Phones and Internet Return

From the first days in our facility we've battled phone and internet problems. It seems we are down every couple of months for 3-5 days. Such was the case this past week. We dropped phone and internet on Sunday morning and they finally had them fixed on Thursday evening. One of our goals over the next month is to see if there are any alternatives to our present systems. The problem is not with our carrier, but with the actual wires, substations (last time we were out, a mouse had chewed through the lines. It paid with its life, we paid with no service) and other hardware external to us. So our search begins...

Sunday Preview

This Sunday our scripture is from Psalm 118.22-24; Ephesians 2.19-22; and 1 Timothy 3.14-15

We'll begin the service with an interesting combination of two videos: Talledega Nights and The Jesus Film. I encourage you to be on time to see and hear what's happening.

At the end of the video we'll hear words from the Nicene Creed that talk about who Jesus is.

With the words about Jesus in our minds, ears, and hearts it will be time for a service intro that will tell us a bit about what's going on and then an opportunity to greet each other.

The songs for the day begin with the Christmas Carol "Hark the Herald Angel's Sing", the next song celebrates the work of Christ on the cross and so our redeemer and the founder of our faith. Some of the song:
Turn your ear
To Heaven and hear
The noise inside
The sound of angels
The sound of angel¡¯s songs
And all this for a King
We could join and sing
"All to Christ the King!"

How constant
How divine
This song of ours will rise
Oh, how constant
How divine
This love of ours will rise
Will rise...

CHORUS:
O praise Him!
O praise Him!
He is Holy!
He is Holy, yeah!

Turn your gaze
To Heaven and raise
A joyous noise
Oh, the sound of salvation come
The sound of rescued ones
And all this for a king
Angles join to sing
"All for Christ the King!"

During our offering/prayer time we'll be hearing from the Sledrics who are here from Uganda. We'll also be mentioning that our Next Step class will be offered after the service. Next Step is an opportunity to find out how to get involved in ministry.

The Message "in this corner" will explore whether or not we need designated drivers in our lives.

The closing song "In Christ Alone" reminds that Christ is central to our faith and life.

See you Sunday.

Irony

Christmas morning I spoke about how we see Jesus as "sweet Jesus" rather than seeing him fully. Christmas afternoon in our white elephant gift exchange what did I receive from my brother? In his own words "sweet baby Jesus". It's a Christmas ornament that made its second year appearance at our family gathering.

Bread of Life

Jesus in John 6 declares that he is the bread of life. It's a great picture. When one thinks on the smell of fresh bread and how appealing that is or the taste of a great bread from Panera, it makes Jesus all the more appealing. In his declaration that he is the bread of life there is the promise of life (which in John's gospel means eternal life that begins now and will be fulfilled in all of its wonder when Jesus returns). In reflecting on what this "life" is all about it struck me that to truly understand it we have to understand the death that has come through the fall of Adam and Eve. If we don't understand how life was lost and what was lost we find ourselves putting all of our ideas into what life is rather than putting God's content into life. It seems to me that we do that constantly as we define life according to the values of our culture i.e. what looks like life to our culture begins to look like life to us and so we believe that is the life Jesus is talking about. There's an interesting book that runs a parallel course with this thinking. The title is simply "Happiness". It traces what different cultures and different times have thought would bring happiness. It's amazing how different our concept of happiness is than say that of Greek society 2000 years ago. The movement of what makes for happiness reminds us that there is also a movement of what we believe makes for a really good life. So to hold on to what Jesus means when he tells us that he is the bread of life it seems that we need to go back to what brought death, back to the fall of Adam and Eve. Without that touchstone we can find ourselves believing all kinds of things about what "life" is, rather than finding out what "life" truly is according to God. When we go back to Adam and Eve what we find is that what was lost (at minimum) is a connection with God, a connection with each other, a connection with wisdom, and a connection with God's creation. The Heidelberg Catechism says,
Lord's Day 3
Q & A 6
Q. Did God create people
so wicked and perverse?
A. No.
God created them good^1 and in his own image,^2
that is, in true righteousness and holiness,^3
so that they might
truly know God their creator,^4
love him with all their heart,
and live with him in eternal happiness
for his praise and glory.^5
^1 Gen. 1:31
^2 Gen. 1:26-27
^3 Eph. 4:24
^4 Col. 3:10
^5 Ps. 8
Q & A 7
Q. Then where does this corrupt human nature
come from?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,
Adam and Eve, in Paradise.^1
This fall has so poisoned our nature^2
that we are born sinners—
corrupt from conception on.^3
^1 Gen. 3
^2 Rom. 5:12, 18-19
^3 Ps. 51:5

Life in Christ is the restoration of what was lost in the fall. If we focus on that we find the life that Jesus offers as the bread of life. As we do so it strikes me as important to realize that what was lost in the fall and what brings life is not only a broken relationship with God but also all of these other things that were lost. If we miss the wholeness of the picture of life we miss life.

One last things that throws a bit of wrench into the whole deal, while "life" begins in a garden in Genesis it ends with life being restored in a city (Revelation 21-22). That movement reminds us that there is some kind of overall movement in what is true life. It seems that God wants us to do some serious thinking about how life can begin in a garden and end in a city and both of these things be true life.

Getting Ready for Sunday

First things first, our text for Sunday comes from Psalm 78.19-31 and John 6.1-40. We will be focusing almost exclusively on John 6, but the Psalm 78 passage serves as background and there are overall wonderful connections. As you get ready you might want to think about what the numbers 5000, 5, 2, and 12 symbolize in John's gospel. You can also think about why the people want to make Jesus king.

The theme for the morning is American Jesus: Revolutionary Jesus

As you walk in Sunday morning breath in, hopefully you will smell fresh baked bread (see John 6 for the reason why). Make sure you get a piece of bread as you walk in to the auditorium.

Enjoy as well the sounds of the season in the courtyard as Terry Carter's band plays.

Our service start with two carols of the season. Notice the richness of the words as they describe both Jesus, his work, and who he is as both human and divine. The last song of the set celebrates Jesus as our redeemer. The words of the song are:
You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death
You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death

I was a hungry child
A dried up river
I was a burned out forest
And no one could do anything for me
But You put food in my body
Water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches,
You brought the springtime
Green of a new life
And nothing is impossible
For You

Pay close attention to these words as we will connect with them in the last part of the message as we talk about Jesus' revolution of life that overcomes death.

After the songs we will spend time in prayer. Adam and I will be picking up more of the service, including this prayer than we normally do because Pastor Tom is sick and Jodi is filling in for him teaching the 101 class.

The offering is next. Rather than the offering being a pause in the service it is actually a time when we participate in worship by giving to God in a very concrete way. The Psalmist asks, "what shall I render to the Lord for all his gifts to me?" His answer is to bring a sacrifice to God. So our worship, if it is full, brings a sacrificial offering to God.

We will again go to God in prayer for the needs of our world and ask him to open our hearts and minds to his word.

When the prayer is done get ready for a bit of the Beatles Their song "Revolution" begins the message:
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

The song revolution introduces our desire to have a revolutionary Jesus--but on our terms.

We will end our message with prayer and then join in more songs of the season.

See you Sunday!

Added thoughts

I preached today about Jesus' call to think, ponder and understand the kingdom so that we can bring about kingdom results. Here are a few added thoughts:
1. The idea that I am part of a field is important because it alerts us to the reality that the harvest does not just come from me. In fact, the harvest depends on all kinds of faithful people working together to bring about the results that God desires for his kingdom. (notice that the words that the NIV renders, “produces a crop” literally mean to “bear fruit” which is an idiom in the Greek for “to cause results to exist — ‘to produce results, to cause results.’”). This idea is wonderful to remember because even if our lives don’t seem to produce a great harvest (think of James who is killed early in the book of Acts by Herod, what harvest did he have or of Abraham who dies with only one child of promise), when we look at our lives combined with others in the field we see great things happen because of a community that is willing to “understand”.
2. The whole idea of “understanding” i.e. pondering, thinking deeply about the kingdom as essential for us to remain faithful to the kingdom and to bring results may seem unlikely to many. Many people just want to do and not to think very deeply about what they are doing. But what they fail to realize is the power of ideas to shape and mold us, our lives, and even the world around us. A negative example of this is the Khmer Rouge—this group came out of students talking and thinking in Paris.
3. For some people the thought of thinking may seem daunting, perhaps even unfair. After all, some people are not skilled at thinking (e.g. the mentally impaired) and to say that they have to think in order to bring a harvest for the kingdom just seems wrong. What we need to realize is that God calls us first of all to think in community. For those who God has not gifted in this area, they defer to the wisdom of others—much like I defer to the wisdom of a plumber. At the same time God does call on each of us to think to the extent that he has gifted us.

Sunday's Coming

We are in our second week of American Jesus. Last week we looked at why it's a big deal to believe that Jesus is God like the Father is God. This week we are focusing our attention on "Simple Jesus".

Here's what's happening this Sunday:

We open with a fun and funny drama "Yourway Church of the Customizable Jesus" --as you can tell from the title, it's about people's desire to get the Jesus they want.

As you join in singing the opening songs the first song "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" calls us to worship. The second song speaks of the wonder of God, the reason we worship him and the final song brings us to worship him. As you join in watch for this flow.

Our congregational prayer comes next along with the offering. There will be a video during the offering about Financial Peace University. Check your mailbox or the table by the mailboxes for more information.

After the offering we will again be praying. This prayer will focus on the needs of the world.

The message this week focuses on Psalm 78.1-4 and Matthew 13.34-35 (and the parable of the sower from Matthew 13). The message talks about how God seeks to communicate with us and how Jesus follows that same pattern of communication in bringing us a message that had been hidden from the beginning of creation. Tell your kids to keep their ears open for a little bit of Row, Row, Row your boat. As happens fairly regularly there is more message than time so the long version of the printed message is in the downloads section of EverGreen's website (www.egm.org). At the end of that message are a few added thoughts that I'll be posting on Monday.

The songs following the message are songs of dedication. As you sing pay attention to what you are actually promising and committing to. Singing is sung prayer according to John Calvin and so it carries the same weight as speaking a commitment to God.

One last thought--why not take a few moments/minutes on Sunday morning to get your heart ready for worship. You can read the texts for the day and pray for God to empower you to worship him in ways that please him. You can also show up a few minutes before worship so that you can settle in and focus on God.

See you Sunday!

Join the Conversation

For those of you who are EverGreen folks I want to invite and urge you to join two conversations. The first is with Pastor Tom at 4:45 on the next 2 Sundays. Tom is talking about the sacraments and how we understand them at egm. It's an opportunity to not only listen but also to ask questions. Since the sacraments are a means of God putting his grace into our lives it's important to know what they are all about.

The second conversation happens after the evening service. It's call "The Thirty". It's an opportunity to talk about the message, ask questions, get clarification on what was said etc. I lead this in the "sofa room". This a great time to take the message and make it more a part of our lives and to have the conversation help us to think more deeply and hopefully apply more fully what was said.

The great thing about both of these conversations is that by investing from 4:45 - 7:45 you have an opportunity to listen, think, question, dig deeply and so build your faith. As we'll discover this coming Sunday, understanding our faith through sustained thought and insight makes it possible for us to be fruitful.

So come and join the conversation.

Back the truck up

My New Testament reading is in the book of 1 Corinthians right now. This morning I came across a couple of verses that caused me to pause. Here they are,

1Cor. 7:18 Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision.
1Cor. 7:19 For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

Here's the pause--circumcision is a central command of God in the Old Testament, it is a sign of the covenant i.e. a really huge deal when it comes to being obedient to God (see Genesis 17). This comment by Paul tells us that there has been a radical and fundamental shift in what is and is not obedience in the light of the coming of Jesus (and the New Covenant) As such, an important conversation has to be held about what constitutes obedience. Such a conversation was held both in the church (see Acts 15) and in church history (Belgic Confession Article 25
The Fulfillment of the Law
We believe
that the ceremonies and symbols of the law have ended
with the coming of Christ,
and that all foreshadowings have come to an end,
so that the use of them ought to be abolished
among Christians.
Yet the truth and substance of these things
remain for us in Jesus Christ,
in whom they have been fulfilled.
Nevertheless,
we continue to use the witnesses
drawn from the law and prophets
to confirm us in the gospel
and to regulate our lives with full integrity
for the glory of God,
according to his will.)

Even with these historic understandings, the words of Paul prove stunning and call on us in the light of what the church of the past has taught to discover what obedience looks like in the New Covenant of Christ.

Christmas Tree Lights grr....

'nough said

Isaiah -- Uncomfortable

I'm reading the book of Isaiah in my OT reading time. I'm in Isaiah 5 and came to these words,

Is. 5:11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning,
that they may run after strong drink,
who tarry late into the evening
as wine inflames them!
Is. 5:12 They have lyre and harp,
tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts,
but they do not regard the deeds of the LORD,
or see the work of his hands.

Reading those words made me wonder what things we have that make for a great feast or a great time--but we have no regard for the deeds of God. Or putting it another way, what really good stuff do we have that consumes our time so that we don't have time to see God, his greatness, and the reality that what we are really supposed to want is his name and renown.

Spurgeon

The great 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote about our need to take seriously God's word with his own eloquent words,

"Men lend their ears to music, how much more then should they listen to the harmonies of the gospel; they sit enthralled in the presence of an orator, how much rather they should yield to eloquence of heaven."

Comments on Psalm 78

Pastor's appreciation

Linda and I thank all of you again for the cards and gifts that came our way during pastor's appreciation. We've taken the gifts and set them aside for special purchases and outings. I just wanted you to know a couple of things that we've used them for so far.

The first thing was a joyful purchase of a New Testament commentary set that I've wanted for a while. What made it even more joyful to my Dutch heart was it being 70% off... When it comes I'll mark each volume with egm and a reminder that it was a gift from you.

The other thing Linda and I did was enjoy a wonderful meal at Piper. We sat overlooking Lake Macatawa as the sun set and ate a great meal. The time was refreshing.

So thanks again. We are honored to serve with the people of EverGreen.

Sunday Preview

I'm going to try to do something new--as time permits--I want to start doing a Sunday preview to help us get prepared for worship. I'll do a bit of writing about the service and things to watch for...

This week we are starting a new series called "American Jesus". The full description of the series is on the getting dusty notes. If you look closely you'll see that the font used for "getting dusty" resembles the font from American Idol. Instead of American Idol our focus is on pictures of Jesus that Americans have used over the past 200 plus years. When you walk in the auditorium you will see five different pictures of Jesus that come from actual drawings/paintings of how people have tried to represent Jesus. One of the questions to ask yourself as you look at each picture is "do I agree with the picture?"

The pre service video during this series is from the History Channel, it's called "Christmas Unwrapped". The video will be running about 10 minutes prior to the service starts and tells a very different story of Christmas traditions than we might have imagined.

After we go into live music you will see more pictures of Jesus on the screen, the last one is perhaps the most well known --we'll talk just a bit about it as we move into the service.

As you join in singing praises to God this week notice the theme that focuses in on the attributes of God. The text for Sunday is from Psalm 102.25-27. The music seeks to connect with both the mood and message of those verses.
Psa. 102:25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
  Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.
27 But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.

At the end of the time of worship in Song we will be spending time in prayer for local concerns and in praise to God.

At the first service we are celebrating God's gift of leadership to the church. We will be installing elders and deacons. In the other two services we will introduce you to your new elders and deacons.

During the offering (which is a part of worship as we give back to God) we will be watching a short video on the work we are connected with in Colima, Mexico. Our corners offering this month is for Terry Carter and Crew as they head for Colima in Feb., the money will be used for supplies for the construction work and other needs of the orphanage.

After the offering its time again for prayer. This prayer will focus on the needs of our world. We have a strong desire to see not only our corner of the world, but God's rule over all and his power to change a world. Part of that is asking.

A Video "man on the street" interview comes next. Pay special attention to how people answer the last question that is asked.

The message for the day is "American Jesus: From Here to Eternity". You'll want to get out the message notes on Dusty as we take a closer look at Jesus in a way that makes some people's eyes glaze over at Christmas. Kids, watch for Pixar's Ratatouillie to show up in the sermon (on screen).

After we've learned about Jesus Christ, we will celebrate his supper this Sunday. Take a moment before the service to prepare for the supper.

See you for worship!

Archers

After yesterday's message (you can download the roughest of drafts at www.egm.org) some people felt the difficulty of pursuing God's standard of absolute righteousness. There was the true sense that we can never achieve the standard--which, of course, we can not. But our inability to reach the standard or in the language of yesterday, become the best archers we can, does not stop our striving for that goal. The Heidelberg Catechism says it well,
Q & A 127
Q. What does the sixth request mean?
A. "And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one" means,
By ourselves we are too weak
to hold our own even for a moment.^1
And our sworn enemies—
the devil,^2 the world,^3 and our own flesh—^4
never stop attacking us.
And so, Lord,
uphold us and make us strong
with the strength of your Holy Spirit,
so that we may not go down to defeat
in this spiritual struggle,^5
but may firmly resist our enemies
until we finally win the complete victory.^6
^1 Ps. 103:14-16; John 15:1-5
^2 2 Cor. 11:14; Eph. 6:10-13; 1 Pet. 5:8
^3 John 15:18-21
^4 Rom. 7:23; Gal. 5:17
^5 Matt. 10:19-20; 26:41; Mark 13:33; Rom. 5:3-5
^6 1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23

I also quoted John Calvin yesterday about the need for us to take moving forward in our faith seriously, ,"The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. Let nominal Christians cease from insulting God by boasting themselves to be what they are not, and let them show themselves disciples not unworthy of Christ, their master. We must assign first place to the knowledge of our religion, for that is the beginning of our salvation. But our religion will be unprofitable, if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures."

What I didn't quote of Calvin was his understanding of how difficult this can be and the celebration we should have when we make small steps, "But let everyone proceed according to his given ability and continue the journey he has begun. There is no man so unhappy, that he will not make some progress, however small. Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair because of the smallness of our accomplishments. Though we fall short, our labor is not lost if this day surpasses the preceeding one."

The only quibble I have with Calvin is I think we should not look at days, but longer term. We all know that not every day is better than the one before. But there should be a movement forward in the years of our lives so that we see a greater following after Christ now than we did last year or 10 years ago.

Thanksgiving

"There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

In herbs, trees, and fruit, besides being useful in various ways, he planned to please us by their gracious lines and pleasant odors.

Should the Lord have attracted our eyes to the beauty of flowers, and our sense of smell to pleasant odors, and should it then be a sin to drink them in?

In one word, has he not made many things worthy of our attention that go far beyond our needs? Ps. 104.15

-- John Calvin

Dog, Sicker than Part 2

Dropped by the doc today. I have bronchitis and possibly pneumonia. Since the treatment is the same for both we didn't do any more checking on the pneumonia side of things. A ten day run of antibiotics should do the trick.

Music that....

* It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together in family they play Mozart. --Karl Barth

* Mozart tells us what it's like to be human, Beethoven tells us what it's like to be Beethoven and Bach tells us what it's like to be the universe.
~ Douglas Adams

The short and the long of it

As my wife Linda can attest I usually have more material to cover on Sundays than I have time--she often has to endure all the footnotes and tidbits that I didn't get to say. This week is no exception. We are celebrating professions of faith, baptisms and new folks joining egm so I felt it best to make the sermon a bit shorter. But for those of you who are gluttons for punishment you can find the full printed version (but never the full version since I'm not completely done with a message until I preach it) in the downloads section of EverGreen's website www.egm.org

Dog, Sicker than a

Sorry about the lacks of posting for the last couple of weeks. I've been battling whatever the crud is that's popular right now. I was planning on being over it by now, but instead I keep coughing and hacking. Alas, I now plan on being better by Sunday. So soon I should be back full strength in the blogging world.

Influencing Culture

This Sunday at EverGreen we're going to talk a bit about influencing culture and the place of the cultural mandate (Genesis 1.28) and how we can lose being agents of this mandate that brings hope to our world and life to our bones. As part of that message I'll be quoting a short piece from Gabe Lyon's article "Influencing Culture". The rest of this article can be found at http://www.fermiproject.com/culture/

I also encourage those of you who are interested in culture formation and influence to check out the website of The Work Research Foundation www.wrf.ca, you can download (and sign up for podcasts of) their monthly Think cds. Make sure you follow the link to think and download their latest conversation on cultural transformation by one of the main movers behind the movie "Amazing Grace."

One of those days

I was reading in the book of Acts this morning and found that the reason the Paul and Barnabas leave Iconium is because there is a good possibility they will be stoned. After leaving Iconium they go to Lystra--where they are stoned. Bummer.

The Culturally Savvy Christian

I've been reading this book for the past week. I pulled some great thoughts out for my message on Sunday (I'm not that original, just a good researcher). Here is one part I would have loved to used, but, alas there was no more space in the message,

"So here's the deal. The largest companies in the world are hiring smart people and spending billions of dollars to drive a diversionary, mindless, celebrity-fueled popular culture down the highway of new technologies and into our lives in order to sell us stuff we don't want or need. They don't care about us, what we believe, or how we want to live. Their ads and products regularly reduce women to sex objects and men to voyeurs and predators. They are unconcerned with what is in our best interest spiritually or intellectually, and in fact, it is in their best interest to keep us spiritually desensitized and dumb. They play to our unhappiness, magnifying our feeling that we are missing something essential and that if we had this something that they offer we would be fulfilled. They then encourage us to shop, convincing us that shopping will do today what it failed miserably to do yesterday--fill what French religious philosopher Pascal calls our God-shaped vacuum.
Today's superficial popular culture is symptomatic of our human malaise, and technology, marketing, and the lust for profits simply spread our addiction and disease faster and further. For the first time in history it is possible for entertainment culture to distribute our spiritual sickness worldwide, producing a spiritual pandemic."

The Culturally Savvy Christian pp. 26-27

Reflecting on what Staub has to say I think that he is too negative toward pop culture. He doesn't seem to carry a heart for common grace nor for the positive side of what companies and businesses are doing. There is an assumption that none of these businesses are of good intent or led by well meaning Christ followers or well meaning non-Christians. I think that the Contemporary Testimony of the Christian Reformed church might have some play here,
51.
In our work, even in dull routine,[1]
we hear the call to serve our Lord.
We must work for more than wages,[2]
and manage for more than profit,[3]
so that mutual respect
and the just use of goods and skills[4]
may shape the work place,
and so that, while we earn or profit,
useful products and services may result.

But given these reflections, I still believe that Staub gives much for thought and reflection both in this quote and in his book.

This is Pastor appreciation? Not for Children's Eyes

The Latest

We saw Linda's surgeon today. He is pleased with the healing after her lumpectomy. We thankful that is going well, although Linda's arm continues to have a lot of pain. We are now moving on to the oncologist to look at further options.

Forgiveness

I've had the privilege of corresponding with a woman who was referred to me because of a ministry board that I am on. I've never met her and in fact she lives a couple thousand miles from Michigan. She has been struggling with issues of forgiveness because of an abortion and with relapses in drinking. I thought it would be worth posting my last e-mail to her as she struggles with issues of forgiveness.

Hi _____________,
Thanks for sharing your journey with me. It sounds like it has been an often painful one filled with many struggles. Rather than going right to the passages that you mention let me go instead to God's heart concerning two murderers in the Bible--King David in the Old Testament (he also commits adultery) and the Apostle Paul in the New Testament.

David kills Uriah to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba. God calls David into account for this sin--but then we read in 2 Samuel 12.13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die." God forgives David's sin, even the sin of murder. There will be consequences because of what he has done (sin does bring consequences), but God forgives him. But what is also of interest is that after he has committed this murder the Bible continues to see David in a positive light, as one who serves God. The prophet Isaiah some 300 years after David says, "I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of *David* my servant!" Isaiah 37.35 Even after David's failure he is called a servant of God. In the book of Acts we read, ** "After removing Saul, he made *David *their king. He testified concerning him: 'I have found *David* son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'" Acts 13.22 Almost a 1000 years after David has committed his sin of murder he is still known as a man after God's own heart. It seems to me that David could not be called God's servant or a man after God's own heart after he had committed murder unless there had been the forgiveness that is spoken of in 2 Samuel. For David murder is not the unforgivable sin.

When it comes to Paul himself he declares that, 12I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. 13Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.15Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. I Timothy 1 This life as a violent man is seen in its fullness in the book of Acts (Acts 22.4; 25.10) where Paul indicates that he had a part in killing Christians. In spite of this God not only forgives Paul, but makes his the apostle to the Gentiles.

At this point it may also be worth mentioning that Moses is a murderer (he kills an Egyptian) but God uses him to lead the people out of Egypt.

If murder is the unforgivable sin (which I do not believe it is, the only unforgivable sin is rejecting Jesus--so when we hear about a sin against the Holy Spirit that can't be forgiven, it means what can't be forgiven is believing the Jesus comes from the devil, rather than coming from God and being filled with the Holy Spirit), then God would have have forgiven these three of murder and certainly would not have used them to do great things in his kingdom.

Now to the specific texts that concern you. The text in Matthew 5 and in 1 John 3.15 are very similar. Notice that both are connected with hating a person i.e. to hate is to murder. If every person who hates is a murderer and every murderer is condemned, then there is no hope for any person on the planet, for which one of us has escaped hating others. In dealing with these texts we need to remember that John begins his whole book of 1 John by telling us the simple truth that we all sin, but when we confess our sin that the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from ALL our sin. (1 John 1.5-10). Of course murder is a big deal in the eyes of God (and so is hating others). He desires love to be the value of his new community not hate and murder, and he calls us to live those new values. But failing to live those values does not mean that there is no forgiveness, instead it means we have to go back to God and seek forgiveness and begin anew to live the values of the kingdom.

The other text in 1 John is the one concerning the "sin that leads to death". I believe that this sin is the same one that I mentioned before, a dogged refusal to accept Christ. Refusing to accept Christ leads finally to our eternal death i.e. hell, separation from God. All other sin is forgivable through the blood of Jesus. If you refuse Jesus, however, you refuse the very one who can bring forgiveness and so that sin leads to death.

The last text you mention is from 2 Peter. I would encourage you to notice the context of the passage--it is about false teachers who are leading God's people astray. So the first group (and central group) of people Peter is going after is false teachers. These are people who have apparently learned about the Christian faith, even taught about it, but now are leading followers of Jesus down the wrong path. In keeping with passages like Matthew 5.19 and Matthew 18.1-6 those who mess with the faithfulness of God's followers are called into the account and their punishment will be severe. So the context of the passage is not first of all about people who fall away and come back to God, but rather about teachers who say they are Christians, but are not and are leading God's people astray. Given this context it is questionable whether you can apply this to your situation of leaving Christ and coming back in at all. Better passages for your situation may well deal with the need for repentance and the wonder of God's forgiveness--even his waves of forgiveness that he gives after we've failed regularly (see the command to forgive in Matthew 18; if God commands us to forgive 70x7 will he not do the same?).

Two last thoughts. First, I encourage you to find a 12 step group as you deal with your alcohol abuse. At the church I serve we have more that 150 people in recovery and we've found that 12 step groups are a very important element in bringing hope.

Second, as you look at LDS remember that while it seems that all religions may seem to lead to God, that in fact, they have very distinct purposes. Christianity is the only faith in the world that teaches grace, that we have forgiveness, a relationship with God, and a part in his kingdom not through what we do, but through what Jesus has done. The goal of the Christian faith is for God to be our God, and for us to be his people living with him in joy and harmony. LDS takes a different look. LDS says through Jesus everyone is saved, brought to resurrection, but then it is up to us to determine our future. If we do well, it will be a great future, if we fail, it will be a miserable future. It is a religion of works. The end goal is not a relationship with God the Father and living with Jesus in a new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21), rather the goal is to become your own god, ruling over your own planet, even as elohim rules over earth. Or putting it another way, "As we are, god (elohim) once was...as god is, we can become."

Thanks for your questions, my prayers will be with you as you continue your journey.

Larry

With friends like these...

I've been making my way through Job for the last few days. Since I'm doing more dog walking because of Linda's health stuff my way of "reading" is to listen via my ipod. One of the great things about listening (which by the way, the Bible was originally designed not merely to be read but to be listened to and memorized) is you often hear things differently. One of the things that has really gotten through to me is the arrogance (and unhelpfulness) of Job's friends. They all spout the party line about why Job is struggling, they all point out that Job must be one very sinful guy to have all that has happened to him happen, they all do this--even though they have certainly observed his life and seen his faithful following after God. The conclusion they come to is something like, "Well sure you look like you follow God, but we know that can't be so because you are suffering--so you must have done nasty things in secret." Anyway, as I listened I really felt for Job and was reminded for myself that pious and sure platitudes in the midst of suffering do very little good. Probably the best things his "friends" did is what they did at first: they were so overwhelmed by his suffering that they sat with him and said nothing.

The other part of Job to keep in mind is that Job's friends are in fact spewing forth the accepted wisdom of their day, namely, the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. The book of Job is designed to raise the question of how do you deal with things when the righteous suffer, how do the righteous suffer and how do they deal with God in the midst of their suffering? What is most stunning is that the solution for Job's suffering and the pain of it, is not God telling him why he is suffering, rather it is a demonstration of the greatness of God. In the last chapters of Job is given a picture of God's greatness. When he sees that greatness he puts aside his demand to have his day in court. One has to wonder how seeing the greatness of God is a remedy for what we see as unjust suffering. Could it be that we have made God so close that we can no longer see him as truly great and because we cannot see him as great we can't deal with our suffering--except to demand an answer for it?

Linda's Broken Pelvis

Just a quick update from this summer's car accident. Linda went to the doctor yesterday to check on the progress of healing in terms of her broken pelvis. The x-ray showed that it is healed! The doc told Linda that it will be about 1 year before she is fully back to where she was before the accident, but he's lifted all restrictions on activities--a great thing. Now if we can just get her pain level down from the surgery for cancer...

Linda's Cancer

We received good news today. After totally missing Linda's tumor the first time, this time they got it all with good margins--which means no more surgery Yea! The tumor itself was small 3mm x 8mm. We are going to meet with an oncologist to discuss further treatment.

Thanks to all for your prayers and concern as we've been jumping from one crisis to another these last few months.

Canada

We had a great weekend in Canada attending the wedding of friends, Dan and Mira, as well as getting to spend time with our daughter Gayle. The weekend included some good rest, good food, and great conversations. For those of you who traverse the border from time to time a happy moment came in a quick border crossing in spite of the fact that it was Canadian Thanksgiving.

Times of Refreshing

I think that one of the greatest or at least most appealing lines in the Bible is in Acts 3 where Peter calls people to repent so that "times of refreshing may come". Who doesn't want to have times that are refreshing. It makes you think of diving into a cool pool on a hot summer's day or drinking that great cold drink after a hard run--refreshing. What I'm not sure I caught before is that the refreshing has at least two parts to it. First comes repentance which brings about a blotting out of our sins--refreshing! Next comes a refreshing new life by listening to and following the words of Jesus. Peter in this masterful message connects Jesus to Moses and the prophet that Moses said would be coming that the people were to listen to him (check out that at the transfiguration 9.35 that the Father makes this same connection when he tells us to "listen to him" i.e. Jesus). The cool thing is that when Peter uses this reference from Deuteronomy 18.15-19 is that he connects Jesus with the teachings of the Torah and the giving of the law on Sinai. Here's what it says in Dt. 18 15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' 17And the LORD said to me, 'They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him."
In making this connection Peter wants us to see that Jesus is the new Torah or God's new word to his people telling them how to live. Following that path brings times of refreshing, ignoring the path means being cut off from the refreshing that Jesus' teaching brings. Of course, for al of us this has a struggle to it--we actually have to believe (which means both saying with our mouths and doing with our lives) that Jesus' teaching is the way to a refreshing life. The second part of the struggle is to spend enough time studying the teaching of Jesus to discover that refreshing life. I know that I'm not alway in either of those places.

A family update

It's been quite a summer and fall for our family. You can check out the summer struggles by looking at those posts. For our fall deal we found out 2 weeks ago that Linda, my wife, has breast cancer. Her surgery last week went well--sort of. The good news out of the surgery is that there is no cancer in the lymph nods. The bad news is that somehow the main point of the surgery --to remove the cancerous lump--was totally missed. Yes, they took out only healthy tissue and missed the lump. How is this possible you ask, no one has a really good explanation--just theories. The bottom line was, "This has never happened before". While we like to break new ground, this is not one of the ways we want to do it. Linda's repeat surgery is scheduled for October 11. We are trying to find ways to assure there is not another "miss".

On a happier note, we are heading to Canada this weekend for a wedding of two great people, Dan and Mira. The added bonus is that Gayle will be flying in from Seattle for the wedding so we get to spend a couple of days with Gayle and Rob. I'll try to take some pics and put them up next week.

Just wondering

I started reading the book of Acts today and noticed something in the footnote of my esv Bible version, namely, that when it talks about Jesus' brothers being in the upper room praying (Acts 1.14) that the Greek word can mean and most likely in this case does mean siblings. So Jesus' brothers and sisters are in the upper room praying. In verse 15 when Peter stands up among the brothers the same words is used--so the crowd he addresses and calls brothers is actually a mixed crew of men and women. All of this reminds me of the radically inclusive nature of Jesus' ministry where both men and women can be and in fact are disciples (see Luke 8). Along with this come the words of Acts 2.41 where we are told about 3000 are added to the Christian community on that first day of Pentecost--unlike the distinction when Jesus feeds the 5000 where we are told that there are 5000 men besides women and children, here we find a unity. It seems as we move into the book of Acts the separation between men and women disciples is being broken down and now there is just one group--followers of Jesus (see Galatians 3.28).

Along with this I also wondered about another group -- kids. It is interesting how few times we find children central to the story in both the gospels and Acts, not to mention the epistles. Are they part of the 3000 counted in Acts 2? I wonder if the lack of children being mentioned connects with the OT idea (Dt. 6) that children are taught by their parents and the covenant community so that the adults learn and become disciples by being with the Apostles and then they carry this not only to the world, but also to their children. Children are not mentioned very often because they are second in line in receiving the message and Acts is about those who are first in line. Not sure if this is right, but I was just wondering.

Reading Thoughts

I'm making my way through 1 Kings and the gospel of John right now. I noticed a couple of things this morning.

First, in the book of Kings I'm at the point of the confrontation between Elijah and Ahab. After three years of drought they meet up and Ahab calls Elijah the "troubler of Israel" because Elijah is the one who has prayed for drought to be on the land. The truth, as Elijah points out, is that its Ahab whose caused the trouble. As I heard that I couldn't help but wonder how many of us blame our troubles on someone else when we are in fact the source of them, but we refuse to see it.

In the gospel of John I'm reading the story of the Samaritan women at the well. After she leaves Jesus tells his disciples that there is a harvest that is ready that they didn't do the work for but they get to enjoy its fruits. As soon as he's done saying that we're told that many believe because the Samaritan woman tells them about Jesus. What is cool here is that the work of planting the seed of the gospel is done by a despised Samaritan and not only a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman. It tells us about who God uses in his kingdom to spread the good news and makes us wonder when someone come to faith who actually did the work, while we get to enjoy the fruit.

Sunday's New Services

Just wanted to give all the egm folks an update on Sunday. We started our new Sunday schedule. It went pretty well. The study together time at 4.45 had about 100 people in attendance. Our "God's Celebrations" class had about 60 parents and kids. Our middle school gathering had around 40 kids plus leaders. The evening "repeat" service had 140 people, a decent crowd for our first night out. For those of you who missed the coffee Sunday night be assured it will be appearing next week.

Our morning services were somewhat less full than last spring, so we are making more seats available. In addition we had at least two new families visiting our Sunday evening service.

Thanks to all who are making this shift a success. We continue to pray and look to see where God may be leading in this time at EverGreen.

Finally a new post

I've been doing reading in the gospel of John and found something I hadn't noticed before. When Jesus is talking to Nicodemus in John 3 and says, "you must be born again" the "you" is plural. It is "ya all" must be born again. Since Jesus is talking to just Nicodemus here it is really interesting that he speaks the plural you. Who are the rest of the people he is talking about? Is it the rest of the Jewish leadership (Nick comes from the leadership council), is it the Jewish people? Whoever the rest of the folks are, the plural "you" puts a different emphasis on the whole being born again deal. Jesus' picture of being born again suddenly becomes much more of a community and family picture, a picture of being born again with brothers and sisters rather than just being out on our own. It seems that right from the get go we are part of a family. One might even think in terms of triplets or quints who are born at one time and the closeness of that which goes beyond just being children who all come from the same mother.

So what do you think of all of this? Does it change the way we look at reaching out to people and calling them to be born again? Click on the button and give me a response.

On another deal. I'm working on Daniel 3 (story of the three who are thrown into the fiery furnace) which for the longest time I saw as a very serious story. Imagine my surprise when using a Jewish resource it was pointed out that the story is loaded with humor (much like the book of Esther is hugely serious in topic but overflows with humor). If you want to see more on this one the passage is looked at in this week's "getting dusty". You can download it after 3 p.m. today at www.egm.org -- go to downloads and check out daily listings.

Hmm...

I was reading in Luke today and came across an interesting tidbit. At the end of the story of the healing of the demon possessed man (Luke 8) Jesus tells the man to go and tell what God has done for him. Here's the text

38The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39"Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

Notice that the man's response is to go and tell what Jesus has done for him. Is this a subtle way of telling us that the man recognized Jesus as God?

What makes this story even more interesting is that Luke precedes it with Jesus calming the storm and his disciples asking, "Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and water and they obey him?" Their answer seems to come in the demon possessed man going and telling what Jesus/God has done for him. Not only that but the story just after the demon possessed man is about a woman who touches the edge of Jesus' garment. This touching is a way of saying that she believes Jesus is the Messiah. So the question of "who is this" is answered by he is God and he is Messiah.

Finally, it's fun to note that in chapter 9 we find Herod wondering who Jesus is as well. Luke has already given us the answer, but the one in power, the high and the mighty does not know.

Getting rid of the Furniture

Good news from our house--the hospital bed will soon be gone! Linda started sleeping in our bed again last night and believes that the hospital bed in the living room is no longer needed.

Linda went to church twice yesterday. She is able to walk around the house without crutches. So we are making progress. She still tires quickly, but we are confident that her strength will slowly return.

Thanks for all your continued prayers.

Those Pigs

My New Testament reading for the next few days is in the book of Mark. This morning I came across that odd passage where Jesus sends the evil spirits into the pigs and they dash down the side of the hill into the sea of galilee. Always the question--why? Why does Jesus let the spirits go into the pigs, why does he let the pigs die? Mark 5

Here's one reason (there are always others, the Bible is rich in multiple meanings). If you remember the name of the evil spirit is legion. Legion, of course, is Roman military term that speaks of a group of soldiers. In this area of the country there had been Roman legions who had carried out cruel and painful attacks on the people. This demon possessed man was probably suffering from that horrible experinece and it opened him up to demon possession. The idea that flows from this is that when Jesus has this legion go into the pigs, the pigs become a roman legion or roman pigs. These pigs then dash into the sea or the abyss--in doing so they show that God rules over and can destroy Roman which has abused people rather than rightfully carrying out their ruling task (cf. Romans 13). The story then, is a political statement of who rules, who reigns and who wins and what the world will look like when all is set right (the demon possessed man is now in his right mind). It is also a story of resistance to this world of hope because the people of the land ask Jesus to go.

How it's going

Just a quick update on Linda and all of us. Linda had a good day yesterday--which typically means not as good of a day today. Which so far has turned out to be true. She is very sore in that upper left leg area and moving slowly this morning. At the same time imagine my surprise and joy when she took several steps without crutches or walker yesterday! So we keep moving forward.

As for me, I'm a bit tired. So in a moment of laziness I drove to work today instead of riding my bike. I think a couple of nights of sleep and mornings of getting up at about 7 instead of 6 will get me up and going again.

Chris is having a great time at Calvin in their ready for life program. He loves what they are doing and loves getting out of the house.

Thanks for the meals this week--they have been awesome.

Noise

As I was doing the morning dog walk today and listening to Genesis I found that as cars went by I had to turn up the volume on my cassette player to hear the words--at times the words were simply drowned out by the volume of the cars. This set me to thinking: What is it that drowns out the very words of God in my life so that I don't hear them? Busyness? TV? Preoccupation with other things? Something to think on for all of us--just what is it that makes it so we stop hearing the very words of God? What is it that gets us listening again?

A bit from 2 Kings 1-2

With Linda laid up my time for Bible reading has changed a bit. I'm now Bible listening more than Bible reading (I remembered this morning that the Bible was made first to be listened to, only later to be read). My Bible listening happens in the mornings when I walk our two dogs--not my favorite activity, but it needs to be done. Since I take these walks not only for the dogs but also to get myself in shape for next summer's trip to Israel I usually walk about 3.5 miles which gives me some significant listening time.

Anyway, a few days ago I was listening to the story of Elijah and Elisha. As I listened to the last days of Elijah's life before going to heaven I realized something: the second to the last miracle performed by Elijah is centered around the destruction of soldiers who profane the name of God by not honoring Elijah as a prophet. After this we find that King Ahaziah who has treated Elijah with contempt (by sending these soldiers) dies without an heir i.e. there is no life in him. After this Elijah parts the waters of the Jordan and is taken up in the whirlwind. When Elijah is taken up Elisha asks for a double portion of his spirit. This request is granted by God. The next thing we see is Elisha parting the waters with Elijah's cloak. Then we find a rather odd little miracle story about Elisha healing the water of Jericho. It is odd, that is, until we see that it is a story of life given to those who are obedient to God--notice that the water will no longer cause death or miscarriage (King Ahaziah had no children, was miscarriage involved?). Then the next story we discover is that odd story of the children who call Elisha "baldhead" and are attacked by the bears. It too seems odd until we see it in parallel with the destruction of the soldiers. As they had dishonored God's prophet, so these children are dishonoring God's prophets in a significant way. Since the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha we would expect no other result than the punishment of those who speak this dishonor.

So here's the picture

Elijah Dishonored/ punishment Elisha Dishonored/Punishment
Ahaziah, has no offspring/life because he disobeys A city with faithful people receive new water that gives life/ no miscarriages
Elijah parts the Jordan Elisha parts the Jordan

Back to Work

I got back to the office yesterday. Kind of an odd thing after being gone and doing the nursing deal for the last few weeks.

Linda continues to have good days and bad days. Yesterday was one of those bad days, a lot more pain and discomfort. At the same time in the midst of her pain she took three steps without crutches or her walker--so progress is being made. She has the most discomfort in her upper left leg. We think that there is some muscle damage there. Pray for healing for that leg.

Other than that, no real news from our house. We just keep taking the steps of the healing process and are thankful for all the concern shown.

A Visit to the Docs

Yesterday we made our first trip to the Doc's. He was pleased with Linda's progress. She is now up and about using the walker a number of times each day. We continue to try to get out a bit for those big adventures like the grocery store. Yesterday Linda, Chris, and I went to Meijers. I pushed Linda and Chris pushed the cart. It all worked rather well.

Even as Linda gets better she is still quite tired--healing takes a lot of energy. So between our outings she is doing her bit of resting and reading and trying to watch some TV. The boredom of it all gets worse the better she feels--so pray for patience.

On Thursday we replaced our Scion which was totalled in the accident. You can see us driving a 2001 VW Passat wagon around town. It's green and was given top ranking in safety by Consumer Reports. It look a lot like the one in the picture, I don't have a picture of the actual car :). Our car search had two central criteria--Chris could get in without hitting his head and Linda can feel comfortable driving in a safe car--the Passat fit both those criteria.

We have been overwhelmed by all your cards and prayers. The healing process will still be a good month before Linda is up to 80% speed, but we are thankful that she is doing as well as she is right now.

Dinner Out

We had quite the adventure last night--we drove two miles to Wolfies (a local restaurant owned by a friend) and ate outside at the picnic tables. It was a bit of a production getting Linda down the stairs of the house, then to her walker and finally into the car. I loaded the wheel chair in the trunk (happy to have fold down seats!) and off we went. The drive was a bit taxing on Linda, but getting out of the house and to another place was well worth it. Overall the outing did not seem to take any more out of Linda than staying at home.

On another healing front a neighbor loaned us their "anti-gravity" lounge chair. It is a great place for Linda to sit because it takes pressure off all those pressure points. Linda found it to be so comfortable much that we ordered one via Amazon--it came in about 36 hours (our neighbor needs their chair back for their special needs "kid").

One last "God moment": Sunday Linda was saying that what sounded good to eat was a small steak and boiled red potatoes. This is a huge change from her normal diet. About 15 minutes after metioning it there was a knock at our door. The daughter of the family that loaned us the anti-gravity chair handed me two ready to put in the microwave meals her mom had prepared. Inside, of course, were two small steaks, boiled red potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob. Got to love it when God does those cool things.

Again, thanks for the cards and the prayers. We are making slow but sure progress.

Outdoor Adventure--Not quite Cedar Point

We had our first outdoor adventure today. We got Linda into her wheelchair and found some even pavement and enjoyed about a 1/2 hour outside. It was great. Not quite the vacation we were expecting with Chris being gone for 5 days--but still a thing to be thankful for.

Chris did leave today for his Serve project. He'll be gone until Thursday morning, so it will just be Linda and myself. It's really great for Chris because he constantly wanted to be doing things and I could only dedicate so much time to him (and he didn't really want to be with anyone else).

Blessings to all on tomorrow's worship.

First Steps

Hey! Good news. Linda took her first steps with a walker yesterday and added some more steps today. Her voice sounds better--more like Linda, less like a "sick" person. So we are making progress. She is getting a bit of cabin fever--which is also good, but frustrating for her. It will be quite some time yet before she is up on her own, but we are very thankful for the progress.

Chris is doing well. He is a bit bored and is looking forward to escaping this place for his serve project on Saturday.

As for me, I'm burning more calories than when I ride my bike every day. It's amazing the amount of stuff that has to be done in a day when a person can't do stuff for themselves.


Thanks again for your prayers and cards, they are a great encouragement.

Hard Day

Linda has been in major pain today. Her stomach has been very upset and this has kept her from taking pain meds--so she is getting hit on two fronts. She is quite discouraged and down. Please pray for an end to the stomach pain. Pray also that she can eat and take her pain meds. Pray for God to quiet her spirit from all the emotions of the accident.

For the next day or so we are asking for no visitors. I'll let you know via this blog when she is up to seeing people.

Chris continues to do well. I'm doing my nurse thing here and doing OK.

Thanks again for your prayers and calls and cards. They mean a lot.

Sunday

First, thanks to Pastor Tom who added to his workload and preached for me today. At about 10:30 I was finishing up the first wave of my morning nursing and family duties and knew for sure there was no way I could have pulled off preaching today.

Linda had a pretty good day yesterday, but today has been a reverse. She is very sick to her stomach and that is adding a lot of pain. It seems that the pain meds make her sick and so she has to decide which pain is worse--flu like symptoms or the pain of the break. Not a choice you really want to make.

Chris is continuing to get better and better. he's been a great helper making Linda's coffee in the morning, walking the dogs etc. I still am trying to sneak out and do a few things with him while Linda rests for a bit. We went for a short bike ride today, took the dogs for a walk and did a quick run to MacDonalds to get him lunch. I'm trying to give him as much normal stuff as I can while paying attention to Linda's needs.

Linda is going a bit crazy not being able to do anything on her own. Not only that but the stuff she usually does around the house now has to be done by Chris and me. She doesn't like that very much. Fortunately I still know my way around the kitchen, washer and drier etc.

As I've reflected a bit on all of this it has stuck me that Paul's words are so important to hang on to. "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" 1 Cor. 10.31. Linda and I had some great plans for our vacation (first 6 day real vacation without Chris in 19 years), we were having a great summer bike riding, walking, and doing all kinds of outdoor stuff. I was riding my bike to work and getting in over 100 miles a week peddling and enjoying it. All of that has changed quickly. But as I think on it, whether I am doing those things or staying at home and caring for Linda and Chris the goal remains the same--"whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God". So while the shape of the summer has changed (and there's sadness in that change) the goal of the summer has not. Knowing that makes dealing with this unwelcome change possible and keeps me from dealing with it in negative ways.

We're Home

Just to let you know that we came home about 3 p.m. today. We are getting adjusted. Linda is in pain but gritting her teeth and making progress. Chris continues to struggle with his gagging. I'm putting on my medical hat again and doing all kinds of fun things. Linda just reminded me of one of them, I have to give her her shot. So I'm off to do the doctor thing.

Transformers Doornbos Style

Our living room has been transformed into a "hospital room" complete with bed, walker, wheel chair, and crutches. We are preparing to bring Linda home--hopefully tomorrow--and begin her recovery. The first 4 weeks will be basically being in bed and getting to the bathroom and then back to bed. I'll be the primary care giver for the first couple of weeks and then we'll figure things out from there when I go back to work. Already I've been given my first lessons on getting Linda out of bed and also on giving her her twice daily shot to thin her blood.

Linda's pain continues but she is improving. She managed to sit up for about 10 minutes today and that was enough to say that staying in the hospital will not help her progress anymore than going home.

Chris continues to struggle. He saw Linda for the first time since the accident and that seemed to help a bit but you can read the concern and worry on his face.

Pray too for Gayle who is in British Columbia this weekend to be in a friend's wedding. She feels bad that she can't be here.

Again, our thanks to all of you. Your prayers and support mean so very much.

Matthew 11 and 23 connections

Pastor Tom had a great message on Sunday night on Matthew 11: "28Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
I was doing some reading tonight in a book called The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus and some of the words there sparked some thoughts.

Thought 1: The yoke that Jesus is talking about is the yoke of a rabbi or the teaching of the rabbi. When a person became a disciple of a rabbi he/she would talk about taking on the yoke of their rabbi. Jesus tells us that in comparison to other rabbis his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Thought 2: We read in Matthew 23, 1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. The Pharisees' load is not easy and light, but heavy and crushing.

Thought 3: The teaching of Jesus and the teaching of the Pharisees and scribes of his day was distinctly different in a very important way, namely, those rabbis who came out of the tradition of the pharisees spoke in a specialized jargon and used technical language that people had a hard time understanding, it was a burden, a load to try to figure out what they were saying, and their teachers refused to lift a finger to help them understand it. Jesus, on the other hand, according to Jewish scholars, taught simply and appealingly i.e. he was gentle, lowly of heart, he didn't need to put on airs or burden the people with things they couldn't figure out because of the jargon.

Thought 4: The problem with understanding what Jesus said is that he expects us to obey it. While Jesus may be easy to understand, while we may clearly know what his yoke is, doing what he says --loving enemies, turning the other cheek, doing our good deeds so that God is praised and not us--that's hard.

Thought 5: Obedience to the yoke of Jesus is at the heart of love for Jesus. I read 1,2,3 John in the last couple of days. One thing that overwhelmed me was the connection between loving Jesus and obeying Jesus. A couple of examples,

I John 5.3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (do you hear the connect back to Jesus and Matthew 11?)

2 John 6And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

End of the day--sort of

Thanks again for all the support. We cherish your prayers and your help.

Linda's day included her first movement out of bed. It was a very painful experience, even though no steps were involved. It's amazing what we do so normally can suddenly become a huge deal. Her short stand up made her lie down for the rest of the day. It also has intensified her pain while laying down. The good news was that those who helped her up were impressed that she did as much as she did.

I've been shuttling between home and the hospital since my presence is needed at both places. Chris is at home still gagging and then sleeping and then gagging and then sleeping. I'm hoping the one of these times he will sleep and then not gag. That has been his pattern in past stressful times. He lets me run up to the hospital for a couple of hours while he watches TV or sleeps. He's in no mood for anyone but dad to be around right now.

I've also been trying to do a bit of car research. Our guess is that the "box" is toast and we'll have to get a new car. We have a loaner right now, but since we are a one car (but multi-bike) family it's kind of important to figure out next steps on the vehicle front.

On one last note--some of you may remember my message when I talked about our new dog--otherwise known as little dog, little brain. Apparently he is not too wild about my shuttle diplomacy and not getting his usual attention. When I got home from the hospital I first noticed a basket of clothes knocked over, when I let him out he proceeded to ignore my calls and ran way for 2 hours. When I went back inside I think I discovered why--he had torn apart some our pantry in the basement spreading a combination of paper towels, long noodles, dust clothes and a few other things and then had proceeded to use the back room of our basement as his potty stop. I'm thinking he was pretty sure that being scarce for a couple of hours would be a good idea.

quick Chris update

Chris spent the night gagging. He's worn out. Pray that he will be able to stop the cycle of gagging and begin to feel better.

Ouch!

Thanks first of all for all your prayer and concern for Linda and Chris. If you missed the e-mails Linda and Chris were in a car accident this morning along with a young man who was riding with them.

Chris is doing OK physically, but for those of you who have known Chris for awhile you know that when he is overwhelmed he starts to gag and since he can't throw up because of his nissan it is a very uncomfortable deal. Pray that he will be able to calm down and that his soft heart will be OK with his mom being in the hospital.

Pray too for the young man who was in the car with them. He sustained injuries and will have a time of recovery from broken bones.

Now for Linda. She broke her pelvis in two places and also cracked her sacrum. In addition she chipped two of her Vertebrae--nothing that poses any danger but is very painful. For Linda all of this means 3-4 weeks of her world being in bed and walking to the bathroom and then going back to bed. The healing process will be very painful.

In addition, Linda feels very bad because the accident was her fault. She is beating herself up over it. Many plans for the summer that she was looking forward to because Chris was at school (for the first time in 19 years Chris was actually going to be doing something during the summer and Linda was going to get some much needed and deserved respite) have suddenly ended. So pray for both her physical healing and a healing for her heart.

The good news (God thing) in all of this is that the injuries are not more severe and my vacation starts Monday for 2 weeks so I'll be at home.

Again, thanks for your concern. As you can see by the pics of our car, we are very thankful things were not worse.

Hosea Connections

One of the cool things about seeing connections in the Bible is that they give you deeper insight into both the text and how to apply it to your life. In just 2 chapters in Hosea there are 3 connections that are really cool.

Connection 1 Hosea 12.7-9 and Revelation 3.17-19

Hosea
7A merchant, in whose hands are false balances,
he loves to oppress.
8Ephraim has said, "Ah, but I am rich;
I have found wealth for myself;
in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin."
9I am the LORD your God
from the land of Egypt;
I will again make you dwell in tents,
as in the days of the appointed feast.

Revelation
7For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

Both Israel and the church at Laodicia believe they are rich and don't need a thing. God tells Israel that instead of being rich they will once again live in tents. He tells Laodicia to start buying what they really need from him. But there is a striking theme of hope for these two who believe they have all they need: God disciplines them out of love. The parallel between Laodicia and Israel also raises a question: Does the wealth of Laodicia come from injustice as Israel's did?

Connection 2: Hosea 13.4-6 and Deuteronomy 8.11-20

Hosea
4But I am the LORD your God
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no savior.
5It was I who knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought;
6but when they had grazed,^[a] they became full,
they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;
therefore they forgot me.

Dueteronomy
12lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' 18You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Dt. reminds the people not to forget God when they are full, Hosea tells us that they do exactly that. The result is that God keeps his word and brings punishment on Israel.

Connection 3: Hosea 13.14 and 1 Corinthians 15.55

O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your sting ? Hosea (ESV)

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting? 1 Corinthians (ESV)

Hosea 13.15ff add power to the words of 1 Corinthians as they gives us a sense of death and why it is such an excellent thing that it will be destroyed.

But also, Paul says that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law--which is exactly what gets the people of Israel into trouble--they don't follow God's ways. But with the coming of Christ who brings victory over our sin and forgiveness to us, we no longer have to fear being cut off or fear being sent into exile.

The Text

Our next message series focuses in on the book of 2 Samuel and is entitled, "The Heart of a King". The mailer for this series will be coming to egm folks next week (if the US postal service is good to us). In order for us to get services ready, however, we have to plan a bit further ahead than the next series--so next week the worship planning team will begin planning for the series after "the Heart of a King". As I was working on this series yesterday (it will be from 1 Peter) I was struck by a verse in chapter 1 of 1 Peter, "...you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God..." I love that picture of God's word as something that is living and therefore it gives life.

In my reading this week (I've been reading through Daniel, Hosea, Hebrews, and James) I've notice the importance of this word to life. Hosea has some especially strong statements about the connection between word and life. Here's a couple of them,

4. 6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.

6.1"Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth."

It's worth remembering how essential it is for us to "press on to know the LORD" and that knowing him comes first and foremost from the text. If you will indulge me for a moment and let me remind all of us of what one of the Creeds (The Belgic Confession) that egm uses as a summary of our faith says on this,

Article 2

The Means by Which We Know God
We know him by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:
his eternal power
and his divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict men
and to leave them without excuse.

Second, he makes himself known to us more openly
by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,
for his glory
and for the salvation of his own.

Article 3

The Written Word of God
We confess that this Word of God
was not sent nor delivered by the will of men,
but that holy men of God spoke,
being moved by the Holy Spirit,
as Peter says.^1

Afterwards our God—
because of the special care he has
for us and our salvation—
commanded his servants,
the prophets and apostles,
to commit this revealed Word to writing.
He himself wrote
with his own finger
the two tables of the law.

Therefore we call such writings
holy and divine Scriptures.

EverGreen's Three Year Plan FYI

Last fall many people from our congregation took part in focus groups where stories about egm were told. This looking back was part of our process of looking forward to the next chapter of egm. Since that time the information from those groups has been gone through and categorized. In May the senior staff (Greg, Adam, Emily, Tom, Jodi, Sally, and Larry) began the process of putting together a 3 year plan to go to the council. The staff spent a one day off site with a consultant and got the beginnings of the plan in place. The plan revolves around our STAR focus. At the end of July the staff will do a second off site to get further in this work. It is our hope to have the plan ready to show the congregation by Mid-October.

Being with Jesus

In this coming Sunday's message I talk about being with Jesus. I will mention a number of resources. Here's a quick summary of the ones I mention plus a few more:

Bagil Pixner With Jesus Through the Galilee available at Amazon.com
Ray VanderLaan DVD Series
IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament Amazon
Biblical Archeology Review (Magazine) http://www.bib-arch.org/
www.ttwmk.com
www.egrc.net
Jewish New Testament Commentary Amazon
Archaeological Study Bible Amazon

All of these can help to make the story come alive and help us to walk more closely with Jesus.

Unchanging

I was praying this morning from the Psalms and came across this verse in Psalm 25.14 "The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant." As I prayed those words it struck me how similar they were to the words of Jesus to his disciples in John 15.14 "You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." Sometimes people try to drive a wedge between the Old and New Testament, but over and over again we see that the God we find in the OT is the same in purpose and heart as we find in the NT.

By the way, we're going to be looking at more connections Sunday night as we do another time of teaching outdoors. So if you plan on being here Sunday night, make sure you put on some walking shoes.

Catching Up

We had a great day yesterday with services, Stacie's Wedding, and Charles Marshall at night. I have to admit that by about 4 in the afternoon after doing 2 morning services and the wedding I was toast--so I took today off.

Part of my day off has been catching up on my reading of the Text. I got a bit behind last week. One of the cool things about doing a lot of reading of the text at once is seeing patterns that you miss in shorter readings. So here's few things I found today,

There is a consistent call to realize our lives are for God, not ourselves. This first got my attention in 2 Cor. 5.15, "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for him." That idea flowed through the rest of 2 Corinthians as Paul talks about his sacrifices for the kingdom. Then in Galatians the theme is sounded again when Paul says that people praised God because of his life--the praise does not go to him, but to God. In Ephesians 1.5-6 we are told that God saves us for the praise of his glorious grace and chapter 2 tells us that we are saved to do good works (2.8-10). Philippians in chapter 1 talks about the fact that we need to be filled with the fruit of righteousness so that glory and praise can go to God. Bottom line: life is about God, it is one of the hardest things to remember and even harder to live.

Another thing that I noticed is that when Paul makes lists of what we should not do that greed is connected with idolatry--one of the greatest sins in the Old Testament that brought down both Israel and Judah.

As I was reading through Ephesians I noticed something for the first time: in 1.4 we are told that God choose us to be holy and blameless in his sight and then in 5.27 we're told that Christ dies to present the church to himself as a radiant bride, holy and blameless. A neat connection, especially when you keep watching for those kind of words in other parts of the Text I read. What I found is God's goal is all caught up with making each of us and his church holy, blameless, perfect (Col. 1.28), and pure (Phil 1.10). When you take those four words seriously they can reorient your life.

Just a few things from my reading today.

Just a reminder that Jodi, our outreach director, leaves for Uganda tomorrow for about 2 weeks and John and Barb, members of our congregation leave for an 8 week time of service in Uganda. Keep them all in your prayers.

Israel July 2008

Stacie Swan --our former music director who is soon to be Stacie Post--and I have been working on a trip to Israel for next summer for folks at EverGreen. We're very excited about the trip and the impact it can have on our being passionate followers of Jesus. We'll be walking the ancient paths to discover how to walk passionately for Jesus today. Some of the ancient paths will be in places like Galilee where we visit the villages the disciples lived in, the Synagogue that sits on top of one that Jesus likely taught in. We will visit places like En-gedi and Masada and at the end of the tour we'll walk the path of the Triumphal entry and experience the death and resurrection of Jesus followed by going to the place where the day of Pentecost most likely took place.

The trip will include a lot of hiking (6-8 miles a day) and climbing in hot weather which in our past trips we found to be hard but excellent. More information and the cost of the trip will be coming out in August, but just wanted you to know right now what's coming up.

Internet Connect

When people visit EverGreen we send them a first impressions card. The first question is "How did you find out about EverGreen?" Today we received a first ever response--the Internet. The person visited our website and then came to a worship service. Pretty cool.

Natural Church Development

A guy by the name of Christian Schwarz began doing research a number of years ago that looked at what made for healthy churches. He surveyed thousands of churches and came up with 8 quality characteristics of growing churches. These characteristics are 1. Empowering Leadership 2. Gift Based Ministry 3. Passionate Spirituality 4. Effective Structures 5. Inspiring Worship Service 6. Holistic Small Groups 7. Need-oriented Evangelism 8. Loving relationships

Churches can participate in this survey in a very simple way: they have 30 members fill out a questionnaire and the results are tabulated. The questions on the survey focus on behaviors and on the perceptions of the person about their church.

As a part of an effort by Classis Georgetown (the local association of churches EverGreen is a part of) to have all the churches of the classis do this survey we had 30 of our members fill the surveys a couple of months ago (in case you are wondering who was chosen, a few surveys were handed to each staff member and they gave them out to people in their different ministry areas, also the council filled them out).
We received the results back about EverGreen a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to share them with you. As you look at the results it is helpful to know that the average score in each of these categories is a 45.

Empowering Leadership 63
Gift Oriented Ministry 69
Passionate Spirituality 57
Functional structures 64
Inspiring Worship 78
Holistic Small groups 67
Need-oriented Evanglism 72
Loving Relationships 70

Our overall average score was a 67.

As you can tell EverGreen is a pretty healthy church--and that is because of you! Thanks for all you do to make the different areas of church life vibrant.

While we are pleased with the results of the Natural Church survey we are also looking closely at areas where we are weaker--such as passionate spirituality. We want to be continually building, growing and maturing EverGreen so we can reach the full potential that God has for us as a church.

Reflecting on God's Reminders of Grace and Hope

We've had two graduations in our family in less than a week. One of our daughter Gayle (see below) and last night of our son Chris (pictures coming). At both of these graduations there were moments that reminded me of God's faithfulness, both of the moments came in song.

At Gayle's graduation we sang the song God of the Prophets. It's a song that probably isn't familiar to a lot of people, but there is a verse in it that goes like this, "God of the prophets, bless the prophet's heirs! Elijah's mantle o'er Elisha cast: each age for your own solemn task prepares; make each one stronger, nobler than the last." Oddly enough, this is a song that I sing rather often during my devotions and I sing it for Gayle and her generation. After I sing it I pray a very simple prayer, "God make Gayle and her generation the greatest generation for you and your kingdom there has ever been." I found the singing of that song a great affirmation of God's plan for this generation.

At Chris' graduation it was a different deal. I had dropped Chris off to go inside and decided to park a bit away from the commotion of a couple of thousand people making their way into the building. After I parked my car in a near empty lot and started my hike to building I noticed that there was music playing through speakers in the parking lot. As I listened closely I recognized the music, A Mighty Fortress is our God. I smiled as I remembered a 2 hour night time drive back from the Children's hospital in Albuquerque, NM to our home in Rehoboth. It had been a long hard day, we were exhausted, everyone was sleeping except me as I drove with music plugged into my ears. I wondered how we could keep on given all that was going wrong, with how sick Chris was and then I heard the words of this song, sung by the Calvin Alumni Choir A Mighty Fortress is our God--it was a moment of hope. Now 17 years later at Chris graduation as we look down the path of the uncertain future that faces so many special needs kids there was that song again. I felt both joy and that sense of hope that God has always been and always will be a mighty fortress for Chris and us.