My Teaching/Preaching Schedule For August & September

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Low tide at Breakwater Beach, Brewster Flats, Cape Cod.

Low tide at Breakwater Beach, Brewster Flats, Cape Cod.

 

I took the above photo last night on Cape Cod. I need and am so grateful for time away every summer from weekly preaching and teaching, but it won’t be long before we’re back home and kicking off a great fall, and I’m getting excited.

Some of you might be interested in my upcoming teaching and preaching schedule as a new ministry year begins for me—if so, I’ve listed below some of the fun stuff we have coming up.

 
 

What If You Could Start Over?

Sermon series, Sundays August 15 and 22

I’m interested in the following questions these days:

  • What if you could start over?

  • What if you could begin again?

  • What if, knowing what you know now, God gave you another shot?

I’m kicking off the fall by looking at these questions, and I have good news for you:

With God, all things are possible.

 
 

The Daniel Project

Friday-Saturday, August 27-28

The Daniel Project is a weekend seminar I teach in which we look at some of the most difficult and confusing questions people are asking about God and the Christian faith. My goal is for folks to leave feeling confident and to have clarity when they are confronted by these difficult questions. More info here.

 
 

Romans—The Greatest Letter Ever Written

Sermon series, Munger weekend services, kicking off Sunday, August 29

I’m going to be preaching and teaching through Paul’s great Letter to the Romans this fall, starting the last Sunday in August. Romans is not an easy letter, but it is worth it. We’ll be handing out Romans scripture journals as part of a churchwide reading plan; our reading plan begins September 1.

Who’s in?

 
 

Sex Idol! Churchwide Bible Study on Romans and Sexuality

Wednesday, September 1, 6-7 PM

The first chapter of Romans contains one of the longest discussions of sexuality in the Bible. What does the Bible say about human sexuality? Why does Paul connect sexual sin with idolatry? How does this passage make sense of the rest of the letter? How does the Bible’s teaching on sex apply to us today?

I’ll be teaching a Bible study on all of the above in the Munger sanctuary at 6 PM on Wednesday, 9/1. Leave work early just this once, and then join us for food trucks and fun outside afterwards. Separate study on Romans (but not on sex!) for elementary students at the same time, with childcare available for little ones.

You know you’re curious—mark your calendars now.

 
 

Seven - Friday Morning Men’s Series in September

Fridays in September, 7-8 AM, Munger sanctuary

For each of the Fridays in September, I and Rodney Adams will be teaching a men’s breakfast series starting at 7 AM sharp. We’ll provide Chick-fil-A biscuits and coffee.

Fellas, this is a great event to invite other guys to attend. Whom are you going to invite?

 
 

Going to be a great fall. Expect great things!

Let Us Rise Up and Build

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Friends, it’s time to rebuild.

If ever there were a time for rebuilding, it is now:

  • It’s time to rebuild our lives;

  • It’s time to rebuild our families;

  • It’s time rebuild our communities;

  • It’s time to rebuild our country.

This pandemic has been apocalyptic in the sense that it has been revealing, and what what’s been revealed about us has been ugly. There is a lot of work to do.

And yet, I can tell you that I personally have more energy for the season ahead than I can remember having before.

Let me tell you how I got here.

(And share some pictures from our summer.)

 
 

43 Weeks Straight

Every spring, it’s the same: by the end of May I find myself getting weary and worn out from preaching.

The pattern I generally follow is to take summers off and then basically preach every Sunday during the school year. For example, I preached a sermon every week from August 18, 2019 through June 7, 2020—43 weeks straight!

The hardest thing about preaching—by far—is doing it every week. No matter how good last week’s sermon was, you start at zero at 6 PM every Sunday evening. After a while of preaching every week, you find that you have nothing to say worth hearing.

After 43 weeks straight, I needed a break.

This year, of course, we had the added stress of a worldwide pandemic this spring, so I really needed a break.

 
 

Summer Break 2020

One of the many great things about Munger is how kind our folks are to me and my family. When we leave town for the summer, no one complains (at least to my face!); folks understand that if I am going to be in the pastoral ministry for the long haul, I need to pace myself. The most important thing I have to offer as a leader is my energy, and if I don’t steward my energy well, I have nothing to offer.

And so we pulled out of town on July 2 and returned back into town on August 13, exactly 6 weeks later. 5,500 miles! Now that’s a road trip, Clark.

 
 
 

But Wherever You Go, There You Are

We were in beautiful places this summer—from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and we spent time with family.

And yet, wherever you go, there you are.

Just because I was in beautiful places with people who love me didn’t mean that I was immediately renewed and on fire for the task ahead—I was still carrying my worries and frustrations with me. About halfway through our summer break, I was feeling pretty discouraged and not looking forward to coming back to Dallas. In prior years, we’ve been excited to get back to church, but this year, there was no church to get back to, at least not in the normal sense, and so I was dreading coming back—like so many other people, I was sick and tired of the changes the pandemic has placed in my life.

 
 

Lifeguard Stand Prayer

One of the places we went this summer was to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was clear that I needed God to give me a sense of hope and direction for the future, and so I got up early every morning and walked down to the beach and sat in the lifeguard stand, read my daily psalm, and prayed.

 
 

Let Us Rise Up and Build

After a couple of days of lifeguard stand prayer—”Lord, give me something!”—I felt really drawn toward the story of rebuilding in Ezra-Nehemiah. “That’s what we need to be about!” My wife had the idea of pulling a small group of folks together in the Munger sanctuary so I could have some friendly faces to preach to, to make things are normal as possible. It all seemed good.

I know it sounds like a Sunday school story, but it’s true: after a few weeks of committed prayer, I felt like I had a new fire for the future and a clear direction in which to walk.

“Let us rise up and build.”

(That’s from Nehemiah.)

I decided that in the immediate future, my task is to (re)build, and inspire others to do the same.

I couldn’t wait to get back home and get to work.

 
 

“This Was Filmed In Front of a Live Studio Audience”

So, for the past 4 Thursdays, I’ve filmed my sermon in front of a small “studio audience” in our church sanctuary, and it has been so life-giving to me!

The story of Ezra-Nehemiah is fascinating and filled with wisdom, and I think we can learn a lot from the stories of those great men about what it will take to rebuild in our own time.

 

#1 “When You Can’t Figure Out What God is Up To” [August 23]

 

#2 “Even the Swiss Family Robinson Got This Right” [August 30]

 

#3 “What If You Don’t Want What You Think You Want?” [September 6]

 

“When God Needs To Change You Before He Changes Your Circumstances” [Coming 9/13]

 
 

Will You Join Me?

Starting this Monday, September 14, at Munger we’ll be reading through the book of Nehemiah (more info to come—this past Wednesday we finished up reading through all 150 psalms! ); I’m continuing to preach through the book (last night’s sermon really got me fired up).

I hope you’ll join me in reading and I hope you’ll watch any sermons you’ve missed—we are releasing each week’s sermon every Sunday morning.

I don’t know when we’ll all be back in church together again, but I know this:

we’re one week closer.

Friends, It’s time to rebuild.

Who’s in?

 

P.S.

I took this picture at church 2 weeks ago as I was getting ready to lead evening prayer. Something about it just gives me hope.

 
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Nothing Gold Can Stay

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Sunrise comes early to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in July, so I got up at 4:50 this morning to come to the highest point on the island—the Wright Brothers memorial—so I could see it. [Photo gallery below.]

 
 

The thing about the sunrise is how quickly it passes. Which is exactly what Robert Frost was getting at in his little poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” I memorized it when I was in high school, and I still know it by heart.

 

Sunrise on the Outer Banks. ————— Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

 
 

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

 
 

When the sun finally came over the horizon, I was struck at just how appropriate is the psalmist’s description of the sun as “the strong man”:

Psalm 19

1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5  which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6  Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
    and its circuit to the end of them,
    and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

I watched for about 45 minutes for the sun to show himself over the Atlantic Ocean, and when he did, there was definitely a strength to his appearance. Majestic.