The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Judge Deborah

There's a pretty fun story in the OT about Deborah. She's the judge prophetess military figure who used to sit under a palm tree to hold court. People would come from far and wide to have her settle their cases. An enemy king 900  iron chariots that he used to send out to pillage the countryside. They were unstoppable. The people came to Deb and begged her to do something. She went to her friend, General Barak, and told him to raise up an army of 10,000. He did. Now you'd think 10,000 soldiers against a 900 iron chariots would be pretty good odds. But no, Barak wanted one more weapon in his arsenal. He went to Deborah and said, "If you go with me, I will go. If you won't, I won't go!"

Ask kids what the lesson is here.

Josh the Prophet

I asked my friend Josh from down under what he'd cover if he were cartooning the prophets. He writes:


My favourite story from the Prophets would be when Elijah was sitting on a mountain and a captain and his fifty men said "Man of God, the king wants a word with you!  Come down here now!"
"If I really am a man of God, then may fire fall from heaven and consume you and your fifty men."  Ka-blam (a cartoon of that might be interesting).  The king sends another fifty men.
"Man of God, the king wants a word with you!  Come down here now!"

"If I really am a man of God, then may fire fall from heaven and consume you and your fifty men."  Again, ka-blam.  The king grabs another captain and his fifty men.  This one, however has a little sense.

"Man of God, would you please take into consideration the lives of me and my fifty men and please come down from your mountain and please see the king."

"Alright."

Lesson learned?  Always respect the man of God.

You can check Josh out at: www.joshuazugai.blogspot.com, www.aliterati.com

The Best Show In Town

There was a day when church was the only show in town on Sunday morning. Not so any more. Today you are competing with sleep, shopping, 1000 television channels, the internet and sports. People are still worshiping every Sunday. Go to the ball fields and malls and you’ll see them packed with cars. People still worship regularly. They are simply worshipping at a temple to a lesser god. Why would they come to see your “show?” Either your “show” on Sunday morning had better be the best show in town, or you must decide to transform your “show” to “show and tell.” Or both.

The Best Show in Town isn’t a Show

Len Sweet likes to ask the question: “Where can you find the most beautiful and valuable art in the world? In the Louver? In the Hague? In the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art? No.On refrigerators.”

The best show in town isn’t any show you prepare for people. It is a show in which they are directly involved. The best show in town won’t be any show that you or your worship team craft for spectators. If your system sets you up to be performers rather than engagers, if it sets them up to be spectators rather than players, you will never be good enough to keep the engaged and coming back for more. If, on the other hand, worship at your church is something real, relational and relevant, and if it is something they have a hand in constructing themselves, you might have a chance. To do worship this way, it can’t simply be the best show in town.

It must be the best show and tell in town.

For that to happen, you must directly involve them in the construction - live, real time, as it goes on. So you've got to ask yourself:

1. What can I do today that draws out the stories of all the saints - not just the ones on stage?

Can I ask everyone to turn to a neighbor and reflect on how the text and sermon relate to their lives, then walk around "Oprah style" asking them to share?

Can I do a reverse offering, passing out paper and colored pens at the beginning of the service and inviting everyone to draw something while I preach, share that something with a neighbor, put that offering in the plate and project it during the closing hymn?

Can I break the church into small groups, ask them to share highs and lows, then hold hands and pray for one another, bringing the highest highs and lowest lows to the closing prayers. (Imagine that: the prayers of the people are actually the prayers of the people)?

Can I turn the children's sermon into the sermon by the children, asking them lots and lots of questions and making sure their faces are seen (rather than them sitting on the floor and everyone looking at me)?

What can I do to make the liturgy true liturgy ("the work/action of the people")

What can I do to make worship true worship ("the vehicle that brings worth/praise to God")?

Try something tomorrow. Then tell me tomorrow what you did and how it worked.

 

Letting Go

So, how do you know when to tell a precious child (who happens to be a senior) what to do, and when to let go and let her make their own decisions and mistakes?

When do you assert your parental right and responsibility to make a "no-longer" child do what you think they should do, and when do you simply tell them they're choosing a course that is against your best judgment and let them fall, fail, or hurt people that they can't see they're hurting?

When do you command and demand? When do you stop and simply bless and release?

Is the end of this phase of parenting a sudden thing, or a gradual thing? Is there a moment, or a myriad of moments?

The kids didn't come with an instruction manual. Or, if they did, the updates from t-nine months and 17 9/10 years have been so extensive that the same rules don't apply.

Where is the grace in letting go if it might hurt someone? And where is the grace in holding on, if the holding, itself, is damaging?

I used to be a fairly good counselor. I used to be an expert in youth ministry.

Now I have a senior daughter who I love desperately and I don't have a clue if, when, how, and where to let go.

Dear God, bless parents of seniors.

Maybe they know a little more about how you have felt for the last 10,000 years.

A Few Scenes from "Job: Into the Promised Land"

I just finished the art for "Bible Song: Into the Promised Land" and sent it away to the press. This is the second volume of the 8 volume cartoon Bible. I'll do one every 6 months for the next three years to get kids from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.  This volume follows "The Books of Moses" and runs through 15 stories from Joshua to Job, with a lot of battles, blood, guts, swords, etc. (the kind of stuff boys should like more than most Sunday School materials). The stories include:

Jericho's Wall (With Rahab in a red dress - a pretty hot gal . Rather than calling her a prostitute she's "a woman with a very bad reputation.")
Joshua's Call (Blood, guts, battles, swords, and an ending that says "as for me an my household...)
Deborah and the Judges (Judge Deborah gets to lead Israel into battle)
We Want a King (Samuel anoints Saul, Saul messes up, Samuel finds a shepherd boy named David who happens to be a (gasp) musician! and annoints him.)

Goliath's Requiem (A big, ugly, mean guy loses his head)

David's Great Escapes (Complete with King Saul "relieving himself" in a cave and David opting not to kill him)

Solomon's Wisdom (With a baby almost chopped in two, and a very "hot" Queen of Sheba coming for a visit)
God Sees All (Elijah taunting 850 frenzied prophets cutting themselves with swords - not a safe thing to do)
Judah's Last Chance (With an 8 year old King Josiah bringing them back to God)
Jeremiah and the Exile (Nobody listens to the kid!)
The Exiles Return (Ezra gets a government grant to rebuild the temple)
Rebuilding the Walls (Nehemiah outsmarts the neighboring tribes and gets the job done)
Esther's Gamble (It's the Miss Universe Pagaent, Persia's Next Top Model and the very first Cinderella story all rolled into one)
Job's Big Test (God and Satan have a little contest. Okay, not so little)

The biggest challenge in the entire 15 theme set was drawing God and Satan having their conversations in the story of Job. I tried a dozen different styles, shapes, and faces for God and Satan, but opted out with the stuff below God didn't get a human shape. Instead, I chose a purple/blue/white flame. Satan did get a body - and he's the handsomest cartoon character in the book... except that he's a little pale. He'll show up again in my next set - The Good News - when he comes to tempt Jesus.

Thought you'd enjoy a little glimpse.

Blog Attack

A thought-provoking blog definately worth a look is Sivin Kit's site. Check out the giggling video of his kids from October 18 and, if you aren't smiling 30 seconds later, I will personally come to your home and make you smile. Cruise around his site, enjoy some vids and conversational starters. Plan to spend a few minutes grazing through his network of friends. I think you'll be opened to a new world and a new persepctive that you'll enjoy for years to come. If you go there and find what I think you'll find fascinating, please send him a "hello" and tell him Melheim sent you.

A Sunday Poem

Mother gently holds an infant to her waiting breast

Candles glimmer hope against a deep undaunted darkness

Friendly voices break upon a crowded, empty room

Sparrows nestle in the crag of rock against the storm

Miracles around us whispering “He is here!”

But only eyes of faith can sense

The presence of the Lord.

 

Cold refreshing rain dissolves a parched and hardened soil

A sudden gust of wind transforms a still and silent sail

Newly opened windows fill a musty, cobwebbed room

A tiny clinging hand holds at the graveside of a friend

Miracles abound, proclaiming “He is here!”

But only eyes of faith can see

The power of the Lord.

 

A cry, a cross, a tear, a shout, an opened empty tomb

A hush, a mystery, their friend inside an upper room

A match is struck, a fire explodes, a faith, a hope, a love unfolds

And all creation’s cries abound

in concert harmonies of sound

Claiming and proclaiming

Swelling and retelling

The meaning, wisdom, pow’r and blessing of the Living God.

Miracles surround us, exclaiming “He is here!”

But only those who see behind

And only ears that hear unheard

And only eyes of faith can know,ever know, the presence of the Lord.

RAM 1986

Pastoral Care

One of my favorite old profs at Seminary, Jim Nestingen, used to tell the story about a go-getter young seminary student who talked all the time when he went to visit people at the hospital. Most people dreaded to see him coming because they couldn't get a word in edge-wise.

 

His wise old supervisor decided to take him along on a hospital call where a man was dying. They went into the room. The old pastor held the dying man's hand in silence. Not a word was spoken for five minutes.

 

Then the old sage simply sighed.

 

"Ya ya." He said. Then he made the sign of the cross on the dying man's head and they walked out.

Oral Culture and Art

<<< Queen of Sheba (from Bible Song)

---

This just in from my friend Thom Hohstadt. on art and emotion and the future of the church. I thought it worth passing along.

The emerging church needs to know the "Language of the Future"---   

The power in this language is Oral Culture. The power in an Oral Culture is creativity. The power in creativity is art. The power in art is metaphor. And the power in metaphor is emotion.

Yet, the church has yet to fathom an Oral Culture. It has no theology of creativity. It has scant understanding of prophetic art. It reduces metaphor to a figure of speech. And it has a love/hate relation to emotion.

That’s how far behind we are!

Back to my morning thoughts...

In an illiterate world, the church had to teach with art. Stories could be "read" from stained glass windows, statues, and grand cathedrals. In the middle ages and Reformation days, political cartoons flourished. My favorites were Luther with the devil playing a flute straight into his ear and out his nose (on the anti-Lutheran side) and the pope as an ass playing a bagpipe (on the anti-Catholic side).

One could argue today that we are not in an illiterate world, but an alliterate world. It's not that we can't read. It's just that we don't. Or, to be more precise, we aren't absorbing most of our information via the printed word. Most of it comes at us through images. We read somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 logoesque images a day from television to movies to highway ads to clothing ads. We "read" them without actually reading them. And the printed word? It is coming to us via instant messages and codified into sound bytes.

So, in an illiterate world the church had to teach in art. Maybe the same is true in an alliterate world.

Len Sweet says, "There was once a day when the church saved the arts. There may be a day when the arts save the church."

Question 1: What does this mean for preaching? Most of our preachers were trained by preaching professors who were trained before television.

Question 2: What does it mean to be a minister of "Word and Sacrament" when "word" has a much broader definition than the spoken and written word to most of the people sitting in the pews?

Question 3: What am I missing here?

Question 4: Which image do you like better for the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon (top)? And which do you think I can get away with putting in a Sunday School book?

Never Better

So I slump into Starbucks ten minutes ago in a general grouch - my mood and my scowl perfectly matched to the day. The sky is gray and threatening. My son got up late and its my fault for not being his personal alarm clock. My wife is mad because I brought the 10 year old mini-van in to the garage to get the windshield wiper motor replaced and forgot to tell them about the brake light. Our hospitality director is getting married and moving away and we're not in a position to replace her right now so we'll all be stuck with being nice to people for the next six months. My sisters and I are trying to talk dad into assisted living and off the highways. My good friend Brad's son Alex would have been 16 yesterday.

I'm weighed down with a dozen personal and professional problems as I walk up to the counter for my daily fix, and Mike stands there smiling.

Mike. The guy with the plate in his head. He's old. He's broken down. He has a scar on his skull 12 inches long. Who gave him permission?

"How you doing, Rich?"  he says as he swipes my card.

"Fine." I lied. "And you?"

"Never better,"he beams as he hands me the tall mild with room for cream and my pumpkin donut.

"Never better?"

"Today's the best day of my life."

"And why's that?" I ask, not really in the mood for Pollyanna or any other mood altering drug than coffee.

"I'm alive."

Okay. I get it. You're alive. You got up and you were still there. The sky was gray but it didn't alter you. You've got the plate in your head, but you still were able to put your shoes on and go to work. The war in Iraq is impossible, the North Koreans are crazy, the stupid Republicans are doing everything they can to toss the election, Alex didn't live to get his driver's licence and terrorize his parents, the real terrorists are probably going to drive a dirty bomb into the parking lot at the World Series, some flesh eating bacteria or bird flu will probably wipe out half the planet and half of America thinks "Deal or No Deal" is culture.

And you're going to have the best day of your life from the inside out.

Damn you, Mike. I only wanted coffee. Now I've got to go back to the office and have a pleasant day.

Bless you, Mike. The day isn't going to alter you - you are going to alter it.

Or altar it. And me.

Maybe I should get a plate in my head.