Interesting article from 9Marks:

As a pastor, I interact with a lot of people who struggle to have confidence in the authenticity of their conversion. To their mind, their sin clings closely and their failings are always at hand. Most of the time, I find that these are faithful brothers and sisters who need comfort and reassurance.

But there’s another group of people in many of our churches that are much more worrisome: those with a firm but unfounded belief that they are genuinely converted. Perhaps you know they type. They know the right words. They stay free from scandalous public sin. And they are moral people. But they have no true fruit, no evidence that God’s converting Spirit is at work within them. And oftentimes there is an untreated area of secret sin.

Read the rest.

Jessica Smith, our worship leader at St. Andrew’s City Church, reminds us that our own story is a continuing story of God’s love and mercy.

This past Wednesday, Liz Young, the mother of SAMPs own, Nancy McEniry, departed this world to be with her Lord.  My interactions with Mrs. Young were limited to a handful visits over these past 11 years that I’ve known Nancy.  I always enjoyed those visits.  Mrs. Young was charming, gracious, and shared with delight her love of Charleston and its history.  She led a fascinating and rich life and Charleston was the rich recipient of her local work.

This morning, the Post & Courier ran two columns noting her life and death – one on the Editorial Page and another on the Local & State page (linked below).

The funeral will be tomorrow at St. Michael’s at 10.00am.  Please keep Nancy, Chip and the family in your prayers.

Post & Courier Editorial

Post & Courier Local & State column

The halls of the Washington Hilton, the hotel that hosted the National Prayer Breakfast, buzzed last Thursday as people discussed the speech — Metaxas’ speech, not President Obama’s, which followed. Outside the hotel, a Occupy Wall Street protestor asked, “Is it true what I’m hearing, that Eric Metaxas talked about Jesus?”

It was true. And then, to end his speech, Metaxas led those in attendance in the singing of the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The author attacked “phony religiosity,” which he struggled through as an agnostic studying at Yale before he became a Christian.

“Jesus was and is the enemy of dead religion,” Metaxas said. “He came to deliver us from that.” Prayer emanates from “real faith in God,” he said, adding that faith in Jesus leads to courageous acts like those of Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce.

The video below is set to start at approximately the 35 minute mark which is where Metaxas’ speech begins.

Yes, that’s my boy.

Happy 26th Anniversary, Wifey!

St. Andrew’s member Dr. Bill Sasser first began doing short term mission trips over 15 years ago.  Bill and his wife, Susalee, have traveled all over the world, offering dental care to those least able to care for themselves. Their travels have taken them from the jungle highlands of Southeast Asia to prisons in Rwanda to the squalor of Haiti. After serving solo for many trips, they felt led to reach out to students at MUSC’s Dental School.

Ten years ago, they helped organize Dental Community Fellowship (DCF – DentalCommunityFellowship.net). This is a student chapter of a national  organization called the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. DCF organizes yearly mission trips where students play an integral part of the care given in these locations. Students who go on these trips are responsible for covering all associated costs for their trips. These include airfare as well as incountry expenses. The trips not only benefit the patients but the students as well as they are able to provide hands on care at a rate and under circumstances that they will never see if their learning was confined to the school and its clinics. In addition, they are exposed to missions and serving those who are many times forgotten.

This Saturday,  January 21, they will hold two events to raise money for scholarships. The first event of the day will be a golf tournament at Stono Ferry. In the evening, they will have a banquet here at St. Andrew’s beginning at 6:30 pm. The DCF Banquet will feature a silent auction, bar-b-que dinner and a speaker, Dr. Stan Cobb. Stan is known as the Cowboy Dentist and hails from Spearman, Texas. He is a dentist, artist, writer, and occasionally, a cowboy.

I invite you to come and be a part of the banquet and hear the incredible stories of what our Lord is doing through and with our local dental school. To purchase tickets to the banquet, please visit the DCF’s website.

Registration is now up and open on the SAMP website for our 2012 Men’s Retreat. 

The theme this year is,  “Be Present,” and, I am delighted to have +Terrell returning to SAMP to lead us through the weekend.

For more information or to register, click here.