Good Work Well Done

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables…Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade–not outside of it… The only Christian work is good work well done.”

Dorothy Sayers

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Don’t Waste Your Life Sentence

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Can You Summarize the Whole of Scripture in One Sentence?

This is a fantastic post from Dane Ortlund. He asked a scrum of pastors and theologs to summarize the entirety of Scripture in one sentence. There’s plenty that is left out and that doesn’t need apology.

Here is my favorite, but you should read the whole yourself:

Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City. – Doug Wilson

And, just thinking further on it, I’ll refer to the modern-poet I just posted about in the last post. One of his songs reminds us,

The world was good. The world is fallen. The world will be redeemed.

 

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Need the Big Picture?

A little S.M. Lockeridge Jr. of sorts.

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Celebrate the Fulfilled Promise

Merry Christmas, TBAP Family!

Here is a narrated, animated chapter from the Jesus Storybook Bible.

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Philosophy of Kids

We’ve had the joy of heaps of time in our home over the past three weeks with some of our favorite people. We have 4 boys and a girl. They have 4 girls and a boy. The oldest kid is 8. Eight of the kids are 5 and under. The 14 of us have a raucous time, punctuated by tickles, baby laughs and bumps/bruises and “when are we going to eat?”

When quiet adult talk can happen in the very late hours of the night, it’s easy to spend the time speaking of parenting issues, analyzing and examining issues we are facing, seeking sharpening, and reflecting on the labor and joys of our tasks and preparing for what is coming. Privately we perhaps are free to especially speak of the difficulties [read as: "overwhelming exhaustion"] of raising so many young children (all at once).

These words from John Piper are a balm to us. Here is an impromptu response to the common, secular “kids will kill the planet” talk that is common in the world,

“The kids I’m going to raise are going to lift a million burdens. Christian, you’ve got to believe that bringing kids into the world and being brought up in the Lord, makes them burden-lifters not burden-adders. They are in the world to lift the world, to save the world, to love the world. You’re not just adding dead weight to the world when you bring a child up in the Kingdom. You’re bringing up lovers of people and servants of the world.”

Source video

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Must Own/Must Gift: Behold the Lamb of God

Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ

Gather ‘round, ye children come
Listen to the old, old story
of the power of death undone
by an infant born of glory
Son of God
Son of Man…

It may be enough to tell you that iTunes says that we have listened to this album about 230 times since we found it in 2008. It is Scripture simplicity in stunning lyrical form, and it has knocked my socks off. Beyond any other music, the effect that this album has had on my heart is almost unrivaled, coupled with the move in 2008, a wonderful new church, the realization of the beauties of The Jesus Storybook Bible…these things combined at once to open Scripture to me as I had never seen it. It enhances the beauty of the Old Testament and the incarnation as I had not known.

I meant to do a listing on TBAP of my favorite Christmas albums. I would need to figure out what to do Messiah, which has been shaping the world for a lot longer than this has, but this certainly is the top of my heap for anything written in the last 100 years…far and away.

You can get this on Amazon at the link above or below, but it’s also on iTunes and it’s also free to listen to online here (studio edition preferred but live edition included) and here (with lyrics). But the best place to buy it is straight from the artists (and it’s $2 cheaper than iTunes).

 

This is one in a series of posts this month of things, one at a time, that must be on your wishlist and on your giving lists. It will be mostly books, but it will be some of the best things available. I’m not trying to promote consumerism. I’m endorsing breadth and depth, and this is the month that you’re buying.

Give a hoot. Don’t miss any of them. Here are the others.

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Artificial Missions

Here’s a really good article about how how the work of missions is becoming increasingly humanitarian and the Gospel is being treated as an afterthought:

But the term “missions” itself now carries with it a negative connotation, even in politically and theologically conservative circles. Christians today typically travel abroad to serve others, but not necessarily to spread the gospel.

He calls these workers “vacationaries,” those who idea are that missions is primarily about service and humanitarian needs, not first the Gospel.

Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal:

How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire

 

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Must Own/Must Gift: A Gospel Primer

A Gospel Primer: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love

Bound for Heaven as you may be, you do not yet well-know what you were, are or will be. The Gospel is our bread, hope, and life. This small book should be studied by every Christian as a rich source of condensed Gospel talk.

After pages of careful explanation, the book concludes with a bonus section of prose and a section of poetry that both concisely summarize the entirety of the book. It’s a great feature.

Nothing should be more prominent and preeminent in our lives than Gospel truth and living. This book is an essential means to aid toward this end.

This is one in a series of posts this month of things, one at a time, that must be on your wishlist and on your giving lists. It will be mostly books, but it will be some of the best things available. I’m not trying to promote consumerism. I’m endorsing breadth and depth, and this is the month that you’re buying.

Give a hoot. Don’t miss any of them. Here are the others.

 

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Planting and Reaping Humility

This post is directed to pastors but is equally applicable to all of us. They speak to How to Cultivate Humility…

• Surround yourself with other men who will speak with brutal honesty into your life.
  

 

• Encourage your wife to be supportive, but unimpressed with you.

• Live as if at any moment you could sin and destroy your ministry.

Read fuller answers at the link: How does a pastor cultivate humility in his life?

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How to Serve Your Church Today

Before the Service

• Read the passage in advance
• Pray for the gathering
• Greet newcomers (act like you are the host)
• Think strategically about who you should sit with
• Arrive Early

During the Service

• Sing with gusto (even if you can’t sing)
• Help with logistics (if there’s a problem, help fix it)
• Don’t be distracted
• Listen carefully
• Be aware of your facial expressions (you may affect others and discourage preachers)

After the Service

• Connect newcomers with others
• Get newcomers information
• Start a conversation about the sermon
• Ask someone how they became a Christian
• Stay late

– From the 9 Marks Blog

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Waking Up in Glory [Repost]

Tomorrow is the 2nd year anniversary of the death of Clair R. Hayward, my grandpa. I would have mentioned it here tomorrow, but since I’m getting such a positive pounding today of links from Challies’ recommendation, I would like to post my whole tribute again in hopes that more will be encouraged by the stature of a quiet, steady leader.

______________________________________

Thursday morning my Grandpa woke up with new good legs, new strong arms, a new full voice, and newfound joys. He sees God in His glory. He’s singing again today and adjusting to his eternal home. His joy is beginning to bud and will always increase.

“But just think of stepping on shore and finding it Heaven,

of touching a hand and finding it God’s,

of breathing new air and finding it celestial,

of waking up in glory and finding it home.”

He was a wonderful, warm, generous, loving, gentle man of real, lively faith. He was a real example of “love with shoes on” in that he lived what he believed and it affected everything.

God laid him low three autumns ago with a stroke that limited his speech and slowed his body. Those days were arduous for us and him. In the hours after that first stroke, when his speech was starting to slur, he was offering me instructions for the moment and for life. I wish I could have understood all of his words. His clearest speech that day was the mandate to take care of grandma. I spent several nights with him in ICU, and he shocked the doctors and his family by surviving. He was mostly silent for the last three years, but we loved birthdays when we knew that grandpa would sing Happy Birthday along with the rest of us [singing and talking are generated in different parts of the brain]. In the waning years, as my boys were growing up, I cherished the way that he cherished them. Through his physical want, he always put on a happy, loving smile and gentle hands when my boys walked through the door. He lost his physical capabilities, but not his cheery, loving heart.

He was a teacher of the best sorts of things. He taught me how to read a map and be his navigator. From the backseat, I learned to give the best sorts of directions and location declarations. I think I traveled with grandma and him to Florida probably six times, Colorado twice and Grand Marais bunches.

He taught me how to spit like a man when I was very young sitting in the back seat of their Dodge Omni tooling down to Florida. Whenever he rolled down his window to spit, I was sure to do the same. I learned that to avoid a wet face, you had to spit hard from the back of your mouth when you were traveling 65 miles an hour.

He taught me to be faithful, steady and quiet. You always knew where he was going to be on Sunday. No questions. I always knew he would be working hard on every job he was given or that he gave himself. He was a first-rate mechanic, wise deacon, knowledgeable Sunday School teacher. He was always in his place. Grandma remembers that he only ever missed one day of work (the road was blocked both ways during a snowstorm). He was always where he should be. I knew to look for him in the barn when we arrived every Friday evening for spaghetti, Pepsi, popcorn and fudge.

One sunny Saturday, grandpa opened the barn doors and brought out the old ’73 Charger. He told me to get in. I remember the feel of the white vinyl and the stale smell of having been sitting in storage. He showed me she could still move fast. I remember holding on for dear life as we flew through the countryside. He looked over at me, saw my expression and slowed way down. He said, “We should put on our seatbelts. It would be really embarrassing if we were killed in an accident.” We did, and he was off again.

“A faithful man shall abound with blessings.”

He could be stern and calm at the same time. I found that out every time I was foolish with the motorbike, go-kart or BB gun.

One of the coolest days of my life was when, as a 12 year old, I flew from Kalamazoo to Chicago to Jacksonville all by myself. It was a ton of fun and part of the enjoyment was that on every leg of the journey, the stewardesses and the airport hosts were calling me Clair Hayward. I was using his ticket.

“No man was ever shot by a woman while he was washing dishes.” — Grandpa had this motto hanging at eye level by the kitchen sink

Some would travel the world for him. Grandma did. At 17 years old, she took a ship to England to marry him (he was stationed at Ipswich in the Air Force). Grandma was his faithful and dear wife who cared for him gently and respectfully in all his travails. She was a wonderful example of a sweet, patient helpmeet. They made a wonderful pair for 56 years.

Today was a wonderful day. Nearly 500 people gathered together and shared wonderful memories that made us roar with love. We sang heartily. We wept real sorrow. We belly-laughed. We were thankful together to have known him.

And now I live happy with my memories of him, glad that my oldest boys will remember him and that he was a man who loved his God, family and church entirely. I can unashamedly seek to emulate him and point my boys to his example and, like him, strive to be faithful to the end.

UPDATE: On 9/3/09, after four boys, Christie and I welcomed a little girl into our home. She is a sweet and precious gift. We named her Claire.

[Original post - with tribute comments]

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How to Encourage Missionaries During the Holiday Season

William Carey

Thanksgiving and Christmas are approaching. Before you put your holiday stupor on, you should purposefully remember to remember your missionaries. It’s generally the off-season for our concern for missions work, and we need a reminder that our dear friends are spread abroad doing beautiful work, laboring for Christ’s sake.

Here are some practical ways that you can love your missionaries:

1. Pray. Make it regular, specific, and important. This is your best work for them.

Don’t blow past this. Commit to pray for missionaries and tell them so. Tell them what hour or what day you will commit to praying. List for them the things that you pray for them about.

Pray for their kids by name, their co-laborers (or for some to come), their parents in the States. Pray for their financial burdens. Pray for the names of those they are ministering to.

I have always said that I have no idea how or why God has carried me over so many funny and hard places, and made these hordes of people submit to me, or why the Government should have given me the privilege of a Magistrate among them, except in answer to prayer made at home for me. It is all beyond my comprehension. The only way I can explain it is on the ground that I have been prayed for more than most. Pray on, dear one — the power lies that way. — Mary Slessor

2. Send them something.

Emails are great. They are encouraging and welcomed. But send your missionary something tangible, too. Add them to your Christmas card list. Send them birthday cards (send them to their kids, too). Send them a thank-you letter for sharing the Gospel.

My friends Ben and Sarah Layer are in Siedlce, Poland (population, 77,000). This is their neighborhood market.

Send the missionary something special. Special doesn’t mean rare, expensive and exotic. It means here, “hard to procure in their area.” It could be an ingredient or mix or candy. It could mean a small board game, a CD or movie, or something homemade. Be creative.

If you need ideas, ask them! Or call their sending church and ask their secretary, or find your missionaries’ mom–she knows what they would like.

It takes about 10 days to deliver a letter or package to New Zealand or Poland (by way of examples). Get it in the mail early.

3. Send them something intangible, too.

Missionaries love Amazon Gift Cards, iTunes Gift Cards, Audible.com credits, and other online gifts. Gifts from these vendors can arrive instantly and be instantly useful. This is very simple, but these are a joy to receive. Amazon especially offers such a wide range of choices (from instant downloads of music and Kindle books to books, gifts for the home, tools, and much more).

If you purchase a card in your own name, you will need to accurately copy the code when you notify the missionary of his gift.

Amazon gift cards are my preferred gift. Nothing says, “thank you for bearing the Gospel on my behalf,” like an Amazon gift card. — William Carey

Donating frequent flyer miles, restaurant gift certificates (they don’t all live in the bush, but you will have to check to make sure it will work globally) or Skype gift certificates are also often helpful.

A lot of missionaries enjoy the advantages of electronic book readers. You could offer them a lot of convenience if you sent them one of these beauties.

4. Up your support.

Christmas is a great season to receive a financial bonus. Missionaries have higher expenses during December just like you do. Cash is a simple gesture that can be used in so many ways. Sending cash through PayPal can be done with no fees to the sender or receiver. Proper protocol would usually have you send the support to their sending agency.

You can also lend support by “friending” them on Facebook. Join their ministry fan pages, visit their websites, leave comments and encouragements for them…but send money, too.

5. Encourage them in the Gospel.

Let the words that you pen and type and say to your missionary friends ring full of Gospel. Remind your missionaries that the Gospel is true and it brings new life and hope. Exhort them with your strength to maintain their strength in Christ.

Jeremy and Bonnie Ruth Farmer are on deputation to go to Cambodia. (solidjoys.com)

6. Envy them.

You know what I mean, I hope. You have your calling and they have theirs, but theirs is such a special and radical departure from your sort of normal. They have struggles you cannot know, unless you’ve been there [visiting your missionaries would make a great #7]. The support structure you enjoy to help you with your burdens, babysitting, encouragement needs, shoulders to cry on is almost always not there for missionaries.

In a way, they have forsaken everything. Their parents, friends and church home are so far away.

So why envy them? Because Scripture honors them (and their beautiful feet) so highly. Honor them for the joy that is theirs and the promises they have to claim as they go.

I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give. I do not suppose there is one that I have not experienced, but I can tell you that those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me. – C.T. Studd

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There are so many more ways. Some of them are things that may be better done by the local church collectively. Leave your comments. What are more ways to encourage our missionaries in this coming season?

 

 

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Random Act of Culture

Imagine taking the The Messiah to Macy’s. Well part of it did go there. Two Saturday’s ago 650 singers “spontaneously” sang the “Hallelujah Chorus” to the shoppers in the Philadelphia Macy’s, and it was pretty spectacular.

The camera work is annoying, but the sound is good. It’s also disturbing when dirty vessels carry clean water.

Sadly, many of the shoppers took the music as a restful delight, instead of disturbing truth intended to make them repent.

More info

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The People Who Live UNDER Las Vegas

Need a mission field?

Approximately 1,000 people live in the flooded tunnels underneath Sin City.

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Tormented by Obedience

In an effort to try to comprehend a bit of what Abraham must have endured on his trek up Moriah to sacrifice his son, R.C. Sproul recounts the closest he’s come to doing the same thing, and it’s gripping…

Two days later I came home from a lecture, and my wife told me gently, “It’s over. Hosie’s gone.” I wept.

The Journey to Mount Moriah

HT: Challies

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Let the Good Things Run Wild

What a stunning end to rule-making!

“And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order
was to give room for good things to run wild.”

G.K. Chesterton

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How to Mother Children for the Purposes of Christ

Young mother, it seems like everyone wants something from you. And you’re probably already giving way more than you ever thought you could give. But even with all your giving, you might struggle with guilt—lingering, joy-drenching, energy-sapping guilt—that you should be doing more, giving more, accomplishing more.

Read the rest of Missional Mothering by Jami Ortlund.

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Teaching Children About Money

Here is an outline of Randy Alcorn’s article on ways that parents can help their kids learn to think biblically about money.

1. Give your children something greater than money—your time.

2. Use life’s teachable moments to train your children.

3. Take a field trip to a junkyard.

4. Teach your children to link money with labor.

5. Teach your children how to save.

6. Get your children started on the lifetime adventure of giving.

7. Provide your children with financial planning tools.

8. Teach your children how to say “No.”

9. Show your children how family finances work.

10. Never underestimate the power of your example.

Read the whole thing for an explanation of each of the points.

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Why Church History? A Guest Post

Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank. That is hardly what God had in mind.

So says Bruce Shelley, author of Church History in Plain Language. C.S. Lewis called his generation out on their chronological snobbery, that condition in which they/we are so nearsighted, that we almost refuse to look backward to the past. Consider the rare feat among so many to be able to name the names of even their own great-grandparents. They were vital to your history, and you may have even known them. But who were they and what were they about? What about their parents?

I love that my pastor, even though he cares deeply about his ministry, it’s vitality and the state of the flock, does not see our church as the center of anything or as an end of all woes. He sees it as the current, vital cog in the the mandate of God–a part in which we get to play. And just as important, he looks to the past as an important way of living for today and for the future Kingdom we will inhabit.

In our SS class, he is walking us through the history of the church from Christ through the Reformation, and I asked him to answer the question here for us, “Why Do We Need Church History?”

I hope that you will hear.

_____________________________

 

William Carey

 

I’m a pastor and I believe the people I shepherd need to have a rich and colorful understanding of church history. The story of the church needs to be told because it’s our story. It’s where we came from. Church buildings don’t just pop out of nowhere—every part of a worship service from the doctrinal statement to the hymnbook is the result of ideas and traditions being passed down for centuries in the minds and hearts of believers. When we know that history, the entire experience of worship and church life becomes richer and more meaningful—and much more likely of being preserved.

Our connection with other believers (past and present) should be stronger than even familial and national loyalties. I love my country and I am proud to claim John Adams and George Washington as part of my national heritage, but in comparison, I am much more a son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and my communion with Paul, Augustine, and John Bunyan is eternal, not temporal. When we stand together on Sundays and recite the Apostles’ Creed, we are linking arms with something much bigger than ourselves. Our American history is full of providence and mighty acts of God, no doubt, but it is still merely a truncated version of the whole story. A lot of us grew up with more pride in our American heritage than our religious heritage, and we need to change that.

For the church to rally, we have to pass on a heritage that evokes a visceral response, emotionally charged with love and loyalty. The hearts of believers have to be trained to love and hate the right things. If the church is to be preserved, the next generation has to give it more than a head nod—it has to love it fiercely and defend it against its enemies. Our story is full of heroes and tales of bravery, integrity and self-sacrifice. If we want our kids to love the church, then we have to tell them the whole story.

The church is changing a lot right now and the history of the church gives us stability. It gives us a point of reference that grounds us, stabilizes us and gives us certainty as we look out into a quickly changing world. There is nothing new under the sun and every heresy is just an old heresy repackaged for our time. I really believe that the church’s best inoculation from false teaching is simply an awareness of the church’s past. Most of our questions have already been asked and answered, but our ignorance keeps us searching around in circles for answers. We can only stand on the shoulders of giants if we study the past.

The last, but immensely important, reason that we must know our history is simply gratitude. Abigail Adams wrote: “Posterity, who are to reap the blessings, will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and suffering of their ancestors.” Our generation’s lackadaisical attitude about church shows that this is sadly true. We owe our ancestors a debt of gratitude and the least we can do is not forget what they did for the church. As the anniversary of the Reformation approaches, it is with great love and pride and gratitude that I remember Martin Luther and the hundreds of other reformers who sacrificed all this world’s pleasures for the sake of the church. Their legacy inspires me to work hard and persevere. It keeps me from getting too tied to this world and this time and this place. It reminds me of our future home where all the church will be united and God’s plan throughout history will be made clearer than we see it now. And it is there that I want to be found faithful in working hard to preserve the only lasting institution of this world: the Church.

– Samuel Gage is the pastor of Charity Baptist Church in Joelton, TN.

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Guess What The Miners Shirts Said?

Not all the miners wore them out of the cave, but some did. They were full of praise to God. The front expressed thanks to God. The verse on the back of the shirt is Psalm 95.4,

In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

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Sometimes You Need to Be Told What You Are Supposed to Care About

At least that’s what they imply on every commercial, and that’s what I’m doing now–telling you what to think. This month there will be some emphasis put on church history on TBAP. Early church history is the topic of this quarter’s SS lessons, I’m reading two books on it, and my pastor has written an article that will be posted here next week.

It’s not because I’m proficient or wise on the matter that it is emphasized, but rather, because I fear spiritual myopia/amnesia. Let us fear this state:

Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank.

Bruce Shelley

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Screwtape Letters

I own this set, but haven’t heard it yet. This video reminded me to chuck it to the front of my queue on my audio book listening.

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All the Good You Can

Christians are to be eager and enthusiastic in dreaming up ways to do good for others. We are to not just to do good when the opportunity comes to us—although we are to do it then, also—but we are to think hard about ways we can be proactive in serving people. And we are to do this because we are excited about it and because we love to, rather than begrudgingly.

Matt Perlman writing for Desiring God, Christians Are to be Proactive in Doing Good

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Christians and Halloween

It’s a month away, and we have spent almost a full month getting hammered by the black and orange advertising in the stores. Halloween 2010 is almost upon us.

Honestly, there’s not much I like about Halloween and never has been (except Almond Joy). I used to rebel as a kid when it was time to head to fall festivals dressed up as Bible characters. I would go dressed like a tennis player (so I could serve in the King’s court) or a bandit (thief in the night) trying to avoid wearing another shepherd-still-in-his-bathrobe scene that the church was already full of.

As an adult, I have tried to avoid the whole scene too, even before kids. Christie and I have sat in the dark and ignored the knocking before, and that was probably wrong on our part. We were wasting Halloween.

The last few years, I see how I’ve been wasting it. This article I read yesterday was very helpful:

Living with missional intentionality means that you approach life as a missionary in your context.

We should creatively engage our neighbors with the Gospel. This is a great way to get started (read those last three words again).

Read the article here: Why All Good Christians Should Celebrate Halloween

And this is the same tone, Halloween – Trick or Retreat?

The first link requires an HT to Tim Challies, and he authored the second article (2007).

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Sacrifice

The idea of sacrifice has come up recently in SS and in my cousin’s blog. I’ve been musing about it, whether God requires it, whether it must be a constant state of mind, whether it exists at all (yes, it obviously does). For the last decade, the first thing I’ve thought of when I hear the word is the end of David Livingstone’s lecture at Cambridge where he said,

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?-Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?-Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in, and for, us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.

Here’s the rest.

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The Gospel Song

Beautiful simplicity transforms lives.

Here are the lyrics:

Holy God in love became
Perfect Man to bear my blame
On the cross He took my sin
By his death I live again.

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On the Cusp of the New World

While still aboard the Arabella, not quite yet landed to settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop preached his famous message “A Model of Christian Charity.” It is most famous for the reference to “A City Upon a Hill”–a reference which Reagan used repeatedly. But it also contained one of the most beautiful sentences ever spoken in English:

We must delight in each other, make other’s conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.”

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David and Goliath is About Me and My Problem, Right?

No, the Bible isn’t about you. Watch the whole video.

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This Morning’s Prayer

Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring my will to thine, and that without this it is folly to pray; when I try to bring thy will to mine it is to command Christ, to be above Him, and wiser than He: this is my sin and pride.

Help me not only to desire small things but with holy boldness to desire great things for thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show Thy glory.

–Valley of  Vision

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