I’m a visual thinker and I love these kinds of visuals:

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.

“Religious people read thin, superficial books of religious sentiment, but do not meet face to face the strong, exacting, masculine pages of their Bibles.”

How true.

What books would you place on this list of “thin, superficial books of religious sentiment?”  I’d begin with these three recent books: The Shack, The Secret and Heaven is for Real

Ran across this at the UCC website, of all places.  Pithy.  I liked it.

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is “spiritual but not religious.” Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he’s telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Read the rest.

My friend, Danny, passed along this wonderful article.  It hits the mark.  We think, often, of how the values of the “world” shape the Christian, and, when we do, we almost always refer to morality.  Yet, the values and ambitions of our culture influence and shape us in subtle and significant ways beyond our morality.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Meet Larry, a thirty-six year old Science teacher. Larry married Cathy 12 years ago. They love each other and enjoy raising their two sons. Larry’s life wouldn’t hold out much interest to the average citizen. His Facebook account doesn’t draw many friends and nobody ever leaves a comment on his blog. In fact, most people would summarize Larry’s life with one word—boring. But not Larry. Teaching osmosis to junior high students, playing Uno with his kids, and working in the yard with Cathy is paradise to him. But the real love of his life is Jesus. Larry’s a Christian. He’s been walking with the Lord for more than 20 years.

Larry’s Christian friends all employ the same word to describe their companion—faithful. He’s faithful to his local church where he’s been teaching Sunday School for nearly a decade. He’s never ignored a legitimate financial need within the body of Christ. He gives sacrificially, but secretly. Larry devotes himself to his wife and family, lovingly shepherding them through every season of life with the Scriptures. He’s faithful to his job and fellow colleagues. He’s managed to share Christ with nearly every junior-high teacher at Oakwood Academy. And although they mock Larry behind his back, all the teachers respect him. It won’t shock you to know Larry pays his taxes and never misses an opportunity to serve his community. Larry’s life commends the gospel. He’s faithful, but he’s unremarkable. Or, is he?

If you’re bored with Larry’s Christianity, it’s probably because you’ve been influenced by a very different idea of the Christian life. Larry’s not radical, or wild at heart—not in the sense of taking careless risks, jeopardizing the stability of his family, or pursuing a life of adventure. You could say Larry is quite content with his station in life, a station given him by God. He aspires to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. Sound familiar?

Read the rest.

Did anyone make a New Year’s resolution to read through the Bible in a year?  I hope so.  Of all of the spiritual disciplines, I have found this the most fruitful.

If you’re still looking for a plan, or to get started but don’t know where to start, Nicky Gumbel at HTB has put together a great Bible reading resource.  It’ll take you through the entire Bible in one year and he offers a bit of explanation and application with each daily reading.  Best of all, you can have it sent right to your phone, iPad (or whatever), computer.

Here’s a snip from today’s selection:

The Bible has a great deal to say about walking with God.  It is how we were intended to live.  It was only Adam and Eve’s sin that made them hide when they ‘heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Genesis 3:8).

God’s desire for each of us is that we should walk humbly in a relationship (Micah 6:8).  This is what Jesus has made possible – for us to walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).  Now we stumble, but one day we will walk with him dressed in white (Revelation 3:4).

Each of the passages for today tell us something more about what it means to walk with God.

Click here to read the rest of today’s entry, and, if you wish, to sign up.

I came across this quote by Horatius Bonar this week while doing some sermon research.  Bonar warns against a kind of “soft and effeminate Christianity.”  The crux of the issue for him are Christians who are too afraid to fight for what is right and to protest against what is wrong and what that does to the faith.

See what you think:

For there is some danger of falling into a soft and effeminate Christianity, under the plea of a lofty and ethereal theology. Christianity was born for endurance…It walks with firm step and erect frame; it is kindly, but firm; it is gentle, but honest; it is calm, but not facile; obliging, but not imbecile; decided, but not churlish. It does not fear to speak the stern word of condemnation against error, nor to raise its voice against surrounding evils, under the pretext that it is not of this world.

It does not shrink from giving honest reproof lest it come under the charge of displaying an unchristian spirit. It calls sin ‘sin,’ on whomsoever it is found, and would rather risk the accusation of being actuated by a bad spirit than not discharge an explicit duty. Let us not misjudge strong words used in honest controversy. Out of the heat a viper may come forth; but we shake it off and feel no harm.

The religion of both Old and New Testaments is marked by fervent outspoken testimonies against evil. To speak smooth things in such a case may be sentimentalism, but it is not Christianity. It is a betrayal of the cause of truth and righteousness. If anyone should be frank, manly, honest, cheerful (I do not say blunt or rude, for a Christian must be courteous and polite), it is he who has tasted that the Lord is gracious, and is looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.

I know that charity covereth a multitude of sins; but it does not call evil good, because a good man has done it; it does not excuse inconsistencies, because the inconsistent brother has a high name and a fervent spirit. Crookedness and worldliness are still crookedness and worldliness, though exhibited in one who seems to have reached no common height of attainment.

Ran across this excellent article in prep for this week’s sermon:

Packer writes:

The terrorist demolition of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, has led many to speak of it, with good reason, as a day that changed the world. But there was another day that changed the world, in a much deeper and more far-reaching way: that was Pentecost morning in the year 30 or thereabouts, when shortly before nine o’clock Jesus of Nazareth, God’s glorified and enthroned Christ and the world’s cosmic Lord, poured out the Holy Spirit on his disciples gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:1–41). For it was then that the new covenant ministry of the divine Spirit was initiated, and that ministry—maybe I should say, the Church in the power of that ministry—has done more to change the world than any other force since history began.

Read the rest.

Ran across this excellent article in the midst of sermon prep (I have no idea how I traversed this site or topic as it has absolutely nothing I will be addressing this weekend).  It touched a nerve.  One of my bugaboos is the intolerance of those who consider themselves tolerant (ironically, often matching the regressive, judgmental behaviors of the self-identified “progressives” – but that’s a post for another day).

Here’s a snip:

To be a serious Christian in modern Western culture is to be the favoured easy target of every progressive thinker and every half-witted comedian. It is to have your sensibilities and your deepest beliefs on perpetual call for taunts, mockery and desecration. At a time when all progressives preach full volume for inclusivity and sensitivity, for the utmost care in speech when speaking of others with differing views or hues, Christians, as Christians, are under a constant hail of abuse and disregard. There is nothing too low or too vulgar.

Something as inconsequential as a Christmas special, for example, will have — almost as an essential element, it being “Christ’s” birthday after all — something determinedly offensive to Christians. Russell Peters, the Canadian joker, for his special this year has invited Pamela Anderson, pinup queen and soft porn actress, to play the Virgin Mary.

Pamela Anderson as Mary the Immaculate: I know — the wit, the daring, the originality — hell, the bravery of it all. No wonder Peters is at the very top of the yuk-heap. Can it be that it’s only 30 years since Monty Python and The Life of Brian? Talk about “cutting-edge.” The casting is so, so clever — getting a lewd exhibitionist to play Mary, to call in a pop-culture tart to play the very Mother of God.

But for believers to object, well that would be irksome and stuffy and high-handed and parochial — it being another of this age’s curious predisposition that Christians are supposed, if not to like the jeers hurled at them, to at least be good enough to suffer the insults, blasphemies and mockeries in silence, if not secret approval. To actually object to Russell Peters going for a cheap, unintelligent and vulgar laugh would probably get categorized as “intolerance” or “censorship.” Go for it, Russell — Pam Anderson as the Virgin Mary will tickle the funnybone of every single digit IQ from St. John’s to Victoria.

Read the rest.

Have you experienced the pressure of tolerance?  How have you navigated the challenge?  I’d love to know your thoughts.

On Saturday, December 3rd at 9.00 am at Blackbaud Stadium there will be a Guinness World Record attempt at creating the largest mosaic picture formed by people.

The attempt is is being done in the name of Ansley McEvoy.  Ansley is a 5 year old girl from Charleston battling Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  She was diagnosed in December of 2010 and continues to fight hard to become cancer free.  So far 11 schools, 10 churches and hundreds of people have been involved.

So, if you’re looking for something fun to do next Saturday why not head out to Blackbaud and help put a smile on a little girl’s face?