more than words: status

This Sunday we are completing our celebration series. It's going to be a great day of celebration. Many of our youth are making profession of faith, we are having a great time of fellowship between services that included food from the 7 different countries that we serve and we have the opportunity to bring in our service commitments for next year.

So here's the line up

Text: Proverbs 22.6
Opening Drama
Songs of Worship
Professions of Faith
Offering
Message
Bringing of our commitment for ministry
Song
God's Blessing

See

City Thoughts 2

The Atlantic Monthly in it's March issue ran an article entitled, "The Next Slum?". It is well worth reading not only from the perspective of what they may mean for many of us who live in the Suburbs, but also what this trend may mean for the future of the church and its ministry. I'd love to hear back from those who take the time to read the article. Kudo's to Rob Joustra for alerting me to this timely piece.

City Thoughts

I've always been intrigued by the city; its life, movement, ability to bring about wonder and horror. When we started looking for a new place to live a number of weeks ago we were faced with the question of "where do we live?". Our next move had always had two parts to it 1. Get a smaller place (preferably an apartment) 2. Move more into a city rather than away from it. What we really desired was to move to some downtown area where mass transit would get us from place to place, where walking and bike riding were the way of things, and culture opportunities were many. Well, our move happened earlier than we expected and so things didn't turn out quite like we thought they would (God always seems to have a sense of humor that way). The house we are buying is bigger and it is not in what one would call a proper downtown filled with cultural diversity and culture. On the other hand, it is only 2 blocks from downtown Zeeland (with library, a couple of places to eat, coffee shop, bike shop [of great importance]) that allows us to do a lot of walking and for Chris a safe place to ride his bike. But even though the city is small in this case it seems to me that it can have much of the same concerns and needs of a larger city. There is a need for beauty, community, and more. As we head into this next and unexpected step it behooves me to think about this city I'm in and what I can do to help it become the city that reflects the heart of God. For more on that last one read the very excellent review written on the book till we have built Jerusalem by none other than my daughter Gayle. She wrote the review for the Work Research Foundation where she is working again this summer. The review raises questions for all of us as to how we bring about the good of the city.

Culture Matters

In the book Culture Matters t.m. moore takes a chapter to look at the work of John Calvin's educational reforms in Geneva (16th century) and how those reforms that focused on scripture and doctrine transformed a self-indulgent city into one that was seen as a picture of the Kingdom of God. This kind of way of transforming culture brought to mind the work of Rev. John Nevin (18th century pastor and theologian of the Mercersburg School) who insisted the real revival happened not under a tent and with the anxious bench, but by visiting families and calling them to faithful study in doctrine and scripture. He pointed to the work of puritan Richard Baxter who had followed just such a path in the colonies and had seen a powerful revival in a community that had been far from God. Both Calvin and Nevin insisted on focusing on the text and doctrine to address the true needs of a person rather than allowing surface needs to drive what to teach and preach. This kind of thinking and teaching is reflected in the words of Craig Dykstra, "Christian educators need to think about how to lead people beyond a reliance on "random acts of kindness" into shared patterns of life that are informed by the deepest insights of our traditions, and about how to lead people beyond privatized spiritualities into more thoughtful participation in God's activity in the world."

All of which makes me wonder about how well we focus on people's real needs rather than their felt ones, and how well we take people out of their shallowness and into shared patterns of life. I fear we don't do this well and so revival in people's lives is both shallow and short lives. As Jesus says when speaking of the different kind of seeds in Matthew 13, As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Thought Provoking Movies

On this Memorial Day Weekend you may be looking for some movies to make you think. Here are a couple that will do just that as they present moral dilemmas and make you wonder what you would have done or what you would do.

The first is "Lions for Lambs". It looks at the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of three different moments happening on the same day. Although the happening never intersect they overlap. At the end of the film there are no neat and tidy clean ups of the different parts, just questions that we all are faced with.

The second is "Gone Baby Gone". This is an often crude (in terms of language) detective drama about the kidnapping of a little girl. The first 80% of the movie follows the story in a rather predictable fashion, but the last 20% suddenly thrusts us into ethical dilemmas about whether one would obey the letter of the law, the spirit of the law or just ignore the law for the possible good of others.

Neither of these movies are family oriented by any stretch of the imagination. These are movies made for adults who want to struggle with some hard issues and are willing to put up with language, violence, and uncomfortable morality to delve into those issues. If you are up for the challenge you'll "enjoy" these films.

More than Words: Integrity

One of the calls of the Bible is to live lives of integrity. Such an integrity means that our actions reflect what our lips say. One of the proverbs of our day says it this way, "Put your money where your mouth is". We might revise that a bit and say "put your time where your mouth is". If we say that we are committed to God then we need to work to forward his kingdom with our time. We need to honor God with our time. Part of that honoring is giving ourselves in service to the bride of Christ, the church. As we continue our celebration series we are going to look at living lives of integrity before God by giving of our time. The text for the morning is from Proverbs 10.9 and Proverbs 20.6-7

Our service begins with a light hearted drama called "Born to Serve". We will move from there into a time of worship in song. After the announcements we are going to take some time to remember, on the Memorial day weekend, those who are serving in the armed forces. Prayer comes next followed by the message and then a closing song.

See you Sunday!

Just a reminder. The rough draft message (in text) is available for download on our website www.egm.org. The weekly dusty is also there. By the middle of June we will have on the download part of our site an mp3 of the message you can download.

Holes in the Ground

Paul in Romans 3.1 tells us that the Jewish people have been entrusted with the very words of God. When he says that he is telling us that they were responsible for preserving and passing on the Scriptures. I've long been in awe of those Jewish people who have taken that task very seriously. One way you can see the seriousness of that study and passing on tradition is when you go to a Synagogue. In most Christian Churches the center of the building, the place people want to take you and show the best area of the building is the sanctuary or worship area. However, if you go to a synagogue the pride of place belongs to the Library.
Already in the book of Daniel we see this commitment to the very words of God and passing on those words. In Daniel 8.9-10 we read, " 9 Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. 10 It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them." The stars represent the faithful people of God and the heavens make it clear that the attack on God’s people is in fact an attack on God. The fact that the stars are trampled on shows the great suffering of God’s people as they sought to be faithful to him. The suffering of the people is reflected in the book of 1 Maccabees. Many Jewish people when their faith was banned choose to live in caves and underground so they could keep teaching their children Torah. It was a time when people lost their lives in brutal ways for following God. Hebrews 11.35-38 seems to reflect this period in Jewish history, "35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned[f]; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."

Laughter is the Best Medicine

If you are a Readers Digest fan you know of their monthly section called "Laugher is the Best Medicine". Most people when they look at the Bible think that God would find such a column to be inappropriate for really spiritual people. A lot of people think that spiritual and serious go together. But when you actually look at the Bible you find that there are times when God holds that laughter is the best medicine. The book of Daniel has one of those chapters. In Chapter 3 where we find the story of the fiery furnace and three brave Jewish men who refuse to bow down to an idol, we find humor in what most of us would consider to be a very serious situation. Just a few examples:
In the first verse we are told of an image that is built by the king. It's measurements are 60 cubits high and 6 cubits wide. In this chapter that is filled with humor the author delivers his opening blow of satire by telling us that the image is imperfect and evil by using the number 6 which represents those things.
In verses 2 and 3 we are given a long list of all the ruling folks of the realm. The writer in making this list is mocking the king and all his pretensions. When read out loud the list even sounds silly and humorous.
In verse 13 we're told the king is “furious with rage” We see a king having a temper tantrum, he looks like a 2 year old rather than a wise ruler.

Just a few examples of a rather biting humor that we find in the Bible. Sometimes God as well believes that laugher is the best medicine.

More than Words: Vision

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

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

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

Our offering comes next followed by the message and prayer.

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

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

Reality

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

Gone Missing

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