This evening was the memorial service for Dr. Robert E. Webber in Oak Brook, IL.  I was unable to be in attendance due to the distance. 

Here is an excerpt from Northern Seminary’s official Obituary:

Northern Seminary is saddened by the loss of William R. and Geraldyne B. Myers professor of ministry, Dr. Robert E. Webber, who died Friday, April 27 at age 73 at his home in Sawyer, Michigan, after an eight-month struggle with pancreatic cancer.

 

Dr. Webber’s work and witness have impacted the evangelical world by bringing worship and ministry back to their historical Christian roots as established by the early church. His influence through the publication of significant works like the Ancient-Future Series (The Divine Embrace, Ancient-Future Time, Ancient-Future Evangelism and Ancient-Future Faith), the “Chicago Call” in 1977 and more recently “The Call to an Ancient-Evangelical Future” in 2006, has impacted the church and a generation of pastors to challenge old assumptions about what constitutes an effective Christian witness in today’s postmodern culture.

 

“Robert Webber influenced many thousands of Christian leaders through his speaking and writing,” said Dr. Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Dean of the Seminary and Professor of Christian History.  “Two qualities are at the heart of his teaching ministry – authenticity and accessibility.   Northern Seminary students were blessed by these qualities in the classroom, in informal conversations on and off campus, and in times of prayer.  We on the faculty were constantly blessed by his wisdom, his humor, and the no-nonsense way he brought the gospel to bear on everyday circumstances.  We are grateful to have enjoyed Bob’s presence among us these last seven years.”

 

Dr. Webber was born in a Philadelphia suburb but spent the first six years of his life in the Congo with his missionary parents. His family returned to the United States in 1940 and settled in the Philadelphia area, where his father served as a Baptist minister. Webber’s educational path was denominationally diverse and unique–a BA from Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC); a BD at Reformed Episcopal Seminary; a ThM at Covenant Seminary (Presbyterian Church in America) and a ThD at Concordia Seminary (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod).

 

He began his teaching career at Covenant College in 1960; Covenant Seminary in 1965; and then spent 32 years teaching at Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) beginning in 1968 as Professor of Theology. In 1998, Webber founded the Institute for Worship Studies (now the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies) in Jacksonville, Florida, which is a masters and doctorate level graduate school focused on the study of the theological, biblical, historical, sociological and missiological foundations of Christian worship. Webber retired from Wheaton in 2000 and was named Professor Emeritus. Also in 2000, Webber was appointed Myers Chair of Ministry at Northern Seminary.

 

During his time at Northern, Webber was a popular and provocative teacher and mentor. Many students were drawn to Northern because of Webber’s reputation and charisma as an expert in the theology and practice of ministry and worship. Although he was a sought after professor, Webber was granted a reduced teaching load so that he could devote himself to writing. In the course of seven years at Northern, he demonstrated a remarkable level of productivity by publishing eight books in the areas of worship, Christian formation, prayer, ministry and culture and his Ancient-Future series. He also released several teaching videos, contributed chapters and introductions to several books and produced a monthly column for Worship Leader magazine and wrote numerous articles and reviews.Some of his more well known books include, The Complete Library of Christian Worship, Worship is a Verb, Worship Old and New, The Younger Evangelicals, and Ancient-Future Faith. Amazingly, Webber continued his writing up until his death.

 

“Robert Webber is one of the most remarkable people I have ever known,” said Northern Seminary Interim President John Kirn. “In many ways he was ageless.  It is no accident that we thought of him as Christ’s Pied Piper.  Young and old were attracted to his energy, enthusiasm and passion for the Church of Jesus Christ.  He believed unreservedly that recovery of the worship of the persecuted ancient church would enable today’s church to again triumph in its post Christian world.  To that end, he has left behind a body of work which will be mined for its gems for generations to come.” 

 

Webber leaves behind his wife, Joanne, four children, John (Isabel), Alexandra (Jack), Stefany (Tom), and Jeremy (Susie), seven grandchildren, and a rich legacy of friends, colleagues and students.

That’s the official word.  Now for my unofficial word. 

I was a student of Bob Webber’s for 3 years at Northern Seminary.  He was a mentor, professor, and friend.  I took several classes from him, including an independent study on the theology of the Ancient Fathers.  We used to sit in his office, him with his feet up on his desk, and talk about an assortment of ministry topics.  He was the professor I asked to write a letter of recommendation for me to apply to a PhD program at a certain Ivy League Divinity School.  He got me in to see the professor whom I wanted to study under there, even though it was a long shot. 

Webber was always calling me a “heretic” because I was pushing the limits, all the time.  And he liked it, it seems. 

I remember the day we were all at the Yorktown Mall food court and one of the students cracked out a bottle of wine to go with dinner.  I think we all partook, but Bob was not sure whether wine in Yorktown was kosher.  It was a humor-filled afternoon. 

Many good memories can’t be written here without making them trite.  So go with God, Dr. Webber.  The peace of the Lord be upon you.  Amen.

and that is all.

Saturday my man Eric and I were messing around playing our instruments in front of our Relay for Life tent and these two random middle- or high-school age girls came up to us and told us we sounded good. 

I took such comments with a grain of salt.  I mean, we’d been up all night, right? 

Well they said we should play at the gazebo across the square.  That’s where the bands were all playing.  We said, “well if you can get us in there we’ll do it.” 

So we did.  We basically played for 10 – 15 thousand people all at once, we think.  All over the square.  Yeah.

It rocked. 

And free PR for the church, too. 

That rocked.

Yeah.

This weekend has been busy.  Some of us worked on a Turkey dinner; some of us worked on the Relay for Life; some of us did both.  Sleep was a premium commodity many could not afford.  So don’t worry, I’ll keep this short today – I don’t want to fall asleep during my own sermon!

I was mostly at the Relay, so let me tell you a story about that.  A number of us came prepared to pray for people at our tent.  While we really only started doing that about 2:00 PM, and prayed for one person seriously, we made the offer to many.  In fact, we had an experience of God showing up and showing off.  This band we’ve had playing up here got to play in front of the whole courthouse square yesterday at around noon.  [Details]

Like Paul, when we respond to God’s vision and call, he shows up and he shows off.  Paul had a vision to go to Macedonia, and he acted upon it immediately.  Of course, you’ve heard the continuation of the story which is more famous: as Paul is walking through the town, a demon-possessed girl follows him and harasses them.  Paul casts the demon out and the city officials put him and Silas in prison.  While they are worshipping in prison, singing songs of praise, there is an earthquake and the prison opens.  The jailer becomes a Christian and they receive an apology. 

Paul’s vision from God led him into a position where he could transform a whole city and a whole region.

We are called into a new vision for our city – one that will bring healing to the nations; one that will bring healing to our whole region.  In Revelation 21 – 22 we see the vision of a new city, the city of the People of God.  Superlatives are grossly insufficient to describe the beauty and size of the city.  It is a description of what life will look like when the First Heavens and the First Earth have passed away.  It is not a private, personal, individual life that is described, but a huge, closely-packed city, fifteen hundred miles on a side, in a square.  That’s a city with each side three times the distance that I drive from Warren, OH to Champaign, IL.  Imagine a city that stretches three-fifths of the way across the country! 

There are many things we could say about how this city describes how we are to live as followers of Jesus Christ in the world.  But I’d like to briefly address three of them.

First, in this city there is no temple.  You see, we humans usually feel that we need some building to worship God in.  We build ‘em all the time.  We’re in a very nice one.  But the promise of God in this passage is that God is so present to us in the New Heaven and the New Earth that we can worship him just as intensely and give him glory just as much within the movements of daily life as we do here in this rather formal setting.  The way John seems to put it is this: God does not need to live in a building, because the whole city is his, and he is fully present everywhere.  We need buildings in which we worship God because we have trouble maintaining the sense of God’s presence and need special places to gather as a reminder that he’s still around.  But our buildings are to be the places that remind us that God is present everywhere, not the oversized storage closet where we keep God until we need him again the next week. 

What all this says to us is that God has called us to bring his presence and his Kingdom to bear in our city throughout the city.  How do we bring the presence of God to bear at, say Thomas Steel?  Or Howland High School?  Or Trumbull Hospital?  Or Autumn Hills Retirement Home?  How about in our subdivisions and neighborhoods?  In our families?  There is no temple there, and no need of one.  Why?  Because God is present through his Spirit who dwells in us – inasmuch as we are disciples.  We have the power of this Kingdom at our fingertips. 

Second point for today about this city: if you notice, this passage mentions “the nations” all the time.  From the Jewish perspective, “the nations” are the non-Jewish people who are outside the covenant, and usually the enemies of the Jews and therefore of God.  Except in the New Heaven and the New Earth this is all turned around, too.  Instead of being the enemies any more, the new city exists to draw the nations into it.  The nations will see the glory of God working all around them and be drawn into the glory of the city of God.  In a much more New Testament sense, the disciples of Jesus will display the glory of God throughout the world, and all nations will come to receive the life of the Kingdom.  In fact, the tree of Life, the one Adam and Eve were banished from the garden for so that they wouldn’t eat of it and live forever, this tree is now available to all people, and it produces twelve times the amount of fruit it is supposed to. 

And even the leaves are used as a medicine.  With the advent of pharmeseuticals, we don’t think about this as much, but many of our medicines come from (or came from) plants – leaves, stems, and bark.  Asprin, for instance, is found in willow bark.  The tree of life has leaves that heal the nations.  And we, as the disciples of Jesus, are the physicians who administer that medical regimen.  It frees everyone from the curse. 

In other words, it’s not about us, anymore.  We do what we do for the sake of those who do not operate as disciples of Jesus Christ, to bring them healing and draw them into the glory of the City.  Our job isn’t to make sure we stay happy but that we draw people to Christ. 

Ok, third.  This will be brief.  In God’s new city, there will be nothing unclean.  This means that the sewer has been transformed into the River of Life.  In an ancient city, the sewer would run down the middle of the street, collecting whatever all the way along.  The rich lived closer to the beginning (or uphill) side of the sewer, and the poor lived at the stinking, rotten other end.  But in the city John describes, the sewer has been transformed into the river of life.  God becomes the source of the life that produces the fruit of the tree of life and all that sustains life together.  There is nothing too unclean that God cannot make it pure and lifegiving by his transforming power. 

So we’ve seen three things: First, God wants us to be “out there” with the people of our city, with the good news of Jesus, more than we are “in here.”  Second, who we are is to heal the nations, and produce the fruit of the Kingdom – that is our nature, that is our purpose: it’s for them, not us so much.  Our happiness is a fringe benefit.  Third, even the most unclean parts of our existence can be transformed into glory by God.

And that’s good news, because God’s name will be on everything, it says.  So my challenge to you is this: how can we live in Warren and the surrounding area in such a way as to bring the New Jerusalem to bear here – even while we await the passing of the First Heavens and First Earth?  I think there’s much we can do!  (Anyone got another gazebo available?)

10 May is the earliest that Pentecost may fall. 

God is up to something this year.

Alleuia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

So the plan is for some of us to pray for people for healing at the Relay.  Ok.  I’ve heard from two people today, and they both express how I feel to some extent.  One was concerned we’d look weird, and actually BE weird for doing that.  Moreover, we’d be doing something a bit, well, socially awkward.  I agree.

Another person called me and said they can sense that something is already going on spiritually there and it’s even bigger than we’re planning.  I’m all for that, and want to do what we’ve got to do to be a part of that. 

So pray for us that we discover how God is calling us to act without being weird, etc.!

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

A number of us at First Baptist are preparing for something we think God is up to: we are going to be praying for people for healing at the city-wide Relay for Life on Friday and Saturday.  We expect God to show up and show off.  Pray for us and pray with us from 6:00 PM EDT Friday through 6:00 EDT Saturday. 

Peace out.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Interesting when you tell someone something about them you know is from God and they say you’re off track and then they basically prove it anyway by what they do.  but it’s hard going out on that limb in the first place.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

Today I was able to take the next step in establishing a way of serving the spiritual needs of High School students in one of our local high schools.  I can’t go into details here, but things are looking good. 

Grace and peace.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

We had a miracle today in our worship service.  A man came today with severe back pain; he left without pain.  A number of people gathered around him for prayer. 

Isn’t God amazing?

Someone reminded me this week (thanks, Fran) that this passage is most commonly heard at funerals.  It is an apt text for funerals, to be sure – because it speaks about the resurrection of the dead in the New Heavens and the New Earth – the particular piece of a Christian funeral that makes it particularly, well, Christian.

It would be very disappointing, though, if the only time we ever heard this passage was when someone died.  It might be an obvious point, but, the Bible was written for those of us who are alive, not for those who are dead, in order that we may have the abundant life God desires for us.  Moreover, something – something – in this book of Revelation, weird as it is, struck such a chord with the early Christian community that they said, “this is uniquely the Word of God for us, and for all time.”  These folks lived under persecution for their faith, meeting in secret lest their worship be discovered and they be put to death.

No, this book of Revelation, and this passage in particular, has great impact for us: we who are fully alive.  And, as our Christian older brothers and sisters have discerned, it applies to us even now. 

There are lots of ways of getting into this passage, but the best is the most direct, given how weird this book of Revelation is.  Everything is deeply symbolic, and most things have multiple meanings.  It all gets very complicated.  But let’s cut to the chase.  One Sunday morning, while in exile on a small island, the Apostle John has a series of visions that he is instructed to write down and send to seven churches in nearby Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.  What he sees uncovers (reveals – thus, Revelation) what is going on spiritually to explain how God is at work during the great persecution these Christians are facing. 

These visions are strange – filled with creatures with too many eyes, heads, wings and feet.  Washing things in blood makes them white.  You’ve probably read the book, you know the drill.  Revelation is a weird book.  The meaning of many of these visions is still obscure.  Many of the visions have their roots in the Old Testament visions of God in the Temple.  You can see echoes of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and many other prophets in Revelation. 

The passage we are looking at today comes at the end of the book when God has triumphed over all of his enemies, including Satan, and been declared king.  The dead have been judged and even Death and Hades have been thrown into the lake of fire.  The vision that follows is rather tame compared to the ones previously. 

John begins by declaring (in an echo of Isaiah 65 and 66) that he sees a new heaven and a new earth.  Remember, the word for heaven in this sense can be as simple as “sky” and as deep as the dwelling place of God, all at the same time.  The world as we know it has literally “gone away.”  God has prepared a new city for his people, which comes down out of the sky.  And then we hear this great declaration from the throne of God, in verses 3 – 6. 

All at once, this declaration proclaims the abundant life that Jesus spoke of and acted in throughout his whole time on earth – the life of the Kingdom we call Eternal Life.  The declaration sums up the Old Testament worship with the Word become flesh, Jesus, and the life we will have in God forever.  On top of that, he declares an end to all that ails humanity in its fallen state even when personal sin is set aside.  In so doing, he declares that he is making everything new. 

And just about the point when we are saying, “ah, how nice, for down the road and hereafter,” he says “It is done!  I am the beginning and the end.  To the thirsty I will give water.”  It’s already settled, it seems. 

Now.  We really don’t have time to get in to even a small portion of all of that today.  Y’all will be having visions of lunch long before we’ve sorted through a mere six verses.  So here’s the spoiler for the movie: shhh… it’s already done – we’re already participants in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  Surprise!  The trick is that the first heaven and the first earth are still here.  We’ve got both at the same time, for the moment.  So we get both worlds, for now. 

Let me clarify: those who have become disciples of Jesus Christ and have received the Holy Spirit are participants in this New Heaven and New Earth – simply put, the New Creation.  Therefore, God dwells with us, and we are his people, and his power to heal and comfort and streighten out and all the rest is at our disposal.  The words literally say that God has set up his tent in our midst.  That, of course, echoes the Old Testament Tabernacle which was the movable tent where God lived while Israel wandered in the wilderness, all the way up to when Solomon built the temple.  So God lives with us and moves with us and settles with us.  On top of that, though, it is the same word used for “the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  The Message translation of the Bible says, “the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”  That’s really the point. 

But now, as participants in the New Creation, God has moved into our neighborhood – permenantly.  No eviction notices will stand.  God has shown up.  You see, God likes to show up.  And when he shows up, he likes to show off.  He likes to transform our hearts and blow our minds.  He’s bold enough to say that in the context of the New Creation, “on earth” actually IS, really IS, “as it is in heaven.”

We here at First Baptist have started to see the life of the New Creation at a magnitude we’ve never seen before.  I know I’m in that camp, for one.  I’ve seen more miracles of healing – emotional, physical and spiritual healing – in the last two years than ever before in my life.  A good number of you – around 20 – regularly see visions in prayer times, both alone and in groups.  We’ve seen miracles of many sorts.  Oftentimes, God gives me visions about things that will happen and they happen in ways that I never could have manufactured.  I’m averaging better than one vision a day these days.  [Rest area story.]

So God has clearly moved into our neighborhood.  The question is, though, have we moved into our neighborhoods with him? 

Our discipleship groups are taking the month of May off to discover what God is up to outside the walls of our church, and outside the context of official Christian group meetings.  Moreover, they are trying to discover how to apply the discipleship principles they have learned to other groups in the church in which they participate.  So far, so good, eh?  Most of all, they are trying to see what it really looks like when God “moves in to the neighborhood.”  What does it look like when God sets up shop in the mall?  Or at the mill?  Or over a family cookout?  What is the relative impact of God showing up at a community event, say, the Relay for Life? 

Our God likes to show up, and he likes to show off, doesn’t he? 

Think of it this way: we have a community gathering of hundreds, or, well, thousands of people over a 24 hour period – all gathering because they are concerned at some level that cancer kills people and they want to do something (in this case, raising research funds) to bring hope to those who fight cancer and long-term freedom from its ills.  What would it look like if God moved into the Relay and set up his tent?

Wouldn’t he bring healing to thousands?  Emotional healing, physical healing, spiritual healing?  In doing so, he would express the life of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  And having already participated in the Kingdom like this, wouldn’t he invite them to follow him into even more of the same by becoming disciples of Jesus?  You know, the way God works, it wouldn’t just be a little healing here and a little healing there – no, it would be so vast that we’d forget about the fundraising aspect of what we were doing and pour our life and attention into accessing ever more profoundly the kind of life God has in this New Heavens and New Earth. 

Do you see it, folks?  Do you see it?

We have the message that comes from the Throne of God himself – that for those of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus and received the Holy Spirit, we are participants in the Kingdom of the New Heavens and the New Earth, in which God dwells with us.  He will heal our emotions.  He will put an end to death and destroying powers.  He will free us from pain and debilitation.  This is the life of the New Heavens and the New Earth, and, for those of us who are disciples of Jesus, it has already started.  We’re still, of course, dragging around the first heavens and the first earth – they haven’t passed away yet.  But we’ve started to live in the New Heavens and the New Earth and its life is powerfully available to us.  He is making all things new!  Better yet, it doesn’t cost anything.  We just have to be thirsty for it!

This is why I’m so excited about what some people have been sharing with me.  Independent of me, several people have said they want to pray for healing for people at our tent at the Relay for Life.  We have a banner to that effect on order.  I’m excited that the discipleship groups aren’t meeting.  Because, you see, in these four weeks, God will do something radical.  He already is.  By Pentecost, that is, May 27, God will have done so much that either the groups will not need to get back together again because they will be so busy responding to and engaging in the work of God; or they shall be compelled to reconvene to process and respond to what God is up to collectively. 

Wont’ it be neat when God shows up in that kind of way?  We are poised for Pentecost, folks.  Poised for God to release his Spirit in power.  In fact, he has been releasing his Spirit in power; many of us have experienced it.  He’s going to ratchet it up a notch or two, though – and probably more. 

You see, it is one of God’s greatest desires to dwell directly with his people.  And we, as God’s people, have that opportunity to start participating in the New Heavens and the New Earth now, before the first earth and heavens have passed away. 

Have you caught the vision for what God is doing, will do, and can do? 

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Ok, so when you receive visions from God on a regular basis, it is cool.  The hard part is when you actually have to sit down and tell someone you’re doing something or saying something based on one.  The risk is you could be wrong, they could think you’re nuts, you could actually BE nuts, or it could all be real. 

What to do?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

The Spirit continues to be very active here.  One thing that struck me today is that the list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:7 – 11 all seem to happen together.  One moment, we’re in tongues, another in prophecy, another in knowledge or wisdom, discernment or interpretation.  All the gifts flow together and emerge, often, tumbling over each other.  We would like them to be discrete – where you could have one without the others, or you could define exactly which one was at work.  Tongues is especially weird for most folks. 

But that’s not how they operate.  The gifts seem to operate as all-or-nothing affairs.  In a body of believers, they are all to be present; sometimes in individuals, but most often in a group.  It seems, though, as people open themselves to the gifts, they end up with more than they were looking for. 

This is a little stream-of-consciousness, but it was on my mind just now. 

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia.

God has been speaking to a number of folks in our congregation through visions and dreams.  Today yet another person in the congregation received the gift of tongues in prayer.  The sense of the Spirit of God’s presence is palpable.

While Easter Season is the celebration of the Resurrection for 8 solid weeks, for us these days have become rather an Advent season – anticipating Pentecost and all that God will do with us as he pours out his Spirit.  Today, while praying for a congregational event that will take place downtown on 11 and 12 May 2007, a Pentecost verse became prominent in our minds:

On the last day of the festival [of tabernacles/booths (in October, generally)], the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37 – 39, NRSV)

There are strong conections between the Festival and Pentecost.  While at two different times of year, it seems that God is doing something with the Festival during this Easter Season.  The whole city of Warren will be in tents during 11 and 12 May for a festival of sorts. 

Therefore, let us pray for the greater outpouring of the Spirit.  Those in Warren, pray at Courthouse Square, as often as you can, between now and then.

Grace and peace.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!

In these days God is making prayer a focus of the life of First Baptist Church.  We are becoming a praying people.  Our earlier attempts have been largely institutional – prayer meetings that few attended.  Now, the prayer is becoming more organic.  This will continue as God desires to pour out his Spirit upon us.  Between Ascension and Pentecost (17 and 27 May, 2007), we need to make prayer together an even greater focus, including Fasting.  In preparation, let us begin to pray together, invoking God’s power to transform us.  Gather as much as is possible; sacrifice meetings and institutional events for this organic growth in Christlikeness.  Gather to worship as well.  This can be done through all sorts of means; music is a primary doorway into the Word and Sacrament of worship.  Let us pray for God’s kingdom to come!  Pray through the Prayer of the Disciples (that prayer that begins “Our Father.”)  Let this be our guide.  Pray for our enemies.  Pray for all in our sphere of influence.  Pray for the Mahoning Valley.  Pray for all that God is leading us into.  Pray for the outpouring of the Spirit in Power, as at the first Pentecost.  Pray for a proliferation of dreams and visions, which we already are receiving in measure; pray for a further outpouring of the Gifts upon the people.  Until we have set aside dissention and anger and join in one accord we will still be lacking.  Let us take this month to receive from God’s new life.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let us listen and apply it to ourselves.