Paul and Rome
February 25, 2010
Paul…. His life has been radically changed. He has been called to mission. He has a burning desire to share the freedom and hope he has found. What better place than Rome? But he has never been there. He has never met the church members meeting there. Can he capture his message in a letter? For a discussion on Paul’s introduction of his mission to the church in Rome (read Romans 1), join me this sabbath at 9:30 AM. (I switched with Lisa and Laura…don’t worry, “Crazy Love” is coming March 6.)
CROSSroads
February 25, 2010
First Serve: CROSSroads–how the death of Jesus can transform us.
Speaker: Daniel Tworog
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant—–
Success in Circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm Delight,
The Truth’s supreme surprise.”
–Emily Dickinson
“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we dwell upon his great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be be constant, our love quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we should be saved at last, we must learn of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross.”
–EGW
Daniel is the father of his son, Nathaniel. Dan loves to grow spiritually and in that regard he is an explorer and an adventurer. His personal mission statement, “To listen for God’s voice, serve others, and breathe gratitude and joy.”
Crazy Love
February 25, 2010
ConneXions Topic: Crazy Love
Facilitators: Laura and Lisa
Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts — it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, you will never be the same.
Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.
3.6.10 9:30 AM Classroom A
Young Goodman Brown
February 24, 2010
I just read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story Young Goodman Brown. Great!
This story really pushes the reader to consider how we run amok when we try to become ultra pure and holy. We’ve all met people like Goodman who, when they are confronted by the ugliness of the human condition, draw the wrong conclusion and miss the point entirely.
In reaction to sin, Goodman isolates himself on his own little island of holiness–and becomes a complete failure as a human being. Ouch. The darkness of the story is its own irony.
Hawthorne seems to suggest that we cannot focus on the opposite of an idea and thereby escape it. We cannot focus on sin and thereby escape it. Hawthorne asks the question: can we find goodness if we’ve trained our eyes to see only badness–in ourselves, in the world, and in other people, especially in those closest to us?
There’s no sense doing violence to Hawthorne’s prose by attempting to summarize the story itself; it only takes 12-15 minutes to read. Get it from the library. Or borrow my copy. Or download it for free. Or read it online.
Read: go forth and be thoughtful.
Salvator Interviews Marc Wagner
February 21, 2010
Salvator interviews Marc Wagner about his new book, There and Back Again, and asks the author about his next writing project…
Click here to read the interview.
The Awe Factor
February 17, 2010
ConneXions Topic this weekend: The Awe Factor of God
Facilitator: Angie
A.W. Tozer writes: “What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us…the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.” Read more
Soul Friends
February 16, 2010
The following passage from John O’Donohue’s book, Anam Ċara, made me think fondly of ConneXions and Band of Brothers and all the wonderful small groups that have sprouted up in our church over the last three years. These are places of belonging, of knowing and being known…
“In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam ċara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and ċara is the word for friend. … In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam ċara. It originally referred to Read more
The Power of Love
February 10, 2010
First Serve welcomes Scott Neil to the stage: The Power of Love.
Saturday, 13th. 8:30 AM
“Love is the ultimate expression of God’s loyalty, purity, and mercy extended toward his people-to be reflected in human relationships of brotherly concern, marital fidelity, and adoration of God. Read more
C.S. Lewis: on Joy and Desire
February 10, 2010
I’m really excited about this ConneXions class. We’ll be doing something totally unique, diving into the life and writings of C.S. Lewis–and all the richness they have to offer on the subject of Joy and Desire.
We’ll be covering Surprised by Joy and The Pilgrim’s Regress, two biographies of Lewis’ spiritual pilgrimage. And we’ll be looking at two specific questions: Why did Lewis see his movement toward Christianity in terms of joy and desire? How did this influence his apologetics?
I owe a great debt to Louis Markos, Houston Baptist University, Ph.D., University of Michigan, for the content of this class Read more
Green Peace
February 8, 2010
I awoke one Sabbath with the urge to get high, mountain high. I had just changed jobs and my new responsibilities pressed in on me like a crowd in an elevator.
An image jutted through my mind. It levered me out of bed: I saw myself in an alpine forest, dewdrops on morels, sunbeams on water, me sniffing mountain air so fresh it seared my nostrils like a nip of wasabi. I dressed, blinking, squinting. My limbs moved unconsciously toward the car.
It wasn’t long before I found myself on a wooded trail deep in the Cascades without remembering quite how I got there. Soft needles crunched under my feet and a breeze tugged at the mossy beards of the pines. I was alone, except for my iPod, and as I trotted past a huge obsidian flow I heard the first notes of Mozart’s Symphony #40 tinkling in my ears. I smiled. The strings dipped and sawed and eventually knifed their way through a melody that was clearly going someplace, as I was Read more
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