Author: Jonathan Dodson

Preaching from an iPad

Posted on April 4, 2011

Two Sundays ago, I sheepishly brought my iPad to church. I planned on using it as a Bible as I sat in the service to follow along in the sermon. Self-conscious, I barraged myself with questions: “Will this be distracting for people?” “Will it look like I’m trying to be ‘cool’?” I received a couple comments, but no jeers.

After I got home, I read a helpful post by JR Vassar. He unknowingly pushed me over the edge. I prepared the sermon manuscript for iPad use, but also brought along my reliable, non-interactive, non-lit printed manuscript. My inner Luddite, I know. Just before I got up to preach, I turned to my wife and said: “Do you think this is okay?” Was I crossing a technological, pastoral boundary that shouldn’t be transgressed? She gave me a thumbs up. I stepped up to preach with a lit iPad (and an ancient manuscript beneath it in case of iPad fail).

The week prior to Sunday, I followed my typical sermon process (meditation/prayer, study notes, research, outline, manuscript) with some tweaks. Here are a few things I found helpful in preparing my message for iPad delivery.

  • Research: After meditating on the text, I began the study process with: Macbook Pro for writing & iPad for Logos for the Bible. This allowed me to have two screens, which reduced toggling. A drawback, however, is that you can’t cut and paste research from your iPad and put it directly into your notes on your laptop. As an avid writer, I deplore this limitation with eBooks on the iPad. Anyone know if a copyright will ever lift on this?
  • Outlining: After collecting my notes, I moved to sermon outline phase with the help of Penultimate. This app lets you create separate notebooks/moleskines for various projects. I did what I usually do in a moleskine in Penultimate. However, I was torn. The writing isnt nearly as precise as actual drawing. I will need to either a) get a stylus or b) just use a journal
  • Manuscript: Here’s where the iPad has been a let down for me. It’s difficult to write anything of any length on the iPad. I will continue to write on my MacBook Pro, such a sturdy machine! However, I am using QuickOffice (excel, word, PP) for light editing.
  • Preaching: I made a few edits in QuickOffice Sunday morning. This app lets you bold, italicize, underline, format and upload it all to a cloud-based server like DropBox. What’s great is that you dont have to use DropBox, since you can save all your files right on your iPad, much like a typical Office suite. Finally, I PDF’d the sermon so that the document wouldnt slide left and right while scrolling in QuickOffice. Plus, the PDF offers sharper resolution for viewing. I made sure to turn AutoLock off to prevent autodimming and shut off while I was preaching. Scrolling down the manuscript was easy and undistracting.

Most importantly, the gospel was preached. It was an important message on “The Spirit-filled Disciple.” I have an increasing burden for the church to recover a deep, practical, vibrant understanding and relationship with the Holy Spirit. Sadly, we can talk gospel, idols, doctrines all day without any real belief or change. The Holy Spirit is essential to that change, for our belief.

It’s stunning to consider how the Holy Spirit has worked through all sorts of media and men throughout history. Of course, we should be wary of the medium becoming in the message, in the case of the iPad, rapid informational consumption to the neglect of slow, deep, personal communion with God. However, it is the human heart, not the media, that makes this decision, and will always be in desperate need of the Holy Spirit’s pricking, enlightening, and stirring to spring a continual hunger for God.

Diary of a Church Planter (Pt 3)

Posted on April 1, 2011

This series is taken from my personal diary during the first couple of years of church planting. The entries range from painfully raw to joyfully visionary. I hope they bring encouragement to anyone who reads them, especially church planters.

 

 

 

Austin, Texas                                                                                     May 5, 2007

I’m scared. I look at budgets, timelines, strategies, and I tremble. Who is sufficient to plant a church? I feel the need for someone else to join me to help with administrative stuff. To help me think clearly about trajectory and strategy.


Picking a Parenting Model (Pt 3)

Posted on April 1, 2011

In Part 1, we considered 6 ways parenting methods fail and 3 reasons why. In Part 2, we considered the shortcomings of child-centered parenting and the promise of discipline and instruction. In our final Part 3, we will examine heart-focused parenting.

Should Parents Discipline Their Children?

Proverbs is a record of fatherly counsel, and therefore, a great book of the Bible for parents to become familiar with. The Proverbs use the word “discipline” includes physical correction: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Prov 22:15). If we eliminate discipline, we “spare the rod, spoil the child” (13:24; 23:13), which doesn’t mean you have to use a literal rod to spank your kids! However, it does mean that you will love them enough to discipline them.

Spanking is out of vogue, but often it works. There was a series of studies conducted by Dr. Kenneth Dodge among Caucasian kids to see if spanking produced positive results. They showed that the more a child is spanked, the more aggressive he becomes. However, when they ran the same study among African-American kids, the spanked black kids were less aggressive and better behaved. Why the difference? Black kids responded better than white kids because they were raised in a culture of consistent spanking. For white kids, it was reserved for the last straw, when parents were angry. White kids were responding to the anger of their parents, not to the corporal punishment. This clarifies an important principle in discipline. However you discipline your children, be consistent.

However you discipline your children, try to be consistent.

When it comes to discipline, some parents act more like buddies than disciplinarians. Instead of asserting God-given authority to foster respectful obedience, buddy parents inquire: “Timmy, how did it make you feel to smash that computer?” Or they may plead with their children: “Johnny, Johnny, please don’t do that.” Buddy parents implore instead of discipline.

Fatherly Discipline

Fathers, don’t cop out and put it all on mom. You are charged with bringing order and discipline at home. My son knows that dad isn’t a push over, and mom can depend on me to back her up. The other day she had to tell him that he would have to deal with me when I got home. As soon as I got home he ran up to me with joy, Daaady!” And then he said: “Daddy, I was bad.”

He doesn’t cower in my presence because I take my responsibility to discipline him seriously. He runs to me with joy because he knows I love him enough to discipline him. In fact, I often tell him: “Son, because I love you, you cannot have your own way. You must be punished.” We try to get teach as we discipline.

Insisting on discipline tells our children something about Jesus, namely that he isn’t just a cuddly savior but also a strong king. He is worthy of respect and obedience. Occasionally, when our children talk back or argue we will ask them: “Who is in charge?” To which they have learned to respond: “You are, and God put you in charge.” Our authority is from God, and we tell them something about his authority in how we discipline or fail to discipline them. Of course, if all dads do is discipline, and not instruct, they will become imbalanced disciplinarians.

Insisting on discipline tells our children something about Jesus, namely that he isn’t just a cuddly savior but also a strong king.

Instructing the Heart

Interestingly, disciplinary instruction can be instructive for the heart. In Proverbs, discipline also refers to moral training. We can train them to exchange folly for obedience. Parents should care about their children’s hearts enough to both correct and instruct them.

Discipline alone does not change the heart. We must also instruct the heart. Proverbs tells us that folly is bound up in the heart and that it is exceedingly wicked. It also tells us that all the issues of life flow from the heart. The good and the bad flow from the heart, which is the seat of our precious children’s decision-making, the place of our child’s longing. Over and over again, the Bible places an emphasis on the heart, not the rear, as the central place for parenting.

The Greek word for “instruct” is frequently used to refer to contemporary biblical counseling. Parents are called to counsel their children, to counsel their hearts. We must do the hard work of peeling back the layers on their behavior to get to their motivations. This will require questions not just accusations, inquiry not just reprimand. Johnny, why are pestering your sister so much today?” Sometimes misbehavior is the result of a lack of attention or mistreatment at school. We should try to avoid jumping to disciplinary action right away when we are unsure of our child’s motivation.

This can be hard to do with young children but it is possible. One way we do it with our kids is to introduce heart terminology early on. If Owen is persistently whiny and complaining, I will ask him: “Owen are you having a whiny heart?” When I do this, I am showing him that I don’t want him merely to perform well, but to desire well. Depending on his issue, we may inquire if he has a “demanding” or “selfish” heart. You get the idea.

Gospel-centered Parenting

However, using heart language, alone, is not enough to instruct the heart. I typically follow up by asking: “Owen, do you need to ask Jesus to give you a happy/content/generous heart?” I may refer to a Bible verse that we have memorized together to help shape the beliefs of his heart around the gospel. This teaches him that he needs grace, that he needs God to change his heart to give him a desire to be content. It teaches him that what matters most is not external performance, but internal change, not self-discipline or morality, but attention to Jesus, who alone can change his heart’s desires.

What I want for Owen, is nothing less than what I want for myself—to be so drawn to the beauty, love, and grace of Jesus Christ that he can’t help but be a content, considerate, and generous child. I want him to trust Jesus more than me, to confess his need for a Savior and turn to Jesus as Lord. I want him to be so delighted in Christ that he lives differently, to see and savor the beauty and excellency of Christ. I want his heart to long for Jesus more than anything else.

Consistent discipline can tell them that Jesus is King, and loving instruction can tell them that Jesus is a gentle Savior.

A person who owns a BMW isn’t interested in a Geo Metro. Their attention is captivated by the BMW. Our task as parents is to draw our children’s attention to the superior worth and excellency of Jesus, who is much better than a BMW! To lead them, instruct them, teach them the gospel. Paul exhorts mothers and fathers: bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The phrase “of the Lord” is used by Paul to refer to Jesus throughout Ephesians. We nurture our children, not through self-esteem, but through the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Consistent discipline can tell them that Jesus is King, and loving instruction can tell them that Jesus is a gentle Savior. In the end, our children need much more that methods or parents, they need the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a better authority and offers a better, perfect, unwavering love that can truly change their hearts.

Only Lord Jesus is strong enough and sacrificial enough to change our children.

Only Lord Jesus is strong enough and sacrificial enough to change our children. The gospel brings the strength of Jesus and the sacrifice together. It calls us to show our children the strength of Lord Jesus—discipline—and the sacrifice of Jesus—heart instruction. As parents we can avoid the way of the drunkard (wavering between disciplinarian and buddy) and walk in line with the gospel, when we make our parenting not methods-centered or child-centered but Jesus-centered. May God grant us the grace to love them well, instruct their hearts, and show them Jesus. And when we fail as parents, he remains the same sacrificial, forgiving, loving Savior for us. He is strong for our parenting successes and sufficient for our parenting failures.

Picking a Parenting Model (Pt 2)

Posted on March 31, 2011

In Part 1, we considered 6 ways parenting methods fail and 3 reasons why. In Part 2, we will consider the shortcomings of child-centered parenting and the promise of discipline and instruction.

The Failure of Child-centered Parenting

Parenting isn’t a one size fits all. What works with one doesn’t always work with another. Customize. Focus on his or her particular needs. In the book Nurture Shock, the authors trace the history of the self-esteem movement. The self-esteem movement came along and told us that the “single most important thing in a child’s development was positive self-esteem.” A mass of research, books, and seminars were spawned.

Self-esteem task forces were formed in school districts across the country. Anything that damaged self-esteem was axed. Coaches stopped counting goals and handing out trophies. Teachers threw out their red pens. There was even a school district in Massachusetts that forced kids to play jump rope with an imaginary rope, lest they trip on the rope and suffer embarrassment! Child-centered parenting at its best!

In 2003, Dr. Roy Baumeister, the leading proponent of self-esteem research, was asked to review 15,000 studies on the topic. He discovered that self-esteem did not improve grades, career achievement, reduce drinking or violence. He was quoted as saying this was the “biggest disappointment of his career.” When we place our children in the center of our lives, we set our families up for disappointment.

The Idolatry of Children

For many of you, everything bows to your children, including your marriage. Your kids are your little idols. Everything revolves around them. Your concern for their safety cripples their sense of community. You parent out of fear, instill fear in them as a hyper-protective parent.

Your concern about influences leads you to eliminate social and cultural experiences, which isn’t always bad, but when a parent believes that eliminating certain influences is what makes their child better, they are mistaken. Every child is ultimately shaped, not by influences but by their heart response to their influences and options. My son chooses to use rude language, not because of influences but because his heart is rebelling against what Mom and Dad said. Children change, for good and bad, based on what their heart longs for, believes, desires not their influences.

Or maybe it’s about their schooling. The best education no matter what. You pony up the big bucks. Giving to God goes down because you giving so much to your mini-god, your child. And, oh, they have to have a well-rounded social life, so you run around town taking them to dance and soccer and guitar and so on. You are so busy you don’t have time be the church, to live in community, much less to be a family. You live a child-centered life, not a God-centered life. You’ll do whatever it takes to make them happy, to give them positive self-image.

When we make our children our functional idols, we remove the one thing they need most—God. We practically tell them that they are in charge, they are most important, they are god. If they are god, then they have no need of heart change, instruction, or discipline. They will continue to rebel until it gets out of hand.

Fathers as Parents

So method-centered and child-centered parenting so often neglect what matters most, God. If our children are eternal souls, not little idols, then our parenting has to be affected by eternity. If we are going to pursue their highest good, then we need to take their Creator’s design into account. We need to read and apply the Bible. Where our methods conflict with the Bible, we should jettison the methods.

Now, interestingly, there’s not a lot on methods in the Bible. So there’s flexibility. The reason for this is that the Bible is God-centered, not child-centered. In Ephesians 6, there are instructions for children and parents. We’re focusing on parents. Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Notice it begins with “fathers”. Now, this instruction doesn’t remove mothers from parenting, but it places a priority on fathers. If you recall, fathers are designed by God to bring leadership and order into the family (1 Cor 11:3). They are under God’s authority, and are to lead their wives and children according to his instruction.

Here’s a problem: a lot of dads give themselves a get out of parenting pass because they bring home the bacon. Before the Industrial Revolution, both mother and father worked around the house, in the field and in the garden, for instance. They both raised the kids. But after the Industrial Revolution, fathers left home. And slowly they left their fatherly responsibilities behind, until the responsibility was reduced to one— bring home the bacon, provide for the family. This is bad parenting. Making money for your family isn’t even close enough to make you a good parent.

Discipline and Instruction

Here’s a solution: don’t provoke your kids, but bring them up. What does it mean to bring up your kids? Nurture. The word is used a few verses earlier to refer to the way a husband nurtures and cares for his own body. Its intimate, attentive, nurturing. Okay, how? “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Here are two biblical methods for parenting—discipline and instruction. These two words appear throughout Scripture to describe the task of parenting (Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Ephesians, Colossians, etc). Discipline and instruction require time, reflection, and attention to our children’s hearts not merely their influences or esteem.

Most parents lean towards discipline or instruction or even vacillate between the two. If we’re not careful, we will parent our kids like a drunk. When a drunk is pulled over and asked to walk the line, he sways back and forth across the line. He is imbalanced. Imbalanced parenting is dangerous. If we swing too far to discipline, we become a disciplinarian. If we swing too far towards instruction become a buddy. Our kids need parents not buddies or disciplinarians. In our next post, we will examine how to avoid the extremes of child-centered parenting and disciplinarian and buddy by focusing in on gospel-centered parenting.