During a lunch meeting with two of my elders last week (and yes that is all we do is eat and talk) I had yet another brilliant idea ;-) this time for what I think is a really great slogan/logo for a youth group shirt or poster... "IN NOT OF"... Good isn't it? The phrase comes from Jesus' prayer in John 17 where he asks that as Christians we would be in the world but not of the world. This of course is a very challenging thing to live out these days, especially for young people.

Practically speaking, what does this mean? What does it look like, to be in the world but not of the world? Well here are some helpful thoughts from Mark McKinley, pastor of Guilford Baptist Church, Sterling, VA.

As Chrisitans, we should expect persecution for our faith. For most of us in the West, that takes the form of being ostracized and rejected in fairly minor ways (compared to being beaten or killed or imprisoned).

But I think sometimes the world rejects us not because we are like Jesus, but because we're jerks or weirdos. If we go out of our way to remind people of our moral superiority, if we always insist that people who don't love God should be expected to act like they do... then we deserve whatever rejection we get. They're really not rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting us.

So I sometimes talk to my church about the "ministry of being normal". As believers, we are necessarilly going to have a lot of distance between us and those who don't follow Christ. We live differently, love differntly, hope differntely. We're citizens of a different country.

Here are some interesting thoughts from a Christianity Today article/interview with Eugene Peterson a few years back. His comments remind me of a book our elders are reading through called The Trellis and the Vine. Would love to hear your feedback...

QUESTION: How should we visualize the Christian life?

ANSWER: In church last Sunday, there was a couple in front of us with two bratty kids. Two pews behind us there was another couple with their two bratty kids making a lot of noise. This is mostly an older congregation. So these people are set in their ways. Their kids have been gone a long time. And so it wasn't a very nice service; it was just not very good worship. But afterwards I saw half a dozen of these elderly people come up and put their arms around the mother, touch the kids, sympathize with her. They could have been irritated.

Now why do people go to a church like that when they can go to a church that has a nursery, is air conditioned, and all the rest? Well, because they're Lutherans. They don't mind being miserable! Norwegian Lutherans!

And this same church recently welcomed a young woman with a baby and a three-year-old boy. The children were baptized a few weeks ago. But there was no man with her. She's never married; each of the kids has a different father. She shows up at church and wants her children baptized. She's a Christian and wants to follow in the Christian way. So a couple from the church acted as godparents. Now there are three or four couples in the church who every Sunday try to get together with her.

Now, where is the "joy" in that church? These are dour Norwegians! But there's a lot of joy. There's an abundant life going, but it's not abundant in the way a non-Christian would think. I think there's a lot more going on in churches like this; they're just totally anticultural. They're full of joy and faithfulness and obedience and care. But you sure wouldn't know it by reading the literature of church growth, would you?

When done right, music can be such a powerful means of expressing deep theological truths. The are few things as beautiful as when the love of God is expressed through a well written song. With this in mind, let me share with you the following quote from Sinclair Ferguson's book "Grow in Grace" along with a short video that tells the story behind the chorus "How He Loves".

"How you view God determines the quality and style of your Christian experience. Many Christians spend much of their lives paralyzed because, although they have trusted Christ as Saviour, they have never really seen what His sacrifice teaches us about the character of God. He gave His Son; He sent His Son; He handed over His Son because He loves us.

If we have deep-seated fears that God does not really love us (as many Christians have), we can only go so far in growing nearer to God. There will come a point at which we will fear to trust Him any further because we cannot be sure of His love. When we look at ourselves, or our own faith, or our circumstances we will never be free from those lurking fears. Satan will see to that. But when we lift up our eyes and look on the cross we find the final persuasion that God is gracious towards us. How can he be against us when all His wrath against us fell upon Christ? How can He fail to care for us when He gave the only Son He had for our sake? How can we doubt Him when He has given us evidence of His love sufficient to banish all doubts?

God’s love is the most awesome thing about Him. It is not His justice, nor His majesty, nor even His blazing holiness, but the fact that He has made and keeps a covenant of personal commitment and love to His people."

- Sinclair Ferguson, Grow in Grace

Here is the link to the video:

Well it happened again. Another failed attempt at humour as I jokingly tried to say, during my sermon this past Sunday, that books had become obsolete. To which people (probably due to the heat) were unable to pick up on my brilliant sarcasm :-) In any case, there is some truth to this statement, at least in the eyes of the late Aldous Huxley, author of the book Brave New World.

Huxley, along with his contemporary George Orwell (author of 1984) saw and wrote about the possible dangers of the coming of the technological age. They feared, as Tim Challies put it during our men's retreat, that through these new technologies we will inadvertently introduce problems far greater than the ones we seek to solve. Here is how Niel Postman explains the different ways these two men expressed their concerns in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

Well we survived, but just barely. Our second annual men's retreat was this past weekend and aside from the odd twisted ankle and sore muscles from guys who were too old to be playing a game of softball (not me of course), it was a great success. The food was excellent, the fellowship was great and the messages were very engaging and informative.

Our speaker this year was Tim Challies who did an excellent job of addressing the issue of living virtuously in a digital world. To get an idea of what he talked about and where he was coming, here's a quote from a recent article he wrote entitled "Who is using whom?"...

There must have been a day, many thousands of years ago, when a particularly enterprising individual invented the wheel. It is such a simple thing but one that completely revolutionized the world. It is an invention none of us would wish to be without. But transport yourself back to the moment the wheel was unveiled and you will no doubt see that some Luddite nearby was shaking his head, clucking his tongue, and mumbling, “There goes the neighborhood.”

Some people tend to regard any new technology as inherently good; others, the cautious types, may lean toward viewing any new technology as inherently bad. The fact is, though, that technology itself is amoral, neither good nor bad. The ultrasound machine, used to save unborn babies by diagnosing problems in utero and used during the destruction of unborn babies through abortion, is neither good nor bad; it just is. It is not technology itself that is moral or immoral but our use of that technology, our application of it, our dedication to it. Technology is but an amoral tool in the hands of moral beings.

RC Sproul shares the story of Peter Beskendorf, a barber who was in his shop one day and noticed a man come in and take his seat. As the barber took out his straight razor and as he was stropping it to hone it to a razor’s edge, he noticed that the man who had entered his shop was a fugitive. He was wanted. There was a price on his head. And the man was one of the most hated men in the whole continent.

And when he took his place to have his hair cut and his beard shaved, the barber took that razor, pressed it against the edge of the man’s neck, and knew that if he just put a little more pressure on the blade, he could become famous and rich for collecting the reward.

But he made no move to exert such pressure on the patron’s neck, because despite the hatred the customer bore, the barber loved him and considered one of his greatest heroes, and considered himself blessed that he would even have the earthly privilege of shaving the face of Martin Luther. Luther came to Master Peter’s shop on a regular basis for the haircut and the shave.

And when Master Peter had Martin Luther as a captive audience, he would spend the time asking the great Reformer theological questions. One day he raised the question of prayer and said to Martin Luther, “Dr. Luther, can you teach me how to pray?”

Luther said, “I’d be glad to Master Peter”, and he went back to his room at Wittenberg and he picked up a pen, and specifically for his barber he wrote a short little essay entitled "A Simple Way to Pray". You can read about it here:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-3/deliver-us-from-the-...

Incidentally, have you ever wondered why we have to pray if God already knows everything? Well here's a five minute video by DA Carson that provides an answer:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/video/What-is-biblical-prayer-Wh...

In honor of Father's Day...

"Some fathers exasperate their children by being overly strict and controlling. They need to remember that rearing children is like holding a wet bar of soap – too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too loose a grip and it slides away. A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control… We ought to begin our fatherhood by holding the tiny helpless bar snugly, but as it grows, gradually and wisely loosen our grip." - Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man

Now let's expand this question beyond being a good father to succeeding at parenting...

Successful Parenting by Ed Welch

Everyone who has children thinks about the question: How can I be an effective or even successful parent? I have yet to meet a parent who simply wanted to pass children off into the next stage of life with basic physical health in tact but nothing more. (Reminds me of the time I babysat a friend’s goldfish while he was on vacation–simple survival—that was my only goal.)

We want our children to thrive, and we want to contribute whatever we can to make that happen.

Parenting, of course, is not a precise recipe. Follow the steps and . . . voila, out pops a fear-of-the-Lord, covenant-keeping, wise young adult. Such parenting would actually oppose the way God does things. All we would have to do is trust in our steps and everything goes fine. Instead, the (much better) system we have received is one where we parent by faith. We trust in Christ every step of the way. We pray tons and love the best we can. Yet, there are some basic directions available to us.

As I get older I have the opportunity of watching many children grow. Some do well, others don’t. I have a mental file of hundreds of conversations about parenting and have observed almost every kind of parenting style imaginable. Here are some of the tendencies that I have noticed in successful parenting.

1. Successful parents are always learning about Jesus.

A few years ago, while living in Edmonton, I met with the president of our denomination's bible college to express my concern over their decision to have a Muslim leader come and speak during their weekly chapel service. He graciously took the time to explain the motivation behind this decision and after some discussion, we ended up agreeing to disagree. Little did I realize that just a few years later I'd be reading about the direction of other bible colleges not just to have Muslim leaders come and speak but to actually provide them with training. Here are the two news stories, one from California, the other from here in Ontario...

Theology School Melds Studies of Different Faiths

"The venerable Claremont School of Theology has taught Methodist ministers and theologians for more than a century, but in the fall they'll try an unorthodox approach: cross-training the nation's future Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leaders in classrooms scattered around Southern California as they work toward their respective degrees."

SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_re/us_rel_religion_today

Emmanuel College Begins to Train Muslim Clergy

"The Christian Church has always existed in a context filled with a wide diversity of religious expressions. So declares the vision statement explaining why Emmanuel College has begun training leaders for the Muslim faith. Emmanuel, whose main role has been to train clergy for the United Church of Canada, is one of the schools that make up the Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto. At the end of March, it began offering its first two Islamic courses: Islamic Spirituality in a Health Care Setting and The Qur'an in the Canadian Context."

SOURCE: http://www.christianweek.org/stories.php?id=926

A good friend of mine (yes I have some) recently emailed me to talk about the developing story of Dr. Craig Venter and the creation of synthetic life. At a press conference Thursday, Dr. Venter described the converted cell as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.” Here is an excellent overview of the story by Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Seminary...

The cover story of the June 2010 edition of Scientific American presents “12 Events That Will Change Everything.” Those events include human cloning, an asteroid colliding with the earth, a worldwide pandemic, and the creation of synthetic life. Each of the twelve proposed events is evaluated in terms of likelihood. The article on the creation of synthetic life ranks the probability of that event as “almost certain.”

Consider that a case of an argument made too late. Just days ago, Dr. Craig Venter and his associates announced the achievement of the first synthetic life form, a bacterium with DNA sequenced entirely by computer — a human-designed life form.

The international media have seized upon the news, published officially in the journal Science. In rather clinical language, Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, described the achievement. The journal explained that Venter and his associates “describe the stepwise creation of a bacterial chromosome and the successful transfer of it into a bacterium, where it replaced the native DNA. Powered by the synthetic genome, that microbial cell began replicating and making a new set of proteins.”

During our trip to Cleveland for the Basics Conference we had a lot of great theological discussion. One of the things that came up was the issue of free will and one of the books we were given at the conference was Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will". Coincidence? I think not.

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

John 8:31-36 (ESV)

Someone recently shared the following quote with me:

"A free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom indeed." - George MacDonald

This is an interesting quote from a very interesting man. Still, I’d want to clarify what we mean by free will and where it comes from. Are we born with it or is it something we are given in and through Christ? I believe scripture, and Jesus in particular in the passage above, is very clear in teaching us that because of the fall we are all born as slaves to sin... our intellect, our desires and our will. It is only when Christ redeems us that we are...