My Lego Sermon

I think a lot of Christians know the Bible like a bag of legos: they know a verse here and there, but they've never put the whole thing together so that it makes sense.

I thought of this sermon illustration a few years ago and I wanted to use it with our students. . .but I didn't know if any of them had every seen legos, much less played with them. I knew the only way I could make this work would be to buy a lego set and show them the difference. So I bought this box of legos in South Africa (you can see the corner of the box sticking up out of the green bag). Then I divided out the legos into two zip-loc bags so that each bag had exactly the same legos in it. And then, from the legos in one bag, I built something.

I used this illustration a couple of years ago and preached in chapel to the students from Romans 3. This past Sunday, I preached in a local church plant--they're still meeting in this tent, you see. At the beginning of the sermon, I held up both bags of legos and told them, "Both these bags contain exactly the same thing! Do they look the same to you?" People responded that they looked different. Somebody said, "There's a figure in that one." "What kind of a figure?" I asked. "It's a human being."

I explained that it's easy for us to concentrate on learning favorite verses from the Bible; few of us ever put those verses together to make sense of the whole thing. And it's true: think about it. We like to meditate on John 3:16; or we find our favorite proof texts and hammer home our take on doctrine. We seldom trace Paul's arguments from the beginning of Romans through to end to find out the point he's making. Or we don't even know that the unifying principle of the gospel of John is the description of 7 miracles that persuade us to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

So I proceeded to read Romans 5:12-19 and tied it all together into one coherent argument. And then, when I was finished, I told them, "See, I have built you a man! These verses are no longer scattered about, but we've connected them to each other to make something familiar, something that makes sense."

Going out to the Bush

February 21, 2009

We’ve been here nearly a month now. Last weekend we drove out to the Kalahari desert and stayed at the Ultra-Stop in Kang. I’ve already posted pictures from that trip on my facebook page, but I didn’t give many details.

The reason for our trip was to visit the little group of believers there and to make arrangements for our students to stay out there for three weeks during the Missions Practicum in May. The students are excited, yet nervous, about going out to Kacgae and pitching tents in the compounds of various Bushman families. But I’m not nervous, am I?!? Hah! What do you think?

We were saddened and surprised to learn that T.T., the government nurse at Kacgae, is being transferred to Ghanzi. We knew she was due for a change, but it seemed God was keeping her in the clinic there because she helped to keep the little congregation going. We met the new nurse, Susan, and learned that she is also a Christian lady. T.T. is from the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe and Susan is from the Pentecostal Assemblies of God of Zambia. Nurses from Botswana don’t usually take jobs out in these remote clinics. We thank God he sent another Christian to take T.T.’s place.

I also met my namesake on this trip: Keatlaretse’s little daughter Janet. I wonder who she’s named after?

Pray that we’ll be able to work out all the details for the Missions Practicum. We’ll be taking a group of about 12 students out to live in very harsh conditions, to learn about the Bushmen, and to seize every opportunity to teach from God’s Word.