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I've worked with CRU for 17 years, and in part with the Jesus Film. These are interesting facts about the distribution and translation of the film.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Jesus Film Infographic
I've worked with CRU for 17 years, and in part with the Jesus Film. These are interesting facts about the distribution and translation of the film.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
The Importance Of Having An Abundance Mentality
“The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say: “There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love … everything.” With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.
When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love … everything. There will even be many leftovers.” – Henri Nouwen
(ht: JR)
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Idols Infographic
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Communion Meditations
You can read the theological and practical reasons why celebrating the Lord's Supper is more than a mere memorial, part 1; part 2; part 3.
As you celebrate the Lord's Supper in your church, you can use these communion meditations either projected on a screen or posted in your bulletin as an opportunity of preparation, meditation and contemplation during the Lord's Supper.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
— C.S. Lewis
"Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him."
— Augustine of Hippo
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
1 Corinthians 11:24-26
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
— G.K. Chesterton (What's Wrong with the World)
"We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone."
— Martin Luther
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Living East Of Eden
One of the biggest challenges I face in leading mission team around the world, is the part when the team comes back home. Re-entry. Often times the trip is a spiritual mountain top experience for many of the team members - even with all of its hard work and effort. Yet coming home to the mundane, routine and stressful life can feel like a valley to most.
Therefore it is not uncommon that team members may struggle with their re-entry home. They quickly discover how much they miss the close-knit fellowship and times of continual worship. They hunger for the sense of purpose and focused mission. Even though the experience during the mission and the life they encounter back at home can seem to be in conflict, they are not. How do we reconcile these two experiences?
Below is a written response to a team member's frustration that they expressed upon entering back home.
Your thoughts remind me that you and I in this world are living, East of Eden. John Steinbeck wrote the novel “East of Eden” in the 50’s. The title was taken from Genesis 4:16, “So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden" There is a place called Eden, a paradise, a state of being in which everything is in its right place. A realm where the favor and peace of God rest on everything…and because of the fall, Cain is not there. He’s east of there. And he’s not only east of there, but the he was “building a city.” He is putting down roots…east of where he should be. East of where God intended him to be. The book of Genesis keeps returning to this eastward metaphor insisting that something has gone terribly wrong with humanity, and that from the very beginning, we are moving in the wrong direction. East of how things are meant to be… East of Eden.
What you and I experience in this world is not how it was intended to be...therefore we feel unsettled, not at home...because in fact you and I are living east of Eden. Separated from how God designed it to be. So know that what you are experiencing is real...and is "normal" in the sense that this world should make us feel unsettled. But through Christ there is a new and different reality for those follow the King.
The reality for you and me is that there MORE for us beyond this world and that one day,when Jesus returns, all things will be settled and be set right. Yet God allows and invites that future reality to break into our present through God's people (you and I) in and through the power and might of the Holy Spirit.
You experienced some of that "inbreaking" of the future during our mission trip this past week- the fellowship and the worship. It is a foretaste of what awaits us. But also let it be an encouragement that God doesn't just reserve that for mission trips, he wants to (and can) take what you experienced on the mission into your daily life. He want you to take it into your experience with your family. Your experience with your patients. Your experience with your neighbors and friends.
But know that even though we may sample a taste of the sweet fellowship with God and His people, or worship of Him - and a greater sense of His purpose for us...we are still not at home...we are living East of Eden.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Communion Meditations
You can read the theological and practical reasons why celebrating the Lord's Supper is more than a mere memorial, part 1; part 2; part 3.
As you celebrate the Lord's Supper in your church, you can use these communion meditations either projected on a screen or posted in your bulletin as an opportunity of preparation, meditation and contemplation during the Lord's Supper.
“When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God's.”
― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters
Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him.... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God."
— Paul David Tripp
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” - John 6:47-51 (ESV)
"The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart."
— John Calvin (Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life)
"Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."
— John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself)
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Stop Trying & Enjoy The Silence
"Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you . . . remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business . . . even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought . . . unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy.
What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort . . . than being able from time to time to stop that chatter . . .
- originally published in Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner"
Monday, April 15, 2013
The Dissidence With Grace
Words from Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel–a man after my own heart:
Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works–but our lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many Christians are living in a house of fear and not in the house of love.
Our culture has made the word grace impossible to understand. We resonate with slogans such as:
“There’s no free lunch.”
“You get what you deserve.”
“You want love? Earn it.”
“You want mercy? Show that you deserve it.
“Do unto others before they do unto you.”
“By all means, give others what they deserve but not one penny more.”
A friend told me she overheard a pastor say to a child, “God loves good little boys.” As I listen to sermons with their pointed emphasis on personal effort–no pain, no gain–I get the impression that a do-it-yourself spirituality is the American fashion.
Though the Scriptures insist on God’s initiative in the work of salvation–that by grace we are saved, that the Tremendous Lover has taken to the chase–our spirituality often starts with self, not God…We sweat through various spiritual exercises as if they were designed to produce a Christian Charles Atlas. Though lip service is paid to the gospel of grace, many Christians live as if only personal discipline and self-denial will mold the perfect me. The emphasis is on what I do rather than on what God is doing. In this curious process God is a benign old spectator in the bleachers who cheers when I show up for morning quiet time. Our eyes are not on God. At heart we are practicing Pelagians. We believe that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps–indeed, we can do it ourselves.
Sooner or later we are confronted with the painful truth of our inadequacy and insufficiency. Our security is shattered and our bootstraps are cut. Once the fervor has passed, weakness and infidelity appear. We discover our inability to add even a single inch to our spiritual stature. Life takes on a joyless, empty quality. We begin to resemble the leading character in Eugene O’Neill’s play The Great God Brown: “Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?”
Something is radically wrong.
Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat out denial of the gospel of grace.
Handling Criticism
The biggest danger of receiving criticism is not to your reputation, but to your heart. You feel the injustice of it and feel sorry for yourself, and it tempts you to despise not only the critic, but the entire group of people from which they come. ‘Those people…’ you mutter under your breath. All this can make you prouder over time. Newton writes: ‘Whatever…makes us trust in ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit.’ He argues that whenever contempt and superiority accompany our thoughts, it is a sign that ‘the doctrines of grace’ are operating in our life ‘as mere notions and speculations’ with ‘no salutary influence upon [our] conduct.’
So how can you avoid this temptation?
First, you should look to see if there is a kernel of truth in even the most exaggerated and unfair broadsides. There is usually such a kernel when the criticism comes from friends, and there is often such truth when the disapproval comes from people who actually know you. So even if the censure is partly or even largely mistaken, look for what you may indeed have done wrong. Perhaps you simply acted or spoke in a way that was not circumspect. Maybe the critic is partly right for the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, identify your own short-comings, repent in your own heart before the Lord for what you can, and let that humble you. It will then be possible to learn from the criticism and stay gracious to the critic even if you have to disagree with what he or she has said.
-Tim Keller
(ht: Keller Quotes)