Greater Things

This is a link to a great post by one of my good friend's dad.  Check it out and I hope you are encouraged by it. http://integrationpoints.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/the-problem-with-church/

Interesting article Putting the article's political agenda aside, this article made me think a lot about how I view sin in my life. Also how when she confronted people with the "So are you" statement, that most people don't view themselves as sinners. I am a criminal. A criminal saved by Grace, and redeemed, but a criminal nonetheless. It also made me think about how we view people in jail or homeless people, or whatever. We tend to view them differently, just because the effects of sin on their life are more "visible", when in fact we all have sinned. For example, using the drugs scenario from the article. How many of us know people who have done drugs in the past, and are no longer users? There are probably some very important people in our lives that fall into that category. How do we treat them? We love them despite their past, don't we? Then think about how we would react / treat someone who we knew went to jail for drug possession. Grant...

A number of years ago, I came across some sermons that changed me, and of which I need constant reminder. In the 80's and 90’s, Pastor Lon Solomon of McLean Bible Church taught on living by grace. I have an old cassette tape album called “Living By Grace” which includes the message “No Confidence in the Flesh”. In “No Confidence in the Flesh", Lon Solomon says that most Christians are saved by faith, but live by works. This describes much of my Christian life. And I’m sure others fall into this as well. So here’s an outline of Lon Solomon’s message ... ---------- Phillipians 3:1-7 (NIV) 1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself ha...

This is a post by Bob Thune of Coram Deo in Omaha, Nebraska. I really like this reason for celebrating Good Friday and the idea of fasting between Good Friday and Easter. The blog can be found at http://www.cdomaha.com/blog/ Lamentation Before Celebration It seems that American Christians are all about celebration. In fact, some churches have intentionally chosen the adjective “celebratory” to describe their worship style. Everything has to be upbeat, positive, encouraging (“Positive, Encouraging K-Love…”). After all, life itself is discouraging, depressing, and difficult enough; shouldn’t church be uplifting? The Bible does indeed encourage us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4). However, true celebration takes into account the gravity of mourning and suffering. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that lamentation is good for us: “The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure” (Ecc. 7:4). And the Apostle Peter reminds u...

Well I am a few days late with a blog post but I decided I would still write one. We have an opportunity to share our personal thoughts about life, God, church, etc on this blog. Please understand that this post is not supposed to come across as complaining or wanting to cause an uproar....this is my own humble opinion and I will continue to submit to the direction and leadership of the church. (now you may be excited to see what I write) Lets start with Good Friday. This is very special day in our Faith. This is the day that our God whom we worship was murdered on a cross. This moment changed history FOREVER! Jesus' death paid for the sins of the world and so much more. (On a side note, I am reading Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper . My goal is to read one reason a day from easter to Pentecost, the birth of the church.) I think we should celebrate this with a special service on Good Friday, much like a Christmas Eve service. It would be an opportunity to...

I came across an extremely though provoking quote in an article regarding the prostitution of underage girls in Phoenix, Arizona. I will let the quote speak for itself. "I've always wondered why the criminal world can network so well, and we can't. You see the government agencies doing their stuff autonomously, churches and parachurches doing their stuff autonomously. What if we could network as well as the criminal world? We would be awestruck at what God would accomplish." -Pat McCalla Churches within the Phoenix area have been working with each other and local government to protect these young girls. It is not everyday that you hear the call for the church to emulate organized crime.

If you are like me, then you probably say it a lot. I think there are several factors that play into this: I don't exercise like I should, I don't eat the right food, and I don't have a regular sleep pattern. I sometimes pray, "God give me the energy to get through this day." I often wonder if I should really pray that since I am not taking any steps to be disciplined in my physical habits to improve my energy levels. In some sense I am humbling myself before God and admitting that He is the only way I am going to have the energy to get through the day but I still feel like I should back up my words. I think that I don't deserve for God to sustain me through the day if I don't take any action. But then I am reminded of God's grace. Its true that I don't deserve it, in fact no one does and that is the beauty of God's grace. Even if I did eat right, exercise, or had a regular sleep pattern there is no reason why I should have good energy...

Acts 5 I need to be honest the beginning of Acts 5 confuses me.  The church has been growing super fast, people were being healed, the gospel was spreading.  Then God decides to freak everyone out by killing someone who gave money to the church. I should be clear here, Ananias and Sapphira conspired together to gain favor in the fledgling church by appearing spiritual in an act of giving.  They decided together to sell some land and give part of the money to the apostles and make seem as though they had given all the money they received.  Peter being full of the Spirit knew they were attempting to deceive the body of believers and, more importantly, God himself.  Peter called them out and both were struck dead. This strikes fear in my own life because I feel I've committed equally, if not worse, sins against God my savior.  God clearly is the author of life and is sovereign over all, so he can at any point exact his wrath or demonstrate his mercy. ...

Acts 4 continued.   32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.  33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.  34 There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales  35 and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.   36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement),  37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. How's that for an open hand.  While I won't advocate for some sort of theocratic socialism, I will say it seems that as believers we should hold our possessions a little more loosely.

On Wednesday evening, my daughter Sara was playing in the backyard. She decided to go down the slide w/ a metal pole in her hand. The pole hit her one inch below her right eye. We took her to the doctor. Her eye is fine. Thank God!!! (I’m not just saying this as a throwaway cliché.) I have seen many of these “near misses” in the lives of my children and in my life. These make me mindful of the “common grace” which God grants to all humankind. Though we live in a fallen world, God continually expresses His love for the world through His providence. Colossians 1:16-17 reminds us that Lord Jesus Christ made it all and keeps it all: “… all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Wow! In this life I’ll never know all that God does for me. To my shame, I go through most days taking this for granted. I grumble when things don’t go my way, but rarely praise Him when things go well. And how much more should we as believe...

Acts 4 Continued After being told to shut up, Peter and the rest of the disciples prayed together for the boldness to continue speaking the good news of Christ's resurrection: 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." God's response: 31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Incredible.  What we're finding as we read through these chapters in Acts is that God is doing some very remarkable things to establish his church.  While what we are reading seems to indicate that these things aren't the norm, I can't help but wonder what God could do if we as a group sought to proclaim his name boldly and asked him to help us do it.

I guess just to followup on my talk from Sunday on the need for church leaders to train the next generation of leadership. We've all heard the cliche about having 3 types of people in your life: a Paul, a Barnabas, and a Timothy. In other words - a mentor; a peer and a "mentee" or "disciple". We of the Boomer generation have to make a concerted effort to prepare the Millenials for leadership service and we need to start now. That means being willing to release our grip on leadership roles - move into a mentoring role and also release the methods of ministry to a new generation. This goes against the grain because some see these new methods as "not the right way to do things". Two things need to happen: 1) we need to identify potential leaders and 2) be willing to support those leaders when they do things different than we would -- after all we aren't doing things the way our parents did. Above all tho we need to allow methods to change while...

Acts 4 picks up in the middle of a dramatic event outside the temple in which a crippled man regains his mobility.  Peter and John, early leaders of the church and close friends of Jesus, are taken into custody by the authorities at the request of the Sadducees (the Sadducees are a sect of Jewish priests who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead as Peter and John preached - Acts 3:15).  They are held overnight and brought before a group called the Sanhedrin - a word meaning "sitting together" and referring to an assembly of judges in Israel.  Here they were questioned. During their inquisition Peter and John boldly proclaim the gospel and in so doing "astonish" these educated leaders.  The disciples' boldness and apparent authority are so shocking that the Sanhedrin withdraw into closed quarters to discuss the plan for dealing with these men.  For fear of losing control and favor among the Israelites decide to order the apostles...

I read this post:  http://theresurgence.com/misguided_christian_outrage  from the Resurgence blog and found it interesting enough to repost.  Hopefully, I'm not breaking some sort of blogging etiquette.

YYYAAAAWWWNNN!! Well yesterday was kind of a "day off" because the challenge was to sleep on the floor at night. It was more than just sleeping on the floor though, it was sleeping with no pillow and no blanket. I understand there are some people out there that like to sleep on the floor (i don't mind it if i have a pillow and blanket/sleeping bag) especially when camping but normally you do that when you don't have to wake up early or do anything productive the next day. Last night instead of putting on PJs, I put on some sweats and a sweatshirt and instead of throwing clothes off of my bed, I cleared out a spot on the floor. It didn't really take too long to fall asleep which was a good thing but I remember waking up pretty early in the night because my arm fell asleep (not the kind that tingles like needles but the kind that goes numb and feels like a club). I woke up at like 3:30 probably around the time my dad was getting up for work (i heard the shower...

Many of us are obsessed with determining God’s will for our lives. Myriads of books have been written, sermons preached, speeches given, Bible studies pored over, all in an effort to discover God’s plan for our future. This is understandable for two reasons. One, the Scriptures are obsessed with discovering God’s will. Paul writes in Ephesians 5:17: “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” Second, everyone desires a purpose for their life. I believe that this commendable desire to discern God’s will or purpose for our lives becomes a dangerous combination with the busy schedules and oodles of leisure time that belong to wealthier societies. Many of us have so much on our plates that we don’t want to take the time to wait for God to show us his way. We have so many other activities to occupy our time with we get easily distracted from waiting on the Lord. We come to expect that God will slot his map for our lives into our hectic schedules,...

Wait right there! Before you stumble into that bathroom of yours, ask yourself this question, what is the longest you've gone without a shower, and why? I went a week once when I was at the beach. I figured the ocean and the pool water did enough cleaning for me. So as you can see the challenge for Day 3 is no shower. My initial thoughts about the challenge were "no big deal" and "I do this often" (maybe more often than I should) but then I remembered that just las week I said that I needed to make sure I showered everyday (I notice that I start to smell a little bit by the end of the day if I don't) so this was kind of funny to me. This challenge was hard for me to think about during the day but was reminded of it later in the evening after I had a full days wear and tear on me. I did end up putting on some cologne in the morning to help compensate which I normally don't do. I would feel bad if I made people around me uncomfortable because of the...

The best way to describe the day would be to take a child put him at a table every day for months and give him a cookie to eat then one day have him come to the table put a cookie in front of him and tell him not to eat it. So this is how my day went (sorry that it is so long but this one was hard).... ...So I woke up today and decided to check the challenge for Day 2 of My Imaginary Journey to Africa before I did anything else (I have 30 minutes each morning to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and get out the door). When I opened up my document and saw that it was no media day (no computer, ipod (zune in my case), tv, radio, phone, etc.) I was a little dissappointed. Today is that day that Jack Bauer saves the world (again) in 24 hours. I need to write my post/update for the Day 1 challenge (I did that anyways but thats it). I need to talk to Becca throughout the day and figure out when we were going to hangout at night. There is a certain anxiety that comes over me when I th...

This Friday and Saturday the youth at Calvary Baptist Church will be participating in year 12 of the 30 Hour Famine. This is an event to raise awareness and funds for the work World Vision is doing around the world to provide food, clothing, shelter, water, and the Love of God to the poor and needy of the world. This year Greg Arnold put together a great little week long devotional (adapted from material written by the Arritts (sorry if I spelled that wrong)). The devotional has a challenge each day that will help the students focus on some issues many people in the world are struggling with. I decided I would participate in this challenge and document some of my thoughts each day in the hopes that it would encourage the students to participate or at least think about some of the issues. I need to keep this short because I ran out of time on Day 1 to actually write this note and the challenge for Day 2 is no media (this is like work and no I did not waste time on here before I wrote th...

So I will keep with the video clip and John Piper theme, I do so reluctantly though. I don't want to seem like I am "worshiping" Piper but I was trying to figure out what to share and this clip kept coming back to me. (technically it is more CS Lewis than Piper). Piper recently hosted a conference focusing on Christian Hedonism/Joy/CS Lewis. (christian hedonism can be defined as "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.") I saw a video clip about "smiting morality with the joy of the gospel." The line that challenges me and gets me thinking in this clip is "A perfect man will never act out of a sense of duty." It goes on to say, "He would always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love for God or other people, like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times, but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs, our love, ...

This video was part of a talk by Derek Sivers (I don't know anything about this guy, just what he said in this video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&feature=player_embedded I'm particularly intrigued by this video because what the narrator is describing is exactly what I've been hoping to see our church accomplish. What I find to be most difficult in leading is transferring a vision. What I do know is that perseverance is a good thing.

There have been some lapses of compassion in my church lately. Let’s be reminded that Jesus was motivated by compassion … Matthew 9.36 - “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 14.14 - “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Matthew 15.32 - “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.” Matthew 20.34 - “Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.” Compassion drove Jesus to care for others’ physical, spiritual and emotional needs. Without compassion we can never see people as God sees them. I believe compassion is cultivated by pain. The most compassionate people I know are those that have endured great personal loss. Experiencing pain enables them to take pause, consider others’ pain, and respond w/ mercy. And a merciful r...

Too often I think we believe we need to come up with clever things to put in a post. Sometimes you're just blank... The snow has caused disruptions to our routine and there is something to be said about having a routine. Although the government is closed and we are supposed to be on "leave" many of us continue on with our work routine unable to stop. I guess we are wired to be doing something all the time. That said we were able to come together yesterday as a group of men to clear snow off the roof of the church building. Unfortunately I was unable to get there when the work first started but was able to get there at the end of the day - reminds me of the story of the workers that came to work the fields thruout the day and all ended up getting paid the same - I digress but will come back to it. We all joined together to preserve the building - enjoying the physical labor and the comraderie. Maybe that was our "pay" - to enjoy the hard work and being ...

Some of you have seen my tweets/facebook updates that are somewhat random like; "Sat on the train without moving for about an hour...it reminds me of patience and how God is patient with us and our sin" or "it is cold, there is ice, ice is solid like Jesus our foundation" Now I know that writing is not one of my strong suits but after reading the article below I figured it was not only a good way to glorify God by allowing other people to read some of my posts but it also makes me think about God in unique and creative ways through out the day. The article is from www.desiringgod.org Why and How I Am Tweeting By John Piper June 3, 2009 I see two kinds of response to social Internet media like blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others. One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill th...

The Importance of Community So, we've decided to start up our blog again.  There were a few things that caused the slow death and we hope to fix them with these guidelines: 1. 2 posts per week 2. Assigned weeks 3. No topic limit I think we got a little too excited last time and ended up putting all of our content up as soon as we could.  This new approach should help space out the delivery of our thoughts.  So for those of you reading our blog, expect to see at least 2 posts per week.  Hope you enjoy and please comment. I've (slowly) been reading through a book called "Kingdom of Couches" which was authored by a a group of friends who run a blog much like this with similar purposes.  One of the author's major themes is the idea and importance of community in faith. In America today, it seems as though individualism is king.  We live far away from each other, we travel to and from work, sit in front of TVs, read our Bibles for fifteen minutes each day, we ea...

To come out of our blogging hibernation, I decided to post some thoughts about baptism services. Recently (sort of) our church has moved the baptism service from the Sunday evening bible study to the Sunday morning worship service. I was just thinking about this today and got pretty excited for several reasons: It involves more people (evening service averages 30-40 people and the morning service 250-300 (rough estimates, no idea really but you get the point)). It is a great, exciting, and joyous time not only for the individual being baptized but also for the church body. It is essentially like the announcing of a birth of a baby or the marriage of two people. It marks a healthy and growing church. It could and should encourage people to share their faith. It is an opportunity to boldly and clearly present the gospel during the worship service. I just hope people can see these things and be excited about it too.