Pastoral Listening

Pastoral Listening October 8, 2010

One of the secrets to good pastoral work is listening, and Dan Kimball does this well. Here is the line-up of sermons at his church in the next few weeks:

October 17: Jesus and judgmentalism: Should Christians judge anyone?

Christians are known for being judgmental. When I wrote the book They Like Jesus But Not The Church, it was a major thing constantly said so I wrote a chapter on that topic. The bookUnChristian gave statistics that 87% of people describe Christians as judgmental. So what does Scripture actually say about this? Do we live where nothing should be judged? What does “judging” even mean?

October 24: The Bible: is the Bible really from God or human-made and why is it different than any other religious document that also claims it is “inspired”?

We are going to spend two weeks on two questions about the Bible itself. The reason for two questions of the 5 being about the Bible is that Christians get their beliefs from the Bible. So all the various arguments and things Christians do comes from the BIble itself. But how do we know it is any different than other religious documents? Most faiths claims their sacred writings or book is “inspired”. So how are the Scriptures any different from other world faiths and their sacred texts which also make claims of their inspiration.

October 31: The Bible: How do we know what we have now was what was originally written? – guest speaker Dan Wallace, New Testament scholar

There is a lot of criticism of the Bible from people like Bart Erhman and others who claim the Bible is not trustworthy or inspired and that it is document that humans created for their own personal gains and self-created theology. Dan Wallace will address this head on – and then we will have a special open forum luncheon with Dan where any questions goes.

November 7: Homosexuality, the church and the Bible – guest speaker Deb Hirsch

Deb Hirsch is a friend of mine who I invited up to teach and share on this topic. For those that don’t know her, Deb is married to Alan Hirsch. They both are authors. So both Alan and Deb will be coming up to Santa Cruz this weekend and I look forward to being with them again. I recently joined the advisory board for Forge America which is Alan and Deb’s missional network and ministry. So I look forward to serving with them all the more in the years ahead.

For this Sunday, Deb will be sharing her personal story and background. Then take a look at the Scriptural passages that speak about sexuality. Deb will give us some wisdom about how the church should be thinking and responding in today’s world about this. Deb’s story is an amazing one and she has had great experience and ministry in the GLBT community of Australia.  This  was the #1 question asked as well as over 1/3 of everyone who filled out a survey selected as their top choice of the 5. Deb will speak in all 3 gatherings and then we will have an Open Forum with Deb after the 7 PM worship gathering.

November 14: In the Bible there seems to be a portrait of God being a God of violence, wrath, judgment, hell, genocide as the stories tell. How does the wrathful God of the Old Testament contrast with the New Testament teaching of Jesus speaking of peace and love?

This was the overall #2 question asked. So we will spend a Sunday specifically on this topic. For me, this is one of the most difficult topics to actually study and teach about.

So that is the 5 weeks. There are so many questions we won’t be able to address. Questions came in about male chauvinism in the Bible. A greatly asked question was science and the Bible.  We will have to plan for a Q-5 part 2 as soon as we can. As I really am torn that we won’t get to all the very great questions asked.


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