Category: Newsletter

Every Christian wants to grow in the faith. But what does that look like? I pray that this article will help us seek transformation by God’s grace instead of just more information. The following is from an article by Alistair Chalmers:

“True maturity is a gift God actually wants to grow in His people. The problem is that we often measure maturity by the wrong metrics. We confuse information with formation, and equate Christian vocabulary with Christ-like virtue. Which is understandable because information is measurable. But I don’t think that it’s the right way. The gospel saves us by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and the Spirit grows us as we abide in the Word. But that grace produces fruit, and that fruit is measurable, and that fruit is one sign of maturity. So what does Christian maturity look like?

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The Sense of time passing faster only increases the older you get. An aging actor was once asked by an interviewer, “What’s it like to get old?” He replied, “you eat breakfast every half hour.” When I first heard that, I thought he meant that he ate a lot. Then I realized he meant that it seems like morning comes every thirty minutes. I’m beginning to experience that now. Apparently, when you’re “over the hill,” you pick up speed.

I love the Book of Psalms, and Psalm 139 is one of my favorites. I’m especially drawn to verse 16. The King James Version renders it this way:

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

The first phrase refers to our growth in the womb. The Hebrew word for substance was used to refer to “the body”. Unperfect means “unformed” or “unfinished”. The idea is that God was watching over you from the very beginning of your existence, even before your birth.

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Bob Dylan wrote a song called Man Gave Names to All the Animals. I first heard it sung by bluegrass mandolin player Tim Rice. (I like Bob Dylan’s songs, but only if somebody else sings them.) The song is witty and very tongue-in-cheek. Here’s a verse: “Saw an animal on the side of a hill…Eatin’ grass ‘till he had his fill…Saw the milk come out but he didn’t know how…‘Ahhh, I think I’ll call him a cow.’” I love the song; it’s so much fun. And it’s actually even Biblical, in its own way, ending with this ominous incomplete verse: “He saw an animal as smooth as glass…Slithering his way through the grass…Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake…” And the verse leaves you hanging, with that image of the Tempter in the Garden of Eden.

When I was a teenager I heard my pastor reference this Bible story of Adam naming the animals. He said, “Boy, Adam must have been smart! Have you seen those names? I can’t even pronounce some of them!” And I remember thinking, “Surely he doesn’t really think Adam gave animals their Latin genus and species names! Surely he’s making a joke!” But I wasn’t entirely sure. I still don’t know if he was joking or not.

Sometimes jokes are made about those who love animals. Certainly, people can be over-balanced in their attitude towards animals. The Bible is clear that, out of all God’s physical creatures, only human beings are made in the image of God. It’s a mistake to value animals on the same level as human beings.

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When I was in college it was an exciting time. It seemed like most everything in my life was up in the air. I had way more questions than I had answers, like: Would I get married? Who would I marry? (I had some thoughts about that, but I really wanted to hear from God.) What kind of a husband would I be? Would we have children? How many children would we have? What kind of a father would I be? Where would I go after I graduated? What part of the country would I live in? What kind of ministry would I have? Would I be an associate pastor first, or go right into a senior pastor position? Would I serve on a church staff, or be a solo pastor? And, on a deeper, more fearful level: Would I be a success? Would I be able to provide for my wife and children? Would my family be disappointed in me? Would God be disappointed in me? Would I be disappointed in myself?

I’d spent my teenage years as a prodigal son living on the edges of “the far country.” My parents made me tow the line for the most part, but I drifted away from God. I was making my own decisions, planning my own life, and taking my own path. And it all ended up with my life in the ditch in a big way. I wrecked the most important relationships with the most important people in my life, wasted some really good opportunities, and started to become someone that nobody really wanted to be around. I mean it when I say that, without Jesus, nobody would like me.

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I have a small leather 3-ring binder that I use for my sermon notes. I got it some years ago from supply store. It isn’t really a notebook. It’s actually an old address book, meant to hold pages with five or six names and addresses per page. These days you can hardly find address books like this anymore. Everybody(including me) keeps all their names and addresses on their contact list in their smartphones.

But I’d seen Billy Graham preach with his Bible and a full-size 3 ring notebook, and I thought, “Now why can’t I do that?” I’d begun preaching from more extensive notes, and eventually adopted a full manuscript format- something I thought I’d never do. I write out my sermons on half sheets of paper, 8 ½ x 5 ½ inches, and the more pages I wrote, the more a notebook made sense.

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Easter time is for pastors and churches the most wonderful and exhausting time of the year (along with Christmas). But I love it. I love the Tenebrae “Service of Shadows” on Good Friday, the Sunrise Service early on Easter Sunday Morning. But most of all I love the astonishing Truth that Easter celebrates, with is the keystone of our faith.

I don’t love the idea that Easter is all about springtime, the yearly cycle of birth-death- and reborn. And some vague sentiment of “what Easter means to us all”. And I especially don’t love the claim that Jesus’ resurrection was a myth.

I agree with the Apostle Paul: if Jesus didn’t rise for the dead, “we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15:19) If I didn’t really believe that Jesus rose from the dead, I’d quit the ministry and go het an honest job.

Here are what are called the “minimal facts” about the death of Jesus and what happened next. Even unbelieving, skeptical scholars admit the following things:

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When I was little my grandmother would often get out a small plastic box labelled “Precious Promises.” She would open the lid to reveal about a hundred small rectangular cards in different pastel colors. On each card was printed a verse of Scripture, a promise from God written in the Bible. She’d pick one, then let me pick one, and then she’d read them both aloud. Then she’d smile and say, “Now we’ve had our promises for today.” It was just one more way that she communicated to me the importance of the Bible, and how encouraging its words could be.

A few years later, after an aunt and uncle gave me my first Bible, my grandma showed me Proverbs 3:5-6, which says:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (NKJV)

Many of us are familiar with those verses, and maybe we’re a little too familiar. We gloss over them without really contemplating what they mean. There are three admonitions for us, followed by one promise from God.

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It has always felt a little surreal growing older.

My memories of my childhood are a blur of endless summer days playing outside with the neighborhood kids, riding to grade school on my bike, going to Sunday School in my parents’ Chevrolet, staying all night at Grandma’s house, Christmases, birthdays, reading comic books, and listening to Monkees records.

Somewhere around 12 or 13 years of age I slowly became aware that, even though I still felt like a little kid inside, I was getting bigger on the outside. I was awkward and clumsy as I grew into my new size. To add to my embarrassment, pimples started breaking out on my face—especially on the tip of my nose—and my voice started to change, getting lower but unexpectedly squeaking up an octave at the worst moments—like whenever I tried to talk to a girl. At some point during that time, I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t a little kid anymore.

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