Podcasts about Duke Chapel

William Willimon Changes His Mind -Episode 563 - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast)  In his new book Changing My Mind: The Overlooked Virtue for Faithful Ministry, Professor William H. Willimon narrates some of the twists and turns in his own journey as a pastor.    The context of ministry continually changes, the surrounding culture changes, and a living God demands constant movement and change. So, the book argues, pastors and preachers must be prepared to change! Some of the current assumptions about how to persevere in ministry need to be questioned. What ideas and approaches do we need to change, in ourselves and in our ministries? And how, exactly, do we change our minds and practices, when we're called to be steady, stable, and sure?  The book consists of guidance from an older, experienced pastoral leader to other pastoral leaders, especially young and new ones. Willimon frames the material around the ways he has changed his mind and offers crucial ways that he once thought about ministry compared and contrasted with how he thinks now. He depicts the pastoral vocation as requiring adaptation and revision by its practitioners. Along the way, the book includes conversations with First and Second Timothy as the precursor of this book, an older, experienced pastor (Paul) offering advice to a young, unseasoned pastor (Timothy).  William H. Willimon is professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and a retired United Methodist Church bishop. A widely published author, preacher, and teacher of preachers, Willimon has written more than eighty books, many of which have been translated into many languages and have sold over a million copies. He is the author of Heaven and Earth: Advent and the Incarnation (Abingdon), The Gospel for the Person Who Has Everything (Paraclete Press), Leading with the Sermon: Preaching as Leadership (Fortress Press), and Aging: Growing Old in the Church (Baker Academic), among others.  For twenty years Willimon served as dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School. He has served congregations in Georgia and South and North Carolina and is a retired bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church.         Email: Rick@RickLeeJames.com Blessings, Rick Lee James Get the new song - Whatever You Do Up on the Mountain Also, Don't forget to swing by Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or your favorite streaming platform and hit those follow buttons! By hitting the follow button, you'll stay updated on my latest releases and show your support for my music! I can't wait to meet you Up on the Mountain onJuly 12th. Blessings, Rick Lee James             10% Off Everything Rick Lee James on Band camp Instructions Visit https://rickleejames.bandcamp.com At checkout use code: 10off Advent Hymn (Watching, Waiting, Longing) This song appeared on over 80 Spotify playlists this Advent Season. I want to thank everyone for listening and sharing it this year.   Official Music Video:   Web Site: https://rickleejames.com   PURCHASE ALBUM: www.RickLeeJames.Bandcamp.com SongSelect: https://songselect.ccli.com/Songs/6152291/advent-hymn-watching-waiting-longing Downloadable Charts and More available from LIFEWAYWORSHIP.COM: https://worship.lifeway.com/findAndBuy/songPage/AdventHymn(Watching%2CWaiting%2CLonging)?versionId=93901&rowNum=0&searchString=Advent%20Hymn%20(watching,%20Waiting,%20Longing)#song-Parts Loop Community: https://loopcommunity.com/en-us/songs/advent-hymn-(watching%2C-waiting%2C-longing)-by-rick-lee-james-3892  Endorsements: “A perfect and needed addition to any Christmas playlist this year. Rick Lee James bringing home the Advent Message.” -CCM Magazinehttps://www.ccmmagazine.com/music-video/rick-lee-james-advent-hymn-watching-waiting-longing/ “I love Advent Hymn (Watching, Waiting, Longing), which gives newness to the phrases of Isaiah. Watching, waiting, and longing is what we do now, and these songs help us do that in confidence. I anticipate that this album will be received as a great gift by many who will find their faith nourished and awakened by it.” –Walter Brueggemann (Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary) "I've watched Rick grow as an artist and songwriter for many years. Congratulations brother on an excellent independent release." -Paul Baloche (Dove Award Winning Songwriter) "Rick Lee James is a poet and singer. You will not only enjoy listening, you'll be drawn into the source –Jesus." -Mike Harland RICK LEE JAMES INFO Web Sites: https://www.rickleejames.com Get The Single: https://rickleejames.hearnow.com/halls         More from Rick Lee James Shine A Light In The Darkness Get The Single: https://rickleejames.hearnow.com/shine-a-light-in-the-darkness Music Video:   Rick Lee James Playlist on Spotify:   https://t.co/S7nCRl0xqa        

William Willimon Changes His Mind -Episode 563 - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) In his new book Changing My Mind: The Overlooked Virtue for Faithful Ministry, Professor William H. Willimon narrates some of the twists and turns in his own journey as a pastor. The context of ministry continually changes, the surrounding culture changes, and a living God demands constant movement and change. So, the book argues, pastors and preachers must be prepared to change! Some of the current assumptions about how to persevere in ministry need to be questioned. What ideas and approaches do we need to change, in ourselves and in our ministries? And how, exactly, do we change our minds and practices, when we're called to be steady, stable, and sure? The book consists of guidance from an older, experienced pastoral leader to other pastoral leaders, especially young and new ones. Willimon frames the material around the ways he has changed his mind and offers crucial ways that he once thought about ministry compared and contrasted with how he thinks now. He depicts the pastoral vocation as requiring adaptation and revision by its practitioners. Along the way, the book includes conversations with First and Second Timothy as the precursor of this book, an older, experienced pastor (Paul) offering advice to a young, unseasoned pastor (Timothy). William H. Willimon is professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and a retired United Methodist Church bishop. A widely published author, preacher, and teacher of preachers, Willimon has written more than eighty books, many of which have been translated into many languages and have sold over a million copies. He is the author of Heaven and Earth: Advent and the Incarnation (Abingdon), The Gospel for the Person Who Has Everything (Paraclete Press), Leading with the Sermon: Preaching as Leadership (Fortress Press), and Aging: Growing Old in the Church (Baker Academic), among others. For twenty years Willimon served as dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School. He has served congregations in Georgia and South and North Carolina and is a retired bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church.Email: Rick@RickLeeJames.comBlessings,Rick Lee JamesVINYL SALETHUNDER by Rick Lee JamesONLY $9.99. (Plus you get a free digital download of the album)VINYL SALE -“KEEP WATCH, DEAR LORD” BY RICK LEE JAMES

Are you struggling with church? Do you have doubts and questions, but you aren't sure where to go to talk them through? Do you have friends or family members who have been hurt by the church, or who have wandered away from the church, or, maybe, who have never been in church?In this episode, Chris and Eddie are joined by Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, priest in the Church of England and vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in central London since 2012. He served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and is the author of 35 books about Christian ethics, mission, ministry, scripture, liturgy, and preaching. Today's conversation is about his book, Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a Story to Live By. This book came out of Rev. Wells 2020 Easter sermon, which he preached in an empty garden during London's first COVID-19 lockdown. Humbler Faith, Bigger God is written for those who seek, those who have lapsed, those of other faiths, and those who are hostile to Christianity.As a preacher, Rev. Wells says that people tend to respond positively to his preaching because he doesn't skirt around the issues of the day. He doesn't hide Christianity's often difficult past, and he isn't afraid to have the hard conversations with believers, doubters, and nonbelievers, because he believes it's all about trust. “We can trust God, and because we can trust God, we can trust ourselves and one another.”Resources:Buy Humbler Faith, Bigger God on Amazon

Rev. Racquel Gill of Duke Chapel delivers our keynote address for Black History Month 2024 on Transfiguration Sunday.

Small Kindnesses  Danusha Laméris I've been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don't die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.” From Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection (Green Writers Press, 2019). Posted by kind permission of the poet.   Small Kindnesses grateful.org "Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Who Am I."   Welcome to RandomActsofKindness.org randomactsofkindness.org 2024_RAK_kindness_calendar PDF Document · 8.5 MB

Beth Moore is preaching at Duke University chapel today. She is named as a preacher, welcomed as a preacher, and her sycophants are trumpeting their (seeming) victory of women as preacher, preaching. Let's take a look at how we got here. Plus, I found where Beth has taught on 1 Timothy 2:11-12, a woman may not preach or usurp authority over a man. Links mentioned in the show: John MacArthur sermon, "God's High Calling for Women" Tim Bates essay: DON'T MENTION THE TENSION: STTA! Armin J. Panning: (pdf) Authentein – A Word Study, http://essays.wisluthsem.org:8080/bitstream/handle/123456789/3568/PanningAuthentein.pdf Beth Moore's book: "To Live is Christ: Joining Paul's Journey of Faith"

This week: the Lincoln Memorial and Duke Chapel both open their doors, and an Oklahoma grocer unveils something called a "shopping cart." The post History Matters: Monuments, Chapels, and Shopping Carts appeared first on Chapelboro.com.

The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery is the dean of Duke University Chapel and associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. A national leader in the theological study of the art of preaching, Powery regularly delivers sermons at Duke Chapel as well as at churches throughout the United States and abroad. He is often a keynote speaker and lecturer at educational institutions, conferences, symposia, and retreats. His teaching and research interests are located at the intersection of preaching, worship, pneumatology, and culture, particularly expressions of the African diaspora. He is the author of Spirit Speech: Lament and Celebration in Preaching; Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death, and Hope; Rise Up, Shepherd! Advent Reflections on the Spirituals; and Were You There? Lenten Reflections on the Spirituals. He has co-authored an introductory textbook on preaching, Ways of the Word: Learning to Preach for Your Time and Place. He is also a general editor of the nine-volume lectionary commentary series for preaching and worship titled Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship.

SHOW NOTES: Lent 3A | Psalm 95 Our texts this week are here Our prayer this week: “A Liturgy for the Morning After a Bad Decision” from Liturgies for Hope by Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore Join us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/aplainaccount Browse our curated booklists! Purchasing through this affiliate link generates a small commission for us and is a great way to support the show https://bookshop.org/shop/aplainaccount Other resources on our website: commentaries, discipleship, liturgics, music. For more about Brueggemann's categories for Psalms, check out Spirituality of the Psalms. To hear more from Megan on Psalm 29 and creation themes, watch her sermon from Duke Chapel in 2021.

A bishop in the United Methodist Church, Professor Willimon served as the dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University for 20 years. He returned to Duke after serving as the bishop of the North Alabama Conference from 2004 to 2012. He has taught in Germany, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia in various seminaries. He is a trustee of Wofford College, Emory University, and serves on the Dean's Committee of Yale Divinity School. Willimon is the author of over 70 books. His Worship as Pastoral Care was selected as one of the 10 most useful books for pastors in 1979 by the Academy of Parish Clergy. More than a million copies of his books have been sold. His articles have appeared in many publications including Theology Today, Interpretation, Liturgy, and Christianity Today. He is editor-at-large for The Christian Century. His book Pastor: the Theology and Practice of Ordained Leadership is used in dozens of seminaries in the United States and Asia. Today we talk about current news in The United Methodist Church, disaffiliation and Professor Willimon's time as a Bishop in The UMC.

Dr. Howell speaks with Dr. Lillian Daniel on the importance of community in the church, how the community deals with hardships and tragedy, and the need for compassion. Dr. Daniel is a preacher, teacher, and writer in Iowa. She has spoken at the National Cathedral, Duke Chapel, Kings College, London, and Queen's College, Ontario, but on Sundays, you can find her preaching at First Congregational Church in Dubuque, Iowa.

In this episode, we have a guest host, Rev. Parker Haynes, pastor of and member of the Leadership Development Team. He interviews the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells, Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, parish priest of the Church of England, and former Dean of Duke Chapel, and research professor of Christian ethics at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Wells speaks to us as a follow-up to a recent webinar that he participated in through Duke Divinity School called “Soul- Tending in a Virtual Age: How to Preach, Pastor, and Disciple in these Challenging Times.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDrIJfkF0Q).  In the webinar, Dr. Wells offered eight beatitudes that seek to realign our imaginations from the incarceration of lockdown to the joy of salvation. In the podcast he digs deeper into that concept by moving us from the mindset of scarcity to the mindset of God's abundance by helping us see the opportunities during this challenging season.  Here are some resources that were mentioned during the podcast: Transforming Fate into Destiny: https://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Fate-into-Destiny-Theological/dp/1592445748 A Nazareth Manifesto: https://www.amazon.com/Nazareth-Manifesto-Being-God-dp-0470673265/dp/0470673265/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1608147779 HeartEdge: https://www.heartedge.org/ HeartEdge on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge  

Are you struggling with church? Do you have doubts and questions, but you aren't sure where to go to talk them through? Do you have friends or family members who have been hurt by the church, or who have wandered away from the church, or, maybe, who have never been in church?In this episode, Chris and Eddie are joined by Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, priest in the Church of England and vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in central London since 2012. He served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and  is the author of 35 books about Christian ethics, mission, ministry, scripture, liturgy, and preaching. Today's conversation is about his book, Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a Story to Live By. This book came out of Rev. Wells 2020 Easter sermon, which he preached in an empty garden during London's first COVID-19 lockdown. Humbler Faith, Bigger God is written for those who seek, those who have lapsed, those of other faiths, and those who are hostile to Christianity.As a preacher, Rev. Wells says that people tend to respond positively to his preaching because he doesn't skirt around the issues of the day. He doesn't hide Christianity's often difficult past, and he isn't afraid to have the hard conversations with believers, doubters, and nonbelievers, because he believes it's all about trust. “We can trust God, and because we can trust God, we can trust ourselves and one another.”Resources:Buy Humbler Faith, Bigger God on Amazon

This is our final podcast project for Writing 101 with Dr. Michael Accinno, delving into the intricacies and history behind Duke Chapel's magnificent Flentrop Organ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brainjuicepodcast/message

Bishop Will Willimon was the bishop of the North Alabama Conference, Dean of Duke Chapel, and author of multiple books. In our conversation, Bishop Willimon talked about the appropriate length of sermons, how he speaks truth in love and humor, how the Scripture passage read shapes the style of the sermon, and the “mic drop” ending.

Welcome to episode thirty-three of New Creation Conversations. In today's conversation I am joined by well-known author and professor Dr. Will Willimon. Will served as the dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School for 20 years. He returned to Duke after serving as the bishop of the North Alabama Conference from 2004 to 2012. Will has written more than 70 books and has sold more than a million copies of them. He has written frequently for publications like Theology Today, Interpretation, Liturgy, and Christianity Today. He is editor-at-large for The Christian Century. One of the books we discuss – Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry is used in dozens of seminaries throughout North America and Asia. He has taught all over the world. In addition to his three earned degrees from Wofford College, Yale Divinity School, and Emory University, Will has been granted honorary Doctorates from 13 different educational institutions. I first got introduced to Will and his work 30 years ago through his life-changing collaboration with ethicist Stanley Hauerwas entitled Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (first published in 1989). We talk about the impact of that book, as well as his writing on preaching and pastoral ministry. It is a great and thoughtful conversation. But mostly, Will just kept me laughing. So many times, since starting this podcast, I have grieved the absence of my father. He would have loved so many of these conversations. I think he would especially loved this one, and he would have had a hundred questions after it was over. This conversation with Will reminded me so much of sitting around a table listening to my dad and his ministry cronies tell funny stories, say provocative things they could only now say in the freedom of retirement, and come up with nuggets of wisdom gained the fire of decades leading a parish. Four or five times, in our conversation, Will says things I want to turn into a T-Shirt.I have cherished the chance to have conversations with leaders in my own tribe, but I have also grown to love the chance to speak to leaders from other denominations and traditions whose lives and ministries reflect the heartbeat of Jesus. This is one of those kinds of conversations. It was an honor to get to have this conversation, and it's an even greater privilege to get to offer it to you. Here's my New Creation Conversation with Dr. Will Willimon.

The Rev. Dr. Luke Powery is Dean of Duke Chapel and a national leader in the field of preaching. He is also a professor at Duke Divinity School. He sits down with Beloved Journal to talk preaching in the age of COVID-19, the important issues of our time, and the necessity to be one's self in the pulpit. 

The Rev. Dr. Luke Powery is Dean of Duke Chapel and a national leader in the field of preaching. He is also a professor at Duke Divinity School. He sits down with Beloved Journal to talk preaching in the age of COVID-19, the important issues of our time, and the necessity to be one's self in the pulpit. 

A sermon by Dean Luke A. Powery for the Duke Chapel service on May 2, 2021

A sermon by the Rev. Puckett from Duke Chapel for Baccalaureate on Friday, April 30, 2021

In this episode, we have a guest host, Rev. Parker Haynes, pastor of and member of the Leadership Development Team. He interviews the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells, Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, parish priest of the Church of England, and former Dean of Duke Chapel, and research professor of Christian ethics at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Wells speaks to us as a follow-up to a recent webinar that he participated in through Duke Divinity School called “Soul- Tending in a Virtual Age: How to Preach, Pastor, and Disciple in these Challenging Times.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDrIJfkF0Q).  In the webinar, Dr. Wells offered eight beatitudes that seek to realign our imaginations from the incarceration of lockdown to the joy of salvation. In the podcast he digs deeper into that concept by moving us from the mindset of scarcity to the mindset of God’s abundance by helping us see the opportunities during this challenging season.  Here are some resources that were mentioned during the podcast: Transforming Fate into Destiny: https://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Fate-into-Destiny-Theological/dp/1592445748 A Nazareth Manifesto: https://www.amazon.com/Nazareth-Manifesto-Being-God-dp-0470673265/dp/0470673265/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1608147779 HeartEdge: https://www.heartedge.org/ HeartEdge on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge  

A sermon preached by the Rev. Bruce Puckett, assistant dean at Duke Chapel, on October 11, 2020, in Duke University Chapel

Guest Preacher William H. Willimon - Episode 382Today on the podcast, I am pleased to welcome back Dr. William H. Willimon. Dr. Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving as Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. He is the author of over 70 books and as you are about to hear today, he is also skilled preacher.I asked Dr. Willimon back to Voices In My Head today because in July 12th of this year (2020) he preached a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral, and it just really resonated with me. I wanted to give my listeners a chance to hear the sermon, which speaks into our present moment of pandemic, white violence, and unrest and Dr. Willimon graciously agreed to let me share it today.Web Site: https://willwillimon.com/ ----more----Music From RICK LEE JAMESLOVE OUR ENEMIES (Official Music Video): https://youtu.be/xsSB5OLPELEStream Rick's Music on any music streaming service: https://rickleejames.hearnow.com/thunderAlso Find Rick Lee James Music on Bandcamp: www.RickLeeJames.Bandcamp.comor on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3abA3po  ----more----  Become A Patron of this Podcast at the Rick Lee James PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/RickLeeJames ----more----As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head  About Your Host: Rick Lee JamesWeb Site www.rickleejames.com,Twitter Facebook.Voices In My Head Podcast www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com,Mister Rogers Quotes on Twitter at @MisterRogersSay.“Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast”: HERE.Rick Lee James Radio Special: https://westarchristianmedia.com/rick-lee-james-30-minute-radio-special Get Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunderIn partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James' official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com.----more----For Rick Lee James Booking Inquiries: By Email: Rick@RickLeeJames.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rickleejames.substack.com/subscribe

Guest Preacher William H. Willimon - Episode 382 Today on the podcast, I am pleased to welcome back Dr. William H. Willimon. Dr. Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving as Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. He is the author of over 70 books and as you are about to hear today, he is also skilled preacher. I asked Dr. Willimon back to Voices In My Head today because in July 12th of this year (2020) he preached a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral, and it just really resonated with me. I wanted to give my listeners a chance to hear the sermon, which speaks into our present moment of pandemic, white violence, and unrest and Dr. Willimon graciously agreed to let me share it today. Web Site: https://willwillimon.com/   ----more---- Music From RICK LEE JAMES LOVE OUR ENEMIES (Official Music Video): https://youtu.be/xsSB5OLPELE Stream Rick's Music on any music streaming service: https://rickleejames.hearnow.com/thunder Also Find Rick Lee James Music on Bandcamp: www.RickLeeJames.Bandcamp.com or on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3abA3po    ----more----   Become A Patron of this Podcast at the Rick Lee James PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/RickLeeJames   ----more---- As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head    About Your Host: Rick Lee James Web Site www.rickleejames.com, Twitter  Facebook. Voices In My Head Podcast www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, Mister Rogers Quotes on Twitter at @MisterRogersSay. “Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast”: HERE. Rick Lee James Radio Special: https://westarchristianmedia.com/rick-lee-james-30-minute-radio-special  Get Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunder In partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James’ official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com. ----more---- For Rick Lee James Booking Inquiries:  By Email: Rick@RickLeeJames.com

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells served as Dean of Duke Chapel in Durham, North Carolina and currently serves St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Today he sits down with Rob to talk about why community is important and what matters most.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells served as Dean of Duke Chapel in Durham, North Carolina and currently serves St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Today he sits down with Rob to talk about why community is important and what matters most.

Good Friday With WILLIAM WILLIMON's Lectionary Sermon Resource - Episode 364Will Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving a Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. Willimon is the author of over 70 books. In early 2018 he released, “Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Confronting Racism Through Preaching”. We had a discussion about that book on this podcast shortly after it released, then last year Dr. Willimon came back on the show to talk about his Memoir Accidental Preacher and again we had a wonderful discussion about his life and ministry. In 2020, he released a powerful sermon resource for ministers who use the Revised Common Lectionary in their preaching and service planning called Will Willimon's Lectionary Sermon Resource. To purchase William Willimon's New book, click below:https://amzn.to/2XirYwn William Willimon's Blog: https://willwillimon.wordpress.com/----more----  Become A Patron of this Podcast at the Rick Lee James PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=134988&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Frickleejames.com%2F&utm_medium=widget ----more----As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head  About Your Host: Rick Lee JamesFor more information on Rick Lee James, visit www.rickleejames.com, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Listen to his official podcast at www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, and get a daily dose of wisdom from Mister Rogers at @MisterRogersSay.“Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast” podcast can be heard HERE.Request the “Thunder Radio Special” at www.crwradiopromotions.com. Official Web Site: www.RickLeeJames.comGet Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunderIn partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James' official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com.----more----For Booking Inquiries  Click Hereor contact Gary StriplingBy Phone: 904.745.9151By Email: gary@themanagementagency.comManagement General Office Hours:Monday – 11Am – 5PMTuesday – 11Am – 5PMWednesday – Office closedThursday – 11Am – 5PMFriday – 11AM – 5PMSaturday – 11AM – 5PM This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rickleejames.substack.com/subscribe

Good Friday With WILLIAM WILLIMON's Lectionary Sermon Resource - Episode 364 Will Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving a Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. Willimon is the author of over 70 books. In early 2018 he released, “Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Confronting Racism Through Preaching”. We had a discussion about that book on this podcast shortly after it released, then last year Dr. Willimon came back on the show to talk about his Memoir Accidental Preacher and again we had a wonderful discussion about his life and ministry. In 2020, he released a powerful sermon resource for ministers who use the Revised Common Lectionary in their preaching and service planning called Will Willimon's Lectionary Sermon Resource.   To purchase William Willimon's New book, click below: https://amzn.to/2XirYwn   William Willimon's Blog: https://willwillimon.wordpress.com/ ----more----   Become A Patron of this Podcast at the Rick Lee James PATREON PAGE: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=134988&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Frickleejames.com%2F&utm_medium=widget   ----more---- As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head    About Your Host: Rick Lee James For more information on Rick Lee James, visit www.rickleejames.com, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Listen to his official podcast at www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, and get a daily dose of wisdom from Mister Rogers at @MisterRogersSay. “Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast” podcast can be heard HERE.Request the “Thunder Radio Special” at www.crwradiopromotions.com.  Official Web Site: www.RickLeeJames.com Get Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunder In partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James’ official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com. ----more---- For Booking Inquiries  Click Here or contact Gary Stripling By Phone: 904.745.9151 By Email: gary@themanagementagency.com Management General Office Hours:Monday – 11Am – 5PM Tuesday – 11Am – 5PM Wednesday – Office closed Thursday – 11Am – 5PM Friday – 11AM – 5PM Saturday – 11AM – 5PM

Stories With WILLIAM WILLIMON - Episode 357Will Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Chistian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving a Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. Willimon is the author of over 70 books. In early 2018 he released, “Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Confronting Racism Through Preaching”. We had a discussion about that book on this podcast shortly after it released, then last year Dr. Willimon came back on the show to talk about his Memoir Accidental Preacher and again we had a wonderful discussion about his life and ministry. Well in 2020, he has yet again released another new book called Stories by Willimon, a collection of some of his most beloved, memorable, and impactful stories. Dr. Willimon has graciously stopped by our podcast for a visit again today so that we can talk about Stories, and I am grateful to him for that. To purchase William Willimon's New book, Stories By Willimon, click below:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501894137/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1501894137&linkCode=as2&tag=rickleejame00-20&linkId=2ac30bd7ccc5af82d933d96d8e10955f William Willimon's Blog: https://willwillimon.wordpress.com/----more----  LOVE OUR ENEMIES MUSIC VIDEO KICKSTARTER LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rickleejames/love-our-enemies-music-video----more----As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head  About Your Host: Rick Lee JamesFor more information on Rick Lee James, visit www.rickleejames.com, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Listen to his official podcast at www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, and get a daily dose of wisdom from Mister Rogers at @MisterRogersSay.“Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast” podcast can be heard HERE.Request the “Thunder Radio Special” at www.crwradiopromotions.com. Official Web Site: www.RickLeeJames.comGet Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunderIn partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James' official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com.----more----For Booking Inquiries  Click Hereor contact Gary StriplingBy Phone: 904.745.9151By Email: gary@themanagementagency.comManagement General Office Hours:Monday – 11Am – 5PMTuesday – 11Am – 5PMWednesday – Office closedThursday – 11Am – 5PMFriday – 11AM – 5PMSaturday – 11AM – 5PM This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rickleejames.substack.com/subscribe

Stories With WILLIAM WILLIMON - Episode 357 Will Willimon served as the Dean of Duke Chapel and Professor of Chistian Ministry at Duke University for two decades. He returned to Duke after serving a Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2012. Willimon is the author of over 70 books. In early 2018 he released, “Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Confronting Racism Through Preaching”. We had a discussion about that book on this podcast shortly after it released, then last year Dr. Willimon came back on the show to talk about his Memoir Accidental Preacher and again we had a wonderful discussion about his life and ministry. Well in 2020, he has yet again released another new book called Stories by Willimon, a collection of some of his most beloved, memorable, and impactful stories. Dr. Willimon has graciously stopped by our podcast for a visit again today so that we can talk about Stories, and I am grateful to him for that.   To purchase William Willimon's New book, Stories By Willimon, click below: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501894137/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1501894137&linkCode=as2&tag=rickleejame00-20&linkId=2ac30bd7ccc5af82d933d96d8e10955f   William Willimon's Blog: https://willwillimon.wordpress.com/ ----more----   LOVE OUR ENEMIES MUSIC VIDEO KICKSTARTER LINK:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rickleejames/love-our-enemies-music-video ----more---- As Always...Thank You For Listening To Voices In My Head    About Your Host: Rick Lee James For more information on Rick Lee James, visit www.rickleejames.com, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Listen to his official podcast at www.voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, and get a daily dose of wisdom from Mister Rogers at @MisterRogersSay. “Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Mister Rogers Tribute Podcast” podcast can be heard HERE.Request the “Thunder Radio Special” at www.crwradiopromotions.com.  Official Web Site: www.RickLeeJames.com Get Rick Lee James Latest Album: https://fanlink.to/RLJThunder In partnership with CRW Radio Promotions, singer, songwriter and worship leader Rick Lee James debuts a brand new radio special. The “Thunder Radio Special” can be heard exclusively on James’ official YouTube channel or his website. It was also recently added to Spotify and Apple Music. Radio stations interested in airing the “Thunder Radio Special” can contact Kathryn Ambrose at CRW Radio Promotions at kathryn@westarmediagroup.com. ----more---- For Booking Inquiries  Click Here or contact Gary Stripling By Phone: 904.745.9151 By Email: gary@themanagementagency.com Management General Office Hours:Monday – 11Am – 5PM Tuesday – 11Am – 5PM Wednesday – Office closed Thursday – 11Am – 5PM Friday – 11AM – 5PM Saturday – 11AM – 5PM

A bishop in the United Methodist Church, Dr. Will Willimon served as the dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University for 20 years. He returned to Duke after serving as the bishop of the North Alabama Conference from 2004 to 2012. Willimon is the author of 70 books, which combined have sold more than a million copies. He has taught in Germany, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia in various seminaries. He is a trustee of Wofford College and Emory University and serves on the Dean’s Committee of Yale Divinity School. In early 2017, published Who Lynched Willie Earle? Confronting Racism through Preaching. This episode focuses on two white southern males talking race and why this can be difficult. The conversation is raw, real and enlightening.

In the burning and collapse of the spire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris the world lost an important piece of history, an intricate work of art, a teacher for the people, a sacred place to pray, and so much more. Here at Duke, we're blessed to see and encounter beautiful buildings everyday — but what do they mean to us? Do we take the time to consider the greater purpose of places like the Duke Chapel and Notre Dame? This weekend, join Fr. Mike and Emma as they explore the transcendent nature of places like Notre Dame, awe-inspiring churches here in North America, and how we can better appreciate the sacred spaces in our everyday lives.

A sermon preached by Luke Powery entitled "A Job No One Wants" at Duke Chapel on March 17, 2019.

A sermon preached by Sam Miglarese entitled "The Lenten Journey" in Duke Chapel on March 10, 2019.

Three deans of Duke University Chapel—one current and two former—hold a public conversation about the role of preaching in public discourse. Fewer people are coming to church to hear sermons and yet religious language and elements of the sermonic style continue to be present in various types of public speech. In this context, are preachers being heard and heeded? What is the place of the pulpit in the public square? And, how are sermons changing? Three prolific preachers, with experience on two continents, address those questions and others in a Duke Chapel Bridge Panel conversation moderated by Frank Stasio, the host of WUNC Radio's The State of Things. The panelists are: The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, dean of Duke Chapel since 2012 and an associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School The Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields and former dean of Duke Chapel from 2005 to 2012 Bishop William Willimon, professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and former dean of Duke Chapel from 1984 to 2004

A sermon preached at Duke Chapel on the First Sunday of Advent (December 2, 2018), from Luke 21:25-36

In episode 11 of the God & Whiskey Podcast, Evan and Drew talk about the church and share a couple of scotches. Drew gives Evan endless grief for his choice, and Evan attempts to defend while they talk about the church. Why does the church matter? What is the church about? To what extend should the culture shape the methods and content of the church? Does the space in which worship happens make a difference? We discuss - and perhaps rant about - all this and more in this episode, a natural follow-up from the last two episodes about baptism and communion. The good news is: the church is of God and will be preserved until the end of time. As discussed in this episode: Drew's excellent Highland Park Magnus here. Evan's possibly questionable McClelland's here. Methodist Article of Religion XIII, "Of the Church," here. EUB Confession of Faith Article V here. Quote from St. Teresa of Avila (Drew mistakenly said Mother Teresa) here. Fat Tire by New Belgium here. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman here. James K.A. Smith on the liturgy of the mall here. Duke Chapel here. Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here. Deconsecration service for a UMC church here.  

In part 10 of Redlining & White Noise, Charles Rotramel and Gregg Taylor speak with Will Willimon about his book Who Lynched Willie Earle?, based on the true story of pastor Hawley Lynn's March of 1947 sermon of the same title. Will walks us through the story of the last recorded lynching in Greenville, South Carolina, the complicity of the mainline Protestant church, and how the church can facilitate racial healing. In his distinguished career, Bishop William Willimon served as Bishop in the United Methodist Church and as dean of Duke Chapel. He is currently professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School. He is the author of many books, including most recently Who Lynched Willie Earle: Preaching to Confront Racism. More information about William Willimon is available here: https://divinity.duke.edu/faculty/william-willimon  

Guest Info/Bio: This week we speak with the incredible…the amazing…Reverend Lillian Daniel! Lillian is a preacher, teacher and writer in Iowa. While she has taught preaching at a number of schools, including Chicago Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School, she can’t be held responsible for everyone who falls asleep in church. Her new book, Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To is generating international conversation about the changing religious landscape.  It continues the theme of her 2013 book When ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ Is Not Enough about the growing number of people who claim "none" as their religious preference. Lillian also contributes to the Huffington Post, Christian Century, Leadership Journal, Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, and Books and Culture. Lillian Daniel has spoken at the National Cathedral, Duke Chapel, Kings College, London and Queen’s College, Ontario, but on Sundays you can find her preaching at First Congregational Church in Dubuque, Iowa.  (Select) Guest Publications: “When Spiritual Is Not Enough: Seeing God ins Surprising Places” & “Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To: Spirituality without Stereotypes - Religion without Ranting.” Guest Social Media: http://www.lilliandaniel.com Twitter: @lillianfdaniel Facebook: @lilliandanielauthor YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdulMOAoJ9QV-SKX7FDeFg Special guest music on this episode provided by: Tiger Drive https://www.tigerdriveofficial.com Twitter: @tdriveofficial Facebook: @tigerdriveofficial Instagram: @tigerdriveofficial Enjoy the songs? Songs featured on this episode were the singles: “Legend, The In-Between, Here We Come, & Together.” Find Tiger Drive’s music on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere good music is found! The Deconstructionist’s Podcast is mixed and edited by Nicholas Rowe at National Audio Preservation Society: A full service recording studio and creative habitat, located in Heath, Ohio. Find them on Facebook and Twitter or visit their website for more information. www.nationalaudiopreservationsociety.weebly.com www.facebook.com/nationalaudiopreservationsociety Twitter: @napsrecording Stay on top of all the latest at www.thedeconstructionists.com! Go there to read our blog, snag a t-shirt, follow us on social media, or join our Patreon family! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-deconstructionists/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Duke University Chapel hosts a public conversation with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and the Rev. William J. Barber II, "The Enduring Challenge of a Moral Economy: 50 Years After Dr. King Challenged Racism, Poverty, and Militarism." The event was to be part of Duke's 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration and Duke Chapel's Bridge Panel series, which seeks to connect people from disparate walks of life to discover shared pathways toward the community of God. "In joining with others to begin organizing the Poor People's Campaign 50 years ago, Dr. King was working out of a Christian conviction that racial equity, economic justice and peace among nations were interrelated issues -- and all matters of faith," said Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery, who moderated the talk held on April 20, 2018. "Through this public conversation, we have an opportunity to bring together the insights of a preacher and a politician on the present-day work toward a just, moral economy." Barber is a national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, an initiative that aims to address issues of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the nation's morality. He is also the president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build a moral agenda. An alumnus of Duke Divinity School, Barber is the pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Sanders is an Independent senator from Vermont. His 2016 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president focused on policy issues that included universal health care, free tuition at public universities and a $15-per-hour minimum wage. He was first elected to public office in 1981 as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and has since served 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 11 years in the U.S. Senate. In addition to his role as dean of Duke Chapel, Powery is an associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. His most recent book is "Rise Up, Shepherd!: Advent Reflections on the Spirituals." Ordained to the Ministry by the Progressive National Baptist Convention, he was inducted in 2014 into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College for his ethical and spiritual leadership in the academy, church, and broader society. Co-sponsors of the event include Duke Divinity School and Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy and Office for Institutional Equity.

Upgrading Leadership In Churches  Interview With Rev. Dr. Bishop William Willimon   Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou. Welcome to this version of The Nonprofit Exchange. We talk to leaders worldwide about their particular perspective in leadership, their expertise, and to hear from their perspective, from their seat that they led from for so many years. My guest today is Will Willimon, Dr. Reverend Will Willimon. We are sitting in Durham, North Carolina at the Duke Divinity School where Will will tell you a little bit about what he does here. He and I got connected a number of years ago when he came to north Alabama as a bishop, and I was serving in a Methodist church. We first got connected there. I have been extremely impressed with his writing, and we have interfaced a few times. You have even spoken at one of my events in Greensboro. Welcome, Will, to the Nonprofit Exchange. Will Willimon: Thank you. Hugh: It's like when I go somewhere and say, “I'm Hugh Ballou. This is Will Willimon.” Tell us about yourself, your background, and why you're here at the Duke Divinity School. Will: I'm a Methodist preacher from South Carolina. As a young preacher, I was summoned by Duke Divinity School. I came up here and joined the faculty back in the ‘70s to teach worship. Didn't like teaching full-time, so I went back in a parish in South Carolina. Then again Duke called me to the pulpit of Duke Chapel, and I was there 20 years. It was my first experience with a ministry that large, a budget that large, a staff that large. From there, I was a bishop. After being a bishop for eight years, I was invited back to Duke. I teach courses in preaching and mission. I also teach a class for ordained leadership, and for the doctor of ministry, I teach a leadership class. In my latter years, I find myself moving more into leadership. In fact, in my mind, I think every class I teach here at Duke Divinity School is a leadership class because I think leadership is utterly necessary for ordained clergy to be leaders, but often that is something they say they don't get in divinity school. It's right at the top of the clergy list of skills they wish they had more of. Hugh: That's amazing. As people go into this meaningful work in ministry, first off, it's very difficult work. It's very challenging work. Let's go back a minute. We talked about leadership. I want you to define leadership. I also want to ask you about what do you think from interviewing pastors that have been in churches for a while, what do they think they wish they had known before they started? Define leadership. Then what are you hearing from preachers out there they wish they had gotten from this class you're teaching? Will: I hear pastors complain about administration. That consumes too much of their time, they don't enjoy doing it, they had no training in how to administer well. Larger church pastors, whenever you're together, the talk always gets to staff: staff problems, problematic people on staff, hiring people, holding people accountable, all those things you got to do in supervision. I think few pastors come into the ministry saying, “God is calling me to administer a church.” And yet that is the work you find yourself in. Another problem is I know when I went into ministry, my vision of myself was I will be a part of a small rural congregation in South Carolina. I hope I'll have a part-time secretary. That would be wonderful. Then you wake up one day like I did at Duke Chapel, and I had 30 human beings that I was supposed to be supervising and orchestrating and coordinating and leading. That was when I reached out and tried to get better leadership administrative skills. Probably should have reached out sooner. I hear about administration. Then I hear pastors complaining about conflicted congregations, congregations that don't seem to respect their authority and leadership. This whole complex set of things that leaders, managers, administrators have to do. I hear a lot of that. You mentioned that being a pastoral leader is hard. I agree. However, there are times I think when pastors get together and complain, whine about administrative leadership difficulties thinking this is what everybody faces who works with human beings that have some tasks assigned to them, some mission they are engaged in. Maybe the surprising thing is that pastors are surprised this is the world. Hugh: This is the work. It's with people. Years ago, I interviewed you for an article I was doing for a magazine on the topic of conflict. We were talking about particularly how pastors do or don't approach conflict. One of the statements you made was typically, pastors want to move away from conflict. One of the people I interviewed on the podcast was a woman named Dr. Roberta Gilbert. She was a psychiatrist and a colleague of Murray Bowen. I don't know if you- Will: I know Bowen theory, yeah. Hugh: I have been studying it for nine years. She was on this series of podcasts. What she helped me realize was that we move toward conflict, remaining calm, sticking to the facts. Instead of avoiding it, moving toward that. I found that Bowen systems is a way to know self, so it helped me to reframe some of my leadership. But conflict is one of the things that exists in any human system like Bowen talks about. Part of what that theory helped me do was he calls differentiation of self. What are our principles? That is a really foundational piece for leadership is defining self. Will: Agreed. For pastors, self-knowledge is a never-ending task. It may be complicated by the fact that for pastors, we have lots of opportunities to be self-deceitful if we want to be. One, I think people aid us in our self-deceit as they say to us, “You're just so loving and caring. We have never had a pastor like you.” Pushing all those buttons. Then you start to believe that. It is a halo effect. I was in a church recently that has severe problems with decline and severe problems with their staff being unable to step up. The first thing the pastor said was, “We have a wonderful staff here. I feel so privileged to be working with them.” I'm thinking that from one angle, that sounds charitable, and you seem to be a charitable person. You're thinking positively about these people. From another angle though, let's be honest, you don't want to do the work that would be required by being truthful, that you've hired the wrong people, you are going to have some painful conversations, you need to make some moves. Rather than do that work, you are going to say, “We have a wonderful staff, and we are all Christians.” I love that self-knowledge. For instance, in a leadership class I teach here, two thirds of the class always admits they have problems with conflict. Much of the class says one of the appeals of Christian ministry is that they could do this without hurting people. In business, you have to fire people. I know it sounds ridiculous as you know the church. I try to say it's very important to own that. I put it on my list, too, with clergy. I think we clergy think of ourselves as powerless people. We look at our paycheck and say we don't have much influence or power or they'd be paying me more. It's easy for us to say there is a problem of the staff, that it's for the personnel committee. They deal with this; since I'm the pastor, I don't deal with that. I think that can be very dangerous. One of my jobs as a bishop was to discipline errant clergy who had moral lapses, and invariably, the image was, “I am just a loving, caring pastor. I couldn't hurt anybody.” That is dangerous. It's important for pastors to own who they are, the power they have. Use that power carefully. Self-knowledge is a big deal. I don't know if the president of General Motors has to know thyself, as Socrates advised, but pastors do. There are so many opportunities for deceit, for those moments where you say: I am telling you this for your own good and because I love you. Probably more typical is for pastors to say in response to when I ask “Why didn't you tell the truth? Why didn't you share the facts?” “Oh, I am such a loving, caring person. I didn't want to hurt this person.” We pastors have many resources for deceiving ourselves about our real motives. Hugh: Along that channel, I find that the really best leaders have a confidential advisor or coach, a mentor, somebody that helps them discover their blind spots because they are called blind spots for a good reason. That would be one of them. It's an accountability partner. Will: Good advice. I remember we had a consultant in Alabama, and he educated us during a day about what it takes to revitalize a moribund, static, plateaued congregation. You gotta do this and this and this. Have these discussions, these strategies. At the end of the day, at the bottom of the list he put- His voice raised and he said, “None of this can be done by yourself. You've got to get external assistance. You have to get a coach, an advisor, a mentor. You have to get somebody who is not embedded with you, somebody who has no power in that configuration.” I sure found that to be true. As Alabama's bishop, the church gave me a job but I had no training, and as you can see, very few gifts. I had 800 pastors, 600 churches. It was a leadership management nightmare. After a couple months, I got a retired business executive. I asked, “Bill, what'd you make your last year at the life insurance company?” He said, “About $400,000.” I said, “Well, I'm prepared to offer you $20,000 to work with me and to be my coach, to be my advisor. God wants you to do this. God has told me to tell you to do this. You wouldn't want to disappoint the Lord, would you?” He said, “Wow, you really do need an advisor if that's your attitude about things.” It was wonderful. He had an office near mine. Bill went with me to meetings. He sat at the back of the room usually, took notes. We would have an evaluation after the meeting. He would say things to me like, “Once again, you talked about a third of the time, and two thirds of the time, they were talking.” Or he would say things to me like, “You know, you're asking less questions than you did when we first started. I think you have to discipline yourself to ask more questions and make fewer declarative statements. Your questions are not as good as they were in the early days. I'm afraid you're falling into the trap of thinking you know what's going on now. No, you don't.” Because that is a moving target, people are being deceptive, and they don't even know they are being deceptive. It was wonderful. The trouble with being a bishop is it is really hard to find anybody who will tell you the truth, except generally your most severe critics whom you can't stand because they are so critical. Bill was wonderful. Now, when any pastor says to me things like, “Oh, this church. I tried this, and it didn't work.” “Let me stop you right there. I know where you're going with this. I am going to recommend you get a coach. You get some help. Let me just stop you right there and talk about the help.” I'm just not sure pastors can do much of anything without somebody coming in from the outside and making the work as difficult as Jesus means it to be. I use that phrase a lot. If the work assigned to us was simply to be a loving, caring group of people, a lot of churches are a loving, caring group of people because that's all the pastor knows how to lead, the pastor is uncomfortable around anybody in their twenties, so therefore the pastor ends up spending a lot of time with people my age. Unfortunately, Jesus Christ, the work he has given us to do, the mission is much more demanding than that. There is going to be disagreements. There will be crises, not simply because people are hard to work with, which they are, but because Jesus Christ is hard to work with. He won't let us be the men's garden club. I keep trying and thinking about leadership. What difference does it make that we are Christian doing this? How is our leadership of a different quality than, say, leadership by a well-meaning humanist or something? That is a hard question to answer, but nevertheless, I think it important for clergy. Hugh: It is. We take sound leadership business principles, and we learn from them. When we put them in the church, they are different because it is the church. There are things we can learn. In my conversations with Jim Forbes, a pastor from Riverside, New York, he said, “We need for our spiritual journey experience 15-20% outside of our discipline.” Talk about the coach so we don't get stale and blind. Nothing else is there. This is what I know. Part of what Bishop Joe said to us at Blacksburg is the Methodist Church was losing 1,200 members a week in America. We get on a track where we think this is how it ought to go, but it's not working. We have sat ourselves up for failure. Some of the gaps in leadership. When I talked to Cal Turner, and he has talked to the council of bishops, he went to his leadership team at Dollar General and said, “I am the son of the boss. I got this because I am son of the boss.” He was president and chairman of the board. “You have the skills. I have the vision.” He claimed the vision, but he said that he wanted them to do this. Everybody stepped up. Cal said, “Hugh, leadership is about defining your gaps and finding really good people to fill them.” He also pointed out that transparency is- You're not whiny, but he was very straightforward. They know. They know you don't know it. Why pretend? If I didn't tell them, they would be like, “Well, I'll show him.” There is this vision thing. I worked with Dick Wills when he was bishop in Tennessee. We were talking about a cabin retreat. I was talking about the vision for that since I was leading it. He said, “The cabinet is not going to develop the vision. I didn't see anywhere in the Bible where God gave the vision to a committee. Here is the vision.” That is the vision piece. I don't think the great commandment is your mission. That is a commandment. That is a commission. That is not a choice. Paul Borden said that when you brought him in to talk to north Alabama. That is not a choice. What is it that God has called this church or organization? We are talking about leadership in the church. There are some unique differences, but there are some global differences for anybody leading any organization. A lot of what you are talking about corporate leaders have trouble with, too. Talk about the pastor. Back to Bowen systems. There is this pseudo self and basic self. We want to please people, so we go into pleaser mode, which is a downward spiral, rather than going with our principles and making the right decisions for the right reason. Not pulling people in and saying, “This is not how we do things.” It's a pleaser personality. You did say to me in that interview a while back that in addition to avoiding conflict, it gets worse as it goes on. You also said that conflict is the sign of energy in an organization. We don't ever eliminate it. We are energetic people. Managing this and addressing it, I think we misunderstand words. One word is we need to confront the conflict. The root of it is with your front. It doesn't mean you hit them with a baseball bat. With your front means approach it directly, calmly, and openly, stating the facts. There is a huge challenge I see in this area you're talking about. How can pastors equip themselves, besides having a good coach? I suggest it doesn't always have to be clergy. Will: You can have coaches. When pastors talk about difficulty of personalities, because you have graduated from divinity school, you have had zero training in how to handle people, how to hold people accountable, how to have difficult conversations with people about their work. But I guarantee you you have people in your church that God has called to the ministry or personnel work. Draw on them. Commission them to do this with you. There is an arrogance behind the pastor who says, “I have hands laying on my head. I'm good at preaching and administration and budgetary oversight.” With one meeting with the finance committee, I was thinking I have always disliked people like you in high school who were always talking about some really interesting math problem in homework. I'm no good in math. That is one reason I went into the ministry to avoid that. Any wonderful guy who has called you. This is what you're good at. Let me give you that authority to do that. As you were talking, you talked about good business principles and how they are different in the church. That is so true. However, I don't want to let us clergy off the hook by saying a frequent way- It's either arrogance or evasiveness. “Wait, remember now, the church is not a business.” That is just a cop-out for saying, “I am so arrogant I am not going to submit to instruction. I am not going to learn.” You were talking about conflict. You can get better at managing conflict. There are certain things you can learn. You do this, then you do this, then you do this. You develop an attitude, which doesn't say, “There is conflict. I did something wrong,” but rather, “There is some heat being generated here. I can feel it. Maybe I am doing something right.” There have been moments in my ministry where I swear it's like Jesus says to me, “Gosh, ain't it a shame that I didn't have your personality. Maybe I wouldn't have ended up like I did on the cross.” Sometimes, good management leadership principles can be overruled by the theological missional commitments of the church. I remember when I was weighing into the immigration fight in Alabama, taking on Jeff Sessions. My management coach said, “Ah, really, at this time, I hate to see you get into this.” I said, “Well, the better clergy are asking me to get into this with him.” He said, “This is one of those moment when I realize that this is more than about good management coaching. This is about the gospel and Jesus Christ. I guarantee you you're going to do this because I know you. This is where I realize I'm not ordained. I'm not clergy. At your best, you think like clergy. I just want to say now as you go into this, know that you will come into some casualties and take some hits and expend some of your capital, but it sounds like you think this is right.” Part of being clergy is applying theological and knowing- In the class I was just teaching, I had Douglas Campbell, who is our great New Testament scholar here, talking about conflict. He was talking about how Paul served a multi-cultural diverse church. He said, “Boy, it's all blowing up in his face. You have people with Pagan values and Pagan ethics, and you have Jewish Christians, and Gentile Christians. They are fighting it out with each other over who is a real Christian.” A number of the pastors in the program said, “I've been there. I am there.” Then Douglas said, “You know, maybe Paul would say, ‘If you're in a placid, content, homogeneous church, you ain't much of a missionary, are you? You're not much of an Evangelist.' The testimony to how effective Paul was is the squabbles going on, the conflict they're having.” I thought that was a great way to put it. If my church doesn't have any conflict over racial issues or political issues, you better check out your Evangelistic leadership because Jesus Christ is about wider business than simply a happy club of older adults. Hugh: That's what separates us from being a social club. Will: Absolutely. We usually say, “We have love, harmony,” yeah. But if that love and harmony is by our disobeying Christ's commission, it's wrong. You mentioned Paul Borden. I loved him in a church leadership on testosterone way. I remember one of my pastors saying to Paul, “You can't be captured by the older adults in your congregation. You have to free yourself from that. You have to ask yourself, every time you go to the hospital to visit those shut-ins, who are you not visiting? Who are the conversations you're not having?” One of the pastors said, “Paul, don't you think there is something to be said for honoring the sacrifices and love of those dear people who built this church?” Paul said, “No, the church does not exist to honor any human being. The church exists to honor Jesus Christ.” Paul whacks him to the thing he says, “Some of you should have gone into nursing. Maybe you can empty bedpans, do nice things for people. This is better than that. You are a preacher of the word of God.” I don't know how the group perceived that, but I was thinking it is good to be- Sometimes it is good to be reminded that God has called me for more than an efficient, well-run organization. Again, I'm not trying to dismiss leadership management incompetence. For me, preaching was the thing that kept calling me back to say, “I am not simply aspiring to be a manager of an efficient volunteer organization. I am a spokesperson for God. I am the one that says, Okay people, we are gathered again before the scriptures. How are we being challenged?” Hugh: Our duty and delight is to do meaningful work and to challenge people. I am thinking Reinhold Niebuhr, “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” Will: Quoting Reinhold Niebuhr reminds me of his book, Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. But in there, he says something that has challenged me throughout my ministry. “Before I became a pastor, I thought there were so many boring and tame sermons because preachers were cowards. You have to be careful about how you say things. Now that I have become a pastor, I realized the source of bad preaching is love. You start to love these people, you are with them. You have a front row seat on their misery. The last thing you want to do in a sermon is make them more miserable. That is why there is so many boring and tame sermons.” Not sure if he was right about his characterization of prophets in Israel, but I found that so challenging that many of the really unfaithful things pastors do and lead, they blame it on love. I'm not telling this congregation the truth about their future, the fact that they have no future or very little future because I love them. They are some of the sweetest people. It complexifies leadership and Jesus' name. it also says to me now. Be honest, here. You have noted that when you tell people painful truths, what do they do? They come back at you, and they start telling you painful truths. Then where would we be? We might be something on the way to being the body of Christ where the church says, “We are not only loving and caring and friendly; we are also truthful to a degree that you can't get without the holy spirit working in you.” Hugh: We're also not truthful in how we interpret the Bible. Paul Borden challenged the great commission is not your mission, it's a choice. Richard Rohr or John Bishop, they talk about how we hijack scripture for our own purposes- Will: We do. Hugh: -as leaders. We misinterpret that. That is a built-in liability. You spoke about power earlier. I want to ask about that in a minute. I find a lot of leaders are unaware of the power differentiation. The pastor is an influencer of power, whether they know it or not. We get in trouble with relationships. We get in trouble with money. We get in trouble with authority because we are not aware that we have a position of power with what we do. In my church in Atlanta that I served, the session, which is the ruling body of the Presbyterian church, were Sotheby executives who abdicated their authority to the pastor, which is not in the book of order. He has one vote. The teaching elder gets equal votes. They abdicated because he was the CEO. It was that power position that they gave into. They didn't know how to be the board. But he got things done. He died at 63 because he really wore out his body. He worked hard and grew that church. It was a great delight to know him. I do find that typically clergy especially are unaware that they do have this position of power. What they say has a lot more weight. How does that get us in trouble? Will: It's dangerous- It's also so important to own your power and use it responsibly. We give policemen guns, but then we really expect them to be very careful in using the firearm. When I am ordained in the Methodist church, the bishop says, “Take thou authority to preach the word. Take thou authority to administer the sacraments.” The bishop should have said, “Take care with thou authority we're giving you.” It amazes me that illustration is fascinating. I have been on boards of colleges where you have these powerful executives on the board. It's like they walk into a church meeting and turn off their brains and become docile, smiling people. Some of them will say, “It's the church. It's not like a business.” I say, “I think it should be more like a business. By the way, I guarantee your business for any of its ethical failings would never do anything this unethical that is going on right now in the treatment of staff or whatever. Come on. Be an executive. Use your power. I watched a little college go just about down the drain because of a board sitting there saying, “He is the president, and he has his Ph. D. I just have my B.A. degree, so what do I know?” They tolerated behavior they would never have tolerated in their bank or whatever. Knowledge of power, clergy moral abuse. I remember a dean of a medical school told me one time, “The purpose of medical education, morally speaking, is to produce people who can be alone with naked people and not take advantage of them.” I said, “Turn around. You see the divinity school. We do that in three years for a lot less money than you charge to do that.” I thought it was a great- Clergy are around naked people a lot, vulnerable people a lot. To take advantage of that vulnerability is a heinous act that requires removal from ministry. We can never- You violated a whole thing. Oftentimes, when I have been involved in disciplining clergy, the self-image the clergy person has is, “Me? No, I'm just- She said she was lonely, and her marriage was unhappy. I'm in the business of loving. So I tried to love.” I said, “That is your explanation for what occurred on your desk?” “Yes.” “That is horrible. Goodbye.” It is a big issue. In the congregation, I do think one thing we clergy have to be savvy about is power, power inequalities, power dynamics. Who are the powerless people in the congregation who are not being heard and who are not speaking up? I remember a pastor turning around a congregation. A group came to him and said, “We don't like this. We don't like this.” He said, “Every one of you is over 65. You represent 70% of this congregation.” They said, “We certainly do. Glad you've noticed that.” He said, “I bet you represent 90% of the giving.” “We're glad you noticed that, too.” “If this church is going to live another day, I have to ignore you as much as I can. I've just met with the pitifully six people we have in this congregation in their 20s. Here is what I have heard from them. We could lose those few people. I have challenged them to double their numbers this year. Here is what they tell me we need to do. For the good of this church, I am going to have to take my orders from them. I hope you'll understand that. I hope you'll see that by my doing that, I am giving this church another day.” That struck me as somebody understanding power and saying, “I have to discipline myself not to let you have the power that determines the mission of this church.” Hugh: That is not a typical decision though. Will: I honored this pastor. Teach me how to do more of that. One other thing you said is one thing as a bishop, my coach said to me, “You've been an academic. The way you guys think about stuff is with your mouth open. You say, ‘Hey, this is an interesting idea. I want to know how you feel about that.' You can do that in your old job, but you can't do that in your new job. In your new job, when you say to them like you did in a meeting, ‘Hey, I'm thinking why don't we have district offices? I think you guys ought to be in your car more than in your office. You have to be in the district.' So why don't we make district offices? It was breathtaking. Everybody there froze and said, ‘You have a job now where you have power. You could actually do that if you wanted to.' You have to be a bit more careful about the stuff you throw out. If you want to shock them, if you want to steamroll them, you have the power to do it. I believe you'll end up paying a heavy price for that.” It was a great thing to say. You're the bishop. You could move them to Timbuktu if you're unhappy with them. They know it. Hugh: Leaders do that not only in the church, but also in other charities, and are totally unaware of their consequences of those actions. Will: That's a good word, consequences. Hugh: There are consequences, and they are unaware of them. I want to close this interview out with two more questions. Recently, there was an article in the Washington Post that said at its current trajectory, mainline denominations have 23 Easters left. That is a pretty sobering thought whether it's true or not. What do leaders in mainline churches need to do to turn that trend around? Will: Ooh. I have a long list. A bunch of stuff. Today, I would say: One is we have to look at the painful, ugly stuff, like that statistic. We have to stop lying. We have to find a way to tell difficult truths to people whom we love. Again, I'm a preacher. That is what I think I do every week is stand up and tell difficult truths from Jesus to people that I love, many of them. We ought to be good at this. I think in a sense we ought to be made to stare at that and think, I can't be this kind of leader that I thought I was trying to be. Pastors would often say to me, “This is not the same church I signed on with. I tell you what, when I joined, I didn't sign on for this.” What a dumb statement. We serve a living God for one thing, and not of the dead. But also, every leader has got to constantly retool, constantly go back to school, constantly start over, constantly ditch these principles that worked great at my last job. They are inappropriate at this one. Get used to it. I start my ordained leadership class by saying to them, “I am going to try to share with you what I think I‘ve learned. A lot of it I learned the hard way. Maybe it will help you avoid some of my mistakes. You will get tired of the pontificating and the stories about Alabama, but you need to use that. You take that in. About 50% of that is going to be wrong. You can't serve the same church I served. You can't do what I did. There are people here in their 20s who don't know a lot about ministry, but you know more than I do about the future. That is your job in this class. You take in what I've got, and you sort through it. But you also keep your eyes on the future of things. The Lord is taking me out of this game. But He is sending you in. Step up and take responsibility.” That is the move I think we got to make. We will not have a future in mainline Protestantism unless we can do that. I must say I'm more impressed by local pastors in little out of the way places that are finding a way to lead into the future. I'm more impressed than I am about seminaries and all. Hugh: Hey there, it's Hugh Ballou. Wasn't that a great interview with Dr. William Willimon? We lost the last few seconds when I said thank you and goodbye because of a technical glitch, but you had all this great content.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

College is a time when we think only about the future and endless possibilities. Rarely do we consider our own mortality. In this episode, we take a deep dive into how death is present in our daily lives on Duke's campus, whether we like it or not. Featuring: Dr. Deborah Gold, professor of "Death and Dying" course (Sociology 264) Dr. Jehanne Gheith, professor at Duke and licensed clinical social worker for Duke Hospice Dr. Eric Peterson, cardiologist at Duke Hospital Dr. Anthony Galanos, palliative care specialist Lois Oliver, Duke Chapel historian Valerie Gillispie, Duke's University archivist One of the reasons we decided to produce this episode in September was the loss of two classmates, Michael and Bobby. Now with Alex's recent passing, we feel it is more relevant than ever to open a discussion on campus about death. Our thoughts are with the friends and families of Michael, Bobby, and Alex.

Luke Powery serves as Dean of Duke Chapel at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. I first met Luke at Princeton Seminary where he was my first preaching professor. I quickly grew to respect Luke for his passion for communicating from the heart and his desire to raise up preachers and communicators who loved Jesus and were committed to the powerful message of the Gospel. Luke talks openly about the connection between developing as a preacher and developing your heart as a leader. Welcome to episode 5 of the Young Church Leaders Podcast with Grant Vissers!

Professor William Willimon visits The Context of White Supremacy. "Professor of the practice of Christianity" at North Carolina's Duke University, Willimon served as dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry for two decades. He's written over 60 books and holds honorary degrees from more than ten institutions. We'll investigate his 2017 publication, Who Lynched Willie Earle? Confronting Racism through Preaching. Professor Willimon writes about the 1947 lynching of twenty-four-year-old Willie Earle. White terrorists blamed him for the death of a White taxi driver and abducted the unarmed black male from a South Carolina jail. Earle was tortured and mutilated before being murdered. No one was convicted for the crime. Willimon's book explores how the religion of White Supremacy encouraged the lynching and enslavement of black people. Like convicted mass killer Dylann Storm Roof, Willimon is a White man and a South Carolina native. He also uses the book to examine his own culpability for the system of White Supremacy. #AnswersForMiriamCarey INVEST in The COWS - http://paypal.me/GusTRenegade CALL IN NUMBER: 641.715.3640 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. archives: http://tiny.cc/76f6p

A public discussion on March 30, 2017 moderated by the Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel with the Rev. Dr. William Turner, Jr., James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor of the Practice of Preaching at Duke Divinity School; Bishop William Willimon, bishop in the United Methodist Church, former dean of Duke Chapel, and professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School; and readings from the Duke Chapel Recordings Archive.

Today's sermon, “If We Are Silent”, is by Dr. Luke Powery, Dean of the Duke Chapel.

UNC Charlotte researchers track the Zika Virus. Western Carolina University speech pathologist Dr. David Shapiro receives the 2016 O. Max Gardner Award. Britt Boyette of Wilson makes beautiful instruments at his Salem Street Drum Company. Duke Chapel reopens after a year-long restoration project.

Members of the Duke-Cambridge Collaboration reflect on working with eminent Scottish classical composer James MacMillan on his new St. Luke Passion. This panel was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music." The series was sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Scottish classical composer James MacMillan gives a public lecture on his new St. Luke Passion, framing and introducing the April 13 U.S. Premiere of the piece, as well as providing insight into composing as a Catholic Christian. The lecture is followed by a response from Cambridge Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Sarah Coakley. This lecture was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music," sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Cambridge Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Sarah Coakley, St. Andrews Professor of Systematic Theology Alan Torrance, and Cambridge Regius Professor of Divinity David Ford, each speak about their vision for the future of theology. An audience Q&A follows. This panel was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music," sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Cambridge Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Sarah Coakley, St. Andrews Professor of Systematic Theology Alan Torrance, and Cambridge Regius Professor of Divinity David Ford, each speak about their vision for the future of theology. An audience Q&A follows. This panel was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music," sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Scottish classical composer James MacMillan gives a public lecture on his new St. Luke Passion, framing and introducing the April 13 U.S. Premiere of the piece, as well as providing insight into composing as a Catholic Christian. The lecture is followed by a response from Cambridge Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Sarah Coakley. This lecture was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music," sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Celebrated Irish poet Micheal O'Siadhail offers a reading of his work in this intimate evening performance. The performance was part of a larger series of events surrounding the Duke-Cambridge Collaboration, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music"; and the series was sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Members of the Duke-Cambridge Collaboration reflect on working with eminent Scottish classical composer James MacMillan on his new St. Luke Passion. This panel was part of a larger series of events, "Sounding the Passion: Encounters in Poetry, Theology, and Music." The series was sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), Duke Divinity School, Duke Chapel, Duke Music Department, and Duke Council for the Arts.

Office of News and Communications

Part of an interview series with Duke University Divinity School faculty looking at the hidden wounds of war and the Church's resources that can help those in recovery. Series Producers: Logan Mehl-Laituri and Pilar Timpane Cinematographer and Editor: Pilar Timpane Associate Producer: Tyler Mahoney © 2011 More resources for Duke Chapel: chapel.duke.edu/

Duke Chapel's new dean is Luke Powery. Both a scholar and practitioner of the African-American preaching tradition, Powery comes to Duke from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the chapel's first dean who is black. In an Office Hours conversation, he described how he's coming to understand the chapel's role, his approach to preaching and what hymn has been in his head since arriving on campus.

Sam Wells was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada and grew up in England in a village between Bath and Bristol, about 100 miles west of London. He graduated from Merton College, Oxford, with an M.A. in Modern History, from Edinburgh University with a B.D. in Systematic Theology, and from Durham University with a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics.

Sam Wells was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada and grew up in England in a village between Bath and Bristol, about 100 miles west of London. He graduated from Merton College, Oxford, with an M.A. in Modern History, from Edinburgh University with a B.D. in Systematic Theology, and from Durham University with a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics.

Duke Divinity School and the Duke University Faith Council sponsored an interfaith panel reflecting on the response of faith communities to 9/11 as one of several campus events commemorating the 10th anniversary. Panelist were Sam Wells, dean of Duke Chapel; Richard B. Hays, dean of Duke Divinity School; and Sumi Kim, Buddhist chaplain, Laura Lieber, assistant director of Jewish Studies, and Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain, all of Duke.

Sermon from Duke Chapel, Sept. 9, 2001.

Introduction We come this morning to an awesome parable, the parable of the talents. We come to this parable, and then the sheep and the goats account at the end of Matthew 25. Matthew 24 and 25 are two chapters given by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives to get His church ready for the Second Coming of Jesus and to get the church ready for Judgment Day. We've seen so many things, but as we look at the parable of the talents, and then after that at the sheep and the goats parable, something struck me this morning, and that is the seriousness of sins of omission, of leaving undone what God wants us to do. This wicked lazy servant did nothing, that's all. He actually did a little something, but he didn't do what he was supposed to do. He left it undone. In the sheep and the goats parable, the goats are characterized by inactivity, "I was hungry, you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink," and so on. Anybody who knows me knows that one of my favorite movies is, "It's a Wonderful Life." I've seen it 15-20 times. I quote it in everyday life because there are just so many things that can be covered by a line from that movie. In the movie, there's a man who's suicidal, he's desperate, he hates his life, he doesn't like the everyday humdrum regular existence he's had, and then he runs into a tremendous financial trial. He wants to kill himself by throwing himself off a bridge, and along comes his guardian angel, Clarence. I am not vouching for the theology of the movie at all. But Clarence gives him a great gift. He says at one point, "George, you've been given a great gift, a chance to see what the world would have been like without you." Bedford Falls, this tidy little community, this beautiful little place, is turned into a mini Las Vegas with all kinds of open sin going on. It's a wild and wicked kind of place. The end result is that George is ennobled, he realizes that the life he's lived has been well worth living. His life has made a tremendous impact on his wife, his children, his extended family, and the community through his acts of service. It was indeed a wonderful life; it was worth living. I've wondered what the opposite would look like on Judgment Day. The Lord is omniscient, He knows not only what was, what is, and what will be, but He also knows what might have been. What would it be like for you to sit with Jesus and have Him show you your life if you had been fully faithful to Him, to show you what your family would have looked like, what your church would have looked like, what your community would have looked like, the people you met along the way, the people you traveled with, to be able to track down maybe one of their lives, if you had actually opened your mouth and shared the gospel with them, and what would have happened if at that point, they had heard the gospel from you and came to faith in Christ. You would see what things might have been avoided. I can't imagine the pain of actually sitting through that. I actually wrestled inside myself back and forth, “Should I begin the sermon this way. I don't want to begin with a downer. I mean, frankly, two of the servants are very faithful, aren't they? Well done, good and faithful servant.” As a matter of fact, that statement is so profound and so powerful, I'm going to devote a whole sermon next week to Matthew 25: 21, 23. So in fairness to me, you're getting the whole sermon on two verses, not just on one, but it's the same verse, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master." We're going to talk about that next week, the rewards that wait us, but still, there's a seriousness here to this parable, isn't there? Jesus is not telling a light-hearted, frothy story here. It ends up with the wicked lazy servant being cast into Hell, and so there is a seriousness to the issue of stewardship. Aspects of Stewardship As I think about stewardship, there are two questions that are in front of me, there's a kind of a detailed everything comprehensive nature stewardship question, and then there's a focus stewardship question. So, in one sense, I want to ask, what am I not a steward of? What do I have that I didn't receive? If I did receive it, am I not a steward of it? Hasn't the Lord entrusted every blessing in my life so that I can do something with it for His glory? Every minute of time, every physical ability and skill, every relationship, every possession, every dollar, every providential so-called chance encounter, all of these things are matters of stewardship. I want to be faithful to everything. I don't want to feel overwhelmed. I don't want to anticipate like the wicked and lazy servant that we're going to a hard master who's unjust and evil. Not at all, He's gracious, Jesus is the kind of master that's going to reward even a cup of cold water given to one of His servants. Those people will never lose their reward, that's how generous and gracious Jesus is. But on the other side, I don't want to miss anything, do you? I don't want to waste my life, I want to live for Jesus, and so I want to look at everything in a stewardship light, and we're going to talk about that today. Isn't there also a sense that some things are more important than others, and maybe one thing more important than anything? In the end, I ask, “What is this church a steward of that's more valuable than anything else.” I have to think it's the ministry of reconciliation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't it? That we are entrusted with the gospel, we are entrusted with the only power of God there is for the salvation of lost people around us. That responsibility has been given to us, and we are to be out and about with it. It's the greatest stewardship that we have as a church, and I want to be faithful, don't you? I want to lead people to Christ. I want to be able to say, “Here am I and the children you have given me,” to God like it says in the scriptures. I want to be able to point to sons and daughters, and grandsons and granddaughters. I want my sons and daughters to be faithful spiritual sons and daughters and they lead people to Christ. I want to be part of a vast spiritual family. But you know wanting and doing, they're just two different things. I don't want to live a life of sins of omission, and therefore, I want this parable to have its full impact on me and on you. I want us to feel its weight, and I want a response to this, if we need to, to repent if we've not been fully faithful. D.L. Moody was driven by a statement he heard early in his Christian life, "The world has yet to see what God can do through a man fully devoted to Him." The issue is fullness of devotion. Can I give everything to Jesus? Romans 7 holds me back, I never give everything to Jesus, but I want to. I want to fight the good fight of faith, and I want to see what God can do through me more fully devoted than I've ever been before. If that's the outcome of this sermon, then it'll be a successful sermon. Stewardship Parables We're looking at stewardship this morning, so let's dig in and look at the details of the parable. I propose today to just go through it line by line and talk about it briefly, and then apply it. Next week, I'm going to just zero in on the rewards. We're not going to talk about it much at all today, but I think the reward, the three-fold reward that the Lord offers in that one verse is so staggering and so overwhelming that I would find it greatly motivational to have as much of that as possible. Let's look at verse 14 and 15, as the stewardship is initiated. Verse 14 says, "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them." So, what will be like a man going on a journey? It's the context, His second coming and the circumstances around that will be like this parable. That's what He's saying. He is leaving. He's going to come back, "It's going to be like this when I come back." That's what he's saying, the Second Coming of Christ. I believe that verse 14 is probably the most comprehensive single verse on the essentials of stewardship in the Bible. All the basic ingredients are here and in verse 15. First of all, you have a master, somebody in authority, an owner, and then you have servants who are owned by the master and accountable to Him. You have a journey, this is a key issue in these stewardship parables, is that the master isn't standing over your shoulder. He's not right there, he's away, he's apart from you, in some sense, you’ve got to do it on your own, although we know from the vine and the branches, we never do anything apart from Jesus, but you've got to have faith. So, the master's away, and the steward's on his own, and he's got to be faithful. The property is entrusted to him throughout the account. It's understood that everything belongs to the master, not to the servants, and it is committed to the servants to be managed in the master's absence. Finally, there is accountability. There's a time in which the master returns and says, "Now, what did you do?" Those are all the basic ingredients of stewardship, and this concept of stewardship is vital in our relationship with Christ, it shows up again and again in His parables. For example, you have the parable of the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard entrusts his vineyard to some tenant farmers, and he goes away. Then he sends his servants to the tenant farmers to get his share of the crop at harvest time. It’s the same concept there, stewardship. Then you have the parable of the 10,000 talents in Matthew 18, which is essentially about forgiveness, but again, it begins this way, “The king wants to settle accounts with his servants and a man comes in who owes him 10,000 talents.” Again, the basic concept. In Luke 16, the parable of the unrighteous steward in which the man is found to be a bad steward, and he's going to get fired. The key to the parable is he doesn't get fired right away, so he's got a window of opportunity in which he's managing his master's stuff, and what does he do? He very shrewdly calls in people who owe his master a bunch of money and cuts their debt in half or knock 25% off. The master comes in and praises his shrewdness. Why is he doing it? So, he can curry favor with these individuals so that when he loses his job, he'll have a place to eat and stay. We'll come back to it later in the sermon, but it's a parable of stewardship. Then there's the parable of the ten minas. It’s similar to the parable of the talents here, but a little different. In Luke 19, a king gives to each of his servants the same amount, in that case each one gets a mina, which is a little more than a pound of gold. Then the king returns and calls them to account for what they did with the investment. Here Christ is preparing His disciples for their time of accountability before Him. The unique element of this parable is there's a variety of what's entrusted. To one, he gave five talents of money, to another, two talents, and to another, one talent, each according to his ability, then he goes on his journey. The master knows his servants well, he knows what they're capable of. He's assessed their abilities, probably based on past performance and they don't all get the same thing entrusted to them. This is a key issue with stewardship. God doesn't measure you on where you begin, and He doesn't measure you on where you end, He measures you in your faithfulness as you travel from beginning to end. Some people start with tremendous disadvantages, and they make incredible progress to achieve levels that we would be tempted to sniff at. But God knows very well the struggles they went through to get to that level, and so not everybody gets the same thing. In one sense, dear founders of our country, all men are not created equal. We don't all have the same capabilities, we don't all have the same opportunities to influence for Christ, but different abilities. What is a talent? It's 75 pounds. I think in this case, it's silver. One commentator put it as much as 17 years of wages for a daily wage earner. So, the one with the five talents had, if that's true, upwards of 85 years of wages, basically a lifetime of money. Two talents would be about 34 years of wages. If that calculation is true, even one talent is a significant amount of money. In verses 16 and 17, we see the elements of good stewardship put on display. Verse 16 says, "The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his master's money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more." First of all, you see no procrastination at all. Again, procrastination comes up here, that devastating sin of putting off to tomorrow what you ought to be doing today. Jesus tells us these two servants, the good servants, immediately go out and they work. Jesus says, “Don't put off to tomorrow.” Just like the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins, there's going to come a time where you won't be able to get what you need for Judgment Day, it's over. So, do it today. Be ready today. These servants seized the day immediately. The second element of the stewardship is labor, hard work. They worked hard. They are contrasted with the other servant who's called lazy, so they're good servants because they're hard workers. Thirdly, notice there's total focus. It doesn't come across as much in the translation, but the Greek expression is literally the one who had received the five talents “worked in them.” What that means is the talents were the focus of his efforts. Every day, he said, "What can I do with these talents? What can I do with this money that the master has entrusted?" He's thinking about it. It's a focus. We are not big enough to be in charge of the universe. We are entrusted with a narrow-defined field that we are to work. There's a focus here, and so also the one with the two talents, he works in the two talents. Good stewardship involves a focus on what God has entrusted to you and not getting distracted with other things. Fourthly, we see skill and foresight. To put the talents to work involves tremendous financial skill, foresight, knowledge of wise investments, there's a money analogy here. The servant with the five talents had a huge responsibility, and he manages it well, skillfully, he does well. He's courageous, he's not afraid of failures. He's out trading with his master's money, he's choosing wisely where to invest the money, and the one with the two talents does the same, though not with the same scope. We see fruitfulness here as a result. Investment experts speak of the ROI, which is return on investment. Well, these guys did great, 100% return on investment, they doubled their master's investment. The fact of the matter is that growth is what Jesus is getting at, He wants the thing improved, He wants it developed, He wants a harvest, He wants fruit, He wants something back as a result of what you mingled into it. From the very beginning, friends, it's been this way. God blessed Adam and Eve and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. Here's this world I give you. Here's all these different kinds of seeds with the crops, corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and all these different things, just make it happen.” He wanted fruit back, so He's not looking for a static situation, but dynamic growth of what He's entrusted. The Lord doesn't need any of this from us. The Lord is not short in power, He's not looking for hired help here. He's being gracious to us. He is including us so that our lives are worth living. The years that we spend from the time we come to faith in Christ on are not wasted, but they're beneficial, they're fruitful, they're good. God is so good to us, and He wants us to get involved in His work. So, we see beautifully, I think, good stewardship. We also see bad stewardship in verse 18, “But the man who had received the one talent went off. He dug a hole in the ground, and he hid his master's money." No one can tell for sure what this man's motives were, he clearly has a very dark and negative view of his master, doesn't he? I think this is a key issue. The more you know your master, Jesus, the more fruitful you're going to be, the more you just know His love for you, and how gracious He's going to be on Judgment Day to reward any faithful service, the more optimistic you are about that whole exchange. The more you sense his love, the more you know his love and feel it, the more you're going to do for Jesus. Conversely, if you're living in craven fear, the dark negative view of God and think, "Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough for Him. Why even bother?" God's not saying that to you. That's the language of the devil. This man clearly has a very negative view of his master, he doesn't want to be ashamed and have to tell his master when he gets back that he lost the talent, so he does a little amount of work, not a lot, but a little. He goes off and he digs a hole in the ground and hides his master's money, safe and sound. But nothing happens with it. It's just there, it's unproductive. When the master returns, he's going to get it back, but nothing happened with it. The things that Jesus has entrusted to us have tremendous growth potential, they’re just bursting with vitality. They're just bursting with energy and just waiting to be released, just put them in the soil and add water and watch what happens. It's powerful. God wants something back for those things. He wants return on investment. In verse 19, "After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them." Again, this is the essence of stewardship, this accountability. The Greek implies a kind of an accurate logbook, a record book, and what you did as recorded in the book, is gone over by the master. “What did you do? This is what I entrusted. What did you do with it? How did it go? Why did you do it that way?” It's Judgment Day, friends. Again, notice that verse 19 implies a long time between the first and second coming of Jesus. This is the third time now we've had that sense. In Matthew 24:48, "Suppose that servant is wicked, and he says to himself, 'My master's staying away a long time,' and then he begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards." In the parable of the virgins, it says, "The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep." It's the third time that Jesus is giving us a very strong hint that it's going to be a long time between His first and second coming. A long time as it seems to us. You know with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, but it's been 2000 years now since Jesus left. During that long delay between the first and second comings of Christ, the whole issue for the church will be faithful stewardship of the gospel and of spiritual gifts and time and money, and children, and everything else the Lord entrusted to you. After the time is up, Christ comes and settles accounts. Look at the rewards for faithful service. We will not touch on this much because we're devoting a whole sermon to it next week, God willing. It says, "The man who had entrusted the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' His master replied, 'Well done, you good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.' So also, the man with the two talents came, 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents, see, I have gained two more.' His master applied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.'" These servants come and give very succinct reports of their activities. I think one of the essences of stewardship is to know what He gave you. Wouldn't that be something to sit down and just make a catalog of everything God has given you? God has given us so much material possessions, money, opportunities, gifts, talents, education, just... We have been lavishly supplied. This man comes back, and he knows exactly what the master gave him. "You gave me five talents." Then comes one of the most famous lines in the Gospel of Matthew, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I heard so many times how somebody says their ambition is that God would say this to them on Judgment Day. It's a good ambition. We also see punishments for a faithless servant, verses 24 through 30, "And the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I know that you're a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So, I was afraid, and I went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well, then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. Take that talent away from him and give it to the man who has the 10 talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'" This is a very strong, devastating exposure of a man who lived his life in selfishness, cowardice, faithlessness and fruitlessness. Notice as I already mentioned, his hard assessment of his master, "You're a hard man." The word is used of harsh circumstances like a hard, bitter wind, like a nor'easter that blows and brings a cold storm. "That's the kind of master you are. It's the kind of man you are. You hard master. You're also unjust, you gather where you have not scattered seed, you harvest what you didn't work for, so you're harsh and you're unjust. Here's my excuse anyway, I was afraid. Fear took me over. I just was afraid to be out there doing what I needed to do, I guess, and so I hid what was yours in the ground." Here is a very strong and fascinating statement, “Behold, here is what belongs to you." He gives it back, right? Do you know all of your talents and abilities, that's just the clothing you're wearing, it isn't you. It's on loan from Jesus, and you're going to give it back some day. It's not yours. He entrusted it to you. One of the key verses on this in the Bible is Romans 11:36, "For from Him and through Him... " and back to him is the way I think of it... "are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." That means everything you have came from Him. He's sustaining it now, and someday it's going back to Him and you're going to give Him an account. It all goes back to God. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, "The dust returns to the ground it came from, the spirit returns to God who gave it." Everything you have in your life, all your money, talents and skills, your advantages, your education, your possessions, everything you pride yourself on, your exquisite athletic ability, your marvelous, good looks, your hair, all of it came from God. Those providential occurrences throughout your life, they're just entrusted to you, everything. It all goes back to God. Now then comes his master's judgment, words of disgrace, not praise, "You wicked, lazy servant." The exact opposite of “good and faithful servant”, I think. Then he restates the servant's insulting assessment, "So you knew that I was a hard man, harvesting where I have not sown and gathering where I have not scattered seed. That's what you knew about me? Well, let me give you some advice that's now too late for you. What you should have done is you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would have gotten something back for it.” Then the sovereign action of the master, "Take away from him that talent and give it to the one with the 10 talents." He's the king, he can do anything he wants, it's his money. And why? "Because everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” More on that next week. The most faithful servants in this world will be given the most responsibility in the next world. I'm going to talk about that next more next week, but that's what's going on here. He will have an abundance. "And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him," and then these words of condemnation, "throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Some of the clearest descriptions of hell are in Matthew 24 and 25, and they're worth the study. Application How can we apply this parable to ourselves? First of all, let's just have a sense of how great our stewardship is. Remember that we have a master, we have someone in authority over us, an owner. Our master is Jesus Christ, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and He's the ruler of all. We are servants, we are not our own. We are bought at a price. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them." He went on a journey, He ascended up to Heaven, so like I said, He's not standing over your shoulder. We need faith, strong faith to be good stewards. Let's not forget any of our gifts. Let's say, "Lord, what have You entrusted to me? What do I have?" I have a spouse, I have some children, I have a house, I have some other possessions, I have some spiritual blessings. I'm accountable for these things, and at the end, I'm going to stand in front of Jesus, and I'm going to give Him an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account [Hebrews 4:13]. We've got to be faithful with our time. “This is the day the Lord has made…” That means it's His, “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” How about we also be faithful in it too. Let's rejoice and be glad, and let's be faithful. Let's redeem the time for the days are evil, as it says in Ephesians 5. Redeeming the time. I look on it like I'm an action hero. Wake up in the morning. The day has been kidnapped. I have to go rescue the day. If I don't rescue it, it's lost. I've got to go redeem the day. You know what I'm talking about. If you kick back, you relax, whatever, the day is gone, and then the next day is gone, and then the years are gone, and then all those good things you wanted to do, you never did them. So, let's redeem the time because the days are evil [Ephesians 5]. Let's go get it. We are stewards of our bodies, let's be faithful, let's be faithful to take care of our bodies. Don't overeat, get exercise, be in it for the long haul, so you can be maximally energetic and fruitful in this life. I don't believe you're going to extend your life one day, all the days ordained are written, but I want a quality of life. I want to be able to be energetic. Let's take care of our bodies. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you which you received from God? You're not your own, you are bought at a price. You're also a steward of your family relationships. What about your marriage? It's entrusted to you from God. I get to perform a marriage later today, a wedding at Duke Chapel. The couple is going to make pledges and promises to each other. Meeting with them in counseling, I wanted to give them what I know they already have, a sense of the great gift that God has given them in each other. I need to be a wise steward of that marriage relationship with my wife and my children too. You don't know how long you have or how long we have our children, but we need to pour the gospel into our children and get them ready for Judgment Day. We need to be stewards of our money and our possessions. I've got a bigger vision of stewardship here today than just money, but money's part of it, isn't it? The fact is you have your money in your possession for just a short time, that's why I like that parable, that quirky parable of the unrighteous steward. He's not saying, "Hey look, be a slimy operator so you can get fired." That's not the point of the parable. The point is, you have what you have for a short time, a window of opportunity, make the most of it. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead, so be good stewards of your money and use it for the kingdom. One of the biggest lies Satan tells you about your money is that if you give it away for Jesus, you'll never see it again. That is a lie. It's if you try to hold on to it, you'll never see it again, it's if you give it away, you'll see it for all eternity. You're a steward of your spiritual gifts. If you've been given a gift of teaching, then teach, the gift of administration, then lead and minister. Do what the Lord has called you to do according to the patterns of scripture. Each one of us has a role to play in the body of Christ. Let's play it. Don't waste your spiritual gifts. If your gift is hospitality, have more people over than you've been having over. If your gift is evangelism, then share more faithfully than you've ever done before. If your gift is intercessory prayer, then spend more time with more fervency than you've ever done before. That's what the parable of the talents is about. Finally, we are entrusted with the gospel, it's the greatest stewardship we have. Proclaim it. I'm mindful of my stewardship of this pulpit and the fact that there could be people listening to me right now who aren't saved. If you're not ready to stand before God and give Him a minute account of your stewardship, because you're not one of His servants, you're in danger of judgment. I just tenderly warn you to flee to Christ, because Judgment Day is coming for all of us. If you're lost, if you don't have Christ as your Savior, hell stands in front of you, it's your danger, and you underestimate it. So, I urge you, flee to Christ, flee to the cross, his bloodshed on the cross is enough for all of your sins and for mine too. If you just repent and trust in Him, you will be forgiven. Dear friends, we as believers, we have been entrusted with the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation. Let's proclaim it faithfully. We're coming now to a time of celebration of the Lord's supper, so it's a solemn ordinance, a joyful one, a chance that we have to think ahead to the second coming of Jesus Christ, when we will give Him an account and when He will welcome us. After Judgment Day and after He wipes every tear from our eyes, we will get to sit down at table with Jesus. I'd like to ask that you take this time and begin reflecting on yourself. If you're not a Christian, if you have not come to faith in Christ and testified to that by water baptism as a believer, please don't come to the table. The Bible says you'd be eating and drinking judgment on yourself. If you're a Christian and you need to do business with God, repent, but come to the table. It's for sinners, not for perfect people.

Bishop Willimon's sermon from Duke Chapel on July 1, 2001.

In this video, part-time carillonneur Paul Bumbalough talks about his unique job as one of the people who rings the bells from atop the Duke Chapel. From his vantage point, it's possible to look over the entire Duke campus and across the city of Durham.

Every day, our invisible God spreads a lavish banquet for our five senses. Every day He does that. The invisible God and the created world lays out a lavish feast. The pleasures of sight. I have seen, driving across this country, unforgettable scenes of beauty. I remember driving across South Dakota and seeing the rolling grasslands there as far as the eye could see, undulating hills covered with grass that was just swaying back and forth in a breeze as though it were an ocean. I'd never seen anything like that before, never anything so large. And continuing on in Montana, they call it "the big sky country," and I saw the big sky there, and a valley as far as the eye could see, and an electrical storm, and lightning flashing from one side and going all the way to the other side of the sky, just like Jesus mentions will be at the time of His second coming, but I saw it there. Unforgettable. And I've also seen a sunset over the Grand Canyon. The purples, and reds, and oranges, and way down below, a silver thread, the Colorado River, glistening in the last light of the day. I've seen that, too. Last week, nothing so grand and dramatic, but I saw my daughter Daphne with a look of joy on her face run across the lawn to greet me home. And that was a feast for my eyes, and probably more special than the others. I've seen these things, and it was God that's laid out that feast for my eyes. And how also for the ears. This morning, we've listened to beautiful music. Hard for me to preach after that last song. You know, I just pull myself together, but the beauty of the music, I've heard that. I've heard Handel's Messiah done skillfully at the Duke Chapel, and just the soaring sounds united with Scripture verses pointing to Christ and how beautiful that was. I've heard what I considered to be a three-dimensional sound. I remember, I used to go camping with my father, Tuckerman's Ravine up in Mount Washington, it's a deep bowl carved by some glacier some time ago. And this wind would blow across, it was like 1:00 in the morning, and it sounded, like I said, a three-dimensional sound, a deep blowing of the wind through that bowl. It was a feast for my ears, and God laid it out. Now how about the pleasures of taste? A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about honey and how God in Proverbs commands that we should eat honey because it's good, it tastes good. And it was God that made it taste good. And I'm not going to go on much about food right now because it will hinder the preaching. But God lays out feasts of flavors. The world is full of them, and He made it that way right from the very beginning, when He didn't just put one fruit tree that they could eat from but a whole array of them in the Garden of Eden, all different kinds of pleasures of taste. And then the pleasures of smell. Or shall we say more delicately, "fragrance." The delicacy, let's say, of spring flowers, or this time of year, when you walk through the woods and there's that musty fall smell, you know? As you hear the crunch of the leaves under your feet in the woods and you can just smell, it's just a fall aroma, and it's beautiful to me. Or the smell of a baby that has been bathed and smells of that gentle fragrance that babies do when they're so clean, and oh, it's a beautiful thing. And how about the sensations of feel? I remember buying a bolt of silk for Christie when I was in Pakistan, and I remember feeling it, it was so shimmery and so smooth. And then, the rougher feeling of leather, or of a tree trunk on one end, or finely polished furniture on the other. All of these sensations are part of the sensory world that God has put around us, and God made them. All of them. And He made them good, He declared that they were good. We live in a physical world, and He desires to give us pleasure through these senses. And this world proclaims the greatness of the invisible God that made all of those things. And we as Christians are uniquely able to trace those physical sensations back to the God, the invisible God, who made them, and say, "This is what my God is like. This is how great He is, how good He is, how loving, how wise." We are able to do that. Now, according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1,” it is the doctrine of demons to deny the goodness of the physical world that we live in, the doctrine of demons to deny it.” To treat the physical body with its five senses as though it were intrinsically evil and something we had to get away from in order to be saved. It's a doctrine of demons. In his classic allegory in the Christian battle for salvation, the holy war, John Bunyan likens the human soul to a city, a walled city, which he calls "Man-soul." And he says, "Man-soul has five gates, five gates by which things can enter: An ear gate, eye gate, mouth gate, nose gate, and feel gate." These are the five senses. Now, Satan has marshalled his wicked attack on our souls through those gates. But it is foolishness for us to brick over the gates, brick them up so that nothing evil can enter in. That is the doctrine of demons, and that is not the approach to healthy living in this physical universe. But neither is it the approach to tear down the wall entirely so that there is no protection whatsoever and any and everything can come into the soul. But that's not right either because it says in Proverbs 25:28, "Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." In other words, if you lack self-control, you're like a city that has no walls at all, anything can get at you. Therefore, in our holy war, what Bunyan calls "our holy war," we are constantly tempted to go to one extreme or the other, either to brick up the five gates through extreme asceticism, or to tear down all the walls through gluttony. By that, I don't just mean eating, but I mean just glutting on sensory life. Martin Luther likened the constant struggle that the people of the world have with sin to a drunken peasant trying to ride on a donkey, and he leans too far one side and falls down on the mud, and remembering that, gets up and leans too far the other side and falls down on the other side. And so we constantly are struggling for balance in the Christian life. On September 15th of this year, I was reading about a 30-year-old man in China, Guangzhou, China, who died in a cyber café after a three-day gaming binge. He spent over 80 hours playing online computer games and dropped dead at the end of it. Now here is a man that found something that he liked, something he loved, he couldn't control it anymore, it controlled him and it killed him. On the other end of the spectrum, back in 1999, there was an interesting New Age movement led by a former Australian business woman named Ellen Greve. She changed her name to Jasmuheen, and she had a kind of a spiritual cleansing program involving extreme fasting. And a young woman named Verity Linn died from fasting too much. And so you have the other extreme, thinking that she could be purged from all the pollutants of the world, she went to extreme fasting and it killed her. So you almost get a picture of a third rail, a live rail, on either side and there's death either way. Extreme asceticism or extreme indulgence, either way, it can kill you. So we need some wisdom from God, don't we, on this? In Ecclesiastes 7, a book of wisdom, says this, "Do not be over-righteous, neither be over-wise. Why destroy yourself? Do not be over-wicked and do not be a fool. Why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes." So there's some wisdom from God. Now, we're not pressing that the details of the word "over-righteous" and all, basically, it's don't go to extremes when it comes to the matters of spiritual discipline on the one side or indulgence of the good things of life on the other. If you fear God, if you know Him, you're going to avoid those extremes. The Bible alone therefore teaches the proper balance in the use of physical pleasures: Of food, of drink, of clothing, of entertainment. Now, the balance is extremely difficult to achieve, because John Piper says the human heart is like a desire factory, it's always cranking out desires. He writes in his book, Future Grace, "The human heart produces desires as fire produces heat. As surely as the sparks fly upward, the heart pumps out desire after desire for a happier future. The state of the heart therefore is shown by the things that satisfy its desires." In other words, you want to know the state of your heart? What is it you want? What do you go after? What are you looking for? What makes you happy? And so your desires actually perform a certain kind of diagnostic on the state of your soul. So this is a very important issue as we come to the end of Colossians chapter 2 and try to understand a balanced life in a physical world that we live in. Now let's get our bearings in Colossians. The problem in the Colossian church is that they are facing the onslaught of some heretical teaching and so Paul takes up pen to write to a church that he'd never visited, he didn't know them, he hadn't planted the church. Complete in Christ Christ is Complete, We are Complete in Him And so he wants to write to protect them from false doctrine. And the way that you protect people from false doctrine is by true, pure orthodox doctrine, right teaching. And he starts in Colossians 1 by a beautiful focus on the person of Jesus Christ. "He is the image of the invisible God,” He is “the first-born over all creation.” The physical stuff was made by Jesus. And in Him, it was created, and in Him, it all holds together, the greatness of Christ, the foundation of all healthy Christian doctrine. And then he links it to them, in effect, he says, "Because Christ is complete, you are complete in Him. In Christ", he says in Colossians 2, "all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ." Oh, you ought to delight in that fullness if you're a Christian. It's a gift to you, to be a full person in Christ. And it's based on His deity in human form. And therefore, some Gospel truths just flow out of this and they're so refreshing to us. We are full in Christ, we have been fully circumcised spiritually. We are fully alive. Once we were dead, now we are fully alive, and we will live forever and ever. We are fully forgiven. He forgave us all our sins, the delight of that word, "all." Fully forgiven. We are fully free from the law and its condemning power. It has no power to condemn our souls. We're free from that, and we're fully triumphant over Satan and all of his minions. Satan’s Intimidating Voice: “You are Incomplete!” We are free, we are full in Christ, but then Satan comes with his intimidating voice, with false doctrine, and tells us that we are somehow incomplete. We're somehow empty despite all of that. And so we have to have some additions. We need to add philosophy, human wisdom and insights. We need to add legalism, human religious works. We need to add mysticism, those human religious experiences. And in this section, we need to add asceticism, human religious self-denial. Now we've already seen a rejection of human philosophy, look at verse 8 of chapter 2, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." So that's rejected. We've seen the intimidation of legalism in verses 16 and 17, he says, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival, the new moon, celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality is found in Christ." So we're free from that legalistic lifestyle. Last time, we looked at mysticism, the worship of angels. And these false teachers, it seems, were teaching that these angelic beings, these emanations, spiritual emanations, were there to be spirit guides to you to lead you out of your physical, miry kind of physical experience, and get up into the spiritual realms with them. And Christ is one of those emanations, so they taught. And all of this is rejected, this bad mysticism, in verse 18 and 19, it says, "Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels and going on in great detail about visions, puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with the growth that is from God." Those are the intimidations we've already looked at, we've looked at those dangerous elements. The Intimidation of Asceticism The fourth and final one is this issue of asceticism. Look at verses 22, 23 again. "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, but they're self-imposed worship, false humility in their harsh treatment of the body but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." Colossian Heresy: The Evil of the Body Addressed by Asceticism The Colossian heresy at its core taught that the body is evil, the evil of the body. And here, it seems that that evil is addressed by asceticism, by a harsh treatment of the body, by self-denial in an extreme sense. Now, Paul mentions here the basic principles of the world, the Greek is interesting, "stoicheia," from which we get an English word which means to, "Stoichiometry," to break apart the compounds of a chemical or the elements of a chemical compound, find out what's in there. You get the idea in the Greek word of something in a line like alphabetical order, basic building blocks of the world. Here, it's speaking, I think, of ideas and concepts, "Why, as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to these basic rules and regulations of philosophy and religion? You're past all that, you've grown up." These basic principles, I think, at least included some elements of Jewish ceremonial law and legalism and all that, but other things as well. And he uses a strong word here, "why do you submit to these rules?", "dogmatismo," from which we get dogmatic, "why are you being dogmatised by this? These teachers are coming in and putting some dogma over you, and they're telling you what you must do in order to be saved. These regulations are not coming from Christ." And it's interesting, what he says, "Why, as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to it?" Isn't that interesting? What does that imply about us? We don't really belong to this world. Jesus Himself said that. He said, "They are not of the world any more than I am of the world." We are supernatural beings. We are miracles of grace! We have been resurrected from spiritual death, and we will never die. There's been a permanent separation in some sense between us and this worldly system, not the physical world I was describing at the beginning of the message, but the world system with all of these kind of rules and regulations. We don't still belong to that; we died to all that. We are supernatural. And therefore we can look at the body and life in the body the way God does, we have the mind of Christ. We can stand above it and and look down and say, "What is my life in this body and in this world supposed is to be about? How am I to spend my time? How am I to live?" We have graduated, friends. We're not going back to elementary school and to these elementary principles; we will spend eternity in the presence of God. Now, as we've already sung about and thought about this morning, we will spend eternity in a physical body. We will be in our flesh and we will see God. We will walk on a new Earth and we will see with our own eyes, our Savior. And He will still be in the same resurrection body in which He appeared to His disciples in that upper room. And you remember how He spoke of that in terms of His physical presence. That same physical body that Christ had is a pattern for our resurrection bodies as well. We are not heading towards some kind of ethereal, out-of-body experience, so therefore we can experience life and think about our lives here on Earth, the remainder of our lives here on Earth, in Christ-like spiritual terms. We have the mind of Christ. We've grown up. That's what he's saying. Now, the Colossian heretics were teaching freedom from bodily drives by asceticism. "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch," these rules and regulations. Paul says that these rules are destined to “perish with use,” why? Because they're not part of God's new order. They're not coming from God, so they're wrapped up in this world system, and this world system and all of its ways are passing away. They will perish. They're on their way out. They seem wise, they seem holy, these people seem to have an aura about them. They're a holy people, you can barely touch them. They haven't eaten in weeks. And you can't carry their shoes. They just seem to have an aura about them. There's an appearance of wisdom, but the reality is very different. At the core, there is pride. And apparently, based on verse 23, at the core, there's still lust. It's still there. It's not been slain, because these rules lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Definition of Asceticism Now what is asceticism? What do we mean by that? Well, it's a harsh treatment of the body for spiritual reasons, specifically the denial of God's good gifts like food, clothing, and shelter, in the assumption that such prolonged self-denial will make you increasingly pleasing to God. Now as I've said, intrinsic to the Colossian heresy is the idea that the body is evil, and so therefore, any time you didn't eat, or drink, or sleep, or do anything that was comforting to the body, you are somehow a little bit holier as a result. Now look at the statements in verse 21, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch." Verse 23, "The regulations have an appearance of wisdom with their," listen, "self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body." Asceticism’s Long History Now this has been going on a long time, asceticism. Pretty much every world religion has its ascetics. Every world religion has its people that go into extreme self-denial, and seem to float above the rest of humanity as a result. Certainly Hinduism has those that sit in the lotus position, and meditate, and just don't eat for extended periods of time. Buddhism seeks to achieve enlightenment in similar manner. Even Christianity has had its share, some of it led by God, obviously Moses had a 40-day fast on the top of the mountain. Jesus himself fasted for 40 days. John the Baptist lived out in the desert and wore camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts, but he also had that honey, alright? So the honey will sweeten the locusts, alright? It's all about the recipe, how to put it together, I guess. But clearly, here is a man who is not living for the stomach. Elijah lived in the desert with little bits of food that ravens brought, again, not a man living to eat. But in the same pattern afterwards, after the New Testament era, Christian monks started to desire to live the ascetic life. And this is especially true in history after the Roman persecutions died down, but there was still a vivid memory of them. And the position of a martyr was held to be in great honor. If you could go out of this world as a martyr, having shed your blood for Christ, they wanted that. They wanted to be warrior for Christ, but now that was gone. So they turned to the desert, they turned to the cave, they turned to extreme fasting, if they could somehow mortify the flesh in that way and become perhaps a spiritual martyr, bloodless martyr, and in this way, attain Heaven. And so, they would take to extreme treatment of the body. And all of this was self-imposed. Athanasius wrote of Anthony, who is the founder of Western monasticism, who never changed his shirt or washed his feet. And then there's Simeon Stylites, who's pictured on the cover of the bulletin, you wondered who that man is sitting on the pillar, sitting cross-legged while, I don't know what's going on behind him, I didn't draw the picture, but it looks like the world is burning, and he's got his back to it, and he's meditating up on his pillar. Now, Simeon was born in 390 AD at Cilicia in modern-day Syria. He was a devout person, he taught the only way that you could achieve true happiness was through prayer and fasting. Much of his life therefore is spent in those pursuits. But then he started practicing other forms of extreme self-denial. After spending years in monasteries, he began a regimen of discipline so harsh it almost killed him. He ate once a week, he used to lash his body around with cords and pulled them so tight that they would cause the skin to bleed. And frankly, after he was healed from that, those wounds, the abbot of the monastery ordered him to leave. He thought he was sick in his approach, and so he ordered him to leave, and I think he was ready to leave at that point, he wanted to be alone anyway. And so he went out in the desert, he was in a cave for a while, he was on a mountain top, he literally chained himself to the top of a mountain to keep from roaming or wandering. But then he had an insight, and he discovered that he didn't need the chain; all he needed was a strong self-will. So he went to another place and just with his strong self-will, carrying on the same practice as well. A man like that out in the desert is attractive to some kinds of people. And so they went out to listen to him preach. And it seems he didn't like that too much, so after a little while, he put himself up in a 12-foot high pillar. I don't think that the devotees took that personally because they kept coming. But he's trying to get away from them, and he's there for four years, and after a while, he builds a higher pillar, and then an ever higher one, and a higher one. At the end of his life, he's on a 60-foot high pillar. And friends, not ravens, but friends, would bring him little amounts of food and he'd pull it up in a bucket, and that's how he spent his life. That's extreme asceticism. It wasn't just him, Martin Luther went through similar things in the days before his conversion, sleeping without a blanket on the floor of the cell in the Augustinian monastery, where he was. George Whitfield, a couple centuries later. He was part of the holy club that eventually lead into Methodism, John and Charles Wesley and all that. And a number of those folks really gave themselves over to extreme fasting and other things like that. And they will all testify, this is before any of them really understood the Gospel, before they understood evangelical Gospel. And Whitfield, it got so bad that one of his hands turned black. He spent the whole night out in a winter storm without any covering at all. By the end of that whole period of his life, he was so emaciated, he couldn't get upstairs; he had to crawl upstairs. He almost killed himself. Extreme asceticism. Now all of this comes, I think, from the belief that extreme asceticism will subdue the flesh and make the person somehow more acceptable to God, and the idea that the physical body is somehow intrinsically evil. Even worse than all this is the forbidding of marriage to the clergy, I think, of the Roman Catholic church, they're linking "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch," and then Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." And so they looked on procreation, marital relations, as intrinsically evil as well. The Roman Catholic Church enforced clerical celibacy at the Council of Elvira, basically all of their clergy had to abstain from marital intercourse, had to abstain from marriage itself. And again, I think, fundamental to this doctrine is a tinge of a Colossian heresy and a distaste for the body. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, and that became their Bible until the Reformation, the Latin Vulgate is the Bible of the West, he was probably the leading teacher of the essential uncleanness of marital relations. And he wrote this, "Let us turn back to the chief point of the evidence. It is good", he says, "for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch one. For there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it'd be bad and the evil is pardoned, then the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil. The truth is that in view of the purity of the Body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean." And he said this, "He who loves his wife too ardently is an adulterer." Well, does that seem skewed to you? Does that seem off to you? And even in the 1 Timothy 4 passage, he talks about those who forbid marriage. And that's what happened in the Catholic Church. Now Martin Luther was delightfully able to cut through all this nonsense long after his conversion and after his role as a leader in the Reformation. He didn't want to get married because he thought he was going to get martyred at any moment, but finally, he aided in the escape of 12 nuns from a convent, they were in barrels on the back of cart, I think that's just a.great image from church history. But there are all these women in barrels in a merchant taking them through the gates. And he committed himself, Luther did, to getting a husband for each of these women until finally there were just two left, one of whom was Katie Von Bora. And all his friends are pressing on him, and finally he ends up marrying her, shocking everyone, especially the pope. And I think that was part of what he was intending. Actually, Roland Bainton said that, he just wanted to annoy the pope and the devil. And so he married her for that reason. He turned his back on his monastic vow, she turned her back on hers, and they got married and had a wonderful family. He said, "It's a strange thing to wake up with pigtails on the pillow next to you." And so, it was just a whole different kind of life. And after him, most Protestants had at least a healthy view and an esteem for marriage as a good gift of God. But still the Christian church has dealt with this. Asceticism’s Great Danger Now what are the dangers of asceticism? Well, first of all, it's grounded in a false understanding that the material world is intrinsically evil. Furthermore, it misunderstands salvation, as though Jesus' blood shed on the cross is not enough for us. We have to add our own suffering somehow. It produces pride. Paul mentions, the NIV has it, I think, false humility. This really does produce pride. "If you're not doing what I'm doing, you're of a lower order of Christian than I am." It also calls the good gifts of God bad. Listen to that 1 Timothy 4 passage that I've mentioned. Listen to this, 1 Timothy 4:1 through five: "The Spirit clearly says that in later time some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons, doctrines of demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." Listen, "For everything God created is good." Do you hear that? "Everything God created is good. And nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the Word of God in prayer." And 1 Timothy 6:17 says, "God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." Food is a good gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving. Marriage is a good gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving. Sensual pleasure, whether beautiful sights of spectacular fall foliage, or the sound of a baby cooing, or the aromas coming from the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day, or the feeling of a warm jacket on a cool, crisp fall afternoon, all of those things are good gifts of God and they are to be received with thanksgiving, every one of them. Pleasure itself is a good gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving. Satan is not the god of pleasure; Satan is the god of hatred. And he hates it when we feel pleasure. He's willing to trade a little pleasure at the beginning of a sin habit in order to get you hooked, but he wants to get you off that pleasure as soon as possible. It is God who says, "In My presence is the fullness of joy and pleasures forever more at My right hand." That's where we're heading, friends. We are heading toward eternal pleasure in the presence of God. And finally, asceticism just doesn't work, friends. It lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence, they burn with lust just as much out in the desert as they do in a brothel. But let's be honest now, shall we? Are you tempted to become an ascetic? Oh, come on now, be honest. Have you been wrestling with this? Do you know any ascetics? I don't mean from church history, now; I mean, do you personally know anyone living like this? Asceticism vs. Gluttony: Balance Found in Christ Let's talk about other third rail, shall we? Gluttony. Oh, no, pastor, now you're meddling. Okay. Well, the Word of God is delightful happy to do that. I'm not meddling; I'm under the Word just like you are. We are surrounded, I believe this is a true statement. No generation in the history of the Christian church has been surrounded by so many lawful pleasures as a distraction to the kingdom work than we are. That's what we're facing. We're facing a river, an avalanche of blessing from God, and we can't have them all. They are not all good all the time for us as we glut on them. We live in an age and a culture where people specialize in finding things that people like and dripping them down in a distillery until they are 200-proof and then pouring it down our souls, whatever it might be. Take music, for example. Before recorded music, you had to go some place where musicians were playing, or you play an instrument yourself. But then Edison discovered the wax cylinders and the ability to record sound. Somebody actually said it's the most original invention in history. No one was working on capturing sound, no one ever thought it could be done, but he did it. The first sounds ever recorded were the lyrics to a song, Mary Had a Little Lamb. It was the number one hit because it was the only song there was at the time. That's all there was. That was the first one. Shortly thereafter went the flatter disks, and recorded music came in. Along with it, Marconi invented the radio, and pretty soon you were able to listen to music any time, if you have one of those huge piece of furniture radios that they had way back when. And that was the problem, you had to listen to it there and you didn't get to choose the music, but you could listen to it in that way. But it wasn't long after that that the transistor radio came, and you were able to carry around the transistor radio and listen to music anywhere you wanted. You didn't have to plug in, you could listen to it. But you still couldn't choose the music; the disk jockey chose it for you, although there were call-in shows. Alright? But then came the Walkman, and you could put cassette tape in and you could listen to your song of your choice wherever you wanted as much as you wanted. But that's troublesome because you have to have all this cassettes with you. Now what do we have? We have the iPod. And we have websites where you can go and download your favorite songs or song, and listen to it 600 times in a row if you want to glut yourself on it like that. You can kill it for yourself. You can kill yourself with it! You can glut yourself on your favorite songs all the time. And they're tiny, too, just clip on them and there it is. And it's not just music; try spectator sports. With ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, that's four, and they've got competitors. And so if you've got the money and the time 24/7, you can glut on spector sports. As soon as one season ends, I've noticed, another begins. It just keeps on rolling. And you could spend your life that way. Should you? Should I spend my life like that? Under some drip that somebody is dripping down into my soul, distilling out pleasure in that way? And then there's food. America struggles with gluttony, with obesity. We struggle with it. We have a hard time knowing when to say “enough,” to push away from the table. Even Baptists struggle with this. That right there is rhetorical technique. You can go find out what it is, but I don't know what it is, but even Baptists struggle with eating too much, too much of a good thing. And then all of these points to the need for self-control. God told us, "Eat honey, for it is good," but He also said, "Don't eat too much or you'll vomit." Paul says, "Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." Application Praise God for your Fullness in Christ Now how do we find the balance between asceticism and gluttony? The balance is found in the cross of Christ. Jesus Christ gave Himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. We don't know how to navigate to Heaven. We don't know how to get there. We are the drunken peasant falling off, trying to find the balance. Instead the Gospel is this, that Jesus lived the only perfectly balanced life there ever has been. The only perfectly balanced, and His righteousness can be yours as a gift. I prayed that today someone would be here who had not yet trusted in Christ. This is your moment, if you're that person. Look to Christ, the One who shed His blood on the cross. Trust in Him, not in your own works. Because you can't figure this out. You'll go too far one way or too far the other, you'll not be able to figure it out. Let God give it to you as a gift through faith in Christ. But if you've already come to Christ, then let's begin here, celebrate your fullness in Christ. You are full in Christ, you don't need to glut yourself on anything. Neither do you need to prove yourself by becoming a spiritual athlete. You're already acceptable in Christ. Celebrate that. And be on your guard against these dangers: Philosophy, legalism, mysticism, asceticism, they're still around. I do not say to you that they are the only threats to the Gospel. But they are four that Paul deals with here. Already we've mentioned gluttony as another threat to the Gospel, and so it is. Be Satisfied in God more than Earthly Pleasures But concerning the pleasures of this world, enjoy them, as God leads. Enjoy them in the path of His commands. Marital relations is good because they are marital relations, not outside the boundaries that God has set. Food is good. When the stomach is full, stop. And by the way, I've noticed a lag time, you still feel hungry and you're still eating, slow down, then. We don't need to overeat. There's some practical wisdom here. Celebrate your life in a physical body. You are going to be given a body that will last forever and ever. The body is good, celebrate it. But this body is not purely good; it's called the "body of death." Therefore, you have to be a bit careful with it. Paul says, "I beat my body and make it my slave.” I can't just give into whatever drive I have, I have to be careful. And therefore, a fruit of the Spirit needs to be, and is, self-control, so that I'm not like “a city with walls broken down.” Practice Fasting without Embracing Asceticism And be willing to give up pleasing food and pleasing experiences for the service of the Lord. We could start just with fasting and prayer. It is a good thing to fast; it is a bad thing to become an extreme ascetic. But fasting itself is a good thing. To give up eating for a day so that you can dedicate yourself to prayer. Even better to give up a comfortable lifestyle here in the West and go to some unreached people group. And reach them with the Gospel, knowing full well your standard of living will go down. The food you eat will not be as appealing to you, you'll never have such-and-such experience again, you'll never see the physical beauty of the land like America. You're purposely going to some place were most people don't want to live. And you're going there, and you'll just have to remember the physical beauty you've seen and look ahead to the new Heaven and new Earth, but you're here to minister to those who need to hear the Gospel. You're willing to give up on comfort and pleasure for the sake of the Lord. But when you fast, put oil on your head, wash your face and pray to your Father unseen. And Father sees what is done in secret, He'll reward you. Don't parade the sacrifices you're making. Don't become arrogant or prideful. Your righteousness is Christ, and Christ alone. Close with me in prayer.