Talbot Davis, Author at Talbot Davis

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Talbot Davis January 6, 2016 at 6:12 am 0

In many of the more liturgical churches, responsive readings are a key element in the Sunday worship flow. Often found in the back of the hymnal book, responsive readings typically take sections of Scripture, divide them into parts for the “Leader” to read followed by a a response that the congregation shares. Here is a typical format, this one drawn from Psalm 46:1-7: Leader: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. People: Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, Leader: though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. People: There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. Leader: God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. People: Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. All: The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. While responsive readings are not a standard part of Good Shepherd’s worship design, we use them on occasion. Having said that, there are some Scripture passages I can’t quite see using in that form of corporate worship. For example, consider Genesis 19:30-38, the story of Lot and his daughters — one of the most disturbing sections in all of Scripture. Can you imagine how that might work in a responsive reading? Leader: That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. People: The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” Leader: So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. People: So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. All: The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi]; he is the father of the Ammonites of today. In the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, “I’d prefer not to.” Why does that story get included in that book at that time? I believe it has to do with the punchline that comes at the expense of the Moabites and the Ammonites — bitter enemies of the children of Israel. In addition, it serves to remind us that people often respond to the gift of deliverance — Lot and family had been spared the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah — with acts of debauchery. It’s the sadly human way of saying “thank you, Lord.” Either way, we won’t be using Genesis 19 as a responsive reading anytime soon.

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Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Things Overheard This Past Weekend

Talbot Davis January 5, 2016 at 3:36 am 0

It was a good weekend to start 2016, one full of life and ministry. And one in which I heard a lot of terrific things said about our Lord and the ministry of the people of Good Shepherd. Here are five that stand out: 1. At Friday night's Room In The Inn ministry, a one of our volunteers said: "Good Shepherd's not a big church. It's just a church with a lot of people." I love that sentiment. She was able to crystallize so much of what we mean by making a big church feel small. 2. Just before the 11:30 service, I reminded one of our worshippers that exactly 16 years ago we had blessed her house and after we said good-bye on that day I overheard her tell her family: "I found my church!" Sixteen years later, she still has that church. But what's more interesting was what she then reminded me of yesterday: "And you know, Talbot, I was the first black person you had at the church." (While maybe not the first, at the time she was one of no more than five.) What's remarkable about that? She said that in the moments before our 11:30 gathering which in 2016 is a gloriously full color assembly that includes Africans, African-Americans, Asians, Eastern Europeans, and of course our Latino community in the Corner Campus. From those early beginnings in 2000, God has brought us vivid reminders of what it's like to have Revelation 7:9 worship in real time. 3. Speaking of full color, here's a note I received from Sammy Gonzalez, our Latino Pastor: We had a young man by the name of Jonathan from Costa Rica visit for the first time today. When I asked him how he heard of us he said he was playing basketball at the Corner Campus with some other kids and when he saw the Latino Ministry sign and asked about the church the kids invited him to GS and even told him that there was a fourth service in Spanish! I though that was pretty cool!! [So we're teaching our] students how to "invite all people"! 4. I received a note from a friend who both walks the 12 Steps AND on Sunday sat in what we refer to as the VIP Section -- overflow seats in our music room located behind the Worship Center. Along with about 75 others, she watched the service on video. Here's what she wrote on Sunday night: All of the messages are relevant, actually, and this series promises to be vital to so much. Everything, actually. Prayer is everything. "Relevant" means weaving the principles of the message into marriage, sobriety, compulsions, so many things people struggle with. There were so many quiet acknowledgements in the overflow room as you mentioned these areas, and sitting in the back row it was easy to notice them. God is truly good when he can communicate to people who no doubt came to church expecting they'd have a seat in our Worship Center but yet had the flexibility to move to "overflow." 5. And maybe best of all: the many people who requested "Can we get some more of those Prayer Guides?" We're working on it . . .

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PrayFast, Week 1 — The “Living Prayer” Sermon Rewind

Talbot Davis January 4, 2016 at 3:27 am 0

Yesterday's opening sermon in the PrayFast was quite a departure from the norm . . . but that's going to be the case for each message in the series. Here's some of what was different:

We concluded the sermon by doing -- together! -- a "dress rehearsal" for a daily quiet time. I led the 8:30, 10, and 11:30 worshipping communities through a step by step devotion time in real time. Sammy Gonzalez did the same thing for our Latino community.
We distributed our PrayFast Prayer Guide -- a 36 page daily prayer experienced written by five people who are part of the Good Shepherd family.
I did a Cam Dab Dance early on. If you don't know what that means, you're not from the greater Charlotte area or you don't follow the NFL.
Our closing "dress rehearsal" used an acrostic: PRAY, standing for Praise, Repent, Ask, and Yield. I normally shy away from rote methods in prayer, but you know what? This one works. Especially if your goal is to get people who have never given God five minutes per day to now give him five minutes per day.

So here it is -- Living Prayer, a sermon and prayer experience with the bottom line: Public victories come from private discipline. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some of you may have seen these photos back in the last fall: (AV, KC Royals World Series parade w 500K people). 500,000 people out in public celebrating the Royals’ World Series win! And c’mon, how many of us in the Carolinas region are just dying to have the same kind parade this year, post Super Bowl? There’s something about public victory, isn’t there? You win it in front of other people, you celebrate it in front of other people. It’s starts so young, this attraction to public victory. Here’s my very first tennis trophy: AV. On a slightly – but just slightly – grander scale, here’s Roger Federer winning Wimbledon: AV. Here’s the Warriors with the NBA (AV), Duke with NCAA (AV), the Dalai Lama with a Nobel Peace Prize (AV), here’s a college graduate with a diploma. All those share in common the great satisfaction of victories that are both won and celebrated in public. And you more “normal” adults & teens – you still thrive on it. You may not be on the cover of SI or Time, but you win Sales Rep of the Year. Division Manager of the Year. Health Care Professional of the month. It’s why the walls of your work spaces are cluttered with plaques and awards – because there is something about public victory that makes you want to linger on it. It's why Cam's Dab Dance is all the rage in the Carolinas this fall. But there’s also something else. Each of those public victories – ranging from the Royals’ World Series down to your sales rep of the year plaque – hinged on, pivoted on a great deal of private dedication. Those highlight tapes were preceded by a blooper reel! The Royals went through spring training, the Panthers spent July & August in the heat of Spartanburg, the graduate spent untold hours studying, the sales rep honed her skills, the Dalai Lama spent time in meditation. The plaque may be up there on the wall, but you know all too well the toll and the toil it took to get there. And you know what? As I reach the mid-point of my 16th year among you, as we head into this extension season with Zoar and this expansion season with the Living Room, I really want the same kind of thing in your lives. A life of public victories. But public victories of a profoundly different kind that championship trophies and professional plaques. I want for me and for all of you the kind of victories that are a deeply embedded part of what it means to have a living relationship with Jesus Christ. How about some of these public victories? Marriages that stay intact. Marriages that stay in love. 2nd marriages – if you’re in one – that are healthy and involve lessons learned and repentance made from #1. Low blood pressure because you’ve got internal peace. The ability to be content in singleness. A proper understanding of your life in relation to God. Serenity and sobriety. Abundant generosity. The rock solid assurance of your eternity. A growing familiarity with the library we call the bible. Maybe even something like this: READ “Inner Strength . . . you must be the family dog.” No! For people, too! See, these are the kind of public victories that, while they don’t get a parade with 500K people, nevertheless are at the heart of what church, faith, and living relationships with Jesus Christ are all about. These are the kind of public victories and personal balance I want for me and for all of you. So how do we arrive at that place? Hint: it’s essentially the same as those athletic heroes and workplace leaders I talked about earlier. Because we're going to look at a pattern from Jesus' life, remembering he was one person who probably needed devotion time less than anyone else ever and yet was in fact more dedicated to it than any other character in Scripture. The one man who got life right by his very nature is the same one who made a point of carving time out when he had no time to carve just to be with his Father. Look first at Mark 1:32-33, very early in Jesus’ public ministry: ³²That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. ³³The whole town gathered at the door, ³⁴and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Great night, huh? And we think a Board Meeting is tough! What’d you do last night? Oh, just all the demon possessed in the whole town! And if that’s me, the next morning I’d be like, “I am SLEEPING IN! Look at all I’ve done for God; he’ll understand.” Not Jesus. Look at 1:35: ³⁵Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. I love that: “while it was still dark.” While the only people awake are delivering newspapers or milking cows. What does he do? Goes off, by himself, to a solitary place, to get replenished by his Father. What had been poured out the night before gets filled back up before the sun even rises. And look next at Mark 6:45-46. Now here, Jesus has just done his signature miracle, the one of feeding well over 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. People like free food, especially when it is miraculously generated! And I know what to do when you have a big moment with a big crowd: get busy. Follow up, personal notes, emails, gifts, calls. Take advantage, leverage your influence, strike while the iron is hot! That’s what I’d do in the wake of ministry success! But, no. Look at 6:46: ⁴⁵Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. ⁴⁶After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. In spite of the demands, regardless of the moment, Jesus makes time where there is no time to be with his Father. The great Giver gets given to. And then Luke Chapter 5. Wedged between leadership development, and a series of healing services that put modern ones to shame, it’s so interesting what Luke notes in Jesus’ story. As demands on Jesus’ time and his power multiply, as the temptation to meet people’s ever-growing expectations escalates, look how Dr. Luke words it: ¹⁶But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. “Often.” I love that. People clamoring, expectations rising, face on magazine covers, Twitter followers exploding, and his patter is “often” to retreat and to be. The rhythm and balance between public victory and private devotion is precise and patterned and Mark & Luke knew exactly what they were doing by putting it in there. So you know what pattern emerges from Jesus’ biographies? Regardless of circumstances and independent of the demands of crowds, Jesus carved out time to be away & alone. Away from people, alone with his Father. Away & alone. Loud living and quiet time. Public victories, private devotion. The Lord of Lords carved out time, precious time to be out of the limelight in order to put his spotlight on the Father. Loud living always balanced with quiet time. Why? Because he knew what was true for himself would be true for all of his followers: as I heard someone say once: Public victory comes from private discipline. See, I have this crazy dream that for the people of this church Sunday would NOT be an injection of religion into your calendar. It would instead be a continuation of a relationship you’ve been tending all week long! Because what would happen to our collective blood pressure, what would it do to our communal equilibrium if every here, every day, paused for 5-10-15 minutes. Spending a portion of that time reading the Word, a portion of that time praying through a very specific list, a portion of that time just breathing, a portion of that time simply being the child of God he created you to be. I am convinced that in that private routine there would come balance and perspective and Spirit-filling which would in turn result in some public victories. If you walk in here on a Sunday morning and it’s the first time you’ve prayed in a week . . . meh. But if you come in and your presence here merely continues what you’ve been tending . . . glory! Last month, I told you I wasn’t asking you to commit to do this for the rest of your life. Just 31 days. Guess what? I’m asking for 31 more! Not forever! Just for the horizon. May even let you pray the 29 days of February this year as well. Yep, happy Leap Yr. You know that verse “pray without ceasing” (I Th 5:17). A lot of times we get weirded out because we think the bible – a weird enough library anyway – is asking us to pray 24/7. It’s not! Ditch the 24; embrace the 7! Pray without ceasing doesn’t mean to pray so much you forget to work and eat; it means, keep on praying, continually, regardless of answers. Because Paul knew, like Jesus before him, Public victory comes from private discipline. And the thing that really strikes me about these hidden little verses in the Gospels – they almost seem like asides or “oh by the ways” – is the way they show how Jesus carved time. He did not have the time! He made the time! And neither do you. Neither do I. You get up 15 minutes earlier. You go to sleep 15 minutes later. Morning seems to work best for most people, but not all. If you’ve got small children, their nap time becomes your away & alone time. You trade off with your spouse. And dads: what a gift to your kids. If they can ever see you reading Scripture or walk in on you while praying . . . those are the kind of indelible images that last a lifetime. You will be showing your kids that masculinity and spirituality are not mutually exclusive: properly understood, they are one and the same. Public victory comes from private discipline. A couple of years ago, fairly early one morning, I called a guy in this church. Actually had a big project to ask him to join (Home!). His got on and said, “I was just finishing up my morning reading and praying.” I was like, “how do you choose what to read?” And he was like, “Dummy, it’s in the bulletin! I do it every day; what you all put in the bulletin.” Doh! Gift to his kids. And preacher. A & A. No wonder he said yes to what we asked him to do! Public victory comes from private discipline. Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you so much to live a life of public victory that is fueled by your private devotion that we’re actually going to do it, together, now. Ready for this? For some of you this will be brand new and we’re going to give you some tools that you can use the rest of the week. For others it will be old hat – you learned this stuff a long time ago. For A LOT of you, it’s old hat – but you haven’t done it in ages. I know how you are! Ready? On screen, dissolving in: READ (Out loud & together) Mark 1:29-40 NOW: JUST BREATHE. SLOWLY. DEEPLY. REVERENTLY. BREATHE IN GOD’S PEACE. BREATHE OUT YOUR ANXIETY. AGAIN. Now, we’re going to ask you to pray. We’ve got an oldie but goodie acrostic for you: P.R.A.Y. P = Praise Spend some time quietly praising God for who he is. His character, his power, his love, his gift of Jesus. R = Repent You know where you’ve fallen short. Guess what? So does God. It’s good for you to name those places now. Before him, in silence. A = Ask Most of us don’t ask for too much. We ask for too little. Too little of the things that make God’s heart race with love and pride. So: spend the next few moments ASKING God to send favor on . . . Our Zoar launch – that hundreds of new people would come to know what a living relationship with Jesus Christ is about. Our persecuted pastors in India People in your life who don’t yet know Christ Y = Yield Close by praying this: Lord, you have my life for your plan. Amen.

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What I’d Like To See In 2016

Talbot Davis December 31, 2015 at 3:20 am 1

On this final day of 2015, here's some of what I'd like to see in 2016:

Don Henley to bring a tour of solo material to the Charlotte area.
Ann Patchett to release a new novel.
Roger Federer to win one more Grand Slam tournament.
The Golden State Warriors to break the '96 Chicago Bulls record of 72-10.
Good Shepherd to average over 2100 people per Sunday.
Good Shepherd to celebrate over 100 baptisms.
Solve to sell well upon its May release.
The Panthers dream season to include a Super Bowl win.
Two millennia of sexual orthodoxy to prevail against the forces of non-binary, sexual progressivism at the 2016 United Methodist General Conference.
More people at Good Shepherd own the ministry.
Marriages in Steele Creek, Lake Wylie, and Fort Mill to be vibrant as the result of the ministry of the churches here.
ISIS to collapse under the weight of its own evil.
A full house for my mom's 101st birthday party.
SMU football to have a .500 record next fall in year two of the Chad Morris era.

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What Difference Did The “Pause Pledge” Make?

Talbot Davis December 29, 2015 at 2:32 pm 0

On the last Sunday of November, 2015, we asked the people of the church to make this pledge:

So here are my questions as the month of December winds down: 1. Did you make a "Pause Pledge"? 2. To what extent did you keep your "Pause Pledge"? 3. What difference did pausing every day in the middle of Christmas mayhem make in your life? What difference did it make to your well-being? 4. What kind of answered prayers came as a result? Share them in the Comment section.

Talbot Davis

Talbot Davis

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