This happened in a staff meeting. Our team conducted a word association activity centered on the name of George Washington Truett. Most offered words like pastor and evangelist, and one noted that he was a fundraiser for Baylor University. Someone said something like staid; one of the photos of Truett hanging in our building is of him looking serious, as so many did when photographed in the olden days.
In 1891, Truett began working for Baylor and proceeded to raise $92,000 over two years to keep Baylor’s doors open. That year, Truett was just twenty-four years old. He had been ordained the previous year in 1890 via congregational discernment by the people of Whitewright Baptist Church in Whitewright, Texas. In 1887, Truett was called to serve as pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, where he would preach, shepherd, and lead for forty-seven years.
As we discussed Truett I recalled that my great grandfather, Loys Arnold, was converted to Christianity, baptized, and received as a member of First Baptist Dallas under the pastorate of George W. Truett in the 1920s. That night, I sent a general inquiry by email to FBC Dallas, asking if the church had a record.
I received an answer within a day. There it was. Loys Arnold was received for baptism on April 10, 1927, a Palm Sunday. Baptist people waste no time. He was baptized Wednesday, April 13. It was a good week for a baptism, with Easter straight ahead. Eight months later on December 7, 1927, Loys returned to Arp, Texas, where he would operate the Arnold Garage (the phone number was “1” for many years) and oversee a small Texas farmstead for the remainder of his days.
George W. Truett and the people of FBC Dallas made a difference in the life of my family. Now, I serve in an institution that is named in honor of George W. Truett. I’m thankful for that connection.
Alison Gerber delivered this sermon to those gathered for Truett Chapel on Tuesday, December 5, 2023. Titled “Martha the Minister,” it is among the best three sermons I have heard this year, if not the best. Molly, seated next to me that day, declared this “a Word from God.” I wholeheartedly agree.
Alpha and Omega, Gentle Lion and Conquering Lamb, Forgiver of our debts and Defeater of the evil powers in all times and all places:
We worship you and give you thanks, for yours is all blessing and honor and glory and might.
You are the strong God who became weak, so that we, who are weak, in placing our trust in you, might be made strong. In Jesus, we have cruciform victory.
Let us walk today in full freedom. Freedom from sin and the powers that seek to enslave us. Freedom to do your will. Freedom to tell the truth. Freedom to do what is just and right. Freedom to boldly share the gospel. Freedom to walk with you, as your beloved children.
We are free, because of the cross of Jesus.
Send us forth from this place filled with the Holy Spirit, rejoicing gladly.
Let us not be discouraged when we suffer, when we endure hardship, when we feel broken and defeated, for the victory is yours, and you have secured for us an inheritance that will never pass away, a place in your kingdom, and forever friendship with you.
You walk with us as we trod the path appointed for us.
In a class a few weeks ago we took a few moments to practice creative prayer. Our group was guided by the work of Sybil MacBeth. You can read about MacBeth and her approach here.
Whenever we teach this approach to prayer I spend the remainder of our time together doodling, coloring, and recording the images, names, Scripture fragments, and ideas that to my mind while listening to the lecture and surrounding conversation. I had a pen and two colored pencils, green and brown. I wrote down the names of family members I hold dear and thought of their circumstances. I wrote down desires of God that I want to be my desires, for peace, justice, and righteousness. I just noticed that I used line to direct the gaze up and to push myself toward a deeper faith. There is an upward climb from left to a right, and a tree providing much shade. I gave thanks for a recent rain. Concentric circles cause me to pause and draw me inward. I asked God to combat a virus I’ve been at war with.
If you ever get stuck in prayer, if you ever feel you cannot string your thoughts together linearly, pull out a pen, a piece of paper, and a couple of markers or crayons, and linger a while with God.
I’ve been playing around on the internet since about the mid-nineties, and I’ve noticed something: there is a lot of negativity on the web.
This was true in chat rooms, true on message boards and bulletin board services, quickly became true in the comments sections of blogs, and is now ubiquitious on social media. If you are on the web, you encounter negativity.
If you make stuff, whether it be photogaphy, video, digital artwork, music, articles, sermons, blog posts, academic lectures, poetry, logical arguments, jokes, lesson plans, or whatever, you’ll attract negative vibes. Some won’t like your work. Some won’t like that you are working. If it isn’t you they don’t like, you’ll be adjacent to someone enduring an onslaught of criticism. And it will make you wonder about your own work.
To lead, to make, to do, is to invite criticism.
When we are criticized, it hurts. Even when it comes from someone we don’t know.
He acknowledges they take hold of us. He offers a few reasons why they do so. Then, he offers one way to disarm those attacks and one way to prevent being overwhelmed by them. What does he propose?
Webster writes:
First and very importantly, you must know and accept this about the vast majority of comments you receive online about you or your work: the people writing them have never had the pleasure of getting to know the real you. They are not your family members or friends, or even acquaintances. To them, the entirety of your being is comprised of a brief bio with a profile picture — nothing more.
Are they insulting your character, your integrity, your true self? Of course not. They are literally attacking some pixels and a few words on a screen—not a human being. Not YOU.
Let this sink in and acknowledge it as an absolute truth.
Second, try this:
Create a folder on your desktop, your tablet, or your phone that reads, “Proof.”
Find any email, tweet, post, comment or message from somebody who has thanked you for something you have created or written something positive about you/ your work.
Copy and paste these positive notes into your “Proof” folder.
Read as many of them out loud as you can any time you are letting the trolls get to you.
Repeat as necessary.
Even if you only have a handful of these friendly comments, remember that they are of huge importance because they are undeniable proof that your actions have had a positive impact on others.
I think that is helpful stuff. I also think we can apply this more broadly.
There isn’t only a lot of negativity on the web. There is negativity out there in the world. The internet just amplifies, concentrates, and directs it, making it possible for us to hear more voices than we used to, and much more quickly. People don’t just make negative remarks somewhere we might read them or hear about them, they can get directly in touch with us, and they don’t even need a phone book.
When the criticism isn’t coming from “out there,” there is the inner critic. I subject myself to self-criticism. And because of the internet, I have more examples I can compare myself to, people who I think speak better, write better, or lead better. The internet has probably trained my inner critic in more ways than I realize. I analyze ways I could have done or said things better. This can leave me feeling as though I’ve had more failures than successes. This can leave me feeling pretty discouraged.
As a Christian person, I’ve had to learn how to defend myself against these feelings theologically. In Romans 8, Paul writes eloquently about the sufferings we now face, the life with God those in Christ have now, and the hope of a coming, future glory. Every sentence in this majestic chapter is part of a larger argument. But Christians are reminded here that we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, that God sanctifies us through our trials, that we are held fast by the love of God, and that even if we are opposed and persecuted by people, even if we are killed, we have been embraced and accepted and approved of by God in Christ Jesus, who died for us and intercedes for us even now. Criticism is for a moment, but Christ is ours forever.
While this theological truth has bolstered me (and it has helped me quite a lot!), an “Encouraging” or “Happy” folder has helped as well. It gives me a collection of temporal things that I can pair with the eternal things, things I can see and touch and experience while I await that day when the unseen becomes sight. I can be thankful for the good things, even though they are passing. I can hope in the things that will last. I have a folder like this in my desk drawer at work. I keep scraps. Pictures. Positive notes. Reminders from when things went right.
This is just another version of the “Proof” folder. Create one. Keep one. Build one. Maybe include more than something someone has thanked you for or said positively about you. Maybe include what God has said about you, the lasting things, the things that are true not because of what you have done, but because of what God has done, and who God is.
I support life in a free society. I support religious liberty. And I argue passionately for the liberty received and experienced through Christian faith, freedom from as well as freedom for. We start with the ideas. Then we build them out!
I listen to Cal Newport’s Deep Life Podcast. In Episode 272, Cal begins the show by identifying four foundational tools for productivity. Watch the first ten to fifteen minutes. What are these tools?
Calendar
Obligation/Status List (More than a to-do list, could be mangaged with a project board like Trello.)
Multi-scale Planning Documents (Daily, weekly, and quarterly outlooks, and a review framework like you find in David Allen’s Getting Things Done.)
Core Systems Document (A snapshot of how you work and the tools you use.)
These tools are applicable to your job but can be useful in other dimensions of life. They can help you manage your household, lead your family, pursue your hobbies, priortize your volunteer pursuits, or practice your craft. They can help you be a better student if you are in school. How? These tools help you organize your time (calendar), capture your tasks and ideas (obligation list), methodically complete projects (timelined planning documents that interact constructively with your obligations and calendar), and focus your approach to accomplishing your goals (core systems reflect your process–you know how you do it).
When students ask me for advice on ordering or stewarding their life as a follower of Christ, I talk to them about calling, vision, giftings, discerned commitments, and time. Reflection in those areas defines the framework for moving forward. Then, calendar, tasks, pace, and process become tools that can serve us in working out the call, living into the vision, faithfully sharing our gifts, keeping our commitments, and ordering our days as servants of God.
These tools are not only useful for doing more things more efficiently in our jobs, they are also useful for the keeping of time and space to contemplate great truths, rest in God, pursue leisure, find renewal through practices such as retreat and Sabbath, involving oneself in a community of faith, appreciating the riches of human culture expressed in music, art, theatre, and film, and building meaningful friendships and relationships through the intentional cultivation of and participation in community.
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— 11 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.
5 The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
The diligent person approaches their life deliberately and with wisdom. They learn how life works, how the world works, and come to an understanding of matters human and divine. They develop a vision of human flourishing, which in the Christian worldview, includes reconciliation with God and ambassadorship in Christ’s kingdom, not only as bearers of a message, but as witnesses to a redeemed, restored, and renewed way of life.
The outworking of this life finds expression, then, in our families, workplaces, churches, and our broader community, whether city, county, state, nation, or across the globe. We have agency and responsibility. There is an element of life that must be worked out, and faith, in this respect, is not only something we have but something we exercise and learn. We order our lives, not so that we can produce more, though we may, but so that our lives might be used as God would intend, toward the end of blessing our neighbors and, ultimately, the glorification of God (Matthew 5:16).
Human life requires God. The theologian offers his or her mind in the service of saying “God” in such a way that God is not reduced or packaged or banalized, but known and contemplated and adored, with the consequence that our lives are not cramped into what we can explain but exalted by what we worship.
I believe God is personal. I also believe God is wonderful, glorious, the most splendid being in all of existence. I believe this God has made himself known, and can be known.
But it is possible to talk about God in such a way that is impersonal. We are capable of god-talk that is informative but uninteresting, accurate but unmoving, static rather than dynamic, cold rather than radiant, dead rather than alive.
I once heard a person described as a good theologian who didn’t care much for God. I think this is possible, albeit tragic. If human life requires God, as Peterson claims, we need more than knowledge about God, we need intimacy with God. The theologian can serve us by helping us gain a greater understanding of God. This is a worthwhile beginning.
But the best theologians, I think, present God to us with the voice not only of a priest or a prophet, but a poet, someone who can help us through language behold the God who has been revealed as the Word of Life (1 John 1:1-3), a God that can be seen and felt and touched, a God who has drawn near to us in Christ Jesus, a God through whom we not only are invited to elevate our thoughts concerning, but a God who has extended to us the gift of fellowship, of eternal communion, now and always.
