Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon_Daniel 9 Part I
Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon_luke 6
[Allen Yeh] “Preaching to Asian Americans“
Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon- idop
After the sermon, we’ve prayed for four countries where Christians are persecuted – burma , india, iran, nkorea
[Justin Taylor] A good word from Russell Moore:
Great preachers are the ones who preach really bad sermons. The difference is that they preach really bad sermons when they’re young, and are sharpened for life by critique.
Mediocre preachers are those who start off with sermons that are, eh, pretty good, but they’re never critiqued and thus never grow.
Another helpful principle from Deymaz’s “Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church” – “a healthy multi-ethnic church is a place in which people are comfortable being uncomfortable.” Deymaz here is talking about the idea of inclusion. One thing in the life of the church to reflect inclusion is worship. His conclusion is “in obedience to Christ and for the sake of the Gospel, they [people from a healthy multi-ethnic church] actively embrace a spirit of inclusion in worship beyond the predictability of homogeneity.”
Deymaz has a very vivid illustration to help us further understand this principle. He compares the multi-ethnic church to a multi-generational family. Image the Grandma who is alive and well, living in the same house with three generations all together. This is the day they will have the traditional family meal. In order to prepare the meal, the parents need to feed the babies first. The 12-year-old twin were arguing. At the meal time, you found that some are missing, those teenage kids are playing Xbox upstairs. Then the girl also says, “Mum, you’re serving meatloaf, and I don’t like it.”
Imagine if you were the parent, how would you respond?
You probably would persuade all the kids to come to the dinner table, and would teach them a most profound lesson: It’s not about the food; it’s about the family!
In terms of the grandma, in her maturity, she learned long ago to appreciate the blessing of life and love. She will enjoy watching her grandchildren no matter what they do. In this moment, she will be thankful just to have a seat at the table, still to be alive and a part of the family.
With this illustration, here is Deymaz’s remark,
Like the home in this illustration, the healthy multi-ethnic church is a warm and wonderful place, filled with people of varying personalities, personal preferences, and past experiences. Like the family in this illustration, we have been called to walk together as one. Like Grandma, the mature among us have learned to appreciate just what it is we have. Like the father, we must promote a spirit of inclusion for the good of the whole.
Sermon notes (.pdf) Sermon_Acts 27
I am reading Mark Deymaz’s “Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church“. One of the biggest challenges the church faces is how to fully embrace people from different ethnic groups. There is an issue that has to do with “assimilate vs. accommodate”.
This is the case Mark is talking about:
” Now I have no doubt that people in many, if not most, homogeneous churches would sincerely state that they would not intentionally turn anyone away. If asked, they might say something like, “We welcome anyone to become a part of our church,” or point to the fact that “a few families” of diverse ethnicity do attend their otherwise homogeneous fellowship. In fact, some pastors have specifically stated, ” We would love to have more diversity in our church and have been praying recently that others would get involved.” In other words, these well-meaning people are not doing anything intentionally to turn diverse others away. However, they are not doing anything intentionally to draw them in either.”
The deeper issue behind the case is:
“when we dig deeper, what we find is that these folks really mean that diverse people are welcome to join “their” churches as long as they embrace the majority culture and do not try to bring another culture (namely, their own) with them, that is, as long as they do not try to change “who we are or the way we do things.” In other words most local church leaders (and members too for that matter) are glad for diverse individuals to get involved “as long as they like our music, our preaching style, and our environment. But they should not expect us to change for them.” Therefore, the message being sent, whether directly or indirectly, is that “you might feel more comfortable in another church down the street.“
This is called assimilation – “to integrate somebody into a large group so that differences are minimized or eliminated.”
A true multi-ethnic church needs to accommodate people from different groups. Accommodation means “to adjust actions in response to somebody’s needs.” “to give consideration to: allow for [accommodate the special interests of various groups]” to adopt oneself”
“it is not so much our task to reach out and embrace other cultures as it is to look within our own hearts and churches in order to prepare to receive others who are somehow different from us. In so doing, we should not expect others to abandon their own cultural identity to become one with us any more than we should abandon our own to become one with them. Rather, we are all to recognize and celebrate who we are in Christ; as from the One, many – a ‘harmonious mixture of different colored ingredients.‘”
This Sunday I am preaching on Acts 27 where Paul sails for Rome. The scene of the storm and the shipwreck reminds me the movie “The Perfect Storm” – a very good visualization of the storm Paul possibly encountered.
