Dr. Appointments and Car Reservations

Had to go get shots today. It only took 2 hours, despite having an appointment. I never understand the purpose of an appointment at the doctor’s when it is almost an hour later that I get called back.

Reminded me of the Seinfeld episode about the car reservation.

You have to visit Youtube to watch it because they disabled the ability to embed that video.

BTW, I hope you hear more humor than frustration in this post. I don’t need comments about the pressure of a doctor office or any angry comment feeds. Just something to make you laugh during the day.

 

Prayer from St Francis

I thought I would share this:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Guide us
to console more than seeking consolation, to pardon more than asking for pardon and to know that in death we are born to eternal life. In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Sunday Rundown

As I was driving with Walt to Clinton yesterday afternoon, I told him that I believed his message yesterday to close out the WHY? series was by far the best one of the series.

I fear how easy it is for us to become too comfortable with God’s amazing and scandalous grace. We tend to forget where we have come from and there fore fail to extend the grace extended to us.

At best our life is a breath. Sometimes, you could argue even shorter. We don’t have time to possibly make a decision to follow Christ later. For those that are following Christ, may we rejoice in the grace given to us and in turn then extend that grace to others.

You cannot begin to understand the grace of God on your life and not respond in worship through obedience to God’s commands. Our obedience to God is not to earn his love, but because we are already loved.

Music from Capstone Gathered:

• No One Higher/The Stand
• Beauty of the Cross
• Shaken
• It is Well
• Forever Changed
• Great I Am

For the Glory of God Among the Nations – Mauritania

This week’s five minute challenge will focus on the country of Mauritania.

Isolated from the rest of the world because of its mainly desert landscape and because it is ruled by an oppressive regime, Mauritania is very proud to officially be a pure Muslim country. The constitution does not include any provisions for religious freedom and its laws prohibit conversion to Christianity. The sentence for apostasy is death. Pressure on Muslim-background believers from family, tribe members and leaders of local mosques is very high. There is some freedom for expat churches, but Mauritanian Christians must meet in secret.

Places like Mauritania can be easily forgotten or never noticed from believers in USA. Your care and desire for the Nations is a strong indicator of your walk with Christ. If you don’t care about missions, then you don’t care about the heart of God. Plain and simple.

So spend some time in prayer this week for the believers in this country. 3.5 million people and only an estimated 400,000 followers of Christ. So pray for strength, peace, and pray for God to raise up missionaries to be sent to Mauritania and pray for more believers to rise up in that country.

Youth Ministry and the Adult Church

I wanted to pass on this article that I read recently and maybe start a discussion. Here is a small portion of the article. You read it in full here. I would encourage you to read it and then come back here.

So why haven’t we come of age? The reason is fairly simple—we can’t. Youth ministry is basically a mirror of what happens in the wider culture. If we look outside the church, we see that youth culture actually has conquered most aspects of contemporary life—so much so that it’s hard to talk of youth culture at all. Adults, young people, and children all share in a common, media-generated, consumer culture. Obviously there are different tastes and so on, but that hardly constitutes an entirely separate culture. Youth ministry hasn’t grown up. In fact, the church has become more adolescent.
This shouldn’t be surprising. Youth ministry and the wider church have simply followed what’s happened in the general culture. Far from growing up and leaving youth ministry behind, the adult church has increasingly adopted the styles and products of the youth scene. Youth ministry hasn’t come of age—it’s simply colonised the adult church.

I can’t help but agree with a lot of what the article discusses.

So where do we go from here?

As I have reflected on this article a few things came to my mind:

Greater Expectations

Just because our society says adolescence has been pushed into the 30s doesn’t mean that we should expect that. Instead I say we start expecting more out of our middle school and high school students. The “teenager” is an American invention that is really not that old.

Challenge

I still believe, and I doubt that I will ever change on this, that every student should spend a summer in another country (preferably third world) spreading the Gospel before they graduate college. I believe every student should at least be exposed to a third world country in missions before they graduate high school. Our teenagers have to learn Trigonometry and Calculus, and we teach “Chubby Bunny.”

Right of Passage

I still am thinking this thing out, but I really think that we are missing out here. I am still trying to figure this out when it comes to my own children, but I want to do things in their lives to mark accomplishments and initiate new frontiers for their lives.

Any thoughts that you would share?

Preparation for the Gathering

I believe that this Sunday is going to be an important one for Capstone.

This will be our 3rd week in the WHY? series. We are moving from Why the Cross and Why the Resurrection to Why Me? Why has God saved me? I will give you a hint, He didn’t save you because you were awesome.

Here is my prayer from Psalm 19:14. I would invited and encourage you to pray along with me:

Fill our worship with grace, Lord Jesus Christ, that every thought, word, and deed may be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

We are also going to introduce a new song this Sunday. Here is the story behind the song:

You can listen to the song here:

Songs that we worship corporately with Sunday:

• Rise and Sing – Fee
• Revelation Song – Kari Jobe arrangement
• Shaken – Paul Baloche
• Lead Me to the Cross – Hillsong United
• Forever Changed – Eddie Kirkland

For the Glory of God Among the Nations – Northern Nigeria

Each week, I am highlighting a country and asking for you to spend at least 5 minutes that week praying for that country. This week, I am asking for you to remember the people of Northern Nigeria.

70 million people live in this country. It is estimated that there are 27 million people who follow Christ. Please don’t look at that number and see the fact that it is just under half of the population. The persecution is great. In fact while we were celebrating Easter this past Sunday in Fountain Inn, a church was bombed. This is the second such incident in this country this year.

Persecution of Christians is driven by Islamic extremists. In the Sharia states of the north,there have been many attacks on churches and Christian communities in which believers were wounded or killed. In the last year, an estimated total of 1,000 Christians died through persecution. About 5 million Christians are believed to be under intense pressure as a result of their faith. The Boko Haram sect (an Islamic extremist group) has become a serious threat. From 2009 to date they have destroyed over 50 churches and killed approximately 10 pastors.

Pray for the president of the country, Goodluck Jonathan. He is a believer, but he knows (unlike many American Christians) that you don’t change hearts by passing moral laws.

Pray for the church of this country that they will continue to stand firm amidst great persecution.

Pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send out more workers for the glory of God.