What’s Missing from the Greatest Hits

I like Greatest Hits Albums. They highlight the most popular songs of an artist’s career and leave behind all the stuff nobody wants to listen to anyway.*

But one of the problems of a Greatest Hits album is that good bands (the ones who are actually good artists and not just over-drugged head bangers) write an entire album to tell a story. Each song in the album contributes to the larger unfolding narrative.

This is called a “concept album.”

A Greatest Hits album for one of these bands pretty much just cherry picks from the storyline the song writer was developing. The audience is entertained, for sure, but they miss the bigger picture, miss out on the beauty of the original narrative communicated through the medium of the entire original album.

This is the way I feel about topical preaching – it’s pretty much the Greatest Hits album of the best concept album ever made by the greatest Artist ever.

Topical preaching can be great. It likes to highlight the passages everyone likes to hear. And, done correctly, people hear some of the greatest hits of God.

But topical preaching has the same weakness as a Greatest Hits album – it can easily miss the larger storyline the Artist wanted to draw us into. It cherry picks the audiences favorites and disregards the larger plotline (context) of a given piece.

Like Greatest Hits albums, I think topical preaching has its place. But I have to admit, there’s nothing more enjoyable and rewarding than seeing the storyline of the gospel unfold through even the most seemingly mundane pieces of scripture.

Good storytellers, like good listeners, appreciate and highlight the entire story, not just the pieces everyone wants to hear. Our story is greatest when it’s seen in its entirety.

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*The exception to this rule is Bob Dylan, who has 8,000 Greatest Hits albums and they’re filled with all kinds of stuff nobody wants to hear. And, of course, lots of stuff everybody wants to hear.

Fuerst Best 2.22.2011

Donald Miller on Church Infighting: If the church dies in America, it won’t be because of liberal theology, it will be because people don’t sense Christians actually understand or respect Jesus’ prayer in John 17. It goes without saying, then, that if they will know us by our love, they will also know we are not of God by our inability to acknowledge an individual’s sovereignty.

Christianity Today tells of Glenn Beck’s meeting with Billy Graham. Thoughts?

15 Resources to help you find the best people for your team.

Matt Chandler fields questions about how cancer has changed him.

Numbers 7-8 hit me in the heart. All of it worth reading: 8 Things that Will Change Your Church.

Thomas Irby on What Good Art Looks Like.

My wife confronts her fear of the phone. I think you’ll find this is about more than just a fear of phones.

NT Wright’s advice for the next generation of clergy. Via Michael Bird.

Conversations with My Wife: Peripatetic

SETTING: A guy behind us in a big truck screeched his tires at a stoplight because he was impatient with the amount of time it took me to take off…

ME: You know, I think I’m going to go really slow now because he’s being a jerk.

CASSIE: Thomas! (That’s the name she calls me when I’m in trouble.)

ME: What?

CASSIE: (In a totally rebuking tone.) Do you think Jesus would go slow?

ME: Um….Yes….In fact, Jesus would be walking. I guarantee he’d be going slow enough to annoy this guy

A Prayer I Wrote for My Nephew’s Funeral

Father of love,

As we, the family and loved ones of Bradyn, gather to remember him and say our goodbyes, we do so in unrelenting mourning and sorrow. We are confused and hurt, desperate and empty. We ask questions that seem to have no answers. And we long for comfort in the midst of this chaos.

So we turn to You in our piercing grief. We turn to You trusting that Bradyn is not only with You, but that he is more alive now than he has ever been. We despair and mourn for our loss, but we also know that this is not our final goodbye, for someday we will see him again in Your presence as we worship You together with him.

By raising from the dead, Your Son Jesus announced to our broken and desperate world that even though our lives our fragile, another kingdom awaits where death does not reign, where tears are wiped away, and where love never has to say goodbye.

So, Father, we look to You now as One who once lost Your own Son. We look to you as One who knows the sting of our anguish and weeps with us. But we also look to You as the only One who can heal our hurting hearts. We mourn deeply. But we mourn in hope.

The Fuerst Best of the Week

Ladies, have you considered fasting from wearing make-up for Lent? It might be the most powerful sacrifice you can make.

Scott McKnight: Why are Millennials leaving the church? It’s simple. Mobile social computing has replaced the main draw of the traditional church: Social connection and affiliation.

Perry Noble on 10 things that stress out church leaders.

This Week’s Taste of Insanity: What’s a “Christian Bieber?”

The sex symbol of all pre-pubescent little girls everywhere has a movie coming out about his ‘Christian’ faith. If only Jesus had gone for middle-school sex appeal instead of anti-imperialism, maybe he would still be alive. (In case you didn’t get that – that’s what I call sarcasm.)

 

When Theology Becomes and Idol

Our beliefs about God should never be confused with God. Our beliefs and doctrines may point us to God, teach us something about God, anchor us to the truth, or show us God in a different light, but they are not in themselves God.

When we elevate our beliefs about God to the level of God Himself we forge idols out of our own opinions, we carve images out of logical propositions, and we become priests who hold the keys to heaven and hell, salvation and damnation.

This is a dangerous place to be. When we start pronouncing who’s “in” and “out” of the kingdom of God because of their views on things like Creationism vs. Evolution, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, Rebublicans vs. Democrats, or even the role of women in the church and home, we are treading on dangerous ground, for we have elevated tertiary things to the level of ultimacy.

True worship acknowledges that our beliefs about God are but murky shadows next to the reality of His light. Valuable as doctrine is, it cannot compare with the grandeur of Jesus Christ. Wonderful as theological speculation may be, it pales next to the God who stands outside of human reason and refuses to be harnessed by our limited understanding.

And, yes, even theology can become an idol.

The Fuerst Best of the Week

My wife on Seasons in a Woman’s Life. Well worth the read for men, too.

Good stuff here on how Facebook offers us a false intimacy with other people.

Thomas Irby on why you might be a terrible blogger and what you can do about it. Short answer: Don’t write so freaking much.

I might rather gouge my eyes out than read this again, but John MacArthur does an interview with Tim Challies and, well, he proves himself to be the John MacArthur we’ve all grown accustomed to – a Fundamentalist. I’m particularly disturbed by his caricatures of Arminianism and his dogmatic view on 6-Day Creation. But then again, I’ve grown used to his polemics. However, I link this here because there are certainly some gems in the midst of the roughage.  Interview 1 is here. Interview 2 is here.

Michael Hyatt on 4 temptations leaders face .

Michael Hyatt on how leaders should face criticism .

And he’s on a role this week, Michael Hyatt on how introverts and extroverts can benefit from one another.

Remember

Here’s my sermon from Ecclesiastes 12:1-7.

The sermon should be near the top of the player’s list, but if not, click on the tab that says, ‘speakers,’ click on my name (Tom Fuerst) and it’s the sermon titled, “Remember.”

Live in the Now

 

Here’s my sermon from Ecclesiastes 9:1-10.

The sermon should be near the top of the player’s list, but if not, click on the tab that says, ‘speakers,’ click on my name (Tom Fuerst) and it’s the sermon titled, “Live in the Now.”