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.

Spiritual Gifts

This Sunday we are looking at using our Spiritual Gifts. In the message I promise a couple of links to spiritual gifts surveys you can take online. Here they are:
http://mintools.com/spiritual-gifts-test.htm
http://www.churchgrowth.org/cgi-cg/gifts.cgi?intro=1