Author: Emmanuel

When the Scriptures are at work.

We often read Scriptures casually, out of habit, or at least I do. It doesn’t seem to have much impact. It doesn’t feel relevant. We know the stories but don’t really take time to meditate on their meaning. At this stage, many give up and stop reading altogether. What is the point?

But sometimes, when we take time to meditate, and make an effort to reflect on the Scriptures, we can really feel the impact of the Word on our life and thoughts.

Over the last few weeks, the book of Habakuk has been working in my mind and heart. I have read and re-read it several times. I have looked into commentaries, and it has been working on my mind day and night.

Hababkuk is perplex. He doesn’t understand God’s ways. He doesn’t that God would not answer his prayers about unrepentant Israël. But When God answer, he questions his method for judging Israël. His experience of God doesn’t seem to reflect what he knows. Many people today would have given up by now. But Habakuk was a man of faith. he waited patiently and God answered: “the just shall live by faith”. At the end of a long struggle, Hababkuk gets it. I’ll let you read the book to find out the answer. It will take about 10 minutes of your time.

I am slowly getting the message of Habakuk. But it is a painful process.

What about you. Is the Word at work within you?

Guingamp, the giant small club

En Avant de Guingamp is one of the smallest clubs of the French championship, if not the smallest, with a budget of 25 million euros for this season. Guingamp is also a small town of less than 8000 inhabitants. Yesterday, the club played Paris Saint Germain, The club of the French Capital city. With a budget of 490 euros for this season, and an array of star players, PSG was unbeaten this season, until yesterday.

That says a lot about money and talent. You can have all the money and talent in the world, That doesn’t make you invincible. The giant PSG has feet of clay. Yesterday, they played very badly and lost. They were humiliated by a small, rural town. As for us, we are proud of supporting Guingamp.

Book review: “Preaching by ear” by Dave McClellan

I received an electronic copy of this book free of charge against a fair review.

There is no doubt that every preacher would agree that preaching is an oral task. Yet, the majority of us preachers rely on a literary style. This helpful little book powerfully argues that we should go back to an oral style, and that a specific method is required if we are to preach in an oral style. The author highlights a few principles from antiquity’s best orators: Augustine, Aristotle and Quintilian.

In the second part, he tries to give a biblical basis for his argument and outlines his own method. He advocates the use of  a sermon map rather that an outline.

It is a helpful book, but not a homiletic manual. The most helpful principle I got from reading this was from Quintilian’s idea of Vir Bonus. The author explains:

The Latin term vir bonus, meaning a man of virtuous character, is perhaps the feature for which Quintilian is best known. For Quintilian, there is no separation of speech and speaker. Who a person is irrepressibly leaks into what is said.31 “We are to form, then, the perfect orator, who cannot exist unless as a good man, and we require in him, therefore, not only consummate ability in speaking, but every excellence of mind” (Institutio oratoria, preface, 9).
For Quintilian, an orator draws deeply upon something as he speaks. It is not the external brute facts of a given case or matter, but the personal grasp a speaker has upon the situation as informed by moral character. The well from which he draws is internal and personal. “I am convinced that no one can be an orator who is not a good man, and even if anyone could, I should be unwilling that he should be” (1.2.3). An unprincipled preacher simply cannot draw deeply from internal resources so as to react to the moment in a grounded way. If the preacher is passing along secondhand truth, the essential connections between mind and mouth are missing.

I thought I would give a go at some of the principles outlined in this book, and decided to preach from a sermon map and not type an outline. I used a sermon I had preached once or twice before, but it worked well. I carefully mapped my thoughts, drawing some of the ideas instead of writing words. I thought it helped me. You may want to have a go at it. here is my map for a sermon on the Flood.

Genese 6 Sermon

Visiting older friends

Since we came back in the area, I have wanted to visit some of the older folks I have known ever since I was a child. Most of these are now very elderly, and I haven’t seen them for years. But i used to see them very often, some of them daily when I was growing up. I used to go to their farm, or to help with the grape harvest. One is a widower. Things have changed, but these folks are still around.

During the holiday, we went to see an older farmer. He used to be our landlord, and next door neighbour. We used to go and get milk daily at the farm. he retired a long time ago and his son has given up farming, but he is still there. We just turned up after going for a walk. I introduced myself and he gave us a very warm welcome. It was great to see him. As we were there, some other visitors came and went.

On Friday, I went to visit another elderly couple. I was on my own this time, and did the same as I always used to do: turn up at the door, no need to warn you are coming. These people are like that. If they are around, they will stop what they are doing and offer you a cup of coffee and biscuits. We had a good time. Again, some people turned up when I was there. One was an elderly woman who was the grandmother of some school friends.

There’s at least one more person I want to go and see before going back and see the other ones. The village has changed, most local folks are now diluted amongst the newcomers, but they are still there. you just need to know where to look.

Public meeting with the local council

The local council is organizing meetings in various parts of the town to share some of their projects, but also meet the citizens and answer some of their questions. I was able to go to the one organized in the town hall on Saturday morning. The most interesting part of the meeting was listening to the various people’s concerns and questions.

Most were elderly folks. I was one of the younger ones. Their main concern was a feeling of insecurity. There are a few young people creating trouble around. Some garages and basements are regularly broken in, and they are noisy at night. It is a pain, and a very real problem, but as people talked, I realized that one reason for these is that there probably has never been any communication with these young people when they were children. If those older folks had shown interest in these young people and their families when they were children 15 or 20 years ago, maybe they could go and talk with them, and the situation would be easier.

Someone gave an interesting testimony. He had seen an older gentleman running after some young people, accusing them to have stolen his bike. He went to talk with them and explained that the man needed his bicycle, and that if they knew who had stolen the bike, they should give it back before the man goes to the police. One hour later, the bicycle was back.

But folks here are quite cold. I can say that because I am a local. People keep to themselves and a narrow circle of friends. They hardly know each other. They don’t talk to strangers. They don’t welcome new folks. While we were in Brittany, we felt we had a warm welcome from the local population. It took a few months, but after a while, it got easier and people were more open.

Here, the only people who have welcomed us and who have come to talk to us are ‘strangers’. They come from other parts of France. We are not unique. I was sharing about this with the headmistress recently. She is also from another region. She has also found that most of the people they have come to know as a family are not locals. Strange hey? No wonder a number of young people create trouble. Nobody ever showed interest in them in the first place.