A more eloquent version of what I was trying to say in “Go for it,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and [...]
Pastor's Notes
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
April 6, 2009 – 12:06 pmAll Kinds of Change
April 6, 2009 – 11:55 amIn this post I want to bring to light some things from our study on “Christian Change.”
Crossroads: a step-by-step guide away from addiction, by Dr Ed Welch, lists ten steps to change. The first one given is “Listen.” Christian change can begin when one decides to humble himself and dedicate himself to listening to God [...]
Go for it
March 17, 2009 – 11:19 amOn Sunday we heard Jesus refer to his followers’ relationship with him as a participation in him, specifically a participation in his death. When we become followers of Christ, we truly receive him, and our identity is altered. The events that formed Jesus’ destiny—his death, resurrection, and ascension—must now inform the calculations and priorities for [...]
Read this entry »Missionary Zeal
March 17, 2009 – 11:10 amYou’ll enjoy this: Following is a letter written in the early 1800s by a ten-year-old boy and his sister. The letter was sent to the natives of modern-day Sri Lanka through a missionary who was going to the island.
HT: Doug Wilson
Dear Heathen:
The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the [...]
Patterns in Revival
March 6, 2009 – 8:15 amHT: Ray Ortlund
Horatius Bonar, writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival, proposes that men useful to the Holy Spirit for revival have been marked in these nine ways:
1. They were in earnest about the great work on which they had entered: “They lived and labored and preached like men on whose lips the [...]
Edwards’ Religious Affections
March 4, 2009 – 6:07 pmMore from the dead guys! (though this one here is propped up by one of the living). Jonathan Edwards wrote Religious Affections to argue that affections—‘the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul’—were not only permissible, but actually vital in responding well to God.
Sam Storms recently offered a modern [...]
Culture Making Quotation
February 14, 2009 – 11:33 amAndy Crouch is a writer for Christianity Today and a former Harvard campus minister with Inter-Varsity. Last year he wrote a book entitled Culture Making. One of his tasks was to record different postures toward culture among professing Christians. They are as following: Condemn, Critique, Copy, or Consume. In his mind, all of these postures [...]
Read this entry »Voices from the Past: Samuel Rutherford
February 10, 2009 – 10:45 pmWe need to hear from the dead guys. Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor and theologian in the early 1600s. He is remembered mainly for two books he penned: Lex Rex, where he presented an idea of limited government, and his Letters.
Of the latter collection Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century Baptist said, “When we [...]
Laziness Quotation
January 11, 2009 – 2:16 pmThe following is a lengthy excerpt from Repentance and the 21st Century Man by C. John Miller. I read it some weeks ago and the bold section has stayed in my mind since.
Branch-sins are those faults which others most quickly see in us. They are the sins which most obviously get in the way of [...]
A Postcard and a Psalm of Ascent
December 19, 2008 – 12:33 pmUpon arriving at church recently, I found a postcard in our mailbox from a counseling center. They want to help more and more people, and are sending notices to that effect.
On the front of the postcard is a couple obviously in love. Obviously? Well, yes—both, bronzed by the sun, are wearing all white as he [...]