn about the product/niche. Send us back your three best searches and what you learned.
3. Offer a t-shirt or coupon code for first five responses as incentive / thank you for participating.
- Content
1. Educational posts – Easy to draw from Wikipedia or cite books and re-tell on your site through your company’s more accessible voice and style.
  1. History of your product/niche
  2. Profile / Interview with prominent individual / influencer
2. Write a brief post about the commercial (or other market change indicator): Yay! Our thing is becoming a big deal!
3. Seed blog copy and headings with keywords from market research.
If you are interested in more ways to maximize on your web presence, you should check out Remy’s company, Root and Flow.

Continuing the adventure,

Jessica
February 28, 2014
Breaking the Silence

Life has taken a few tumultuous turns over the past few weeks.

As I look guiltily at the date of my last post, I struggle with the same heavy question I have whenever life takes my attention out of the blogosphere for a while…how do I break the silence?

Do I make lame excuses? Do I make false promises to be more disciplined in the future? Do I confess everything which has been going on in a vomit of text?

Or, do I just write the first words and trust the ether to welcome me back into the fold?

Here’s to breaking the silence.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

PS. Meet Brownie, one of the many changes in my life.

This is Brownie. She is our new puppy. Half of the time she is small and sweet. Half of the time she is a goblin. Either way, the name fits.

February 19, 2014
Becoming A Student Again

I just celebrated my 29th birthday.

As a joke (though, only partially) I told a friend I needed to make this year the best year ever. Since I’m such a procrastinator, it would make sense to push as much as possible into the last year of my twenties. For some reason, I (like many people) feel that turning thirty is some sort of deadline. I have to have a list of things I accomplished while I was still a twenty-something in order to start out the next decade of my life on the right foot.

Insane, I know, but this is my strange little world.

The reality is though, I probably won’t accomplish most of the things on my imaginary list of ‘have-to-do-this-before-I’m-thirty’. I don’t say this because I doubt myself, but because I realize that I don’t want to live my life according to checklists any more. I don’t want to live under the cloak of proof or the shadow of external worth. It’s too exhausting.

Rather, I decided that 29 is the year I will become a student again. I want to become Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. I want to study great storytellers. I want to form a study group. I want to listen more, practice more, and find out all the things I don’t know. I don’t want to pass the test, I want to digest the lesson.

I think this is the next stage of my journey, and I am looking forward to walking into the unknown places it will take me.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

December 29, 2013
When I Look Away

This came rambling through my brain this morning.

I feel like Peter drowning

When I look away

When I let my eyes fall upon the waves

And Your face is swallowed by the haze

I feel like Peter drowning

When I try to walk alone

When my journey crosses liquid

And my identity becomes twisted

So, shine bright in the midst of the storm

Call me home with a shout resounding

Reach out and pluck me from the gray

Because I feel like Peter drowning

When I look away.

December 13, 2013
Who Is Massaging Your Soul?

Saturday morning I woke up with a kink in my neck. The kink became progressively worse on Sunday. After two days of wincing every time I looked at him, Abe (and his wife Rowe) made me an appointment for a massage.

Now, this was not a girls weekend out and relax type of massage. This was what Jacob, my massage therapist with Muppet hair, called a ‘fixer upper’. Jacob worked my back, neck, and shoulders in a way I didn’t know was possible. He found muscle tissue I didn’t even know I had. However, the pain was worth the end result when I regained a range of motion lost to me for the last four days.

As I laid on the table, I began to wonder when was the last time I had given my soul a massage. When was the last time I let someone else probe through the skin of heart to find the tightly wound places which hindered me? I couldn’t really remember. This used to be a common practice for me, but has given way to the business of life, and I think I am beginning to feel a kink.

During the massage, Jacob–who has fingers I believe to be made of steel–would find a place of tension and push, holding the pressure there for an uncomfortable few minutes. Then a magical thing would happen, the tensions would start to melt away, leaving freedom to move in place of the knot. Now, I can’t undo weeks of damage and neglect to muscles in one hour, just like I can’t undo the tension in my soul in an hour. I can, however, begin the process of asking for help and letting others start the work of unknotting my soul.

Who massages your soul?

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

October 16, 2013
Stop Sloppy German #SleepyHollow

It is currently 4:48 AM. I would love to go back to bed, but something is keeping me awake. The new Fox show Sleepy Hollow. My early morning restlessness is not caused by the obvious creepiness of the show.

It is caused by their abuse of the German language.

I love German. I have a Bachelors degree in German. I love the way the language can be so expressive of nuances which we miss in English. German can be maddeningly complex (it has 12 forms of ‘the’) and precise. My German is far from perfect or on the level of a native speaker, but the liberties Hollywood takes in representing the German language are too much to bare. The corrections I offer are for the three mistakes in culture, vocabulary, and grammar which stuck out to me. They are from the episode, “The Lesser Key of Solomon”.

1. “Hast du es, mein Freund?” (24:09)

This is a question which Ichabod Crane asks the Hessian bad guy. The issue I have with this question is that Crane uses the informal version of ‘you’ (du) rather than the formal (Sie). Admittedly, it could be argued that Crane uses the informal as an insult to the Hessian. When someone is not referring to an actual friend, ‘Du’ is the form of you which adults say to children or others who are beneath them, such as a teacher to a student. The addition of “mein Freund” (my friend) at the end of the sentence may make it seem like Crane’s use of the informal is correct, however, Crane is calling the Hessian in sarcasm. This makes the use confusing.

Correction: “Haben Sie es, mein Freund?”

Using the formal version of ‘you’ with the sarcastic ‘my friend’ at the end would have better shown the contrast in what Crane was saying and made the point more clear that the Hessian creep was no friend of Cranes.

2. “Malooch wird auf resteigen.” (27:08)

Not only does the actor who plays the Hessian mispronounce ‘Steigen’ (it should be pronounced with the ei in the middle like the English word eye), but then Crane repeats the line back incorrectly as well. Crane says, “Malooch wird auf verstehen.” Both sentences are wrong. For the Hessian, ‘resteigen’ is not actually a word and sounds like a butchering of the prefix ‘ver’. (PS. “versteigen” would also be incorrect, as it means to be eccentric or over the top). The word which they wanted to use was ‘aufsteigen’ which means to rise or ascend.

For a double German fail, Crane repeats back, “Malooch wird auf verstehen”. What he literally says is, “Malooch will understand about.” Other than being the incorrect vocabulary, this is a clear misuse of the preposition, ‘auf’ as Crane doesn’t provide a direct object for Malooch to understand. Perhaps, the crew wanted to use the word ‘aufstehen’ which can also mean to rise, but in a different context. ‘Aufstehen’ refers to getting out of bed in the morning or rising to one’s feet, but not ascending to power through the use of demons.

Correction: “Malooch wird aufsteigen.”

Keep it simple friends. Don’t throw in unnecessary prefixes or prepositions if you don’t need them.

3. “So soll es beginnen.” (Though it sounds like the actor says, ‘so sollt’s beginnen’) (33:20)

My first issue with this statement is that I cannot recall ever hearing a German native speaker use the verb ‘beginnen’. The more common word used to describe a beginning or start is the noun ‘Anfang’ or the verb ‘anfangen’. The larger issue is the use of the modal verb ‘sollen’. This is a verb which modifies the meaning of the verb ‘beginnen’. ‘Sollen’ is the English equivalent of ‘should’. So when the menacing Hessian should be saying, ‘it has begun and there isn’t anything you can do about it!’. What he is really saying, ‘it should begin, I think, I hope…’ and it creates a very disjointed feel to the scene. More importantly, it interrupts my suspension of belief and takes me out of the world of Sleepy Hollow.

Correction: “So fängt es an.” Or even better “Jetzt fängt es an! (Now it begins!)”

By removing the modal verb ‘sollen’, the line has a more imperative feel. It gives the character a greater sense of authority and increases the viewers dread. It makes the beginning of the end more imminent and unchangeable. Also, by using the verb ‘anfangen’ instead of ‘beginnen’, the writers get credit for using the more common German verb rather than the one which looks most English. If you are wondering, ‘fängt an’ is the correctly conjugated version of ‘anfangen’. ‘Anfangen’ is one of Germans fun and tricky separable verbs which kick the prefix to the end when used as the main verb. This, however, is a lesson for another time.

Now, I just want to go back to bed.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

October 10, 2013