Two Sites Worth Your Time...

It seems that everybody has a "good" book "you should read!" Some actually turn out to be winners while others, well...you know how it goes:) With that caution in mind I would like to recommend to you two "good" web blogs "you should read." The first is actually just a single post by Pastor John Piper. The second is a site containing numerous posts that will both tickle and inform your mind. Let me know what you think of both sometime, and enjoy.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/745_putting_my_daughter_to_bed_two_hours_after_the_bridge_collapsed

http://www.teampyro.blogspot.com/

I Saw God Today

I saw God today. And I heard him. Today at the Tunkhannock Geisinger Medical building God was unmistakably present in the examination room where we quietly sat as our obstetrician, Dr. Wetzel, scanned Wendy’s uterus with a small, black, hand-held doppler. He quickly came across a rapid swishing sound, the kind of sound you hear when you swish with mouth wash. The strong, rapid swish we heard was the heartbeat of a 12 week old baby, or Ellie as we call her (we think it’s a girlJ). Ellie’s heart actually started fluttering when she was just 4 weeks old, when she was about the size of a lentil bean. Ellie is now about 2.5 inches long, or as one site describes it, she would fit snuggly on a soup spoon. In fact all of her vital organs and structures are already in place. She has all the same components that you and I have at just 10 weeks! As I sat there I reflected upon the mysterious wonder of life that we so often dismiss as ordinary because it is so common place. How something so intricately perfect, begins and grows unaided by any outside human help into a mature person, is incomprehensible to my finite mind. The only rational explanation is that God himself is present in a small way,there in Wendy’s womb, creating, forming, sustaining, and gracing his new creation with mercy and love. As amazing and wonderful as the physical creation and birth is, the Bible tells us of something even more amazing and gracious – the new spiritual creation and birth known as regeneration. In 2 Timothy 1:9 God provides us with something similar to a doppler scan of that spiritual birth: “(God) who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” Notice that it was God who did the creating and calling forth into life, it was based solely upon his good pleasure and not our works, and made possible by the sacrifice of his son in our behalf. And most incomprehensible of all – it was from all eternity. May these wonders drive us to worship today.

On Experience in Worship

Here's the quote that was in last week's worship folder from Bob Kauflin on experience in worship:

“As I paged through a Christian magazine last year, I noticed one add for a new worship CD mentioned ‘experience’ six times. We all love ‘worship experiences’ with God. Experiences aren’t evil. But the concept of worship as an ‘experience’ is fairly foreign to Scripture. I say ‘fairly’ because there are times when worshipping God was definitely an experience! [II Chronicles 5.11-14; Acts 4.31; I Corinthians 14.24-25] However, the goal of gathering as God’s people is not to feel something but to see and remember something. That ‘something’ is the Word, works, and worthiness of God, especially as He has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. [II Corinthians 4.6] If I pursue goose bumps or heightened emotion during a meeting, God becomes simply one of numerous options I can choose to seek them from. This doesn’t minimize the importance of pursuing encounters with the living God characterized by profound emotion and awareness of the Holy Spirit’s active presence. Scripture is filled with examples of longing for, pursuing, and delighting in God’s presence. [Psalm 84.1-2; I Chronicles 16.11; Psalm 16.11] But I become aware of God’s nearness by dwelling on His nature, promises, acts, not by pursuing an emotional fix.”

Gospel+Culture+Church

Mark Driscoll, in his book Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out, asks his readers to see that Jesus has called us to:

1. The Gospel [loving our Lord]
2. The Culture [loving our neighbor]
3. The Church [loving our brother]

Driscoll continues: "When we fail to love our Lord, neighbor, and brother simultaneously, we bury our mission in one of three holes." Driscoll's three holes are:

1. Parachurch
2. Liberalism
3. Fundamentalism

Gospel+Culture-Church= Parachurch
"The success of these ministries [he mentions Campus Crusade for Christ, perhaps Bible Colleges] is due in large part to their involvement in culture and loving people, whereas the church often functions as an irrelevant subculture." Driscoll believes that spiritual immaturity is the result of an often generationally connected group of people disconnected from the rich tapestry of generations found in the local church. He concludes, Parachruch Christians tend to love the Lord and love its neighbors, but not to love its brothers."

Culture+Church-Gospel= Liberalism
This sort of hole is dying in mainline denominational churches. The liberal church is "so concerned with being culturally relevant, though they are deeply involved in the culture, they neglect the gospel. In their desire for relevance, the liberal church has become irrelevant by having nothing to say to the culture that the culture could not say to itself without the church.Driscoll writes, "Their failure is that they bring to the culture a false gospel of accommodation, rather than confrontation, by seeking to bless people as they are rather than calling them to a repentant faith that transforms them." Liberal Christians risk loving their neighbors and theiPick up Driscoll's book and give it a read. Driscoll is sometimes edgy; however he's thoroughly orthodox. He's giving the emergent church fits because he's proved that Reformission is reaching out without selling out.r brothers at the expense of loving their Lord.

Church+Gospel-Culture=Fundamentalism
Driscoll writes, "The success of these churches lies in that they love the church and often love the people in the church. Their failure is that . . . pastors at these churches are prone to speak about the needs of the church, focusing on building up its people and keeping them from sinning . . . Over time, they can become so inwardly focused that the gospel is replaced with rules supported with mere prooftexts from the Bible. Fundamentalist Christians are commonly found to love their Lord and their brothers, but not their neighbors."

Pick up Driscoll's book and give it a read. Driscoll is sometimes edgy; however he's thoroughly orthodox. He's showing the emergent church that Reformission can reach out without selling out.

On the Road

I've been on the road for the past week, visiting my our son Adam, his wife Stephanie, and little Adelyn and Elizabeth - now that is real R & R.

In the photo above, our son Adam is in the middle holding on to Adelyn, Anita has little Elizabeth, and I have Hezekiah. We took this photo when we were on vacation back in March.

Tomorrow I travel to Ashland Seminary for a workshop with Hebrew profs from all over the world. We are trying to find better ways to teach first year Hebrew by using proven techniques from Second Language Acquisition models. Any project that makes the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible, more accessible is worth the time. Until believers are better grounded in the Bible, they will be susceptible "to every wind of doctrine and sleight of men."

Lord willing, I will be back in the area on Friday afternoon. If you need me, I still have my cell phone and, of course, email, email, email :-)

Posted Monday, June 11, by Pastor Smith

Eating Solo at Armetta's

Compared with hanging out at Armetta’s after prayer meeting with some of you guys, eating alone at Armettas on Saturday night was a rather solitary adventure. Connie and our kids went to Dorney Park with another mom and her kids, which left me with a “hankering” hunger for some wings. Even the waitress who normally helps us on Wednesday's remarked, "You sure like wings, don't you?"

So what do you do when you forget to bring a book into the restaurant to look busy while you're waiting for your food? Well, I played Galaga on my cell phone [destroy the Arminians!], and took a picture of my Pepsi glass with an empty chair in the background to visually capture the solitude.

It just reminded me that fellowship is a joyful ingredient of our church. I was again reminded yesterday of the joy of Christian fellowship. Our family, Janet and Howard, Jeremy K., Jan, Kevin, and Brianna Wells ate lunch together at Colarusso's. I left a worship folder with a little note on it for Tara, our waitress. Pray that she might desire to visit us.

A likemindedness of doctrine has been the foundation for some of the sweetest fellowship our family has experienced at a local church. Thanks for the sweet communion of the saints!

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2.42 ESV

Treasuring the letters of a Scottish Preacher

I'm convinced that the letters of Samuel Rutherford [1600?-1661] are some of the smartest, sweetest, and perhaps overlooked treasures available to the 21st century church.

There are 365 letters in the Banner of Truth reprint [2006]. You could spend a year with a great preacher.

In his 2nd letter entitled, To a Christian Gentlewoman on the death of her daughter, Rutherford writes:

"Do you think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent who is in such a friend's house. Is she lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not with a dear friend? And gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when [be ye sure] she shall never be hectic ['of relating to a fever' or 'flushed'] nor consumed in body."

Here's a link where you can order the letters. They're worth the wade.

http://www.cvbbs.com/inventory.php?target=indiv&search_back=keywords%3DSamuel+Rutherford%26searchstyle%3Dall%26page%3D1%26session%3Dbde72bfae5e96752ef6d6bb5468e98d5%26title_keyword%3D%26isbn_keyword%3D%26publisher_keyword%3D%26author_keyword%3D%26sort_by%3D&bookid=7840