Missouri Baptist Convention

Under "what were they thinking?" The Missouri Baptist Convention decided on December 10th to no-longer fund church plants within their convention that also affiliate with the Acts 29 network because Acts 29 does not take an abstinence stand on the use of alcohol. Here is the story in Baptist Press and a story here and here from some blogging friends. Tom Ascol over at Founders Blog has a great interview with Kevin Larson whose church will be effected by this change. The sad part is that they are giving these church planters 20 days notice during the Christmas Season about this change. Heartless!!!

I have stated previously after the Greensboro Convention in 2006, when the resolution on alcohol was past that I voted against, that I don't drink. I have tried some different beverages in my past and never cared for the taste of any of them. I believe the bible is inerrant, and because of that belief I can unequivocally say that drinking alcohol is NOT a sin but being drunk with it is!

Let me say that my personal belief is that this has a little to do with alcohol and Acts 29 and a lot to do with who has the power in denominational life. It is happening more in more where a select group has to control everything down to the last detail until everyone in the room acts the same and believes the same. Do I think this is only the beginning in Baptist life? No, this is just one more stone in the wall that will separate many non-Christians from Christ.

I love what Kevin Larson said in one of his answers to Tom Ascol:

The other mainline denominations are becoming more and more gray. No disrespect is meant toward my elders; we are desperate to have mature Christians at Karis. But the grayer a congregation or denomination looks, the more bleak the future becomes. Well, those mainline denominations are graying due to liberalism. Young people want something true and something worth believing and dying for. But the SBC, I'm afraid, could gray and ultimately die because of legalism.

I pray that some people will come to their senses very soon and reclaim not only the authority of the Bible but also the sufficiency of it for life and practice as well.

I think this is a tattoo that I need to look into getting.

Wow!

I know I have not blogged in a while. Between have three at home, church, coaching soccer and many other little things that arise in life I have not really thought about it. Then today I was thinking about it and our worship leader at the church told me I needed to update my blog, so here it is.

Actually, what I was thinking about writing about is music. I am not a musician, though I do like to sing. I have been preaching a sermon series on the "Sermon on the Mount" and this week I finish the Beatitudes. The last one Jesus puts out there is that those who persecuted for being righteous are blessed and theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. So how does that relate to music?

Today, our worship leader, Angela, and I sit down to map put the service and we usually work on using songs that relate to the sermon being preached to reinforce the theme. Well, how many songs do you know of that talk about the joy of being persecuted? We do mostly traditional service out of the 1991 Baptist Hymnal and there is not a section in the subject index on persecution. I tried to rack my brain about contemporary worship songs that talk about being persecuted and came up with none.

Scripture is full of references to the idea of persecution and it is never a question of if we go through it but when we go through it.

Paul tells Timothy..."Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." (2 Timothy 3:12 NASB)

We are told in James 1:2-4 that if we want to be full and complete lacking nothing then we are to have joy when face trails. "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." (James 1:2-4 NASB)

Jesus tells us that we are to take courage when the world hates us because it hated him. "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master ' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But al these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me." (John 15:18-21 NASB)

So, if anyone is a songwriter I challenge you to stay faithful to God's word and write a song that speaks of persecution in a biblical light.

HOME!

It is official! WE ARE HOME!. We got back to Frostburg around 1:00 PM Tuesday. Hudson is sleeping well and doing all the other things that babies do. We are so thankful that God took care of him during this time. Now we need to recuperate before my mom heads back to Texas on Tuesday.

Good News

Hudson will probably be coming home tomorrow (Tuesday). He is doing really well and we are very thankful for all the prayers from all our friends. God has definitely blessed us and we are thankful to have been at such a good hospital as WVU. It almost enables me to be a Mountaineers fan (NOT). I will write if we get to go home tomorrow.

Hudson Samuel

The last 24+ hours have been crazy. Hudson on Thurs started running a fever which is very unusual with infants only three weeks old. Friday morning we took him to the Ped and they had him admitted to the hospital in Cumberland, MD where he was born about 15 miles from Frostburg. They ran cultures on blood and did a lumbar punch (spinal). The LP came back with bacteria and so he was transfered to West Virginia University Hospital in Morgantown last nit about 12 AM. As of right now 10:56 AM he is doing well. They do not think what he has is bacterial in nature (ie meningitis) but they do think it could be viral. They have him on antibiotics. Pray that it is viral and he will get out at the latest Monday. If it is bacterial it will be 7-14 days before he gets out because of antibiotics.

Michelle and I are tired and Riley and Carson are with my mom who was still in town. We are very thankful for that.

We appreciate any and all prayers from our friends.

These are two pictures from yestarday after the birth of our third child Hudson Samuel. He was born at 7:50 AM and weighed 8lbs 6.8oz and was 20 inches long. He is doing really well. Michelle is recovering from the c-section very well and should be out of the hospital on Thursday. We appreciate all the prayers.

Encourager Article

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' (Matthew 22:36-39 NASB)

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 NASB)

I put these passages at the first of this article for a reason. We have lost focus! If I were to ask the question, “What does Welsh Memorial Baptist Church exist for?” I am sure I would get a variety of answers from different people. But, I want you to seriously ask yourself that question and think about your answer not from a personal stand-point but a biblical stand-point. What does the bible say about why we exist?

Personally, my answer would come from those two passages at the beginning of this article. I think it would look something like this on paper. “Welsh Memorial Baptist Church exist first, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor by tell them about the wonderful gift that God has given us in His son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, for our sins, and was raised on the third day so that we might have eternal life. We seek to baptize them by immersion and to build up all who come in the knowledge of God’s revealed word so that they can live the wonderful life that God has called them to live.”

The question is how do we loose focus in a church? My personal answer is when we start looking internally at ourselves and not eternally and what God desires. William Temple was right when he said, “A church is the only organization that exists primarily for the benefit of non-members.”

We do what we do as a church for those outside the church and leaving the results up to God. It’s like what is said in any evangelism training I have ever gone through, you sow the seed and leave the results up to God. I believe if we held 100 events every year that presented people with the truth of who Jesus is and no one trusted him as savior or came to our church we have been faithful in what God has commanded us to do.

You look at the story of Israel in scripture and that was exactly their problem. They got so self focused and forgot about the promise that God had given them, they would turn to sin and ultimately ended up in exile.

Anytime our church reaches out to the community we must not be focused on how it benefits our church! We must ask ourselves, have we been faithful in what God has called us to do? If we can answer yes to that question, then we have done what we need to do whether we see any benefit from it!

Let us go out and fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission together and leave the results up to God!!!!!

Jacob Update

Jacob got home on Friday Auguat 20 and is doing really well. The miracle that happened is amazing to think about. He came through the surgery and originally the doctors were able to open up his pulmonary artery to 2mm, they were hoping for 4. A day later his lung collapsed and all blood flow was cut off. By the weekend the lung started to fill with air again and blood flow returned from other vessels. The pulmonary artery did not return to normal function. They are looking at going back in and hoping to open back up the artery in 2-3 months.

The doctors said it was a miracle that the lung came back. They were prepared to take the lung out. We know that miracle was the hand of God in His life.

Continue to pray for Jacob that God would help the Doctors know what to do and that his body would allow the pulmonary artery to work properly.

Prayer for Jacob

Today I am in Morgantown, West Virginia with a family from the church. Their son, Jacob, is four years old and is having his fourth open heart surgery. When he was born one of his arteries was not attached and his heart was not functioning correctly. He was rushed to the hospital here when he was baby and had his first surgery. Then six months later he had another surgery. Last year he had his third open heart surgery. Earlier this year the doctors realized his pulmonary artery to his left lung was blocked. In March he had a heart cath to see if they could unblock the artery and it failed.

Today he is having his fourth open heart surgery to see if they can repair the problem. Please pray for Jacob and his family BJ (Dad) Margie (Mom), Peyton (older sister), Gracie (Sister) and Mason (younger brother). The first four hours of the surgery is to get through all the scare tissue from the previous surgery.

Crazy Town Names

I was reading a friend's, Billy Victor, blog the other day and he had been through Toad Suck, Arkansas which I had been through before when I was in college. So it inspired me to remember some of the unusual city names that I have heard of in the five different states I have lived in my 36 year life. We will start with my home state of Texas and progress through the states in the order I have lived in them.

Frognot, Texas--this town, somewhat, in Collin County near my home town of McKinney. I have never been able to find the reason for the name, but I think it is one of the best. It now consists of one unoccupied building.

Earth, Texas--located in the panhandle near the New Mexico border. The name says it all.

West, Texas--Located between Hillsboro and Waco on I-35. It is 669.52 miles from El Paso and according to Mapquest it is 9 hrs 37 min drive time to El Paso.

Cut n Shoot, Texas--Located near Conroe, North of Houston. It was apparently named after a 1912 community confrontation that almost led to violence. According to the different versions of the story, the dispute was either over the design of a new steeple for the town's only church, must of been Baptist. The issue of who should be allowed to preach there, or conflicting land claims among church members. A small boy at the scene reportedly declared, "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!" The boy's phrase apparently remained in residents' minds and was eventually adopted as the town's name.

Gun Barrel City, Texas--Located on Cedar Creek Reservoir between Ennis and Canton. Founded when Cedar Creek Reservoir was created. Named after Gun Barrel Lane. The city's motto is, "We Shoot Straight with You."

Uncertain, TX--Located on Caddo Lake, the only natural lake in Texas, near Karnack, yes I should do this one in honor of Johnny. It is northwest of Shreveport, LA. There is no reason found for the name of this little town of 150, but if you know the area you will understand.

Ding Dong, TX--Located 8 miles south of Killeen, which should be on the list but is not because of the way most people in Texas pronounce it...Kuleen. Funny thing about Ding Dong, is that it is found in Bell County. Bell County is name after Peter Hansborough Bell,the third governor of Texas. That has nothing to do with Ding Dong. It was named this after Zulis Bell and his nephew Bert Bell who owned a country store on the Lampasas River between Killeen hired C.C. Hoover to paint the sign for their new store. When Hoover went to get paint Stokes-Blair Hardware Company in Florence Fred Foster told him to be creative. "Why don't you do something original with this sign," he suggested to Hoover. "How about drawing two Bells with the name Zulis in one and Bert in the other. Then print 'Ding Dong' on the sign." The little community around the store took on the name of Ding Dong, and there you have it.

Notrees, TX--Located between Odessa and Kermit, no not named after the frog. Growing up going to West Texas, most of my family is from there, I understand why it is named what is named. It became a town after Shell Oil built a gas plant near there in the 40's. The first store built by Charlie Brown named the town Notrees since there were some many other towns that already existed with Brown, Brownfield and Brownwood to name a few.

For more funny Texas town names go to one of these two websites

Town Names

How Great is Texas

On to the second state of Arkansas. This state and post has inspired a future post about funny mascot names (let me just say, Wampuscats). I lived in this state for four years during college. What do you expect from a state that gives you Ouachita Baptist University (class of 93) on the Ouachita River. Oh, and Ouachita is not pronounced how it looks, it is pronounced Washitah. I digress, onto the cities.

Turkey Scratch, Arkansas--Located in Northeast Arkansas, southwest of Memphis. I could not find a story behind the name.

Smackover, Arkansas--Located in Southeast part of the state between Camden and El Dorado. The name Smackover is an anglicization of the French "Sumac Couvert." Which translates to "covered in sumac."

Toad Suck, Arkansas--Located northwest of Little Rock near Conway, the town Conway Twitty is named after, host a three day festival called "Toad Suck Days." Legend has it, that it was named for the local boatman and gamblers who sucked whiskey like a toad. Suck can also refer to a channel of water.

Possum Grape, Arkansas--Located between Newport and Searcy in the north central part of the state. I could not find a story behind the name.

Greasy Corner, Arkansas--Located southwest of Memphis. I could not find a story behind the name.

Piggott, Arkansas--Located north of Memphis near the Missouri/Arkansas line. It is the home of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer House. Pauline Pfeiffer was Earnest Hemingway's second wife and grew up in Piggott. The family converted the barn into a writing studio. The name was the last married name a sister of the founder.

After a return to Texas for Seminary I then moved to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Pagosa is the Ute Indian word for bubbling. Which makes sense, because Pagosa has many hot water springs.

No Name, Colorado--Located south of Glenwood Springs, which is on the way to Grand Junction from Denver. The town of Rifle is to the east of Glenwood Springs on I-70. No Name is named after No Name Creek and No Name Canyon which are near there.

Last Chance, Colorado--Located due west of Denver in the plains of Colorado. You guessed it, it gets its name because it was the last chance to get provisions in either direction.

Parachute, Colorado--Located on I-70 between Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction. The name comes from the appearance on a map of several streams converging on the town as do the shroud lines of a parachute combined with the arc of the ridge line above the streams which resembles the canopy of a parachute. The town was previously named Grand Valley.

Purgatory, Colorado--Located north of Durango on the way to Silverton. It is well known for its skiing. They have tried to change the name. In fact what was Purgatory Resort when I was a kid has changed its name to Durango Mountain Resort at Purgatory.

The fourth state I lived in was Pennsylvania. My wife and I lived there from 2000-2005. There are many town names that have sexual connotations in Pennsylvania and I will not deal with those.

Scalp Level, PA--Located near Johnstown, PA. Johnstown is home of the Johnstown Chiefs hockey team that the movie "Slap Shot" is based on. It is also where the film "All the Right Moves" with Tom Cruise. This is a term used by teens of the Johnstown Area for cruising on the strip on Friday and Saturday nights.

Gobbler's Knob, PA--Located near Punxsutawney, northeast of Pittsburgh. Gobbler's Knob is the home of Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog.

We moved to Maryland in 2005.

Frostburg, MD--Located in western Maryland east of Morgantown, WV. Frostburg is the city I live in and is named after its founder Mesach Frost. The crazy irony in the name is that it fits. In the winter it is cold and there is lots of snow.

Assawoman Bay, Maryland--Located between Ocean City and Delmavra. Could not find a story behind the name.

Accident, Maryland--Located in Western Maryland in Garret County near Deep Creek Lake. This little town is speed trap. The town's founder, George Deakins, had been given 600 acres of land by King George II of England. The two surveyors he hired to pick out the best plot of land used the same tree as a starting point, and selected the same plot of land, hence the name Accident.

Crapo, Maryland--Located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay across the bay from Solomon's Island a great little place to hang out. Could not find info on the story behind the name.

Cockeysville, Maryland--Located north of Baltimore. Cockeysville was named after the Cockey family which helped establish the town.

That is the end. There are so many other towns that I could have come up with along the way, but those are just a few.

Needed Updates

Obviously from dates on my blog I have not had much time to post. I have made a resolution to try to post at least once a week from now on to keep things going. I already have an idea of a post on funny city names. I have lived in five different states in my 36 years and I have visited over half the states in the US. There are some funny names out there, so I will highlight some of those names from the states that I have lived. This post is inspired from a friend and fellow former seminarian Billy Victor and his blog at Bill V's Quick Hits. He made a comment about going through "Toad Suck Park" recently on his way through Arkansas. Well, actually Toad Suck is a town in Arkansas, but in my opinion not the funniest one. You will have to read my post later this week.

Today is the last day of July and I cannot do a post without telling my two kids that God has blessed my wife and I with so far. Happy Birthday to both Riley (6 on the 16th) and Carson (2 on the 22nd). We are breaking one pattern for our kids birthday's this September. Hudson will be born on September 10th as of right now. Kind of glad we don't have all three in one month.

Riley has grown so much and is such a beautiful girl. Her smile can light up a room so easily. Trust me I am trying to do everything I can do to turn her into a daddy's girl. She makes our lives very interesting. She is such a compassionate person. Anytime she sees someone hurting she tries to help. She loves to swim, play and she is my little daredevil. She will be entering the 1st grade this year and our prayers for her will ever increase. She also is the only girl on my side of the family. My brother has three boys and our next one is a boy.

Carson is my giggle box. I think I can make him laugh at any point and time. He was standing in his crib tonight crying but every time I walked by the door and made a face who would start giggling. Then he would start crying again when he could not see me anymore. He loves playing and is all boy. His smile just makes me laugh because I know he is up to something. He loves his big sister and looks for her all the time. He is sympathetic to all. When Riley gets hurt and falls down and cries, Carson comes over and falls down next to her and cries. He is definitely into the fun two's.

God has richly blessed Michelle and I with two wonderful kids. As a dad I could not be more proud. Michelle is such a wonderful mother to our kids and I am glad to share this journey that God has given us with her.

Sanitized Christianity?

Have we created a Christianity that has become sanitized? Before I get into what I am thinking on that question let me give you a definition of the word sanitize. It means, “To make more acceptable by removing unpleasant or offensive features from”

God calls us as follower of Christ to be sanitized when it comes to sin in our life. We are to get rid of those things that entangle us and keep us from being what God wants us to be and from having the type of relationship with him that He desires.

But with original question I am not talking about sin, but what I am talking about is have we removed the unpleasantness and uncertainty that comes with following God. I was studying today for our Wednesday evening Bible Study about Isaac. He was the child God had given to Abraham that would continue the line of promise. When he reaches his mid twenties or early thirties, God tells Abraham to take Isaac to Moriah and sacrifice him there.

For some of us if God were to ask us to do something radical like that it would grate against everything that we believe about Christianity, because most followers of Christ have sanitized their life from unpleasantness even when it comes from God. To think about God calling us to do something that is as unpleasant as killing an only child does not line up with most people’s view of who God is in their life.

God has called us to a radical faith, a transformed faith. It is a faith that calls people to step out of a comfortable boat onto a raging sea and walk on water. For most people their faith in God is the absence of anything that would disturb their comfortableness.

What if we are missing God’s greatest blessing because we have developed a faith of conformity to “Christian norms” and not a faith of transformity? I know that is not a real word but I like it anyway.

Romans 12:1-2 calls us to a different kind of faith that radically changes the way we think, talk and live. Read what it says, “Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Eugene Peterson in The Message paraphrases those verses this way, “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

So, have you laid every aspect of your life out before God and said, “Here it is God do what you want, even if things don’t go the way that I want them to.” Or have you sanitized your Christian faith so that you have created a god in your own mind that is not really the God of scripture. A.W. Tozer said it best when he wrote, “If we create God in our image we create a God who can never surprise us, never astonish, never overwhelm us, never transcend us.”

If we have sanitized our Christian faith to get rid of unpleasantness then what a feeble and worthless God we have created for ourselves. I challenge you to allow God to be the God that empowers you to not conform but transform the world around you.

Been a While

Wow almost three months since my last post. What a shame. Well I will give you the article I wrote from our newsletter in a post.

Awe of Nehemiah

This Sunday I will conclude a series of sermons on the book of Nehemiah that I started back at the first of the year. It has been interrupted by other sermons here or there and one Sunday we didn't have church, but it has been a wonderful book to study.

Too many books on Nehemiah focus of the leadership aspects of the book. Nehemiah is a wonderful book about leadership, but that is not the only focus on the book. I think I could preach this book three or four times in the next few years and concentrate on several different aspects or themes.

The theme that I felt God leading me to weave through the study of this book was the idea of passion for God. When you read the book you see the lack of passion on the part of the people of Jerusalem and you see Nehemiah's passion to do something great for God by rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. You see Nehemiah lead the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and return them to passion for the things of God and in chapter 13 you see them return to the things that kept them from having passion for God and Nehemiah having to step in again and make some changes to keep their passion going.

Passion for God is always in balance and their are things that can come in and steal that passion and there are many things that Christ followers need to do in order for their Passion for God to stay strong.

For me it has been a book of returning to my first love and encouraging the the people of God that He has entrusted me with to run back to their first love.

My favorite verse in Nehemiah comes in 13:25 which says, "And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

You know that is what I want to do to some people when they are not following God the way they should.

For the most part Christ followers are complacent people who live in comfortable happiness with our lot in life. We don't take chances and we have allowed to many things to go unchecked in our own lives that that we need to either repent of or lay at the alter of God. It is time for our passion for God to be renewed and rekindled and take back the things of God and live for Him the way He desires us to live.

I invite you to live with the passion for the God who has sought you and brought you into relationship with Him. If you are not passionate for God, start seeking those things that you need to do in order to become the passionate Christ follower He desires you to be.

Real Reality

This is my new favorite show behind 24. Nothing will surpass that show! I think the reason I like it so much is that it is real reality. These guys don't do this to be on TV, they do it to make a living. They take great risks so that people can enjoy the taste of King Crab in their homes or favorite restaurant. They work hard, they take risks and I am sure the life is not the most fun thing that can be done.

It goes to show that with great risk comes great reward.

What story are you telling?

I love stories! I love to read good stories, hear good stories and watch good stories. I am drawn in by the personalities and figures that make up a story. What makes people tick? Why do they do what they do? I am drawn to good stories that capture my attention and draw me in for a long period of time.

It is interesting as we read, hear, or watch stories unfold they teach us lessons about life, faith, and God. We don't need to look at the story just for its aesthetic value but the spiritual value that every story has as well.

I think that is why I love the bible so much is because of the stories that we get from the people. The beautiful thing is that bible has a wonderful aesthetic beauty to it, but the spiritual beauty is so much more beautiful and wonderful.

It is not unfathomable that there have been so many biblical stories that have been turned into movies of the history of film. Some of those movies have been good representation of the biblical story and still others have been a complete and utter farce to the biblical story.

The boat that people miss with God is that we think that He has written all the stories and that is the end. The fact of the matter is that our lives are a story of God's work in our lives. All stories of redemption are good stories to be told. They can encourage, strengthen, bring joy, be thought provoking and guide people towards God.

The question comes, what story about God is your life telling to the world in which you live? How is the story of your life making a difference in people's life? God can use any aspect of the story of your life to point people to His Kingdom.

Let God write your story, don't try and write it for yourself, because only when He writes it does it become a masterpiece!

What can we learn from tragedy?

My heart goes out to all those who experienced tragedy this last week. Most of the world knows about the shooting at Virginia Tech and the tragedy that occurred there, some of you may have heard about the two miners killed in Barton, which is 10 miles or so from Frostburg. On Monday of last week we also had a three year-old little girl killed when a boulder the size of two softballs crashed through the windshield of her father's truck and struck her while she sat in her car seat.

I was reading over an old sermon that I preached about seven years ago on the book of James and came across this list of eight reasons scripture gives us as to why Christians go through trials

1. To test the strength of our faith—trials can show a Christian strengths or weaknesses in their faith that they need to work on. If someone goes through a trial and does not come out strong, but comes away bitter, resentful, and with self-pity, we can see that their faith in Christ is not strong to begin with. Throughout scripture we can see the testing of faith that strengthened people like Job, Habakkuk and even Moses.
2. To humble us—to remind us not to allow our strength in the Lord turn into presumption and self-satisfaction. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:7 that, “because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!”
3. To wean us from dependence on worldly things—the more we accumulate things, knowledge, education or prestige, the more we are apt at allowing those things to become our strength, instead of our strength coming from God alone. At the feeding of the 5000 Jesus turned to Philip and asked, “where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’ This He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending to do” (John 6:5–6). Philip with his reply failed the test, “Two hundred denari worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little” (v. 7). Philip looked at the material worldly side of the situation instead of looking to Christ to provide for the need. We often do that and need to take our focus off what we have to get through a situation and look to what Christ has to help us get through a situation.
4. To call us to eternal and heavenly hope—Paul tells the church at Rome, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). Trials come so that we don’t look at earthly things, but look to our heavenly future.
5. To reveal what we really love—We see this in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son on the altar. It proved his true love for God.
6. To teach us the value of God’s blessings—Our intellectual reason tells us to value the things of this world, and our senses tell us to value pleasure and ease. But through trials, faith tells us to value the spiritual things of God with which He has blessed us abundantly—including His Word, His care, His provision, His strength, and, of course, His salvation. David exulted: “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, for You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.” (Psalm 63:3–7)
7. To develop His saints for greater usefulness—You have to look no farther than Peter to see this quality. Peter went through trial after trial and failed time and again. But all those trials prepared Peter for greater usefulness. We see Peter at Pentecost preaching and 3000 were saved.
8. To enable us to help others in their trials—We can come back to Peter again. He was not only tried for great usefulness, but also to help others as well. Paul put it this way to the church at Corinth: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.” (2 Corinthians. 1:3–6).

Great Post

One of my favorite blogs is by Mark Batterson, Pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC. He has written a great book called "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day." If you have not read it, I strongly encourage you to read it. If you can't buy it go to his Chase The Lion website and you can download the first chapter and listen to the Podcast of all the sermons that make up the book.

I digress! On Mark's blog this week he wrote a great article about decoding the culture and has some wonderful insights. This one quote struck a cord with me,

Too many pastors are getting As in Biblical exegesis and Ds in cultural exegesis. We know Scripture, but we're out of touch with the times. The end result is a gap between theology and reality called irrelevance. We're out of touch with the very people we're trying to reach the unchurched and dechurched. We've got to exegete our culture so we can close the gap. That's what incarnation is all about.

The post-Christian church needs a revelation: irrelevance is irreverence!

Then he gives four options for the church to engage culture. 1) ignore it, 2) imitate it, 3) condemn it, or 4) create it. And each option leads in polar opposite directions.

I would have to agree with Mark on his assessment of what the church needs to do to become more effective in reaching the unchurched and dechurched. Churches need to do a better job of creating a culture that impacts the people outside the body of Christ.

One last quote, "At the end of the day, the culture will treat the church the way the church treats the culture. And we're not called to condemn. We're called to redeem."

WOW!!! Thanks Mark for your insight!

This is ridiculous

Supposedly spring came about a month ago, but as you can tell from the picture I took with my cell today, spring has not sprung. It is blowing snow with wind gust up to 50 MPH. Yes, that is my Char-Broil grill laying on its side. You might ask why I have not picked it up? Well, because it fell on its front during the night and I picked it up and now it is lying on its back. I believe I will leave it until the wind dies down in the next day or so. The good news is, by the weekend it should look a lot more like spring.

It was fun Saturday morning coaching soccer when it was 36 degrees outside. The good thing with that is there was no wind. I will blog more about soccer a little later.

Here is hoping it is warmer where you are!!!!!