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The Philly Story: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

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  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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  to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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  what God is doing in us and in our community.
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  This fall, we're living in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
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  and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
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  This conversation was inspired by our series The Gospels.
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  You can find more information about our church at
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  fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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  conversation. I think yesterday I called you
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  our fearless leader, and you do fear the Lord, so I apologize.
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  I do fear the Lord, that is true.
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  That, and are there any new fears since your knee surgery?
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  No, I'm, I'm doing OK. I think I overdid it a little
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  bit on Saturday, go into one of the boys football games.
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  I I think initially I underestimated the difference
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  between arthroscopic surgery and open incision surgery and.
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  Which one did you get and why did you overestimate?
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  Well, so my shoulder was arthroscopic.
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  Like they just put in the little probes and cameras and did all
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  the things through like 3 little holes in my shoulder on my knee.
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  There's like a three inch incision where they had to like
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  get in there and cut the tendon open and do all kinds of stuff
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  like that. And yeah, that hurts more, the
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  incision itself. So I think that's where my
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  underestimation came. But doing good on less drugs
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  than I was yesterday and you know, each day I wake up and
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  feels a little better than it did the day before.
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  Still make communion bread for Sunday that.
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  Was really good and they did an incredible job.
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  Yeah. And I was like, do we have a new
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  official communion pastor? I was so glad that he was able
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  to do that and then was great with doing the benediction.
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  I was like, oh, I can just receive communion and be done.
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  There you go. Shake hands, kiss babies better
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  than. Kissing hands and shaking
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  babies. Depends on the day, depends on
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  the babies. Yeah.
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  Very not super young. We're not talking like the bad
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  for their health. Shaking baby syndrome.
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  Yeah, yeah, not that kind. But I don't say I preach.
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  You're supposed to be asking me questions, Scott.
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  Yeah, that's true. So go into your sermon from
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  Sunday in which you portrayed Jesus, Allah, Rocky, you know
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  every man in Philly. A good chunk of South
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  Philadelphia, yeah. Specifically, yeah.
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  But kind of like the every man, the like the common man, the you
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  know, and tried to help us see it from a modern lens.
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  But but what was kind of your inspiration for that?
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  You know, we we read stories from Scripture all the time.
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  And I think most of the time pastors try to get people to put
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  themselves into that situation, right?
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  And so they like try to explain what it would have been like and
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  all those kind of things. But but what led you to kind of
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  reverse it? And bring the.
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  Story to us. Yeah, so I've been prefacing
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  with people and also having people pray for me because this
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  sermon was very unique to me in preparation and also in tools at
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  my disposal in the pulpit. I'll, I'll say it that way.
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  I had that out there. People praying afterwards, even
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  one of our youth was like, what was different?
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  So for me it was, it was subtle, but it's almost exactly kind of
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  what you touched on. I'm good at storytelling
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  naturally. Not from the pulpit, I would
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  say. And from the pulpit, I don't
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  think I have a single time shared a fictional story because
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  I feel like I'm not good at constructing them.
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  And also, if I do it too much, I feel like the tension and focus
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  becomes on that story and not it doesn't enhance the scripture
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  we're looking at. It turns us away from the
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  scripture we're looking at. And so for this one, I was doing
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  Lectio Davina from one of my books for school.
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  So we have which? Give me a 32nd.
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  And one, that's a great question I was going to ask you because
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  from what I understand, Lectio Davina is very similar to our
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  prayer session format in which you are like.
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  And it's, it's been a practical way of engaging scripture that's
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  been taught for over 1000 years. I'm going to nerd out for a
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  second because I'm in school. So when they, like, started
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  making, like, colleges and schools and people were learning
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  theology, theology originally was the practice of, like, being
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  a Christian. It wasn't necessarily all the
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  theoretical beliefs of God, but like, this is how you learn to
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  walk with God. And Lecchio Davina was one of
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  those things in which they continue to teach even, Yeah,
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  hundreds of years after its origin.
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  So it's kind of like silencing yourself before God, praying
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  before you get into the Scripture, reading the
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  scripture. And then at least in the way
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  this book formats it, it gives a little more context to it.
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  It then asks you to like, imagine yourself in the story if
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  it's that kind of scripture. And then it also gives you some
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  poignant questions to reflect on as you're reflecting on the
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  Scripture and then praying for Lord, how does this change me
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  and my walk and how I follow you?
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  And that's kind of the way the book's formatted.
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  And so I really, really enjoyed the book.
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  I've already given it to youth, and there's a young adult that's
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  interested in it. Because sometimes just having
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  that, this is what you do now, this is the next step that like
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  helps provoke instead of feeling like you're going blind into a
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  part of Scripture. Yeah.
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  And kind of a more simpler version of Lectio Divina
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  version. That's what it means.
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  It's not like some fancy name. It's just what they called it
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  and when they developed it, Yeah.
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  It's a dead language and we're still using it.
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  It's pretty fancy, yeah. But reading the scripture,
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  reading through a passage of scripture generally out loud,
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  even if you're alone, because there's, there's a process that
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  happens when we see the word and speak the word and hear the word
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  that opens us up to what God is saying.
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  And, and you just come to asking, you know, God, what do
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  you want to say? Are there things you want to
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  highlight? And then you might do that a
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  couple times. And then if you're doing
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  something guided, there might be questions for reflection.
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  Or if you're just kind of doing on your own, you might just kind
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  of see what God is leading you to, where he's highlighting
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  things, what He is speaking to you out of those things.
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  If you wanted to try it and you've never tried it, there's
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  an app you can download called Lectio 365.
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  It comes from the 24/7 prayer movement.
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  And then they do three times a day.
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  They've got a Lectio on there that you can kind of work your
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  way through. Which does not mean that if you
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  download the app, you have to commit to three times a day, no.
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  You you could just try it once and then delete delete the app
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  if you wanted to, but it's worth trying.
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  Yeah, absolutely. So I, I was going through that
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  section of scripture and it said to like, imagine yourself and,
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  or like, imagine it happening and kind of this whole picture
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  started coming together, which I shared on Sunday.
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  And then as I'm like rounding out the picture in my head and
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  trying to explain it, I get to a point where I'm like, OK, I feel
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  like this is God providing something for Sunday, but I'm
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  not seeing how what the ultimate points are to get from the story
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  and how this helps us get there. So praying, rereading, all that
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  kind of stuff and kind of landing at these three parts of
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  hoping, going and praying. And I pretty much like, and I
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  felt like I was so prepared and extremely underprepared
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  simultaneously. Like I had almost the whole
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  thing by like Wednesday. And then I was like, I don't
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  know, it's just this, this weird balance of, OK, I have the
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  points. I know this is going to get us
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  there. And the past year, maybe a
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  little plus I've been doing like primarily manuscript ish notes.
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  Or at least I do a manuscript and then strip it down.
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  But every time I do a manuscript for my sermon, I feel like I'm
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  hitting certain beats and it restricts my freedom of speech
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  and connecting to the people that are listening.
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  And that it becomes, the more I rehearse it over and over and
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  over and over again, the more that's how I end up at my like
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  monotone ish somber thing. Yeah, on Sunday mornings, it
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  kind of loses the passion and intensity that I start out with
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  or that God gives me for certain parts or topics or themes.
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  And it's like, OK, I just need to make sure that I get that
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  information out there, this really important information out
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  there. And so I was like, OK, I don't
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  want to like hyper fixate on certain phrases or sentences.
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  Like I know the story, I know the image, I know the pieces.
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  So then I had a much more bare boned notes on the pulpit.
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  I had maybe like 2 1/2 pages instead of eight.
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  And then even as we got like to Saturday and I was like, OK, let
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  me just make sure look over. That's when he provided the
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  Romans 1513 and the story of Peter being prayed for.
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  I was like, yeah, it's easy to say like hope and pray.
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  I don't know. It just seems like, yeah, we
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  know we're supposed to do that. And and it's like, OK, but it's
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  really important that we do that.
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  We need to see like scripturally that like this is what we need,
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  like what we're called to and and but also that we're not
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  alone and maybe are disappointment or disbelief in
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  what God can do since we've been kind of rehearsed into this
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  convince someone to go to church and if they keep going,
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  eventually they will believe. I feel like that can be the
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  evangelism, a lot of a lot of churches and that's I was like,
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  OK, how do I tell them like, yes, we still do that, but that
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  isn't the only or end goal of evangelism.
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  Or it's like, OK, attending a Sunday morning is the only way
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  to hear the gospel versus like, go and tell them the gospel.
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  Sure. Yeah.
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  Yeah, hot take. The goal of evangelism is not to
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  get people to come to. Church agreed, but I didn't know
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  how to say that. Yeah, in the church service,
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  yeah, but I'm getting into all the complexities, right?
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  It's not because while we absolutely affirm, not just
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  because it gives us homes and pays our bills, that it is
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  important for people to come and be part of a worshipping
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  community where they are built up in the faith.
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  But the goal of evangelism isn't to get people to come to church,
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  It's to get people to know Jesus so that they can they can be
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  changed and transformed by his grace, which in part comes to us
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  through the church. But But the goal isn't to get
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  good churchgoers. And I think people who may even
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  desire that think that the church is the best way for them
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  to receive that. Yeah.
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  And then the fruit of that would be they stop doing whatever bad
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  thing that the person trying to tell them about God perceives.
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  And then they attend church regularly.
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  If we succeed at no longer, I don't know, keying people's cars
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  and then we start attending two or three times a month, then
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  like we've succeeded in the changed life.
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  And, and it's not a this church perspective.
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  This isn't just 2025 perspective.
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  I think it's it it grew and grew in the expectations of the
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  American church decades and decades ago.
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  And so a lot of us have grown up with that just being the norm.
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  And not seeing that in Scripture should make us question if the
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  norm is right. Yeah, as I study the Reformation
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  and they started questioning all the norms and and it's I, I
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  thought Reformation was like 1 and done.
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  I was thinking it was like Martin Lutheran did the paper.
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  Right 95. Theses yeah, this stuff is
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  actually kind of messed up. And then a bunch of people split
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  and we're done. And then we had some big voices
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  that helped shape that new split, but it was like 4 or
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  five, like, oh sure, big reformations and changes of
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  thought that happened. So you had like the Lutheran
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  Reformation that took place in Germany and all that, but then
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  you also had the. Swigley.
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  Swingley in Switzerland and then John Calvin and his group, and
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  then he had the Anabaptist who kind of split off in what they
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  call the radical Reformation. But then even something that
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  people aren't as familiar with is like, there was also an
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  English Reformation, right, that gave rise to the Anglican
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  Church. And you know, cynics will say,
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  oh, it's just about Henry wanting to divorce his wife and
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  not being able to. And I'm not saying that didn't
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  play a role, but but there were so many other undercurrents that
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  were all flowing and coming together.
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  And if you're ever interested, got a great book.
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  Yeah. It's like a 800 page history of
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  the English Reformation. It's called Heretics and
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  Believers. I read that in my fun time
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  reading last year. You're sick.
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  You're. Sick and and so that that idea
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  of the Reformation and and things changing, right, it's
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  because over time, other things keep trying to get into what God
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  has actually called us to be as the church, right?
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  And and so in a sense, the Reformation is the positive side
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  of what's been called in recent years like deconstruction,
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  right. There have been a lot of people
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  talking about deconstruction. Unfortunately, it's led to a lot
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  of people walking away from the church because they never get to
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  the other side right there. There's a point where we need to
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  kind of strip away some of those cultural and philosophical
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  things that end up working their way into the church.
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  But then where do we go, right? Where do we go with that?
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  And where, where do you think we go with that?
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  No. Pressure.
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  No, but specifically, specifically in relation to this
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  idea of how evangelism happens or how people come to know.
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  Jesus, I I think that like we talked about what the
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  Reformation is, a big thing that changed in those times was
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  higher literacy rate and the Bible being available in native
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  languages. And so instead of just receiving
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  the word from pulpit only, I think a great part about this
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  series is encouraging people to be in the word themselves and
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  being in the Gospels themselves and reading it for themselves so
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  that you have scripture to contrast against what anyone
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  says about it. So I would say that for sure
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  Step 1 and I think as you've read Scripture and it hopefully
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  encourages you, I hope it encourages you and is D
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  couraging a thing. Discourage, discourage,
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  encourages and discourages you encourages you that all is
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  possible with God and that he's able to do incredible things
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  through anyone no matter what we've done, discourages all of
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  your hopes you've put in the world that may not be satisfied
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  as you follow Christ, which is it's it's a tough balance and
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  sometimes pill to swallow of this thing isn't going to be
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  guaranteed in this lifetime. And yet God provides something
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  so much greater as as we were studying in Sunday school with
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  our kids, the prodigal son and I love one of our students was
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  like I'm with the older brother. I think it's the older brother
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  that stayed around was like, why can't I get a goat?
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  Yeah. And I if you quick refresh of
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  the story, prodigal son inherit, takes inheritance, spoils it on
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  on wild living. Wild living returns home, father
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  happily receives him, throws a party.
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  Older son stays back that whole time as a good son.
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  And he's like, hey, he gets this big party.
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  He was the bad kid. I've been around here the whole
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  time. Where's my party and where's my
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  I don't even get a goat. He gets the fattened calf and
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  it's like, where's, where's my goat?
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  And it's like, OK, let's take this to where we are now in our
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  situations. What's the thing of this world
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  that you think God should give you for being a faithful
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  Christian? Yeah.
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  And so one of the kids even even mentioned like grieving a loved
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  one recently, like, Lord, I've been so good and faithful.
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  I've prayed. Why couldn't I keep them around
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  longer in this lifetime? Yeah.
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  And we can do it with. Why can't I have an easier
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  financial situation? Or this job that I wanted.
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  Or there's a job that I want to get.
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  Why can't you give me this raise or whatever it may be?
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  And do you remember the father's response?
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  All that I have is yours. You've been with me this whole
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  time and everything that I have is yours or all that I have,
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  right? Depending on translation, all
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  that I have is yours. Because he meant that literally.
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  Like yeah, he gave the other son the inheritance, so by default
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  everything else belonged to this older son.
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  And at the same time, the you've been here this whole time, that
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  son has received work housing this entire time.
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  So it's all the blessings and yet we look at the blessings of
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  someone else or like, wait, but that one, that's the one I want.
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  And so it's the acknowledging the blessings and also all that
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  God has and offers to us that we may not even desire or seek
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  after, but it's so much greater than anything we could imagine.
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  So that balance of discourage and courage.
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  And then as we transition that into how we view others, the
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  hope we have for others because it's so easy, just like in that
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  story, to get distracted by the earthly temptations and things
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  that we see and not focus on what God can do, what God can
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  provide in a situation is insurmountable.
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  It's insurmountable. And then as we go, it's looking
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  for those opportunities, looking for the people that need it.
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  I don't think you're going to be like, well, I can't really think
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  of anyone that could use the gospel.
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  Because if you're having that problem, either you've isolated
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  yourself into a bubble and you aren't really being in the
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  world, not a part of the world, or I think your heart might be
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  really separated from the Lords. And I don't think that anyone's
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  going to find themselves that listens to this podcast in that
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  situation. And so if we're in that latter
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  half where we can think of those people, and you may may even be
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  questioning like, how can I reach out to them?
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  They're so hostile. They're so against Christianity.
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  They're so all of these things. Pray not just for them, but also
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  asking God on how you can be Jesus in their life.
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  And also as we look at the examples of Jesus through this
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  gospel series, what are ways in which I can love, in which I can
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  demonstrate holy living and righteousness in ways that I can
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  be holy, that they see the difference in me from the world
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  and not from my glory, but to be able to point them to God and
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  where it all is rooted from. So I think those are important
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  aspects in addition to the praying for them.
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  If they just say I never want to hear or see you again, or
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  they're just on social media and they block you or whatever it
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  might be, I don't know. But yeah, these are all really
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  important things that again, as I ended my sermon with simple,
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  not easy. Yeah, well, that's our
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  conversation for today, but that doesn't mean the conversation is
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  over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
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  on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
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  we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
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  can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
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  Thanks for being part of this conversation.