Went to a Christmas concert the other night — Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. Wonderful time with wonderful music. Really moved me toward the Christmas spirit.
They closed the evening with a powerful song of faith and redemption —- “Live Forever”. This line reached out and grabbed me.
“Some people say faith is a childish game
Play on children like it’s Christmas day.”
Play on this Christmas!!!!
Merry Christmas!!!!!
I listened to this great message by John Ortberg; well, I think most of them are pretty great, but this one was exceptional. It was on the importance of community and entitled, “Every Life Needs a Cheering Section”. I loved the following quote:
“Robert Putnam, (from his book Bowling Alone) …. wrote,
‘As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but you decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half.’
Isn’t that remarkable? Anybody here not interested in cutting your risk of dying in half? That’s why the new model for our small groups ministry is, ‘JOIN A GROUP OR DIE!!’ Just something kind of uplifting about that one.”
That is great!!! We are looking to have a marked increase in our groups as we try this new strategy.
Check out the whole message in written form (what other top shelf communicator posts his sermons in transcript form?) or listen here.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian & Western social critic, prophet, gulag survivor, cancer survivor and Nobel laureate died today at the age of 89.
I have always admired this man of immense strength and courage. In the 1980s I read One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. I was gripped by his descriptive pros of this one day of life of this man in a Soviet concentration camp. Taken from his own personal experience, you could feel the hunger, the torment, the cold, the loss of dignity in this powerful novel.
I remember reading this last line — the final description of this day in the life —and I wept:
“A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day. There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years.”
My other encounters came through two books. One edited by my father-in-law, Charles Turner entitled Chosen Vessels (out of print) with a chapter on Solzhenitsyn by Malcolm Muggeridge. The other book was Chuck Colson’s, Loving God where Colson masterfully tells of Solzhenitsyn’s conversion to Christ through a Russian doctor, Boris Kornfeld in the prison camp. In The Gulag Archipelago, after the violent murder of Dr. Kornfeld, Solzhenitsyn committed these words of commitment to memory in the form of a poem. He ends the poem with these words:
But with the even glow of the Higher Meaning
Which became apparent to me only later on.
And now with measuring cup returned to me,
Scooping up the living water,
God of the Universe!
I believe again!
Though I renounced You, You were with me! (The Gulag Archipelago – Vol. 2 – Part 4)
Great words from a great man. Rest in peace.
I just read a moving post from Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds on B. B. Warfield, a theological giant and former Principal of Princeton Theological Seminary (1887-1902).
Justin had just read comments on the life of Dr. Warfield from Kim Riddlebarger. Specifically, he was touched by Warfield’s commitment to his wife in the midst of her long term illness. Here are some of the highlights:
Soon after marrying Annie Pearce Kinkead, who was also from noble stock, the newlyweds journeyed to Leipzig. . . .
During their stay in Europe an event occurred that would forever change the Warfield’s lives. While walking together in the Harz mountains, Mr. and Mrs. Warfield were caught in a violent thunderstorm. Annie Warfield suffered a severe trauma to her nervous system from which she never fully recovered. She was so severely traumatized that she would spend the rest of her life as an invalid of sorts, becoming increasingly more incapacitated as the years went by. Her husband was to spend the rest of their lives together giving her “his constant attention and care” until her death in 1915 (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). B. B. Warfield could not have foreseen just how constant and difficult a demand this was to become, and how, in the providence of God, this would impact his entire career.
. . . Warfield’s remarkable literary output is, no doubt, in large measure due to the frail condition of his wife and his amazing devotion to her. With the pen he was a formidable foe, but as O. T. Allis recalls, “I used to see them walking together and the gentleness of his manner was striking proof of the loving care with which he surrounded her. They had no children. During the years spent at Princeton, he rarely if ever was absent for any length of time” (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). Machen recalled that Mrs. Warfield was a brilliant woman and that Dr. Warfield would read to her several hours each day. Machen dimly recalled seeing Mrs. Warfield in her yard a number of years earlier during his own student days, but notes that she had been long since bed-ridden (Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen, 220). Read the rest of this post here.
In reading this testimony of love and commitment, my mind went back to the early 90′s, and I remembered reading an article in Christianity Today by the President of Colombia Bible College (now Columbia International University) Robertson McQuilken. McQuilken had resigned from Colombia to care for his wife who was in the throws of Alzheimer’s. Her is an excerpt from his resignation speech:
Murial McQuilken died in 2003. Her husband cared for her to the very end.
In our Introducing Hope Series, which is our new member process at Hope, we spend a considerable amount of time working through the parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15. It is a great story of the results of our wayward attempts to make life work on our own along with the amazing grace of a loving and forgiving father.
I have seen this passage as one that could be entitled as both the parable of the Prodigal Son and the parable of the Prodigal Father. I ran across a great explanation of the dual meaning of this word from Tim Keller in a post by Tullian Tchividjian. Keller is addressing the question as to why his new book is titled, “The Prodigal God”.
Keller says, “The word ‘prodigal’ is an English word that means recklessly extravagant, spending to the point of poverty, of ‘being in want’ (Luke 15:14.) The dictionaries tell us that the word can be understood in a more negative or a more positive sense. The more positive meaning is to be lavishly and sacrificially abundant in giving. The more negative sense, is to be wasteful and irresponsible in one’s spending. The negative sense obviously applies to the actions of the younger brother in the Luke 15 parable of the two sons. But is there any sense in which God can be called ‘Prodigal’?
The answer is YES as Keller concludes by saying that “the title ‘Prodigal God’ calls attention not only to the mistaken way that legalists regard God’s gospel of grace (think elder brother), but also to how Jesus, though he was rich, spent everything without thought for himself, that we might be saved.”
Read the whole post here.
The book does not come out until October 2008 but you can pre-order it here.
I hate sitting through commencements but I love to read or watch some of the unique and insightful words from 
commencements speakers who address these excited and talented graduates. I ran across one today that captured my attention.
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivered the Commencement Address at Harvard entitled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,”
With wit and candor she encouraged these new graduates to make a difference in the world amid times of failure and to harness their imaginations to help the hurting and oppressed in the world.
Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:
On the Benefits of Failure – “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
On the Power of the Imagination – Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
On Helping the Voiceless & Powerless – If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
Click here to listen or read this address.
Driving home tonight past the University of Memphis, what should have been a long line of cars honking and celebrating a Tiger national championship was like a funeral procession. People slowly passing by the campus in mourning over the loss.
I know someone has to lose.
And in the grand scheme of things this was just a basketball game. And the Tigers had a wonderful year — the best year of Memphis basketball ever. And they provided much joy and a tremendous amount of unity for a fractured city. And CDR was fantistic all year and gained first team All-America status. And Derrek Rose is the most phenominal athelete to put on a Tiger uniform. And Joey Dorsy was such a beast all year. And Calaperi has done a wonderful job leading these young men.
But when you invest your heart into something, you risk the pain. I have not invested as much heart energy toward a team since —- ever. The only thing that rivals it was watching my step-son who was a passionate and phenomenally skilled wrestler. I have never expended as much heart wrenching love as when he was battling it out on the mat in a close match.
Love is like that. It is a dangerous endeavor. That takes me to a favorite C. S. Lewis quote,
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
I love my step-son dearly — that is why his struggle on the mat impacted me so much. And yes, I love this Tiger team and with that love comes the pain of loss at their loss.
I guess I better end this cathartic post. I do feel a little better getting this off my chest.
I am grateful for a great Tiger season and look forward to next year.
GO TIGERS!!!!
“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche rediculed as ‘God on the cross’. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?
That is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. (As P. T. Forsyth wrote), ‘The cross of Christ… is God’s only self-justification in such a world ‘ as ours.”
John R. W. Stott – “The Cross of Christ” (pp. 335,336)
Art by Georgia O’Keeffe – “Black Cross, New Mexico, 1929″
“What are you doing to create an environment that says to people, We KNEW you were coming and we were EXPECTING you!”
This is a quote from a post by Scott Hodge. He does a great job of relating a bad experience at a restaurant and seeing what we can learn about being churches that are truly welcoming. One thing I have commented on is that coffee ministers to our sense of smell. (See First Impressions & Coffee) but Scott takes it to a different level when he says this:
“There’s no reason that churches should smell like Ben-gay and mothballs. So we use Henri Bendel Scentports scattered throughout our auditorium using a scent called Firewood – which is a mix of birch, cedar, sandalwood with a slight hint of tobacco. This fits the wood-beamed architecture of our auditorium perfectly. (On a side note – please leave the flowery smelling potpourri at home. And DON’T spray Lysol before starting a service. That makes the room smell like someone just threw up minutes before people arrived.)”
Someone spilt one of those cheep flowery scent canisters in the office last week and it was smelling like the bathroom on a Greyhound Bus!!!!
Read the full post here.
John Ortberg, pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian, wrote an excellent reflection on hope as it relates to leaders at the blog – Out of Ur. Here is a quote:
“The church is in the hope business. We of all people ought to be known most for our hope; because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking. Martin Luther King was fond of citing Reinhold Niebuhr’s distinction between hope and optimism. Optimism believes in progress; that circumstances will get better. Hope, however, is is built on the conviction that another reality, another Kingdom, already exists. And so hope endures when hype fades.”
Check out the complete article here — John Ortberg on Hope Management
Also, you can hear some of Ortberg’s sermons here. I listen to him weekly on my ipod and love it!
