More than Words: Vision

The book of Proverbs is all about wise living. This week in our worship services we will discover the wisdom of following the vision that God gave to the prophets. The text is Proverbs 29.18

We begin with the song More than Words from Youtube. You can get your own preview here. From there we get some live music followed by a drama/video. Music that focuses on God our need to honor him comes after a opportunity to greet each other. This week as part of our singing the kids are going to be joining us for a couple of songs and leading us in a song of worship as well.

During our announcement time we hope that our skype account will work once again so we can have a conversation with our High School group in Chicago. They are spending the weekend volunteering for an inner city baseball league.

Our offering comes next followed by the message and prayer.

After the message we all have the joy of making our pledges to this coming ministry year.

We'll close with a song and then go off to continue our service of God in our daily lives.

Reality

I'm reading Tim Keller's book The Reason for God. As I was reading it I was reminded of the book of Proverbs (which we are studying right now at EverGreen). Keller writes, "In ancient times it was understood that there was a transcendent moral order outside the self, built into the fabric of the universe. If you violated that metaphysical order there were consequences just as severe as if you violated physical reality by placing your hand in a fire. The path of wisdom was to learn to live in conformity with this unyielding reality." Proverbs is a book that is all about learning the path of wisdom in light of God's transcendent moral order. I've been struck in the study of this book how much pain people would avoid if they learned the wisdom of Proverbs and put it into practice. On an almost daily basis I hear a story on NPR or listen to someone speaking or check out my own life and then read Proverbs and think, "if only they had/I had learned this wisdom and lived it--how much pain would have been avoided.
Along with Keller's book I'm reading Culture Matters a book that is looking to find a place where Christians can gather to engage the culture. Part of his book argues that we need not only to critique culture but we need to create healthy culture--something that reflects the wonders of Augustine's City of God As I read his call for healthy cultural creation my mind again went to Proverbs as an excellent place to start. Proverbs 31 especially is helpful in this as we are introduced to the perfect wife who in reality is the perfect picture of how a wise person lives out a life of cultural engagement that flows from the fear of the LORD.

Gone Missing

Obviously I've been away from the blog for a bit. Sorry about that. The main reason for my absence is the possible housing change for our family. A few weeks ago we decided that we needed to find a new place to live for a variety of reasons. In a moment a lot of free time was gone--including blogging and thinking about blogging time. You can see the picture of the house that has been consuming my time for the last few weeks. There's not the mortgage, selling our house, and getting furniture for a larger place. We hope all of this will come together in the next month and life will return to its normal crazy pace.
By the way, the move is not long distance. The new place is about 1/2 mile from the old one. The new place though has the advantage of being new (about 18 months old) and not being so musty with some odors that seemed to really bug Chris and make him feel sick.
Thanks for your patience...I'll be writing more often in the days to come.

Authentic

Our revolution series comes to a close this Sunday with a look at Revolution in Authentic Spirituality.  The text for the morning in Proverbs 31.10-31.  The wife in this hero's song is presented as the perfect picture of how to live a life of wisdom.

Our morning starts with the song "Revolution" followed by a conversation about how people have seen others as examples of what it means to live a life of wisdom.  After a moment to greet each other we'll be heading into a time of worship through song.  We continue our worship with the giving of our gifts and then a powerpoint that simply asks the question "Spiritual?"  The message begins with a bit of help from the dictionary (or lack there of) on what it means to be a spiritual person.  

After the message we again turn our hearts toward God in song and then he dismisses us into the world to do his work.

Washington Week

As we get into the final week of primaries what better time to talk about a Revolution in Washington?    The text this week is from Proverbs 16.10-15.   We'll be looking at the attributes that God looks for in a good candidate.

Our service starts out with a focus on revolution and then we get a little flavor of a presidential debate.   Out of that moment we will head into praising God in song.   From songs to continued praise with the giving of our gifts.   

The message opens with a bit of YouTube fun looking at political ads.  You can check one of them out here.

We will close our service with song.

Make sure to check out the helpful voter info in the bulletin.   If you haven't registered to vote you can head to the table in the courtyard where we have all you need to get into the american political process.

See you Sunday.

It's a Job Sunday

Revolution in the Workplace is where we are heading this Sunday. We go back to the wisdom of Proverbs, this time to learn about the ant in Proverbs 6.6-11 .  As we'll discover in the 21st century there seem to be two basic ways to look at work--one of which may be represented by the book at the left.  Which if either of these two views should we be going after?

The Seven Dwarfs get us off to a start with a bit of  "Hi Ho",  then an introduction to the topic of the day and worship through song.  Our offering comes next (our corners offering is for forgotten man ministries).   The next thing we get to hear is a man on the street interview about people's attitude toward their work.  This will bring us into the message for the day--which will start by looking a lot of things on stage.  Our service concludes with singing and receiving God's blessing.

Just a reminder that after the services there will be a job fair and that beginning April 20 our church administrator, Jim Johnson, will be teaching on ROLES--a way of discovering what God is calling us to do in the world of work.

Understanding Christians and Culture shaping

Andy Crouch does a great job of giving insight into different ways of looking at culture.  The Youtube is a part of a speech that you can find complete at the Fermi Project's Website