Planning and Preparation for a Project

Many of you may know that the past few years have found me pursuing a degree known as the Doctor of Ministry.  I have been taking classes and am now approaching the last one, to be taken next summer.  Outside of that class, all that remains is the conducting of my project, the write-up of which serves as the basic elements of my dissertation.

Part of my plan for the project will begin to be enacted in the life of the congregation I serve.  My tentative plans are to begin some major parts of it this fall.  For those who may be curious, there are a couple of interesting facets to what I want to do with the project, and the impact that I want to see lived out in the life of the congregation.

A big component of the project has to do with utilizing Martin Luther's Small and Large Catechisms.  One of the basic assumptions I am making as I begin the project is that many people simply do not fully know or understand even the most basic teachings of the Christian faith.  As I have pointed out in previous posts, Martin Luther wrote the Small Catechism in a time which seems to be a fair comparison to this day and age, especially in terms of knowing even the basics of the Christian faith.  It seems that making use of such a resource may be completely appropriate.

Additionally, my focus area for my studies has been in the field of "Missional Leadership."  What exactly does this mean?  It means that my focus is on how I can lead and equip God's people in growing in their understanding of the teachings of the faith, and then guiding them in the living out of God's will in their lives.  A significant part of this involves teaching the different doctrines, as well as demonstrating how they apply to God's people as they live their lives.

I am currently in the process of putting together the different resources that I plan to utilize for enacting the project.  It will require some fairly significant commitments on my part, and I'm hoping that a decent number of people in the congregation will also commit to following through with it.  In future posts, you will be hearing about some of the components, as I plan to make use of my blog to help me clarify my thoughts and plans, as well as to seek feedback and input.

Halloween, Reformation, Saints, and the End of October

Most of you probably know October 31 by the day of Halloween.  For many of my faith tradition, we also know this day as Reformation Day.  It's a day that carries a great deal of significance toward understanding God and His actions in this world, and in some ways, observes a day that had a great deal of influence in shaping the world we know today.

In ancient days, November 1 was set aside as a day to remember those who had died.  For Christians, this day was one in which those who had died in faith would be remembered.  They had received the inheritance of their faith: eternal life with God because they had been forgiven through Jesus and the cross.  So the day was called All Saints Day, as God's people would remember those who had gone on in faith before them.

Several traditions sprung up from that.  In many towns and villages, the night before, a person or two would dress up as a devil or demon, and the townspeople would chase that devil or demon out of town.  They would then be rewarded for doing this.  (I'm sure you can see how this would later on lead to the current observance of Halloween, with people dressing up and looking for treats.)

For Christians, November 1 would be a very high celebration day.  Special worship times were set aside to remember God's promises of grace and forgiveness, and many would gather for those times of worship.  So, in the early 1500's, when a young monk by the name of Martin Luther wanted to initiate some discussion on the teachings and practices of the church, he went to the door of the local church in Wittenberg, Germany, to post his 95 different thoughts, or theses, upon which he desired discussion.

That began a movement that has had both good and bad repercussions.  On the one hand, Luther and a number of his colleagues wanted to get back to what the Bible said about God, Jesus, and salvation, rather than things that were decided by group vote at council-type meetings.  The message of Good News that God gave in the Bible should be the focus, they maintained.  This led to a movement to look to the Bible for the truth, rather than other places.

On the other hand, though, it created a great rift between people who held to the Christian faith.  Some people were kicked out of the church at that time, which led to their gatherings being separate from other Christians.  Over time, those differences have led to more and more "splinter groups" of Christians, forming what are the many denominations, each of which have different understandings of what God says in the Bible, and how it impacts our life.

For those of my tradition, who have Luther's name attached to our churches, and who study his thoughts in how to understand the Bible, October 31 has always been a special day.  It is the day that essentially started the whole Reformation process.  That's why, in Lutheran churches throughout the world, special times of worship were held yesterday or today which remember those events that have given shape and form to how we understand God and His work.

Community and Meditation

This week's focus has been on Luther's suggested "rules" for meditating upon the Scriptures and growing in understanding of them and God's work.  These three rules are prayer, which asks God to show His intention and meaning, meditation, in which we read and reflect upon what the word or section of Scripture means, and then the struggle, when we discover that we don't do what God says, don't like it, or are tempted to downplay, thinking that God cannot really be that serious.  This is when we truly begin to discover how different God is and thinks as opposed to us.

Today, I simply want to present two thoughts.  The first is how important it is that we don't confine ourselves to this practice all by ourselves.  God created people to be in community with one another.  He even works by His Spirit to give insights into His Word that may not occur to us on our own.  For this reason, God's people gather together to share in what God says and how they see that working out in their lives.

Next, I want to challenge you to practice this on a small part of God's Word.  I have been practicing these three rules on the words of Psalm 4.  I suggest that you choose a similarly short text, and simply follow these three rules.  It may only take a few minutes a day, but practice it for a week.  See where God's Spirit guides your thinking.  See what thoughts and struggles come to mind.  If you would like, feel free to share them through the blog here. 

The Struggle with Scripture

"For I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate....For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."  Romans 7:15, 18b-19

So far, we have seen Martin Luther's approach to learning and growing in God's Word.  We start with prayer, asking for God's Spirit to instruct us in our understanding.  Then, we meditate and reflect on God's Word, engaging it frequently, and even speaking it aloud to gain understanding.  This, then, brings us to the third part, or "rule", of growing in God's Word.

Inevitably, the Bible will tell us something that we either do not want to hear or that we find ourselves incapable of.  This is the struggle we see in Paul's words above.  For example, Jesus says that we are to seek God's kingdom first, with the full trust that God will then provide all that we need.  And yet, when we look at our lives, we find that we don't do this very well.

This is the struggle which Luther calls the third "rule".  It is where the devil takes God's Word and tries to convince us that we can't do that.  He wants us to give up on growing to be more like Christ.  Or, he tries to convince us that God didn't really mean what He said to the full extent which the Bible says.  For example, when Jesus says that it is better to lose an eye or a hand than for that member to keep us from faith in God's kingdom, we want to believe that Jesus isn't being literal or serious.  Surely God cannot be that strict, we tell ourselves.

This is the struggle which actually forms much of our lives in Jesus.  Paul says it well.  We want to do what God says, but we don't want to.  It's too demanding.  We want to follow God, but we aren't convinced that God will "have our back", so to speak.  And it is at this point where Luther suggests that our true understanding of God begins.

Will we give in to the easy way, or will we take the hard and narrow road in following Jesus?  Paul's answer is that we will do the easy thing.  And yet, God's Spirit works in us, constantly battling against that life of ease that we may think we deserve as God's people.  His Spirit challenges us to take up the hard task and to walk the narrow road.

But we don't do this alone, or without hope.  Paul's conclusion at the end of this section of Romans asks who will save him from this wretched state.  The answer: Jesus alone, by God's grace.  In the end, it isn't about our struggle, but about God's struggle and triumph in Jesus' death and resurrection.  It is God's gift which has made us His own, and which then challenges us to grow in Him, even as we face the struggle.  But in the end, we have the victory, through Jesus.  Thanks be to God!

Prayer and God's Word

What does prayer have to do with learning from the Bible?  After all, can't anyone who can read understand what the Bible says?  Well, yes.  We can all use the common definitions of words and understand grammar and sentence structure.  From that perspective, we can all understand what the Bible says in its most basic of meanings.

But there is a deeper level.  Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 2:14: "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."  In other words, there is the basic meaning, and then, there is the meaning that God's Spirit guides us to understand.

That is why Martin Luther, in the preface to the compilation of all his books in German, wrote this about how we read the Bible: "But kneel down in your little room and pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding."

In other words, both Paul and Luther emphasize the need of God's Spirit to truly understand what the Bible teaches us about God.  This is why Luther sees prayer as vital to understanding God's Word.  The Christian prays for God's Spirit to help him or her understand what God intends through what is written.

So next time you prepare for any study of God's Word, it may be good to ask God to give you His Spirit, to guide you in understanding what God is saying through what you are reading.