Plan to Stay for Lunch

After the 10:30 worship service 8.30.09

No "I" in TEAM; not ME but WE

"In the Christian universe, the individual is NOT the vital unit of ethical meaning. For Christians, the most basic images, metaphors, and signs are

CORPORATE,

and the basic unit of ethical meaning is the Body, the community."

--Lauren Winner



(add this to the "how to know i have been "OFFICEd"... i cringed when i typed corporate)

One example

At the beginning of the film About A Boy, the central character, Will Freeman,
says:

In my opinion all men are islands. And what’s more now’s the time to be one. This is an
island age. A hundred years ago for instance, you had to depend on other people. No-one had
TV or CDs or DVDs or videos or home espresso makers. As a matter of fact they didn’t have
anything cool. Whereas now, you see, you can make yourself a little island paradise. With
the right supplies and, more importantly, the right attitude you can be sun-drenched,
tropical, a magnet for young Swedish tourists. And I like to think that perhaps I’m that kind
of island. I like to think I’m pretty cool. I like to think I’m Ibiza.

This is the creed of individualism. As the film progress, however, he learns that it is
not true. And the film ends with him celebrating Christmas with an associated
group of disparate people who form a community in which he finds belonging and
identity.

Not for ourselves alone

"As genuine human beings, from Genesis 1 onward, we are given the mandate of looking after creation, of bringing order to God's world, of establishing and maintaining communities. To suppose that we are saved, as it were, for our own private benefit, for the restoration of our own relationship with God (vital though that is!), and for our eventual homecoming and peace in heaven (misleading though that is!) is like a boy being given a baseball bat as a present and insisting that since it belongs to him, he must always and only play with it in private. But of course you can only do what you're meant to do with a baseball bat when you're playing with other people. And salvation only does what it's meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them."

- N. T. Wright (Suprised by Hope pg. 199-200)

This week's R&R

HERE






.

unity without uniformity and diversity without division

We were made in the image of the triune God. We find our identity through
relationships. Just as there is both unity and plurality in God, so communal identity
should not suppress individual identity and individual identity should not neglect
communal identity. Through our union with Christ by faith, Christians are being
remade in the image of the triune God. The church should be a community of unity
without uniformity and diversity without division. --Tim Chester

Sixteen times as much

The Church, the whole body of Christians, showing Him to one another, is so important. You might say that when two Christians are following Christ together there is not twice as much Christianity as when they are apart, but sixteen times as much.

--CS Lewis

Lewis on Community

"God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another....
"Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science—the laboratory outfit."

Put away your iPod, this is a concert!

Movie! The Visitor

I enjoyed a good film.

Stand Still

“Let us stand still, and admire and wonder at the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners; that Christ should rather die for us, than for the angels. They were creatures of a more noble extract, and in all probability might have brought greater revenues of glory to God: yet that Christ should pass by those golden vessels, and make us vessels of glory, Oh, what amazing and astonishing love is this! This is the envy of devils, and the admiration of angels and saints.”

- Thomas Brooks, Christ’s Love for us

Here's where we gotta be

Here's where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

--u2

the work of God

"This is the work of God in the soul, to disengage the heart from the creature, and how contrary is a murmuring heart to such a thing! Something which is glued to another cannot be taken off, but you must tear it; so it is a sign your heart is glued to the world, that when God would take you off, your heart tears. If God, by an affliction, should come to take anything in the world from you, and you can part from it with ease, without tearing, it is a sign then that your heart is not glued to the world." --Jeremiah Burroughs

The Options in Front of Us:

When we think of learning, I think it is helpful to see where churches (and individual Christians!) can go, and go wrong, in this area:

• Dead Heterodoxy – No truth and no spirit, we mess up (big time!)
• Live Heterodoxy – All spirit and no truth, we blow up
• Dead Orthodoxy – All truth and no spirit, we dry up
• Live Orthodoxy – More truth and more spirit, we grow up

sermon outline

I. The Definition of Worship
Worship is the English word to describe three things
A. All of life (Romans 12:1-2)
B. Corporate Worship Service (John 4)
C. A specific act (Psalm 100)
“Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does.” -- Warren Wiersbe
“Worship is communion with God in which believers, by grace, center their mind’s attention and heart’s affection on the Lord, humbly glorifying Him in response to His greatness and His word.” - Dr. Bruce H. Leafblad
II. The Purposes of Worship
Corporate worship is nothing more and nothing less than a
re-presentation of the Gospel in the presence of God and his people for His glory and their good.

A. The glorification of God requires us to honor His divine attributes and mighty acts (Psalm 150: 2), and to rejoice in them (Deut. 12:12).

B. The good of God’s people requires worship that promotes their love (I Cor. 14:1), encouragement (14:3), instruction (14:3-6), mutual edification (14:12, 26-28), thanksgiving (14:16), witness (14:16, 23), and conviction (14:24-25).

This includes the full range of human experience! Frustration AND fullness, joy AND sorrow, faith AND doubt
(read the Psalms! i.e. “God’s prayer book”)

III. The Elements of Worship
A. Preaching the word (includes baptism & communion)
B. Singing
C. Praying

IV. The Focus & Fuel of Worship, see below

The Focus & The Fuel of Worship

The Cross of the Jesus Christ

A. The cross is our means of access. We could not draw near to God apart from the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV)

B. The cross is our means of acceptance. We are completely forgiven because of the cross.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight. Ephes. 1:7-8 (ESV)

C. Our Savior’s work on the cross is the object of our adoration.
“In Christ we behold the wisdom, goodness, love, grace, mercy and power of God all working together for the great work of our redemption and salvation. The wisdom and love of God are in themselves infinitely glorious. But we cannot see how glorious they are except in the redemption and salvation of the church which is achieved only in and by Christ.” (John Owen, The Glory of Christ, p25)

4. A knowledge of the effects of the Gospel produces a humble, grateful, and secure people.

(adapted from Bob Kauflin's great little PDF Why the Cross is Crucial in Corporate Worship, get it HERE)

Bldg

"The unsearchable riches of Christ."

My Master has riches beyond the count of arithmetic, the measurement of
reason, the dream of imagination, or the eloquence of words. They are
unsearchable! You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater
Saviour than you think him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest.
My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than
you to transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you
are to confess them. --spurgeon PM

Prepare Your Heart to Worship

The battle for our Sunday worship is usually won or lost on the foregoing Saturday night, when time should be set aside for self-examination, confession and prayer for the coming day.

If you would leave your heart with God on Saturday night, you would find it with Him in the morning.

--J.I. Packer

How do you REJOICE with TREMBLING?

Psalm 2:11 says for us to 'rejoice with trembling'.

Fear does not rob us of our joy for two reasons. One is that it drives us to Christ where there is safety. The other is that even when we get there the part of fear that Christ relieves is the hope-destroying part. But he leaves another part—the part we want to feel forever. There is an awe or wonder or trembling in the presence of grandeur that we want to feel as long as we are sure it will not destroy us. This trembling does not compete with joy; it is part of joy. People go to terrifying movies because they know the monster cannot get into the theater. They want to be scared as long as they are safe. For some reason it feels good. This is an echo of the truth that they were made for God. There is something profoundly satisfying about being “frightened” when we cannot be hurt. It is the best when the trembling comes from the grandeur of holiness.

--John Piper

Anti-Idolatry Campaign

"Every time we sing praise to the triune God, we are asserting our opposition to anything that would attempt to stand in God’s place. Every hymn of praise is a little anti-idolatry campaign."

--John D. Witvliet

this awesome little quote makes me think of the Les Mis "hear the songs of angry men"

Pitching Our Affections

Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of his majesty....

It is also an act of the will,
whereby the soul
adores and reverenceth his majesty,
is ravished with his amiableness,
embraceth his goodness,
enters itself into an intimate communion with this most lovely object,
and pitcheth all his affections upon him.

--Stephen Charnock

Healthy Tensions in Worship

there is such a tendency, in individuals (1st person especially!) and congregations to "fall off the horse" on some of the great tensions we are called to enjoy in Scripture. many of these pertain to our worship of God. There is a very helpful little 4 page doc HERE that shows many of these. One of them is transcendence & immanence:

Transcendence of God (Is. 6:1-6)
God is majestic, sovereign
Holiness and righteousness
“Holy, Holy, Holy”
Cathedral
Traditional liturgy

Immanence of God (Heb. 4:14-16)
God is near, Emmanuel
Mercy and grace
“Jesus, Friend of sinners”
Store front church
Free-flowing liturgy
Both: Is. 54:5; Is. 57:15

Abandoned Headlines

Chris just asked me for a good one liner that says, "Be Nice to New People at Church"

He has rejected both my suggestions:

"Journey Had it Right (Open Arms)"
and
"Being Mean Sucks"

A Mighty Fortress, 1st hymn

Our hymn of adoration at the beginning of Sunday's service shall be Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress", based on Psalm 46.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing

great stuff, consider prayerfully praying through this hymn and talking about it with your children------all the lyrics are here

How should you come to worship

“Jesus does not say, ‘Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.’ No, Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, ‘Come to me, all who are weary and heaven-laden, and I will give you rest.’

The criteria for coming to Jesus is messiness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.”

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009), 31-32

Why does God want us to sing

THIS is worth your four minutes before Sunday



...

Ouch

"If the heart of sinfulness is self-centeredness, the heart of all biblical religion is God-centeredness: in short, it is worship. In our fallen-ness we constrict all there is to our petty horizons.". --D.A. Carson

Worship is..

.. seeing what God is worth and giving Him what He's worth. --Tim Keller

Why we shut the doors

Beginning August 23rd the ushers--at the request of the elders--will begin shutting the doors to the theater of Oak Hall for the 4-7 minute period that is the
Confession of Sin & Words of Comfort.

Why?

Of our goals is to provide an atmosphere that--as much as possible--enables people to worship God free of distractions. We have realized with increasingly clarity how distracting it is for people to be entering the theater when we are at this pivotal moment in the service. We have seen God's awesome character in the Song of Adoration and are remembering that we are in the presence of the One True and Living God. This is a time of particular focus when we, as His people, confess our sins to Him and receive the much-needed reminder that He cleanses us from our sin!

So, if you get shut out. Remember that it is a brief time. Participate while in the foyer. (We try to place speaker in the foyer so that you can clearly hear what is being said by the leader.)

When the singing of the songs of Thanksgiving, join or re-join us with a heart grateful for mercy and ready to delight in our Redeemer and King.

Miles Davis

today is 50th anniversary of Kind of Blue


i bought it on itunes +
(John Coltrane playes tenor sax on this album)

link to booklet

Yesterday we distributed a handbook for you to use during the weeks
we are trying to make it available all over the place

hope this works

"The mercy of God."

Meditate a little on this mercy of the Lord.

" It is tender mercy. With
gentle, loving touch, he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds. He is as gracious in the manner of his mercy as in the matter of
it. It is great mercy. There is nothing little in God; his mercy is like
himself-it is infinite. You cannot measure it. His mercy is so great that
it forgives great sins to great sinners.."

--Spurgeon AM

Pray for the session of elders

We are having our monthly meeting tomorrow -Tues Aug 18- and need wisdom and mercy to faithfully follow Christ as He leads and serves the congregation of Christ Community.

What is worship?

John Piper’s definition in his book Desiring God, “Strong affections for God, rooted in and shaped by the truth of Scripture – this is the bone and marrow of biblical worship.”

“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God,
to feed the mind with the truth of God,
to purge the imagination by the beauty of God,
to open the heart to the love of God,
to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

– William Temple

We come to worship to proclaim and receive the Gospel

In order for us to think of worship in gospel terms, we need to be careful
not to think only in evangelistic terms. While the gospel includes the good
news of God’s grace for those who would turn to him in faith, the gospel
is not just for outsiders or unbelievers. Great power lies in the line popular
among young Christians today:

We must preach the gospel to our own hearts every day.

This ethic is not just about repeating those portions
of the gospel that lead to new conversions; it is about engaging the power
of the good news that God has provided his grace to save, to sanctify, and
to equip his people for this day, every day, and forever. We need this gospel
to enter Christ’s kingdom, but we also need it to walk with him through
our daily trials and demands. This is the gospel the ancient liturgies teach,
and the best liturgies still echo.

--from new book by Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship

Corporate Worship as Gospel Re-presentation

We know the “good news” of that gospel as we:
recognize the holiness of our Creator,
confess our sin,
seek his grace,
are assured of his mercy,
give him thanks,
petition his aid,
seek his instruction, and,
in loving response to all his mercies,
live for him.

--from forthcoming book by Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship

Read through this, pray through this, talk with your children @ this

Tomorrow our opening hymn, aka "Hymn of Adoration" is
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

1. Praise to the Lord,
The Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him,
For He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

2. Praise to the Lord,
Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings,
Yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen
How all your longings have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

3. Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness
And mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

4. Praise to the Lord,
O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Written in the 1600's and translated from German to English in the 1800's.
I hope that THIS is a place to see the music

Men! Tomorrow 8:30am

Come to the church property Saturday from 8:30AM to 12:30PM. Every man at Christ Community is invited. Lunch ($8) will follow at 12:30PM. Contact Larry at <mailto:christcommunitymen@gmail.com> christcommunitymen@gmail.com.

Expressive Tokens

Christian, if thou art saved,
whilst thou art glad, be grateful and loving. Cling to that cross which
took thy sin away; serve thou him who served thee. "I beseech you
therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
Let not your zeal evaporate in some little ebullition of song. Show your
love in expressive tokens. __Spurgeon AM

Called To Worship

Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!

-- DUKE ORSINO in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night


The Duke was so captivated by Olivia that he sensed that she freshened up the room she entered. When we enter into worship we are coming to the true "Olivia", the triune God who is making all things new. May He grant us the sense of expectancy that we can be transformed by His presence.

read

saw this today

David Ulin, book editor at the LA Times, has an important article that articulates something I have been feeling recently, namely the slow erosion of "the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else's world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine." He writes:

Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

. . . What I'm struggling with is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it's mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age. [bold emphasis mine]

Are others out there experiencing something similar? If so, what are you doing to swim against the information stream?

An utterly new creation in Christ

Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own best efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human efforts whatsoever. --Robert Farrer Capon

Desiring the Transcendent

.... "like Coldplay and others, Keane's music clearly expresses a desire for something transcendent, but without wanting to commit to anything that is considered limiting." (I love the way S.Addcox writes)

Coldplay "lost":
I just got lost
Every river that I tried to cross
Every door I ever tried was locked

From Keane "Atlantic":
I need a place
That's hidden in the deep,
Where lonely angels sing you to your sleep, Though all the world is broken.

Worship and Learning

If your idea of God…is vague or remote, your idea of worship will be fuzzy and ill-formed. The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That's why theology and worship go together. The one isn't just a head trip; the other isn't just emotion.
— N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth

Evangelism

According to the apostle Peter, the church is both a royal priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices to God (which is worship) and a holy nation to spread abroad God's praises (which is witness) (1 Peter 2:9-10).  Moreover, these responsibilities of the universal church devolve on each local church.  Every Christian congregation is called by God to be a worshiping, witnessing community.  Indeed, each of these two duties necessarily involves the other.  If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring His infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too.  Thus worship leads to witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle.

The Thessalonians set a fine example of local church evangelism.  Near the beginning of his first letter to them Paul points out this remakable sequence: "Our gospel came to you...You welcomed the message... The Lord's message rang out from you" (1 Thiess 1:5-6,8).  In this way the local church becomes like a sounding board which reflects and amplifies the vibrations it receives, or like a radio station which first accepts and then transmits a message.  Every church that has heard the gospel must pass it on.  This is still God's principal method of evangelism.   --John Stott, page 50 The Living Church

Good Definition

To evangelize is to make known by word and deed the love of the crucified and risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that people will repent, believe and receive Christ as their Savior and obediently serve Him as their Lord in the fellowship of His church.

--from Stott book LIVING CHURCH, page 47--he got it from Lambeth Conference

OK CCC peeps

82% of the unchurched would attend if asked
2% of attenders invite friends each year

What if--what if the next 3 weeks we all asked a friend to come to church?

It is Christ

It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee; it is Christ.
It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee; it is Christ.
It is not even thy faith in Christ, though that be the instrument;
it is Christ's blood and merit. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber." Psalm 121:3

by Spurgeon

This is a choice stanza for pilgrims to the celestial city.

"He will not allow your foot to be moved." Though the paths of life are dangerous and difficult--yet we shall stand fast, for Jehovah will not permit our feet to slide; and if He will not allow it--we shall never be moved! If our foot will is thus kept--we may be sure that our head and heart will be preserved also! Those who have God for their keeper--shall be safe from all the perils of the way.

Among the hills and ravines of Palestine, the keeping of the feet is a great mercy. But in the slippery paths of a tempted, tried and afflicted believer, the blessing of upholding is of priceless value--for a single false step might cause us a fall fraught with awful danger! To stand 'steadfast' and pursue our holy way--is a blessing which only God can give. It is worthy of His divine hand--and worthy also of our perennial gratitude. Our feet shall move in heavenly progress--and we shall never be overthrown!

"He who keeps you will not slumber." We could not stand a moment--if our Divine Keeper were to sleep! We need Him by day and by night. Not a single step can be safely taken--except under His guardian eye. God is the convoy and body-guard of His people. When dangers are all around us--we are safe, for our Preserver is awake, and will not permit us to be moved. No fatigue of exhaustion can cast our God into sleep--His watchful eyes are never closed!

The Cross!

Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins ... by the preaching of His blood, and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross. --Count Zinzendorf

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say,
"Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not."

--Martin Luther

The Church and the Word

The dependence of the church on the Word is not a doctrine
readily acceptable to all. In former days of Roman
Catholic polemic, for example, its champions would insist
that 'the church wrote the Bible' and therefore has
authority over it. Still today one sometimes hears this
rather simplistic argument. Now it is true, of course,
that both Testaments were written within the context of the
believing community, and that the substance of the New
Testament in God's providence ... was to some extent
determined by the needs of the local Christian
congregations. In consequence, the Bible can neither be
detached from the milieu in which it originated, nor be
understood in isolation from it. Nevertheless, as
Protestants have always emphasized, it is misleading to the
point of inaccuracy to say that 'the church wrote the
Bible'; the truth is almost the opposite, namely that
'God's Word created the church'. For the people of God may
be said to have come into existence when his Word came to
Abraham, calling him and making a covenant with him.
Similarly, it was through the apostolic preaching of God's
Word in the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day of
Pentecost that the people of God became the Spirit-filled
body of Christ.
--john Stott

Holding back the monsters...

“Those of us who write, who sing, who paint, must remember that to a child a song may glow like a nightlight in a scary bedroom. It may be the only thing holding back the monsters. That story may be the only beautiful, true thing that makes it through all the ugliness of a little girl’s world to rest in her secret heart. May we take that seriously. It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind.” --Andrew Peterson

3:3 Ninevah, a 3-day city

What does it mean in 3:3 when it says Ninevah took 3 days to visit?
No time to mention this tomorrow, so I'll mention here:

three days’ journey in breadth (cf. esv footnote, “a visit was a three days’ journey”). In Jonah’s day neither the circumference nor the diameter of the walled city of Nineveh (see plan, p. 1691) was a three-day walk. The phrase may refer to the time it would take Jonah to walk throughout the city, preaching his message. (Nineveh could also refer to the much larger administrative area including the city and the outlying villages, which was 30–56 miles/48–90 km across.) --from ESV study bible

Pumped to Announce Tomorrow

We've been doing a lot of thinking, praying, listening, and studying--about our Sunday gatherings. Tomorrow prior to the benediction I will give a couple of the changes that we think will improve our corporate gathering. As a "thanks" for checking in here I will give you one:
Beginning Aug 23 our schedule will be:
9:00 classes
10:00-10:25 Fellowship (muffins & joe)
10:30 Worship

Balance or Tension

Worship issues this philosophy must address (Which values can we reject?)
1. Structured vs. free
2. Traditional vs. relevant
3. Objective vs. subjective
4. Doxological vs. delightful (Note: WCF and WSC #1)
5. Solemn (dignified) vs. celebrative (joyous)
6. Transcendent vs. accessible
7. Vernacular vs. excellent
8. Emotional vs. cognitive
9. Dialogical vs. proclamatory
10. Orthodox vs. contextualized
11. Saved- vs. seeker-oriented

(excerpted from a wonderful document/appendix done by Bryan Chapell)

Art, Beauty, and Our Profound Ache

So incredibly strengthening to see an artist who knows his craft--an interview with Andrew Peterson:

Interviewer:
In Art for God's Sake, Philip Graham Ryken recalls traveling to New York City to view the paintings of Makoto Fujimura. So moved by what he saw, Ryken writes the following: “At its best, art is able to do what Fujimura’s paintings do: satisfy our deep longing for beauty and communicate profound spiritual, intellectual, and emotional truth about the world that God has made for his glory.” What is art, and what do you think is its purpose?

AP: Wow. I don’t know how I’d say it better than Ryken—although I have one tiny issue with his quote. Art can’t satisfy a longing for beauty. Art can pique it. It can remind us that we were made for ultimate beauty, but it’s only a window. When I’m confronted by a profoundly beautiful work of art, I feel a profound ache, like a kid peeking through the gate at Disney World. I’m comforted to remember that such a world exists, but I’m not yet allowed entrance. An artist hangs windows all over the shadowy world, lets the light in, reminds people to draw near and peek through. --whole thing here

Dross

"We praise and thank you for sometimes putting us into the furnace to refine our gold and remove our dross."

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.



Gold to be refined from less noble metals by oxidizing the other metals and then separating them from the molten gold as a dross.

Definition of dross:

--from 1928 Webster's (you gotta love the English language, and not just b/c it is the only one i know!)
DROSS, n. [G.]
1. The recrement or despumation of metals; the scum or extraneous matter of metals, thrown off in the process of melting.
2. Rust; crust of metals; an incrustation formed on metals by oxydation.
3. Waste matter; refuse; any worthless matter separated from the better part; impure matter.
The worlds glory is but dross unclean.

During our weekly Thursday AM walk-through of Sunday's worship service Frank Matthews asked, "How many people know what dross is?"

SO, we thought we'd try to help our people enter into the richness and hope of this great refining work of God.

Only Driscoll

Jonah's mission today would sound like this:

"Go to Iran and tell them Jesus is mad and they need to be Christians."
--Mark Driscoll

quoting Mark Driscoll can come off in the same way as touting Tebow...." you've got a man-crush don't you?"

but then those larger than life types say or do something that reminds you why you do kinda have a man-crush;;;;

A Prayer

O God, the fountain of life,
to a humanity parched with thirst
You offer the living water that springs from the Rock,
our Savior Jesus Christ
stir up within your people the gift of your Spirit,
that we may profess our faith with freshness
and announce
with
joy
the wonder of your love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God,
forever and ever.
Amen.

--from "A Prayer Book for Australia"

Learning Resources

Christians who neglect the Bible simply do not mature. When Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy to the effect that human beings do not live by bread only but by God’s Word, he was asserting that the Word of God is just as
necessary for spiritual health as food is for bodily health. I am not now thinking of remote Christian tribes people into whose language
the Bible has not yet been translated, nor of illiterate people... I
am thinking rather about ourselves. Our problem is not that the Bible is unavailable to us, but that we do not take advantage of its availability. We need to read and meditate on it daily, to study it in a fellowship group and to hear it expounded during Sunday Worship. Otherwise we shall not grow. Growth into maturity in Christ depends upon a close acquaintance with, and a believing response to, the Bible.

[Source: God’s Book For God’s People, John Stott, IVP p. 76]

Understanding the Bible Correctly, part 1 and part 2

A Practical Method of Bible Study for Ordinary Christians

Facility Update

Make sure you see video below

Facility Update

Make sure you see video below

a minute and nineteen seconds, hiatt narrating

Freedom

“Believers sometimes forget that we have been set free. Freedom scares us and more important, it scares those religious leaders who are into control. Jesus said, ‘Therefore if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.’ We want to change that, to create some parameters and to ameliorate the dangers of the freedom Jesus gives. When we do that, we miss the joys of being free from the bondage of our slavery to rules and manipulation...Being free enables us to go to God without the need to act like a proper slave...Being free means that , in prayer, we don't have to work for 'slave's wages'...Being free means that we don't have to worry about every word and every thought that is uttered in the presence of God...God says...'You aren't a slave, Quit acting like one".

--Steve Brown

Incorporated

“God does not save groups; He saves individual people. Each of us must respond
individually in repentance and faith to the gospel invitation. But though God
saves us as individuals, He immediately incorporates us into the Body of Christ
(Romans 12:5; I Corinthians 12:13). Every believer of every nation, race, or
station in life is a member of that Body. From all over the world, God has drawn
together a spiritual community whose members share a common life in Christ”
( Jerry Bridges inThe Crisis of Caring, p.63).

The Church is Loved by God

John Stott commenting on 1 Thessalonians 1:4. The church is a community which is loved and chosen by God.

    To whatever denomination or tradition we may belong, the doctrine of election causes us difficulties and questions. To be sure, it is a truth which runs through Scripture, beginning with the call of Abraham (Gn. 12:1ff.) and later his choice of Israel 'out of all nations' to be his 'treasured possession...a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex.19:5-6). This vocabulary is deliberately transferred in the New Testament to the Christian community (E.g. 1 Pet.2:5, 9-10). Moreover, the topic of election is nearly always introduced for a practical purpose, in order to foster assurance (not presumption), holiness (not moral apathy), humility (not pride) and witness (not lazy selfishness). But still no explanation of God's election is given except God's love. This is clear in Deuteronomy: 'The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you...' (Dt.7:7-8; cf.4:37). Similarly in 1 Thessalonians 1:4 Paul unites the love of God and the election of God (As in 2 Thess.2:13 and Eph.1:4). That is, he chose us because he loves us, and he loves us because he loves us. He does not love us because we are loveable, but only because he is love. And with that mystery we must rest content.
    But before we leave this subject, we need to note the assertion made by Paul, Silas and Timothy that they *know* their brothers and sisters in Thessalonica to have been loved and chosen by God. God's election, however, is essentially a secret known to him alone (2 Tim.2:19). So how could the missionaries possibly dare to claim that they knew it? They tell us.  They give two bases for their knowledge, the first in the following verse (5), relating to their evangelism, and the second in the previous verse (3), relating to the Thessalonians' holiness. Both were evidences of the activities of the Holy Spirit, first in the missionaries (giving power to their preaching) and secondly in the converts (producing in them faith, love and hope), and therefore of the election of the Thessalonians. This shows that the doctrine of election, far from making evangelism unnecessary, makes it indispensable. For it is only through the preaching and receiving of the gospel that God's secret purpose comes to be revealed and known.
    Here, then, is Paul's threefold delineation of the church. It is a community beloved and chosen by God in a past eternity, rooted in God and drawing its life from him, and exhibiting this life of God in a faith which works, a love which labours and a hope which endures. What stands out of Paul's vision of the church is its God-centredness. He does not think of it as a human institution, but as the divine society. No wonder he could be confident in its stability!