Besides the cold we’ve actually had an enjoyable month. In particular, we were delighted to have a close friend from Spain, Dan, over for a week. It is so relaxing to speak in Spanish and, for a moment, no longer feel like aliens in a strange land. We’ve also been able to spend time with friends from Chicagoland, which becomes more significant as we realize that soon we’ll be far away from here.

Looking forward, this semester will have a high concentration of preaching. Because I want to grow in preaching God’s word faithfully, I’ve seized a number of opportunities to get better at it. I’m taking specialized preaching classes (in difficult biblical texts like poetic and prophetic books) and will be preaching in a number local churches. Two weeks ago I was also able to attend a Simeon Trust workshop that provides ongoing training for people in ministry to preach better. Finally, Dan, our friend from Spain, encouraged me to write guidelines for preparing a sermon. You can see it here.

I still have a lot to learn about preaching, but a few things have become evident. First, if the Bible is God’s word, it is essential that preachers learn how to read the text carefully to understand not only what it is saying, but also what it is claiming on the reader – what we are called to do in response. Second, the preacher is to clearly communicate that to the church, calling them also to respond to God’s word. This is a sobering thought, actually communicating God’s word to people. That’s one of the reasons I need a lot more training.

Please, keep praying with us:

• to enjoy this last semester, especially to spend time with friends that we might never see again
• to keep strong in studies, work and church
• for my preaching times, that God would keep me faithful to his word and that I speak through him while I continue learning

We love you,

A few people have asked me recently how to prepare a text to preach or teach in a Bible study. In the next few posts, I will share some tools that I have learned to help to read the biblical text better, understand its meaning and purpose, and share that with others.

This first post gets to the most important part: the need to understand our text well and identify its main claim. The idea is to find out the central motivation in the text. What is it trying to get done? This will be what we want to communicate in a sermon, not our own ideas. Doing this part well will give power and authority to the message, because you won’t just share your words, but you will open the Word of God for your hearers.

The tool I propose below consists in six questions to ask your text to get to its main claim. These are taken from Greg Sharf’s book, Prepared to Preach, (Christian Focus, 2005).

Once you have your text (a basic logical unit), read it a few times, in different translations, and try to answer the following questions. While you study the text, jot down notes in another notebook or text file: things that are strange, that surprise you, that you don’t get, that could be a good illustration, etc. These notes will be useful later for preparing the presentation.

This phase can take from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the text.

1. What is the text I am reading functionally?

E.g.: a poem, a letter, a historical narration…then go more specific: an exhortation, a command, a story, an illustration, a hymn, etc.

2. What is the main subject?

E.g.: faith, perseverance, the magnificence of God, etc.

Note: identify only one main subject. There will be more things, but there is one that will be prominent amongst all the rest. This one controls the text. If there really are a few different ones, you might need to cut down the chunk of text you are going to share from.

3. What is the author saying about the subject?

E.g.: Faith is a gift from God, perseverance marks the Christian life, etc.

Note: many times the sub-themes that you found earlier enter into this category. They help explain the main subject.

4. What response is the Holy Spirit requiring from believing readers?

E.g.: Increase their faith, encouragement by remembering God’s work, to abandon an idol that has substituted Christ in their life, etc.

Note: It is helpful here to think of the historical context to find out what response was sought in the original listeners.

5. How is the Holy Spirit eliciting the intended response?

E.g.: With a story of someone who didn’t have faith but God gave her faith anyway, with a logical argument, etc.

Note: Often in this phase you finally get the grammatical structure of the text: how the pieces are fitting together to prop up the main point (e.g.: the three arguments Paul uses to convince his reader to believe the gospel). Try to write this structure down, or draw it out. This will be very useful for the sermon or presentation later.

6. How does this particular passage contribute to the large picture, that is, to the story of redemption?

Ask yourself, What would be missing in this book if this passage wasn’t here? What would be missing in the canon (the whole Bible) if this passage wasn’t here? Considering the period when it was written ask, How does this contribute to point towards the cross and the gospel of Christ (is it before his death, resurrection or ascension or after it, how does that influence our understanding of it)?

Note: this is a step that we often forget, but it is absolutely crucial for a Christocentric sermon (i.e. a Christian sermon). We must see how Christ is seen in this passage. Remember that he is the fulfillment of all the law, the prophecies, and the stories. If it is a command, how is Christ reflected and how has God’s grace in him affected it?

After answering these questions, What should I have?

• The text’s “proposition” or main claim: This is the central purpose of the text, what it is trying to get done. Write it out in a sentence with only one verb. This is the focus that is going to control your presentation of the text.
• A basic grammatical structure: Here is where you put together the pieces, answering the question, How does the author present his proposal?
• A bunch of notes of stuff that can be included in your presentation, such as application ideas, insights, even illustrations that may have come to mind.

With what you have now, we’ll go on to the “bridge” phase, which will take you from the biblical message to a message to share with people here and now. I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Each year, Operation Christmas Child mobilizes millions of people to fill shoe boxes with presents for kids that probably wouldn’t receive presents on Christmas otherwise (especially, since many of them don’t live in Christian-tradition countries). It astounds me how many churches have embraced it, so I’d like to have a few words.

Before continuing, I’d like to say that I really admire and appreciate when people, churches or other organizations have a desire to help, we can’t do it enough. What I’d also like to say, is that sometimes we need to think twice if what we’re doing really helps… because intentions are NOT all that matter. And please let me know if I’m just not getting this Operation Christmas Child right.

This program is part of a “relief organization,” meaning, they don’t seek structural changes to global problems, but rather to temporarily alleviate the symptoms of those problems. People often argue about which system is better. I think both, structural changes and alleviation of symptoms, are needed, but let me explain why Operation Christmas Child doesn’t qualify as a relief program:

• Relief programs meet the immediate needs of particular groups of people. How does a shoe box full of random stuff qualify as meeting immediate needs, especially when the packer doesn’t even know what country that box is going to end up in? Yes, I’ve also heard the story about the freezing boy from a freezing country among the crowd, who opens his box and pulls out a down jacket just his size. I can’t help but think about two things: 1, how on earth do you fit a down jacket in a shoe box, and 2, the face of freezing kid next to him who only receives a toothbrush, which brings me to my next point.

• These kind of programs are extremely exclusivist: because of the limited number of questionably useful shoe boxes, they don’t reach everybody in the village so, on top of the down toothbrush next to the down jacket kid, who knows how many other kids don’t even get boxes? Who determines which kids receive boxes, and why? What kind of conflicts does this inequality and exclusivity create, and what happens when the organization leaves the village? Please, don’t get me wrong. 1 kid with a toothbrush is better than 0 kids with a toothbrush, but, at what cost?

• At an extremely expensive one: the cost of shipping all those boxes full of questionably helpful stuff around the globe. For each box they pack, people are asked to donate $7, which in Nairobi is 3 days salary or 14 loaves of bread.

• Oh but they evangelize! That worsens things: ok, so kids with boxes get to hear the gospel. What about the kids that don’t get the boxes? No box, no Jesus? But let’s forget for a second about the no-box kid. What about the yes box, yes Jesus kid? What kind of gospel are we transmitting? That of a Santa Claus Jesus? That of white wealthy Christians that give useless presents and then leave? I don’t know about you, but when I was 5, I’d have embraced Zoroastrianism for a present. This blackmail evangelism is not exclusively Christian. Islam has drastically advanced in Africa exchanging food for Allah. Thanks to some Christian missionaries who used the same method in Asia, we coined the term “rice Christians.”

Why is this Operation Christmas Child so popular then? Honestly, I think it’s because it’s too easy. It helps our conscience more than it helps the kids who receive the boxes.

I do not mean this post to be an excuse for not doing anything, since we can’t change the world. And we can’t, but if you agree with me on this one and you’re not sending a $7 toothbrush God knows where, DO SOMETHING ELSE. But what kind of organizations or programs should we support? Charity is always the easy option, but I’d encourage you to look for organizations/programs that seek structural changes, and whose work focuses on:

• local development (Kiva, Firefall International)
• local education and formation (The Beer-Sheva Project)
• development of local leadership (Nuru International)

Why this emphasis on “local” stuff? Because only by empowering local people to improve their communities, will they be able to survive in this dog-eat-dog world. And that’s why Capitalism prefers charity: it’s a paternalizing kinda-help. It is a bandaid that will never solve real problems on its own, ergo, it eliminates competition, it’s safe. If wealth doesn’t change hands, we can keep ruling the world. Don’t misunderstand me, I think that charity can meet urgent needs that can’t wait for the structural change that will make that need disappear, but these are my objections to charity alone:

Inequality objectively exists, and I don’t intend to make a case for it or against it. Throughout history, inequality has given birth to many stories about poor stealing from the rich to give it back to the poor. I don’t intend to make a case for or against stealing either. My case is against this charity that, after having stolen from the poor, they give (some of) it back to them, and expect to be praised for it. History shows us how privileged countries have systematically raped the rest of the world to be where they are. “I don’t steal” you may say. Well, as participants of the economy of these countries, we are (maybe indirectly but still) partners in crime. History is only our fault if we perpetuate it, and as you can see if you turn on your tv, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

My advice (for free!), instead of spending 10 extra minutes at Walmart buying toothbrushes, invest some of your time to research organizations that are making real changes. And when you find them, support them. I know we’re busy, but hey, I though we wanted to make a contribution here. It’s easier to give leftovers, but good stuff comes with a price, so let’s pay it.

Marta

*Disclaimer: Supporting organizations that are creating changes is just the beginning of what we can do to help. I have no personal interest in any of the specific organizations listed above. They’re just examples of the many that are out there making changes. Except for Kiva, they all are Christian organizations, but there are also secular ones, and also others that focus on evangelizing. If you’re looking for that, I always prefer to support individual missionaries I personally know, rather than agencies, but that’s your call.

We have big news. Remember that on the last letter we told you about a two-year job/training opportunity? We’re going to Kansas City next May!

The church is called Christ Community Church and it has four campuses in the Kansas City area (on the border of the states of Kansas and Missouri). It is a very healthy, gospel centered Evangelical church.

This is going to be my first real pastoral position, my job will include specifically cross-cultural aspects, such as helping design programs and supervise the church’s global and local mission partners. It will also involve more “typical” pastoral stuff like teaching, planning, visiting people in need, etc.

I will be a part of their fellowship program. They select 2-3 people a year to work under a pastoral staff. In addition to getting the work done, a key component of my job will be processing what I am learning with the main pastors and the other fellows in the program. The aim is to provide a healthy environment where we can practice, fail, process, and try again with a serious support structure. This church has a passion for helping young pastors-to-be to develop in a strong church before they are launched out to (often) work on their own. This also means that, during this time, part of my job will be to start thinking about and plan our steps after these two years. They are intent not just to train us, but also to help us to get to the next destination where God is calling us: Spain!

Feel free to ask us for more details about the upcoming shift in our life, we’d love to share more! Also, check out my last sermon in a church up in Racine here.

Please, pray with us

• That God would give us the stamina to finish this year well, not forgetting the importance of day-to-day faithfulness.
• For our involvement in our current church (Crossway), particularly in “Exploring Christianity,” where we are both serving this year.
• For my Spanish documentation process. In May my residency expires and I need to figure out how to get it renewed before then so that I can go back later!

With love.

Stemming from this, a faith hierarchy emerges in churches, where the more spiritual types are those who receive positive answers from God. So, often, we end up making up stories, and finding answered prayers everywhere, thanks to our faith. We turn prayer into a sham, where having faith means predicting the future. If you don’t “confess” what you want out loud, you don’t have enough faith. We affirm that the miracle will happen, as if saying it makes it more probable, or as if we can blackmail God: “Now that I’ve said it, you have to do it to not look bad.” The Christian Circus results from all this irresponsibility: we cross the line that separates faith from superstition. We turn prayer into a magic formula. When it doesn’t work, it makes us look ridiculous, which wouldn’t matter a bit if it didn’t also ridicule God.

This “faith-itis” is often founded upon Bible verses taken out of context, like Mark 5:34 (your faith saved you), Matthew 21:22 (whatever you ask for in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith), Mark 9:23 (all things are possible for one who believes), and many others. Christians, especially those of us coming from more Pentecostal backgrounds, love to allegorize with the Bible. Ignoring its spatial-temporal dimension, egocentic as we are, we pretend that it is only all about us, here and now. Please don’t misunderstand me. Just as it says on my Bible’s cover, I do believe that God speaks today. However, there is a reason why the Bible was written the way it was: the order of the stories (and I’m not referring to the book order), the words that were chosen… Each author was trying to communicate something very specific. This is why they wrote books rather than a collection of aphorisms that we can interpret as we choose, and accommodate them to our own interests. If we really believe that the Bible is the word of God, we should be TERRORIZIED at the way we manipulate it.

This is how we end up exalting an abstract faith. “YOU MUST HAVE FAITH!” Sure, but faith in what? Faith in God, or faith in our own faith? Are we teaching faith in God (all powerful AND sovereign), or faith in what, in our opinion, God should do?

Prayer is not a faith contest, it is our communication channel with God. The Bible states that God is omniscient and that he already knows what we are going to ask him for before we do it (cf. Matt 6:8). So, why do we pray? By praying, we recognize God’s sovereignty. We recognize our inability to resolve our own problems. We recognize his power. We recognize who’s the boss. When we place our petition before God, we give it to him, trusting in faith that he will do what is best with it, not whatever we want. If God did everything we asked him to do, it wouldn’t be us having faith in God, but God having faith in us. Since we aren’t God, we trust him and his decision.

No matter what Joel Osteen says, faith does not consist in believing in something with enough persistence to make it happen. Faith is surrendering into God’s hands, regardless of what happens, just as Jesus did when he taught his disciples to pray: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), or when he prayed to the father, “if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). We do not believe that God will do something, but that God himself, who could do anything, will do what he wants, because he is God. Faith is believing that his will is best. Our faith is not in a capricious God, but in one who loved us so that he created us, despite knowing that he was going to have to sacrifice when we messed it all up. Our faith is in the God who left his throne, made himself the least privileged of men, and died in order to reconcile us with God the Father, even while he knew that many would reject his sacrifice. This is the God we believe in and that we pray to. This is our faith.
Marta

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity of preaching at the First Evangelical Free Church of Racine, Wisconsin, with marquee and all. They asked me to preach on Psalm 40. I’m really fond of all the psalms, but this one I had memorized some months ago, so it has been a privilege to be able to go over it again and again to take out what it has to offer.

You can listen to it below or download it here (right click, “save link as”).

PSALM 40
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.

2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.

4 Blessed is the one
who trusts in the Lord,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.

5 Many, Lord my God,
are the wonders you have done,
the things you planned for us.
None can compare with you;
were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
they would be too many to declare.

6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—
but my ears you have opened[c]—
burnt offerings and sin offerings[d] you did not require.

7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll.

8 I desire to do your will, my God;
your law is within my heart.”

9 I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips, Lord,
as you know.

10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help.
I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness
from the great assembly.

11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord;
may your love and faithfulness always protect me.

12 For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.

13 Be pleased to save me, Lord;
come quickly, Lord, to help me.

14 May all who want to take my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.

15 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
be appalled at their own shame.

16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who long for your saving help always say,
“The Lord is great!”

17 But as for me, I am poor and needy;
may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
you are my God, do not delay.

I hope you all have had a great, restful summer. For some of you, its not over yet. Mine officially ended this Wednesday when I started classes for my last year here at Trinity! As we look forward to our next steps, we are also mindful of the need to get the most out of our time here before it ends.

A New Intense School Year
This will probably be the most academically intense school year so far. In addition to higher level classes, I’m taking a few more credits in order to finish by next summer, thinking of training opportunities for the next school year. Marta continues to work hard at two jobs, and I, in addition to studying, has the privilege of serving as a Teacher Assistant for a Greek class, and will keep working for Ashoka.

Next Year Prospects
Some of you know that we made a decision a while ago to stay in the U.S. for two additional years in order to get deeper practical training and to forge partnerships with people that are interested in investing in the Church in Spain. Specifically, a large church in the Midwest has tentatively offered us a two-year position as a “Cross-cultural” pastor to both receive some practical ministry opportunities, and to help them start a training program for future missionaries and cross-cultural pastors. So far this seems to be something God is in, so we are seriously considering it. From September 21 to 23 we’ll be visiting this church, to see if we like them and they like us! If that goes well, I will get a formal offer for the position. Please pray for that.

Financial Challenges for the Last Stretch
Before having a full time job next year, this year we face a financial challenge. For our Spanish readers, University here in the US is outrageously expensive, and people end up their studies with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. After two years of having been able to pay all the University bills miraculously, this year it will be different. The reason is that a major Scholarship source for us has shut down for a year to reevaluate their program. This has left us with a pretty significant hole in what we need to cover. Please pray that we’ll proceed wisely in discerning how to fund that. We know God will provide, as he’s done before, but we need to be patient for that to happen.

Please pray with us

• for strength and health for both of us to get through an intense semester
• for our visit with the Midwest Church during our visit from Sept 21-23
• for wisdom and patience for provision for our last Seminary bills

We love you.

The Chinese church we sometimes go just got their new building finished. We enjoyed another morning with them, and tried to catch up with some of our friends there. This is my sermon on Phillipians 2. I hope you enjoy it (constructive critiques are very welcomed). You can listen to it below or download it here (right click, “save link as”).

I’d like to dedicate this newsletter to explain a bit more about this multicultural congregation project that I mentioned in our last update, and then ask for some prayer.

Multicultural congregational project: What is it?
This Summer I will going to be working on a personal ministry project that is funded by FTE concerning multicultural congregations. The aim of this project is to discern key principles that operate in healthy multicultural congregations. It will consist in three phases:

1. Participating in a week-long conference put on by Duke’s Center for Reconciliation where some of the key pastors, professors and experts on multicultural congregations and ethnic reconciliation will speak.
2. Visiting a number of good multicultural churches in a few cities across the US (Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, Memphis). These visits will help me get “the feel” of a healthy congregation and also to identify some of the intentional activities that help keep the church multi-cultural.
3. Writing up a report for the FTE and anybody interested.

Why?
There’s two reasons why I decided to make this project. On the one hand, in Spain our churches are generally multiethnic and multicultural, but often this is accidental. As churches grow, people have a tendency to want to worship with people that look and think exactly like them. I believe this is not what the gospel calls for, so I would like to have some ideas on how to intentionally make church environments open to multicultural gatherings. Secondly, this is my response to the shock Marta and I felt upon discovering the stark segregation there is in churches in the US. Not all churches are either white, or black, or latino, etc., but most do have a majority culture and they “miss out” on being the kind of fellowship of diverse believers that we see in the early church.

Please pray for this project, and for the pastors and congregations I am visiting.

Pray with us

• Finals are next week, pray that I will keep the important things first, and also do well on the exams.
• This will be a busy Summer. Pray that Marta and I find time to rest and get ready for next year.
• Pray for our finances for the next academic year. After two years of slowly spending our savings from Spain, next Fall we are $5,000 short of what we need to pay academic costs. Pray that God will provide and give us wisdom in how to proceed.

This month I have found myself thinking a lot about preaching due to a number of activities that I have been engaged in during the last weeks:

In March I attended a conference on biblical expository preaching from 9 Marks in Louisville, KY, along with the other young men in pastoral training at my church. We were challenged to take the biblical text seriously, as the Word of God, and to study it well in order to be able to honestly tell our people: “This is what the Lord says.” If you want to hear some of the best sessions, I recommend:

• Mike Bullmore (our pastor from Crossway) on the key convictions one must have to preach expository sermons.
• Al Mohler (president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) speaks of the history of how expository preaching disappeared in a lecture entitled “The foolishness preaching: why expository preaching is such a bad idea.”
• David Helm (the head of the Simeon Trust) gives an excellent practical guide on how to prepare good expository sermons.

You can check out more sessions and the panels that followed them here as well.

I quickly put into practice what I learned at the conference the next week as I prepared a sermon on Proverbs 6 concerning adultery. The difficulty was not just in getting the message of the passage itself right, but ensuring to place it correctly in God’s History of Redemption, that is, within the storyline of the Bible. Between Creation to the New Creation, where does this fit in and how does it relate to Jesus’ coming and giving himself up to save us? Here you can listen to the results.

Marta and I had the privilege of discussing gospel centered preaching and a lot of other stuff with our pastor from Spain, Rebecca Jacob, who stopped by on her way back from a conference here to visit us! It was very refreshing to spend time speaking Spanglish and hearing about our beloved community in Spain and all that is happening there. Personally, it was also helpful to see that God seems to be already raising up young leaders in Spain and putting within them a desire to teach His Word well. Although we wish we could return sooner, Marta and I were reminded of the value of what we are doing here for when we go back to Madrid.

Finally, I’ve been preparing a sermon on Titus to share with the other men in pastoral training at Crossway, our church here. My message focuses on Titus 2:7-8, which not only addresses the actual content of what Titus’ is supposed to teach, or preach, but also how he does it. Here, Paul reminds Titus that, in order to silence those who are against the gospel, one must preach the gospel of grace with integrity and dignity, ensuring to present a healthy word. This word is described in 2:11-17: God’s grace has come to bring salvation and to train us to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives now, waiting for the happy fulfillment in the last days when Jesus Christ appears to establish his kingdom. That we might preach that way, both careful to preach what is true, but also to preach it with integrity both in word and in deed.

Keep praying for us:

• To be faithful to live what we are learning.
• For upcoming decisions concerning finances and opportunities for the two years immediately after seminary.
• For Kenny’s multicultural project this Summer.