A royal waste of time

I love the title of Marva Dawn’s book, A Royal Waste of Time. The book is about worship and in it Dawn writes of the transformative power of worship in a time-obsessed culture.  The time we “waste” in worship is the most important time of the week. We’ll talk more about that later.  I’m borrowing Marva Dawn’s phrase to describe our staff retreat at Princeton Seminary.  I’m hoping it’s a royal waste of time, that we’re not obsessed with using our time efficiently.  I have no plans for us to emerge Saturday afternoon after 20 or so hours together with some grand strategy for the future of LPC or with solutions for every problem we face.  Our primary agenda will be listening.  Listening to God and listening to one another – and listening to God through one another.  We’ll tell some stories, think about Polaroid cameras and God’s call to LPC, and figure out what planting rose bushes has to do with mission and ministry. Pray for your church staff as we waste time together this weekend.   

I love to hear the story

One of the many privileges I have in being a pastor is that I get to listen to a lot of stories.  I hear stories in hospital rooms and the pastor’s study.  I hear stories over long lunches and during short conversations in the church hallway.  I hear stories as they unfold in the midst of crises and as they are being written in life’s joyful passages.  Becky and I have loved listening to your stories at our Sunday evening “meet and greet” sessions.  Some people might say that listening to stories is another “royal waste of time,” but I don’t think so.

When the Apostle Paul was hauled before King Agrippa on charges of sedition, his defense was to tell a story, the story of God’s presence in his life.  Some of those listening thought that Paul was insane, but others knew there was something powerful in what Paul said.  “Do you think in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” Agrippa asked when Paul came to the end of the story.

I have heard wonderful stories about God’s presence in our lives from LPC folks during the past month.  Some are amazing and some are mundane, but I’ve loved them all.  As I think about Paul before Agrippa and as I think about the good stories I have been hearing, I find that they have some things in common:

  • They are our own stories.  A few of our stories are pretty amazing, enough to make people think we’re crazy.  Others of our stories are pretty ordinary, enough to make us think they’re not worth telling.  But if they are ours and if they’re about God in our lives, they’re always worth hearing.  Tell your own story.
  • They are true stories.  “Just the facts, ma’am,” Joe Friday used to say on the old Dragnet TV show. Some Christians feel as if they need to embellish the stories of God in their lives because their stories are not as exciting as someone else’s.  Others worry about the “you’re insane” factor. What will people think of me? Good stories are true stories.  Tell them like you remember them.  You never know which part of the story God is going to use in the life of a listener.
  • They are stories, not sermons.  I’m in the sermon business and believe that sermons need to be preached.  But I hope I don’t preach them over lunch with a friend or at a dessert gathering at a member’s home.  There’s no need to moralize or draw conclusions for our listeners when we’re telling the stories of God in our life. The Holy Spirit uses our stories in the lives of those who have heard them as he chooses.
  • They are told at the right time.  Because stories about God’s presence in our lives are not “all about me,” but, in the end, all about God, we don’t need to rush to tell our stories.  The Holy Spirit will tell us which stories to tell and when to tell them.  Good story tellers wait for the Holy Spirit’s invitation (maybe in the voice of a friend saying, “Tell me about…”).

One more thing I have discovered: the best story tellers are the best story listeners.  They listen for God’s voice in the voice of other story tellers – they never interrupt with a, “I can top that.” 

The old hymn says “we’ve a story to tell to the nations.” And to our neighbors and friends.  Of course, the hymn is speaking of the Gospel, “a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light.”  But we also have our stories to tell as we experience the God of the Gospel at work in our lives.  Oh, and by the way, we’ve a story to hear from the nations, for God is at work in mighty ways around the world. 

In this week’s sermon:  do we deserve our 85% negative rating?  Come find out.

See you Sunday