Signs of the Times: Pastoral Translations of Ministry & Culture in Honor of Leonard I. Sweet

By Wayne McCown

All ministry leaders concern themselves with the intersection of Jesus-centered ministry and contemporary culture. They ask themselves questions such as,
"What do we need to change in order to keep up with a wired world?"
"What should never change?"
"What are the nonnegotiables of faith in Jesus?"
Many have attempted to answer these questions. However, most of these leaders offer solutions that the everyday ministry leader simply cannot replicate.
Signs of the Times is a unique offering to those who wrestle with the mash-up of ministry and culture. All of the contributors have found success within their ministries, and yet most do not minister to thousands on a weekly basis. Additionally, all of them have had the privilege of studying directly with Dr. Leonard I. Sweet.
Despite having authored more than fifty books, Sweet can still be a bit of an enigma. Many of his readers have been deeply influenced by him, and yet they may still struggle to understand what his insights might mean for their ministry.
Each of the contributors to this work thoughtfully engages with a key idea that they personally learned from Sweet and they translate it for ministry in the early twenty-first century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Mar 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498220613

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Signs of the Times

Pastoral Translations of Ministry & Culture in Honor of Leonard I. Sweet

Brian A. Ross, Editor

Foreword by Wayne McCown

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Pastoral Translations of Ministry & Culture in Honor of Leonard I. Sweet

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Contributors

Foreword

Sweet & the Spirit

Chapter 1: Summoned to Follow

Chapter 2: Wake Up and Smell the Future

Chapter 3: Preaching as Bricolage

Chapter 4: Heretics and the Way Forward

Chapter 5: What’s Going on Here?

Chapter 6: The EPIC World of Anglican Worship

Chapter 7: Every Bush is Burning

Chapter 8: Indefinable

Chapter 9: Identity, Vocation and Calling

Chapter 10: Rearranging the Furniture of Faith

Chapter 11: EPIC Parenting in the Post-Church Church

Chapter 12: Discovering the Future, Hidden Deep within the Past

Chapter 13: Reading the Signs

Chapter 14: An Epistemology of Empathy

Contributors

Anthony L. Blair, President, Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Leadership and Historical Studies at the Evangelical Theological Seminary, Myerstown, Pennsylvania.

Jason Clark, Founding Pastor of Vineyard Church Sutton, London, and Lead Mentor for the Leadership and Global Perspectives DMin at the George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon.

Charles J. Conniry, Jr., Vice President and Dean of the George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon.

Dottie Escobedo-Frank, District Superintendent of the Desert Southwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Dwight J. Friesen, Associate Professor of Practical Theology at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology.

Todd Hunter, Founding Bishop of the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others and Founding Pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Costa Mesa.

Thomas E. Ingram, Chief Dreamer at crowdsourcingchristianity.com and Linen Publishing, Master Gardener with the Tulsa County Extension of the Oklahoma State University.

Dan Kimball, Professor/Director of the ReGeneration Project at the Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon, and on staff at Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz.

David McDonald, Lead Pastor at Westwinds Community Church, Jackson, Michigan, and Post-Doctoral Fellow, at the George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon.

Mike McNichols, Director of the Fuller Theological Seminary’s regional campus in Irvine, California, and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies.

Rich Melheim, Founder, CEO, and Chief Creative Officer of Faith Inkubators and the RICH Learning Preschool Incubators Project.

Brian A. Ross, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministries at the Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary and Adjunct Professor at the Toccoa Falls College, Georgia.

Christine Roush, COO and VP of Advancement at Rainbow Acres, Camp Verde, Arizona.

Jeff Tacklind, Lead Pastor at the Laguna Evangelical Free Church.

Foreword

I may be thinking of myself more highly than I ought! But I think Len would agree: I served as both a scholarly and spiritual mentor during his years as an undergraduate student. Not in the role of an academic advisor or major professor. I was only his Sunday School teacher!

Many years ago now, my wife Darlene and I moved from Seattle, Washington, to Richmond, Virginia. Having just completed her master’s in Nursing Education, Darlene immediately went to work as faculty at the Medical College of Virginia. Soon after we settled into a student apartment at Union Theological Seminary, where I had been admitted for doctoral studies. Those tasks accomplished, our next was to locate a church home. Within the month, we decided on a small Wesleyan church, based particularly on the welcome of the pastor and his wife.

We had only attended this church a few weeks when Pastor Ken came to our apartment and asked if we would teach a college class. He explained that he expected two students from New York to be returning soon to resume their studies at the University of Richmond. The next Sunday morning we met them: Leonard and his younger brother Philip (now professor of German at the University of Radford).

These two young men (I think, at the time, both still teenagers) would form the core of our Sunday School class. But as Darlene and I thought and prayed about this opportunity, we struck on the idea of expanding it and calling it the The College and Young Professionals Class, to include young professionals (like Darlene). Pastor Ken supported this idea, as well as our proposal that we meet in the Byrd Park gazebo directly across the street from the church. This meeting place provided us a more informal setting where we could gather around coffee and donuts (which were not allowed in the church).

I served as the primary teacher. Both Len and Phil faithfully attended the class (I do not recall them missing a single Sunday, except during academic holidays). On occasion, they brought other students from the University of Richmond. Darlene invited her new friends at the Medical College of Virginia. Over time, this Sunday School class grew to more than 50, larger than the congregation across the street, a development that proved problematic for some of the church members. We decided to discontinue the class when Len completed his BA degree.

Already in his youth, Leonard Sweet evidenced a wide range of talents and versatility at multi-tasking. He served as director of our church choir. Simultaneously he provided the piano accompaniment, sang a part, and directed the choir. This amazed me; early on, I concluded that Len was a genius.

During our years together in Richmond, Len and Phil were regularly in our apartment at Union Theological Seminary, especially on weekends. Our personal lives became interlaced . . . and that has continued to this day, although not in such close proximity. Len would go on to earn his MDiv and PhD degrees in Rochester, NY, where Darlene and I have lived for the past 25+ years. He earned his PhD at the University of Rochester, where Darlene served as Academic Dean and Professor in the School of Nursing. I spent the last 20 years of my full-time working career on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan College, where (a little known fact!) Len began college as a freshman before transferring to the University of Richmond. I also was privileged to found on the Roberts’ campus Northeastern Seminary, a sister school to Colgate Rochester Divinity School, where Len earned his MDiv and later served as Provost and Professor of Church History.

There are further linkages. Len was raised in the Free Methodist Church; his mother (who was very influential in his spiritual upbringing) was a preacher. As a college student, I joined the Free Methodist Church and became an ordained minister. Later, I served for 12 years as Professor of Biblical Studies and for eight years as the Dean at George Fox (formerly Western) Evangelical Seminary, where since 2001 Len has served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor.

During the past four decades, Leonard Sweet has distinguished himself not only as a professor (at several institutions), but also as an author, preacher and public speaker. Len has been able to do all of these things simultaneously, or at least in moving from one to the next, quite seamlessly. Moreover, he has excelled in all of these areas, and his output in each has been prolific.

Len was educated as an historian and has held several posts in Church History. But, over time, he has become more widely known as a futurist. Personally, he prefers to describe his calling in ministry using the (Anglicized) Greek term semeiotics. (Len pushes his hearers/readers beyond the boundaries of normal vocabulary, frequently creating new words to express his ideas.) Semeiotics, as practiced by Len, is sufficiently explained by Brian Ross in the Introduction to this volume. I want to introduce in this foreword a familiar but new descriptor to characterize Leonard Sweet (this is the kind of thing Len himself would do!).

I believe Leonard Sweet is a prophet.

The prophets of the Old Testament evidence a personal familiarity with the history and traditions of Israel. Their word from the LORD assumes this history; it is foundational to their prophetic message. Amos, for example, references the law of the LORD and his statutes in preaching to Israel (2:4). He recites the exodus from Egypt, destruction of the Amorite, forty years in the wilderness, and possession of the (promised) land (2:9–10). However, he also shocks his audience by turning on its head the prevailing interpretation of Israel’s religious history: "Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (3:1–2, highlight added). All of this looks a lot like we get from Len Sweet!

While many assume all prophecy is predictive, biblical scholars have concluded that at least 80 percent of the messages in the OT books of prophecy address current events. Based on present realities, viewed theologically and spiritually, the prophets speak concerning future prospects. Here’s one example (which could be multiplied a hundredfold): They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine . . . Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph (Amos 5:10-11. 14-15). Often, that’s the kind of message Len Sweet delivers: The word is out: Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die (Soul Tsunami)!

I believe Len is a modern-day prophet a lot like the OT prophet Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 1, the prophet expresses his consternation at the situation that obtains among the people of God (for Leonard, it is the contemporary church). They seem oblivious to what is happening around them . . . but the prophet is not. He sees signs (semeiotics!) on the horizon. He works at understanding what God is up to, and what the future portends for his people. This book (like many of Len’s) makes extensive use of imagery in communicating its message. It climaxes with a prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, a prayer echoed across Len’s life work and ministry: O LORD, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O LORD, of your work. In our time revive it; in our own time make it known (3:1-2).

Along with the authors in this volume, I thank God for giving the contemporary church such a gifted prophet. But I also thank Leonard Sweet for his long obedience in the same direction (Eugene Peterson) and for his commitment to Jesus. At the close of his 2007 Response to Misunderstandings, Len declared: I only want to write one thing over the doorpost to my heart and life: ‘Jesus Christ lives here.’ Me too, my friend.

Wayne McCown, PhD

Provost Emeritus, Roberts Wesleyan College

Founding Dean Emeritus, Northeastern Seminary

President, Friends of Hope Africa University

Sweet & the Spirit

An Introduction to Semiotician Leonard I. Sweet

Brian A. Ross, DMin

He replied, When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

—Matthew

16

:

2

–

3

NIV

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you . . .

For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, We are his offspring.

—Acts

17

:

23

;

28

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

—1

John

4

:

1

For several decades, Leonard Ira Sweet, PhD, has worked to follow the Spirit of Jesus,

Seeing things the rest of us do not see, and dreaming possibilities that are beyond most of our imagining. As a writer, preacher, professor, and consultant, he communicates the gospel with a signature bridging of the worlds of faith, academe, and popular culture. ¹

Leonard Sweet is a graduate of the University of Richmond, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and the University of Rochester. An ordained United Methodist minister, Sweet served as Provost of Colgate Rochester/Bexley Hall/Crozier Divinity School while still in his twenties. For nine years he was the President and Professor of Church History at United Theological Seminary (at the time of his appointment, he was the youngest seminary president in North America.) For six years, Sweet was Dean of the Drew Theological School and Vice President of Drew University, where he currently holds the position of E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism. Since 2001, he has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Fox University and beginning in 2014, Sweet was named the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Graduate Theological Education at Tabor College.

But despite this vast and varied C.V., Len is mainly known as original thinker, who prayerfully muses over the current state and future possibilities for the church of Jesus Christ. Many have encountered his vision through the more than two-hundred articles, one-thousand three-hundred published sermons, and more than fifty books he has authored.

Len comes from humble, yet Jesus-soaked beginnings. Raised in poverty in the hills of West Virginia, he was blessed to be raised in the faith by his fiery preacher mother. In his dedication to her in his book, A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café, Len writes:

Here’s to Mabel Boggs Sweet, who raised three boys in the poorest section of a town (a street called ‘Hungry Hill’), who expected ‘her boys’ to get an education without any money to help them get that education (all three of whom went on to get Ph.D’s), and whose philosophy of child-rearing was simple: ‘I’m not going to isolate you boys from the world, but I am going to insulate you,’ and who herself home-schooled her sons in Christianity while she sent us to the public schools. ²

Rev. Mabel Sweet, and by extension his family as a whole, did not have it easy. As an early female minister, she and her boys were subject to much ridicule and false accusations. Though anything but liberal (Len says his Mother regularly spoke to him and his brothers about What Jesus told me) the family was often on the outs with the church due to supposedly worldly behavior like having watched a television program. From his childhood, largely through the example of his mother, Len was engrained with a deep, Jesus-centered faith. However, part of this faith involved calling the church to pay attention to the future that the Spirit was ushering in and not to merely cling to a form of dead religion from yesteryear.

Though initially desiring to serve as a traditional church historian, eventually, Len sensed a call from the Spirit to the ministry of semiotics. In an online interview Sweet explained his vocation:

The Greek word for signs is semeion, and semiotics is the study of signs and the art of making connections, seeing the relationships between apparently random signs and reading the meaning of those relationships.

Our brains are designed to detect patterns. So I only do what everyone else can do if we do what we’re designed to do . . .

Disciples of Jesus must learn to read the sign-language of the Spirit. Sometimes God gives us a hint; sometimes God drops a hammer on us. But the handwriting is on the wall. God’s finger is still writing. Can we read the signs of what God is doing? The ultimate in spiritual illiteracy is the inability to read the handwriting on the wall, especially when the essence of evangelism is announcing the good sign, the Jesus Sighting. For me, semiotics is another way of talking about the signs of the Spirit’s activity in the world. For we are sent into the world to join Jesus in his continuing mission.

Also—there are some people in the church preoccupied with reading signs, but they’re looking only for one thing: not signs of our times, but end times signs, signs of the coming of Christ, signs of the latter days and the end of days. I’m trying, instead, to read the signs which give us Jesus sightings. ³

In a personal conversation with Len at a greasy spoon in Central Pennsylvania, I asked him what he considers to be his specific academic expertise. For example, N.T. Wright specializes in the history of Second Temple Judaism; Mark Noll specializes in the history of Christianity in North America; Catherine Pickstock specializes in postmodern philosophy to reinterpret premodern theology, etc. Len’s response?

My academic specialty is NOT having an academic specialty. I read and learn broadly, from various subjects, to try to discern what the Spirit is up to in the world.

This IS the work of Jesus-centered semiotics: reading, and watching, and listening broadly, to interpret the signs of the times. To have an open eye, open ear, and open heart to what the Spirit of God is up to in our world. And then working to translate it and make it known to His church.

You could say that the goal of this book is to go one level deeper: to translate the ideas and visions of Leonard Sweet, in even clearer language, to contemporary church leaders.

All of the contributors to this volume have been involved with the Doctor of Ministry program at George Fox Evangelical Seminary personally studying with Len. Many are pastors. A few are seminary professors. At least one contributor is the leader of a Christian non-profit organization. Our goal in this book is not merely to personally honor Leonard Sweet for his role as our teacher, mentor, and friend. Our primary goal is to help clarify his work, and its implications, for other church leaders who serve Jesus in everyday contexts, where ordinary people seek to follow Him in the midst of a rapidly changing world.

If we can, to some degree, reach this goal . . . it would be the greatest honor we could personally bestow on Len and his calling— one who attempts to interpret the Signs of the Times, and even more, the Signs of the Spirit.

Bibliography

Leonard Sweet Biography. Spirit Venture Ministries. http://leonardsweet.com/about.

Sweet, Leonard. A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café: Finding the Energy of a Deeper Spiritual Life. Nashville: Broadman & Holman,

1998.

———. On Signs, Signals, Churches and the Current State of Starbucks. Interview by Jon M. Sweeney. http://www.explorefaith.org/faces/my_faith/leonard_sweet.php.

1. Leonard Sweet Biography, Spirit Venture Ministries.

2. Sweet, Cup of Coffee, dedication.

3. Sweet, On Signs, Signals, Churches.

1

Summoned to Follow

Leonard Sweet’s Antidote for the