September | 2015 | Coram Deo ~

September 17, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

BOOK REVIEW:

One Thousand Wells: How an Audacious Goal Taught Me to Love the World Instead of Save It by Jena Lee Nardella. Howard Books. 288 pages. 2015
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This is one of the most inspiring books I have read in a long time. It’s also an excellent book on calling and vocation from an incredible young leader. Jena Lee Nardella, co-founder of Blood:Water Mission, writes that her vision of providing clean water for one thousand African communities came to her when she was just 21 years old. She writes that the only way to reach an audacious goal is slowly by slowly.

As she tells her inspiring story she writes that the music that most resonated to her as a young woman was the 1995 debut album by Jars of Clay, one of my favorite bands. She tells us that she learned physical and relational skills at a camp she attended for several summers in Colorado that would one day carry her through the deserts of Africa and the rocky land of running a nonprofit organization.

She tells of spending her allowance to feed the homeless and later working at a shelter. She writes that she was unaware at the time that connecting an overlooked community to a community of resource would become the vocational pattern of her life.

After deciding against a career in nursing, she change her major to political studies. She writes that: “Vocation is surprising like that. Sometimes we try to make it much more difficult than it is. We assume that we have to be martyrs, monks, or missionaries in order to be doing what God wants us to do. I hold fast to the words of novelist and theologian Frederick Buechner, who writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

At a Faces of Justice Conference held on the campus of Grand Canyon University in Arizona she met Dr. Steve Garber, a professor from Washington, D.C. Dr. Garber was the speaker at my graduation from Covenant Seminary in 2014, and the author of the excellent book Visions of Vocation, in which he writes about Jena and Blood:Water Mission.

Garber introduced Jena to Jars of Clay, who were providentially playing a concert on her college campus the following week. Dan Haseltine, lead singer of the band, spoke about the AIDS crisis before the concert. After his talk, Jena met with the band to talk about their vision for an organization they wanted to begin. They called it Blood:Water Mission, a name derived from two things Africa urgently needs: clean blood (blood free from HIV) and clean water (water free from disease). Jars was using their platform as a popular band to talk about the AIDS crisis in Africa. They were looking for someone to turn their vision into a reality. That person would be Jena. She put together a proposal and sent it to the band, later moving to Nashville shortly after graduation to help them start Blood:Water.

The 1000 Wells Project was a goal to provide a thousand communities in Africa, especially the ones affected by HIV, with clean water. Steve Garber helped her connect to people who could lend expertise and support to Blood:Water.

The vision for Blood:Water would be more about Africa and less about Jena, the band and others who came alongside them in America. Africans would be the ones to solve the problems of their continent. Jena writes that the Africans were motivated to lead because the challenges of HIV and water were personal for them, and their own Christian faith called them to be agents of love. They had lost family members and neighbors to diseases that were preventable and treatable, and they wanted to stop the losses. Blood:Water’s vision would be accomplished through partnerships with local organizations such as Women’s Water Group.

The 1000 Wells Project was officially launched in February, 2005, about eighteen months after Jena and the band had met on her college campus. She tells the story of the ministry’s fund-raising efforts, from Haseltine’s pleas at the end of each Jars concert to a breakthrough fund-raising effort at radio station K-LOVE.

Jena and others would make many trips to Africa over the years to meet with the people of Africa and partner with local organizations. She writes that they learned that addressing water alone was simplistic. Water is just one leg of a three-legged stool if you’re trying to achieve real changes in health. The other two legs are hygiene and sanitation. Blood:Water started giving small grants to Africa-based organizations focused on water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Eventually Blood:Water would begin to feel more like a reflection of Jena’s own dreams (going back to her days of feeding the homeless and working in the shelter), rather than just a response to Dan Haseltine’s vision.

Jena writes of not only successes, but also of disappointments – a relationship with a young man who only wanted to be a friend when she longed for something more, the death of a partner in ministry, her frustration with evangelical ministries who wanted assurances that the gospel was being shared in addition to water being provided, and the leader of Women’s Water Group, who used funds donated for wells for his own personal benefit. She also writes of meeting James on a flight to Africa, who would become her husband and partner in the ministry.

Jena writes of the celebration at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, when the goal of 1,000 wells was not only reached, but exceeded. She writes “The challenge is to wake up each day and live out your vocation in the same way true change happens in Africa: slowly by slowly, brick by brick. Faithfully entering the world does not require an advanced degree, a fancy job title, or endless resources. Vocation is a calling, an action, to be expressed wherever your feet are today.”

She writes that partnering directly with local people who are capable, compassionate, and hardworking and applying the values of dignity, relationship, and excellence is where you’ll see true success. She was convinced more than ever that real change happens with Africans leading the way.

Overall, Blood:Water’s projects across Africa had brought clean water to more than 632,000 men, women, and children. Their lives had changed for the better, and in the process, so had Jena’s. She writes “My calling is to do the one more thing in front of me. And then the next. If I can step into that, I want to be there. If stepping into this calling means stepping into hard times, I still want to be there.”

I highly recommend this inspiring and well-written book about a young woman who partnered with Jars of Clay on their vision and through her leadership achieved an audacious goal.

Book News:

Scripture Cannot Be Broken: Twentieth Century Writings on the Doctrine of Inerrancy, Scripture Cannot Be Broken. Edited by John MacArthur. Books at a Glance interviews John MacArthur.

BOOK CLUBS – Won’t you read along with us?

Prayer BOOK CLUB

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

Christians are taught in their churches and schools that prayer is the most powerful way to experience God. But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act. Won’t you read along with Tammy and me? This week we look at Chapter 6: Letters on Prayer.

We turn first to three of the greatest teachers in the history of the Christian church—St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. Each of them wrote extensively on prayer in many places, but each of them also produced one timeless classic—three “master classes”—on the subject. Augustine and Luther each wrote a personal letter to an individual on how to pray, while Calvin included a magisterial treatment of prayer in his summary of doctrine, the Institutes.
Augustine’s first principle is that before you know what to pray for and how to pray for it, you must become a particular kind of person. “You must account yourself ‘desolate’ in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be.” The scales must have fallen from your eyes and you must see clearly that no matter how great your earthly circumstances become, they can never bring you the lasting peace, happiness, and consolation that are found in Christ. Unless you have that clearly in view, your prayers may go wrong.
Here again is one of the main themes of Augustine’s theology, applied to prayer. We must see that our heart’s loves are “disordered,” out of order.
Unless at the very least we recognize this heart disorder and realize how much it distorts our lives, our prayers will be part of the problem, not an agent of our healing.
If you have settled this—if you have grasped the character of your heart and admitted your desolation apart from Christ—then, he says, you can begin to pray. And what should you pray for? With a bit of a smile (I think), he answers that you should pray for what everyone else prays for: “Pray for a happy life.”
If we have made God our greatest love, and if knowing and pleasing him is our highest pleasure, it transforms both what and how we pray for a happy life.
If you just jump into prayer without recognizing the disordered nature of the heart’s loves, your prayer’s intention will be, “Make me as wealthy as possible.” The Proverbs 30 prayer is different. It is to ask, “Lord, meet my material needs, and give me wealth, yes, but only as much as I can handle without it harming my ability to put you first in life. Because ultimately I don’t need status and comfort—I need you as my Lord.”
This is why in the Lord’s Prayer we don’t get to the petition for our daily bread and needs until we have spent time remembering the greatness of God and reigniting our love for him. Only then can we pray rightly for happiness and for our needs. Augustine’s
Once you have learned to pray in full awareness of the disorderedness of your heart and where true joys are found, he says, you can be guided in the specifics of how to pray by studying the Lord’s Prayer.
Think long and hard about this great model of prayer and be sure your own appeals fit it.
Augustine’s fourth principle is about prayer in the dark times.
Even the most godly Christians can’t be sure what to ask for when we are enmeshed in difficulties and suffering.
Augustine concludes, pour out your heart’s desire, but remember the wisdom and goodness of God as you do so.
Martin Luther’s most famous writing on prayer was also in the form of a letter to a friend. Peter Beskendorf was the barber who shaved Luther and cut his hair. One day Peter asked Luther to give him a simple way to pray.
To begin with, Luther counsels the cultivation of prayer as a habit through regular discipline. He proposes praying twice daily.
Next, Luther proposes ways to focus our thoughts and to warm and engage our affections for prayer.
Luther proposes a preparation for prayer. He advises what he calls “recitation to yourself” of some part of the Scripture such as “the Ten Commandments [or] the words of Christ, etc.” This recitation is a form of meditation (or “contemplation,” as Luther calls it) of the Scripture, but it is not mere Bible study. It is taking words of the Scripture and pondering them in such a way that your thoughts and feelings converge on God.
After advising meditation, Luther describes how to do it. First, we are to discern the “instruction” of a text. That means we must distill its essential content, what the passage wants us to believe or do. This is the work of interpreting the biblical passage. Luther calls it the “school text” part of meditation.
Once we have drawn out the “instruction”—put the teaching of the text in a nutshell—then we ask how this teaching particularly leads us to praise and thank God, how it leads us to repent and confess sin, and how it prompts us to appeal to God in petition and supplication.
A rich spectrum of insights can be immediately lifted to God as prayer. Those who have practiced this particular discipline of meditation know that as it proceeds it creates its own energy. It ingeniously forces you off the theoretical plane to consider what that biblical truth you are pondering should actually do to you and in you—how it should lead you to praise God, to repent and change your heart, and also what it should lead you to do in the world.
Over time this meditative habit of mind will often exert itself during the day, naturally turning your heart toward God. You may find many things you hear, see, and read spontaneously leading you to repent, and to praise and petition God.
Luther gives brief yet full examples of how he meditates on each of the Ten Commandments.
They are not exactly Bible study, yet not exactly prayer. They are thinking in the presence of God—meditation.
Luther suggests that after meditating on the Scripture, you should pray through each petition of the Lord’s Prayer, paraphrasing and personalizing each one using your own needs and concerns.
The value of this exercise is manifold. It addresses one of the great practical difficulties of prayer—distracting thoughts.
Ordinary prayer, which is either completely extempore or based on a list of prayer needs, often cannot draw the mind’s attention fully away from what occupied it previously. The exercise of elaborating on the Lord’s Prayer commands the full mental faculty, and this helps greatly with the problem of giving God full attention.
Also, praying the Great Prayer forces us to use all the full language and basic forms of prayer. If left to ourselves we are likely to pray only about the items that most trouble us at the moment.
Praying the Lord’s Prayer forces us to look for things to thank and praise God for in our dark times, and it presses us to repent and seek forgiveness during times of prosperity and success. It disciplines us to bring every part of our lives to God.
Finally, praying the Lord’s Prayer, unlike meditation on a passage of Scripture, is actual prayer. It is address to God—with the authority of Jesus’ own words.
To summarize this point—Luther says we should start with meditation on a text we have previously studied, then after praising and confessing in accordance with our meditation, we should paraphrase the Lord’s Prayer to God.
Finally, we should just pray from the heart. This full exercise, he adds, should be done twice a day.
Luther gives one more piece of advice. He calls praying believers to essentially keep a lookout for the Holy Spirit.
The balance here is noteworthy and rarely found in other works on prayer. Luther expects that we will hear God speak through his Word.
To paraphrase Luther’s little treatise—he tells us to build on our study of the Scripture through meditation, answering the Word in prayer to the Lord. As we do that, we should be aware that the Holy Spirit may begin “preaching” to us. When that happens, we must drop our routines and pay close attention.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

This book made a significant impact on my wife Tammy when she read and discussed it with friends thirty years ago. When I picked up my diploma the day after graduation ceremonies from Covenant Seminary last year I was given a copy of this book. After enjoying Lloyd-Jones book Spiritual Depression (and the sermons the book was taken from), I couldn’t wait to read this book, which is the printed form of sermons preached for the most part on successive Sunday mornings at Westminster Chapel in London. This week we look at Chapter 4: Blessed are the Poor in Spirit.

It is not surprising that this is the first, because it is obviously, as I think we shall see, the key to all that follows.
There is no one in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian and of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and all the other characteristics are in a sense the result of this one.
We shall see that it really means an emptying, while the others are a manifestation of a fullness.
What our Lord is concerned about here is the spirit; it is poverty of spirit. In other words, it is ultimately a man’s attitude towards himself. That is the thing that matters, not whether he is wealthy or poor.
You will never find a greater antithesis to the worldly spirit and outlook than that which you find in this verse.
There is nothing so unchristian in the Church today as this foolish talk about `personality’.
To be `poor in spirit’ does not mean that we should be diffident or nervous, nor does it mean that we should be retiring, weak or lacking in courage.
Neither does it mean that we are to become what I can best describe as imitators of Uriah Heep. Many, again, have mistaken being `poor in spirit’ for that.
As it were, glories in his poverty of spirit and thereby proves he is not humble. It is an affectation of something which he obviously does not feel.
Then again, to be `poor in spirit’ is not a matter of the suppression of personality.
To be `poor in spirit’ is not even to be humble in the sense in which we speak of the humility of great scholars. Generally speaking, the truly great thinker is a humble man. It is `a little learning’ that `is a dangerous thing’.
It was the spirit of a man like Gideon, for instance, who, when the Lord sent an angel to him to tell him the great thing he was to do, said, `No, no, this is impossible; I belong to the lowest tribe and to the lowest family in the tribe.’
It was the spirit of Moses, who felt deeply unworthy of the task that was laid upon him and was conscious of his insufficiency and inadequacy.
You find it in David, when he said, `Lord, who am I that thou shouldst come to me?’
You see it perfectly, for instance, in a man like the apostle Peter who was naturally aggressive, self-assertive, and self-confident-a typical modern man of the world, brimful of this confidence and believing in himself. But look at him when he truly sees the Lord. He says, `Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord.’
Or look at it as you see it in the apostle Paul. Here was a man, again with great powers, and obviously, as a natural man, fully aware of them. But in reading his Epistles you will find that the fight he had to wage to the end of his life was the fight against pride.
But, of course, we see this most of all as we look at the life of our Lord Himself. He became a Man, He took upon Him `the likeness of sinful flesh’. Though He was equal with God He did not clutch at the prerogatives of His Godhead. He decided that while He was here on earth He would live as a man, though He was still God. And this was the result. He said, `I can do nothing of myself.’
That, then, is what is meant by being `poor in spirit’. It means a complete absence of pride, a complete absence of self-assurance and of self-reliance. It means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing that we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face to face with God. That is to be `poor in spirit’.
It is to feel that we are nothing, and that we have nothing, and that we look to God in utter submission to Him and in utter dependence upon Him and His grace and mercy.
It is, I say, to experience to some extent what Isaiah experienced when, having seen the vision, he said, `Woe is me!… I am a man of unclean lips’-that is `poverty of spirit’.
Am I like that, am I poor in spirit? How do I really feel about myself as I think of myself in terms of God, and in the presence of God? And as I live my life, what are the things I am saying, what are the things I am praying about, what are the things I like to think of with regard to myself?
How does one therefore become `poor in spirit’? The answer is that you do not look at yourself or begin by trying to do things to yourself.
The way to become poor in spirit is to look at God. Read this Book about Him, read His law, look at what He expects from us, contemplate standing before Him. It is also to look at the Lord Jesus Christ and to view Him as we see Him in the Gospels.
Look at Him; and the more we look at Him, the more hopeless shall we feel by ourselves, and in and of ourselves, and the more shall we become `poor in spirit’. Look at Him, keep looking at Him. Look at the saints, look at the men who have been most filled with the Spirit and used. But above all, look again at Him, and then you will have nothing to do to yourself.

September 16, 2015
by Bill Pence 1 Comment

THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

SPIRITUAL GROWTH:

Get a Basic Overview of the Bible. R.C. Sproul writes “Here’s my recommendation: begin with an overview of the Bible. Get the basic framework first. Once you understand the basic framework, you are much better equipped to read the Bible. Here is a pattern I recommend for people who have never read the Bible.”
5 Good Reasons to Read the Entire Bible Every Year. Jeff Robinson writes “There are many, many benefits of reading through the Bible every year, and here are five ways I have been helped.”
Repentance that Sings. Listen to this message from Bryan Chapell on Mark 10.
Will We Have Physical Bodies Between Our Death and Resurrection? In an interview with Pastor Todd Wagner, Randy Alcorn shares some thoughts related to this question.
2016 Gospel Coalition National Women’s Conference. Registration is open for the third National Women’s Conference (#TGCW16), “Resurrection Life: In a World of Suffering”, which will be held in Indianapolis June 16-18. The conference will feature 49 speakers, including Nancy Guthrie, Tim Keller, John Piper, D.A. Carson, Rosaria Butterfield and many more.

MOVIES:

5 Things You Need to Know about the Movie Captive. Jonny Zachary writes “This fall, a movie is coming to the theaters that so blatantly proclaims the Gospel that its tagline is, “Faith. Redemption. Survival.” The movie is called CAPTIVE, and it stars David Oyelowo (SELMA) and Kate Mara (FANTASTIC FOUR). The movie is a true story about Brian Nichols, an escaped convict who goes on a shooting rampage during a court case and kidnaps and holds a young woman, Ashley Smith, as a hostage.”
Review: War Room. Jesse Johnson reviews the faith-based film War Room.

CHRIST AND CULTURE:

How Marginalization can Empower Christians on Mission. Trevin Wax writes “If the university is a microcosm of the rest of society and a sign of where our culture is headed, then Christians can expect hostility and marginalization to increase in the coming years. The good news is: if Christian organizations on campus are any indication, this marginalization could become the catalyst for more effective mission.”
The Former Backstreet Boy Who Rejected Fame and Fortune for Christ: The Burk Parsons Story. Kevin Halloran shares the amazing story of Burk Parsons, who now serves as Co-Pastor with R.C. Sproul at Saint Andrews Chapel in Sanford, Florida.
This Is the Best of Times, and the Worst of Times. John Piper offers four things to do to live in a day like ours.
Rosaria Butterfield on Sexuality and Identity. In this less than 3-minute video, Rosaria Butterfield shares some helpful and unhelpful ways Christians often talk about their sin, struggles, and identity as children of God.
Desire. Derek Thomas speaks about desire on IA a new podcast from First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina.
How to Fight Addiction in a Pornographic Culture. In this five-minute video, Voddie Baucham exposes the pornographic nature of our culture and provides men and women with a key tool necessary to fight addiction.
Divorce for Pornography? David Murray writes “I’ve been asked this question a few times, and was asked it again last week: “Is heavy use of pornography grounds for divorce?” Until last week, I’ve usually come down on the “No” side, but having seen and heard more and more about this kind of sin, last week, for the first time, I found myself moving towards a hesitant “Yes.”
Four Reasons Why Christians Should Support Kim Davis. Richard Phillips writes “Christians have different reactions to Kim Davis. Many have criticized her for failing to perform her duty as the law requires, often citing Romans 13. But put in biblical and historical context, Christians should be supporting Davis, praying for her and rallying to her cause. Let me offer four reasons for this perspective.”
Blessed are the Risk-Takers. J.D. Greear writes “Where do you need to take a risk? Is the Spirit of God leading you to start the application process, or write the check, or walk across the street to knock on the neighbor’s door?”

Doug Michael’s Cartoon of the Week

Conversion is a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart, and infusing life into the dead soul. Jonathan Edwards
You are worse than you think you are, but also far more loved than you feel you are. Tim Keller
When you say, “Come in Jesus as my caregiver, stay out as my Lord,” he can’t. He’s both. Tim Keller
If you come from insignificance and when you die you return to insignificance, then nothing is significant now. Tim Keller
Church hoppers are like wandering dogs. If they are not regularly patted on the head, they will go elsewhere until they are. Steven Lawson
If you miss Christ you miss everything, and if you have Christ you have everything. Steven Lawson
Perhaps God brought you into this mess so that he can bring you out of it for his glory. Kevin DeYoung
You will fear something or someone. The Bible says the wisest way to go about your life is to fear God. Kevin DeYoung
The human dilemma is this: God is holy, and we are not. God is righteous, and we are not. R.C. Sproul
We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us. R.C. Sproul
Faith never requires us to crucify our minds or deny our senses. R.C. Sproul
If you’re not content, start naming everything you don’t deserve. Burk Parsons
Who’s sins do you hate the most, others’ sins or your own? Burk Parsons
The glory of the salvation of souls belongs to God, and to Him alone. Charles Spurgeon
If you may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how vital prayer is. Charles Spurgeon
Hell will be filled with people who were avidly committed to Christian values. Albert Mohler
If words like “obedience”, “transformation,” “change,” make you think about legalism, not God’s grace, that needs fixin’. Scotty Smith
Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will. J.I. Packer
Following Jesus is not about conjuring up the moral fortitude to lead good lives. It’s about loving God and enjoying Him. Francis Chan
The heart of the gospel is that God took the initiative in Christ to satisfy his holy anger, and make himself our Treasure not our Terror. John Piper
Though you have sinned much, that is no reason why you should despair, but only why you should love much, having so much forgiven. George Whitefield
If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me. John Wooden
Thanks to the Eagles and Coach Kelly for giving me the opportunity to play the game I love! Romans 8:28 Tim Tebow
Why is hesed love so important? Because life is moody. Hesed is a stake in the heart of the changing seasons of life. Paul Miller
Millions of homeless, vulnerable refugees and all the attention goes to Kim Davis. Lord have mercy. Scott Sauls
We should never intentionally offend, but if you follow Jesus, you will offend religious people. Darrin Patrick
God made the world out of nothing, and as long as we remain nothing God can make something out of us. Martin Luther

September 15, 2015
by Bill Pence 4 Comments

Do You Have a Personal Mission Statement?

I’ve been reading and discussing Matt Perman’s excellent What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms The Way You Get Things Done with a few friends in a faith and work book club. Recently, we’ve been reading about how to create our own personal mission statements.

Perman writes that mission statements are biblical, and that we can find them throughout the Bible. He states that there are three main components to a good mission statement. He looks at each component using Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as the foundation. He states that the entire sermon is about the purpose of life and as such is our mission statement. The three components of our personal mission statement are:

Core purpose. Our core purpose states our overall reason for existence. Perman indicates this is where we state the biblical purpose of life in our own words, and in a way that reflects our uniqueness and that applies to us. How would you state your core purpose?
Core principles. This section of our mission statement contains our answers to the question “What main principles am I going to use to guide my life?” Perman tells us that something passes muster as a core principle in our lives if it is something we would hold to even if we were punished for it. To state it another way, these are the principles we would hold to even if it was to our disadvantage. Perman suggests listing our top twenty guiding principles based on what God has revealed about our purpose and what glorifies Him. What principles would be on your list?
Core beliefs. Perman tells us that our core beliefs lay a gospel foundation underneath our mission. They answer the below two questions:

Our identity. Who are we?
Our ultimate destination. Where are we going to end up at the end of all of this?

Perman offers the following as sample core beliefs:

“I am a child of God who has been forgiven and redeemed by Christ alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone.”

If you were to write your core beliefs, what would they look like?

Perman writes that the ultimate foundation of our mission statement is not our character or our principles, but what God has done for us in Christ, and the fact that if we believe in Christ, God is our Father.

I’m in the process of writing my personal mission statement. Why not try drafting up yours? If you do, I’d love for you to share it with me.

Also, I’d recommend you read Matt’s book What’s Best Next. This is already the second time I’ve read it.

September 14, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

Fail Your Way to Success? (Yes, Really!) Dr. Alan Zimmerman shares few tips on how to handle failure properly.
Moses and Jesus Didn’t Have Their Dream Jobs By 30, Either. Liuan Huska writes “Maybe we should replace the question “What are you doing when you graduate?” with “What kind of person is God calling you to be?” This helps young adults reorient their identity away from careers, which will inevitably change, to character, which only deepens throughout a lifetime.”
Motivate. In this “Minute from Maxwell”, he discusses what it means to motivate.
Work: A Noble Christian Duty. Listen to this sermon from John MacArthur on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15.
Stop Trying to Fix Your Weaknesses. In this 15-minute video Marcus Buckingham explains why performance management systems are broken.
Why Culture Matters. Tim Keller provides a fundamental perspective on why culture matters to God and therefore must matter to us.
How to Finally Achieve Work-Life Balance. In this edition of his This is Your Life podcast, Michael Hyatt covers three simple secrets that make work-life balance possible.
5 Points on Decision Making as a Leader. Brad Lomenick writes “Leaders are decision makers. Period. Whatever the time of year and season of life, lots of decisions are probably on your desk or in your to do list waiting to be pushed forward. It’s something we must do. Constantly.”

For most truly successful people, it was their failures, handled properly, that taught them how to do it better the next time around. Dr. Alan Zimmerman

Just be who God has called you to be right where you are, with the people he has called you to serve. Michael Horton

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. Coach K

Feedback really is the breakfast of champions. If you have an idea you are not really sure about, share it with someone for their opinion. Ken Blanchard

Leaders who lift up & lighten the load of others are ultimately making others & themselves better. Brad Lomenick

If a person can’t thrive in your environment and you release him or her to find a place better suited for them, you’ve given them a gift. Mark Miller

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. Coach K

Faith and Work Book Clubs – Won’t you read along with us?

Kingdom Calling: Vocational Calling for the Common Good by Amy L. Sherman

I first read this book in a “Calling, Vocation and Work” class with Dr. Michael Williams and Dr. Bradley Matthews at Covenant Seminary two summers ago. King Jesus is on a mission to bring restoration in every sphere of society and has invited His followers to join Him in this Kingdom-advancing work. Learn to deeply, creatively and intentionally steward your vocational power in ways that advance foretastes of the coming Kingdom of shalom for our neighbors near and far.

It’s an excellent book, so let’s read it together. This week we’ll look at

Chapter 5: Integrating Faith and Work

Today thousands of Christian professionals sit in the pews, wondering, Can I participate in Jesus’ mission-and do so using the gifts and skills God has given me? The answer is a resounding yes-but such a word is tragically uncommon in many Christian congregations.’
Fewer than ten percent of regular churchgoers, surveys say, can remember the last time their pastor preached on the topic of work. When he or she did preach on work, inevitably the tone was critical-if not hostile-and painted all businesspeople as greedy and uncaring. Seldom do pastors honor the work world as a place for parishioners to live out their high calling.
Key periodicals addressed largely to clergy and church leaders do not often cover issues of faith and work integration.
While many Christians are not receiving guidance from their churches, they may be hearing about faith/work integration from parachurch sources. Hundreds of books have been written on this topic. There are also many marketplace ministries available for Christian businesspeople to join.
In short, although Christians aren’t hearing much about how to integrate faith and work in the pews, there’s a significant quantity of resources and organizations in the broader Christian community they can turn to. To disciple their people well for vocational stewardship, congregational leaders need to understand what their members may have learned from these sources about faith/work integration.
Miller describes the major themes in the movement as falling into four main categories or quadrants: ethics, evangelism, enrichment and experience.
Quadrant one: Ethics. Individuals and organizations in the ethics quadrant have primarily integrated faith at work “through attention to personal virtue, business ethics, and to broader questions of social and economic justice,”
Christians in this quadrant are concerned about appropriately balancing the demands of work and family. They desire to grow in wisdom in handling the temptations of secular success as well as the immoral social activities permitted or even encouraged within the organizations that employ them. Issues tackled here might include cheating on expense reports, putting corporate interests over human relationships, or navigating the toll taken on marriage by long periods of business travel.
Generally, discussions of ethics are limited to personal morality.
Quadrant two: Evangelism. As the label suggests, people of faith in this quadrant are primarily interested in integrating their faith and their work through evangelistic efforts. This includes cultivating friendships with coworkers from other (or no) faiths; sponsoring Bible studies at work; hosting events or conferences that offer platforms for believers to share their testimonies with nonbelievers within their organizations; or providing spiritual counselors or chaplains in the firm.
Quadrant three: Enrichment. The third theme in the FAW movement is personal transformation and spiritual nurture.
They are interested in healing, prayer, meditation-therapeutic and contemplative practices to aid workers. Such practices can help discouraged or downsized workers, or they may bring a new level of peace to over-stressed corporate executives. Maximizing one’s potential is also a major focus in this quadrant.
Quadrant four: Experience. This quadrant is composed of those FAW groups that examine questions of “vocation, calling, meaning, and purpose in and through their marketplace professions.”
Christians in this quadrant lament the common view that somehow secular work is “second class” or that only through a “ministry career” (such as pastoring or being a missionary) can a person truly live out her or his faith. These organizations provide counsel, books and conferences to help individuals discover their calling and align their natural and spiritual gifts with careers in which those talents can be well deployed.
Miller rightly affirms the strengths of each quadrant while simultaneously asserting that the healthiest approach is one that combines all these themes.
Miller’s Everywhere integrator type gets closest to the concept of vocational stewardship for the common good. It takes seriously the three dimensions of righteousness (vertical, internal and social). Evangelicalism could produce more believers who act like the tsaddiqim in and through their professions if its marketplace ministries, professional societies and books on faith/work integration helped move people as much as possible toward the Everywhere Integrator type Miller describes.
My staff and I analyzed the vision, mission and programs of twenty-three Christian professional societies. We found that the majority of associations were more internally than externally focused. That is, their principle aims had to do with member support, fellowship and peer-to-peer learning.
A vital part of vocational stewardship for the common good is a focus by believers on transforming the institutions in which they work.
My examination of marketplace ministries found no evidence that these business fellowships are discussing how Christian executives can reform practices within their particular industries that might be problematic from the perspectives of justice and shalom. Some of the Christian professional societies have taken some steps in this direction.
The average Christian professional sitting in the pew hears little from the pulpit or in Sunday school about how her life with God relates to her life at work.
Her church offers little specific guidance about why her work matters, how God can and does use it, or how her vocational power can be stewarded to advance his kingdom.
Lacking this guidance, some Christians simply “turn off’ their faith at work; they function as “practical atheists” on the job. They have no vision for what it means to partner with God at work, to bring meaning to their work or to accomplish kingdom purposes in and through their work. Others look outside their local congregation for guidance, joining a marketplace ministry or a Christian professional society.

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni. Jossey-Bass. 240 pages. 2012

Patrick Lencioni is one of my favorite business authors. His books The Advantage and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team are among my favorites. I recently started reading and discussing The Advantage with two colleagues at work. I’m sharing key learnings from the book and this week we look at

Behavior 5: Focusing on Results

The ultimate point of building greater trust, conflict, commitment, and accountability is one thing: the achievement of results.
One of the greatest challenges to team success is the inattention to results.
There is no getting around the fact that the only measure of a great team—or a great organization—is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish.
No matter how good a leadership team feels about itself, and how noble its mission might be, if the organization it leads rarely achieves its goals, then, by definition, it’s simply not a good team.
The definition of results and achievement will vary from one organization to another depending on the reason that a given organization exists.
When it comes to how a cohesive team measures its performance, one criterion sets it apart from noncohesive ones: its goals are shared across the entire team.
The only way for a team to really be a team and to maximize its output is to ensure that everyone is focused on the same priorities—rowing in the same direction, if you will.
Great teams ensure that all members, in spite of their individual responsibilities and areas of expertise, are doing whatever they can to help the team accomplish its goals.
The only way for a leader to establish this collective mentality on a team is by ensuring that all members place a higher priority on the team they’re a member of than the team they lead in their departments. A good way to go about this is simply to ask them which team is their first priority. I’ve found that many well-intentioned executives will admit that in spite of their commitment to the team that they’re a member of, the team they lead is their first priority.
When members of a leadership team feel a stronger sense of commitment and loyalty to the team they lead than the one they’re a member of, then the team they’re a member of becomes like the U.S. Congress or the United Nations: it’s just a place where people come together to lobby for their constituents. Teams that lead healthy organizations reject this model and come to terms with the difficult but critical requirement that executives must put the needs of the higher team ahead of the needs of their departments. That is the only way that good decisions can be made about how best to serve the entire organization and maximize its performance.
The surprising power of embracing team number one is one of the most gratifying and powerful things we witness in the work we do with leaders.
Checklist for Discipline 1: Building a Cohesive Leadership Team. Members of a leadership team can be confident that they’ve mastered this discipline when they can affirm the following statements:
The leadership team is small enough (three to ten people) to be effective.
Members of the team trust one another and can be genuinely vulnerable with each other.
Team members regularly engage in productive, unfiltered conflict around important issues.
The team leaves meetings with clear-cut, active, and specific agreements around decisions.
Team members hold one another accountable to commitments and behaviors.
Members of the leadership team are focused on team number one. They put the collective priorities and needs of the larger organization ahead of their own departments.

September 13, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

Movie Review ~ The Visit

The Visit, rated PG-13
** ½

This film is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who I first heard of as the writer and director of 1999’s The Sixth Sense, which received six Oscar nominations. It was the film everyone was talking about at the time because of “the twist”, which Shyamalan has become known for in his films. He went on to make Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water which I enjoyed. But 2008’s The Happening wasn’t very good and it was the last of his films that I had seen before The Visit. He made a strong creative comeback this summer with the 10-episode television series Wayward Pines. Based on that series I decided to see this film. Overall, this film was good, with most of it very good, bringing in suspense, fear and a good deal of humor. Unfortunately, the ending (last 30 minutes or so) wasn’t up to the quality of the rest of the film, bringing the rating down a half star.

Kathryn Hahn stars as the mother of fifteen year-old Becca (Olivia DeJone) and thirteen year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). Mom left home at 19 when her parents disapproved of her older boyfriend (who would become the father of Becca and Tyler only to ultimately abandon the family for someone else.) Mom has not seen her parents since that time, but recently they asked to meet the grandchildren they’ve never met. As a result, Mom sends them off for a week’s visit while she goes off on a cruise with her new boyfriend.

Becca decides to make a documentary of the visit with her grandparents with the hope that reconciliation will come between her Mom and her parents. The constant filming is a good addition to the film. Tyler adds comic relief to what we all know is a ”scary movie” with his rapping and substituting female pop singer’s names for curse words. He is also a germophobe, while we find out that Becca will not look at herself in the mirror.

Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) seem uncomfortable around the children from the beginning. Pop Pop is frequently out in the barn by himself and Nana asks Becca to get into the oven – all the way into the oven – to clean it. But it is at night when things begin to get really strange around the house. Pop Pop says that they go to bed at 9:30 pm, and we find that it’s best for Becca and Tyler not to leave their room after that time if they know what’s best for them. And everything is recorded on Becca’s video camera.

The film contains some adult language, though a relatively small amount for a PG-13 film these days, and two brief scenes containing nudity (not in a sexual sense). None of the characters display any faith in their lives. Again, we enjoyed the film, but were disappointed in how Shyamalan ended the film. We were also disappointed to see parents bring their very small children to see this scary movie. Andy they wonder why they have bad dreams and don’t want to go to Grandma’s house?

September 13, 2015
by Bill Pence 3 Comments

4 Things I’ve Learned “Not to Do” from My Leaders

Recently, I wrote about the things that I have learned to do from the leaders I’ve worked with over the past thirty-five years. You can see that article here. Unfortunately, I’ve also learned what not to do from those I’ve reported to. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned not to do over the years.

Yelling and profanity. There is absolutely no need for this – in the workplace, non-profit organization or ministry. It’s like a comedian who needs to use profanity to be funny. If you need to yell and use profanity to be an effective leader, you’re not.
Not being engaged. This is when your leader gives the impression that they don’t care about you and/or the work you are doing. In Patrick Lencioni’s book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, two of the signs he talks about apply here.
- Anonymity. Lencioni states that people cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known. All human beings need to be understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority.
- Irrelevance. Lencioni writes that everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone. Anyone. Without seeing a connection between the work and the satisfaction of another person or group of people, an employee simply will not find lasting fulfillment.
Playing favorites. I’ve worked with leaders who played favorites. Seeing that behavior modeled was a good lesson for me, and I’ve tried to be aware of not doing the same. My approach is that while I don’t treat everyone exactly in the same manner (some may need a more direct approach and some a softer approach), I do treat everyone equally fair.
Being late. This again goes to the respect issue noted above as one of the basic things we can expect from our leaders. When you are late to meetings you are not showing respect to those who are waiting for you. I once worked in a department where the department head was so consistently late that his division heads would actually tell him that meetings started fifteen minutes earlier than they did so they would have a better chance of him showing up on time. And just recently I saw the impact on one of my team members of a leader consistently showing up late to their meetings, if they showed up at all. Understanding that there will occasionally be reasons for running late, respect the time of those you are meeting with and don’t make it a habit of being late.
Leaders who shouldn’t be leaders. I worked with a person who was what I would call a reluctant leader. They were in a leadership position, but that wasn’t playing to their strengths. They tried, but leadership was not something they wanted to do, nor were they particularly good at it. As Marcus Buckingham would say, leadership “weakened them”. They were able to bring in someone to the organization to handle that work and then they could focus on their areas of strength.

Fortunately, my “What to Do” list was much longer than my “What Not to Do” list. How about you? What would you have to add to the “Not to Do” list?

September 12, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

Movie Review ~ War Room

War Room, rated PG
***

I had pretty much given up on faith-based films. For the most part, I’ve found them to be low-budget efforts, resulting in poorly written, acted and in general poorly made films. Steve Taylor’s Blue Like Jazz film in 2012 was an exception, demonstrating that films on a shoe-string budget can be made with quality. The message in faith-based movies tends to be good (how can you argue with a movie about prayer, for example?), but often times the scripts try to emotionally manipulate the audiences.

I had seen three previous films from the Kendrick brothers – Facing the Giants in 2006 was a pleasant surprise, Fireproof in 2008 was probably my favorite of their films and starred Kirk Cameron, but Courageous in 2011, took a step backwards. I had pretty much figured I was done with the Kendrick Brothers films.

So when War Room, the first movie by the Kendrick Brothers to be filmed independently rather than as a project of Sherwood Baptist Church, was released a few weeks ago I stayed away. Even after it was the top film over a slow Labor Day weekend at the theatres I stayed away. It was only after reading a positive review on one of the blogs I subscribe to, did I even consider going to see the film. And I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with the film.

Being associated with Tristar Pictures and distributed by Sony Pictures, the film has a more professional look and feel to it, even with a budget of only $3 million, right down to the Sprite and ESV Bible product placements. Filmed in Charlotte, North Carolina we meet Tony (T.C. Stallings) and Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla C. Shirer, daughter of Tony Evans, graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, and Bible teacher. She founded Going Beyond Ministries, which, according to their website, is “Focused on the expository teaching of the Word of God”), and their ten year-old daughter Danielle (Alena Pitts). Tony is a successful pharmaceutical salesman and Elizabeth a real estate agent; their marriage is in trouble. Though they go to church together, they are not close the Lord. Tony is focused on his career, they often argue, and Danielle is pretty much ignored by both parents.

When Elizabeth goes to the home of Miss Clara (Karen Abercrombie) to meet with her about selling her home, Miss Clara senses something wrong with Elizabeth’s life and wants to talk about that more than about listing her home. Initially reluctant, Elizabeth eventually opens up to Miss Clara about her failing marriage. Miss Clara encourages Elizabeth to fight for her marriage by pouring out her heart in prayer to the Lord using Scripture. The “war room” is a small room/closet in Miss Clara’s home where she goes to pray, with Bible verses and her prayer list taped to the walls. She is an encourager and good friend to Elizabeth.

Overall, the theology in the film appeared solid and will encourage people to pray, though we need to remember that unlike the quick answers the characters receive in this film, sometimes God’s answer to our prayers is “no” or “wait”. Beth Moore, who occasionally speaks at the same events as Shirer, appears briefly in the film at the real estate firm that Elizabeth works at.

September 11, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS

The Wonderlands: Darkness by Jon Foreman
********

See my Amazon reviews of Sunlight here and Shadows here.

This is the third of four Wonderlands EPs from Switchfoot lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter Jon Foreman, and follows Sunlight released in late May and Shadows in July. The four “hourly” EPs were to each feature six songs, or one song for each hour of the day – though this EP actually features seven songs. Foreman indicated that he wanted “to sneak 25 songs into 24 hours.”

Each song on the project, that has been 10 years and more than 1,000 hours in the making, is co-produced with someone different. So there will be 25 songs and 25 producers, certainly a unique approach from the always creative Foreman. He has stated in an interview that his collaborators would send him back their musical response: bass, clarinet, background vocals, etc. His challenge was how to put those things together and make it sound like a cohesive statement rather than 25 different projects. Every hour had to be distinct and yet still feel like a cohesive body of work.

Foreman has stated that the Wonderlands EPs would explore themes of faith and doubt, love and frustration, and everything else. Below are brief comments and favorite lyrics on each of the new songs:

Come Home – this is a song that encourages one to come home to where the heart is. I liked the use of orchestration. A key line is “And nothing hurts worse than hope that’s deferred”.

Looking for reasons to try
A reason to live or to die
Won’t you come home
Back to where your heart is
This is the meaning of life
You were born for the dance not the fight
Won’t you come home
Back to where your heart is

Beautiful, Pt. II – I liked the echo call and response that begins the song. It features acoustic guitar, strings, atmospheric background vocals, light drums and building orchestration. Taylor York and Jon Howard co-produced the song with Foreman. The song represents 11:30pm. A key line states that the makeup covers the pain she can never control.

Look like a funeral, but I see right through
You’re so beautiful, You’re so beautiful

You Alone – Cubbie from Foster The People co-produced the song with Foreman. This song has a quicker pace, and is the most upbeat musically song on this edition of the Wonderlands EPs. It features acoustic guitar and atmospheric background vocals.

You alone, you alone, can heal my soul

She Said – This song begins with piano, light drums and acoustic guitar and then builds musically with atmospheric background vocals as the song progresses. Looking for answers is a theme here.

I hear her talking to herself in bed
All my tears are falling on the floor, she says
I’ve never felt it rain like this before, she says
I’ll sing these black eyed blues into the storm instead
I’ll be waiting for the new eyes to arrive
One breath at a time

Larger than Life – I liked the use of backing vocals and the unique use of strings. It is a song of encouragement to one who is down.

Do you feel the weight again?
Are you feeling like you’re caving in?
You’re larger than life my friend
You’re bigger than what you’ve been
Are you running away again?
Are you feeling blown by the wind?
You’re larger than life

June and Johnny – This song, which references singing June Carter and Johnny Cash songs as they drive down the highway, is a simple love song featuring acoustic guitar. The song is a duet with Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, who Foreman collaborates with in his side projects with the Fiction Family.

And I’ll hold you all my life
Like a memory at the back of my mind

Inner Peace – This is the second shortest track at just over three minutes. Lyrically it’s my favorite of the new songs. He is searching for reasons (for pain, rain when he is alone, and longing for justice). He is at war inside, fighting all his life. He has a lot on his mind, and he longs for the water that will make him clean.

Inner peace is hard to find.
Peace of heart and peace of mind

How can we be ourselves if we don’t know who we are?

Jon Foreman is one of our most creative and prolific artists today. These songs have a great deal of complexity and will reveal more and more after each repeated listen.

We now have 19 songs in the Wonderlands series. The final EP, The Wonderlands: Dawn is scheduled to be released October 23.

Music News:

How “You Can’t Stop Me” Became Baseball’s Top “Walk-Up” Song. Andy Mineo’s upbeat rap single, “You Can’t Stop Me,” was crowned the best walk-up song in baseball after a week-long vote and win’s ESPN.com’s inaugural Whammy award.
If You Love Her. As I was reading Jena Lee Nardella’s inspiring book One Thousand Wells, I listened to “If You Love Her” by Jars of Clay a few times. You can watch the band perform the song here.
Victory. Did you see Yolanda Adams perform “Victory” recently on The Tonight Show?
Wouldn’t It Be Nice? Jon Foreman covers the classic Beach Boys song.
Two New Don Henley Songs from Cass County. With two early released tracks, the former member of the Eagles lets his fans have a taste of what’s to come on his first solo album in fifteen years. “Take a Picture of This” and “That Old Flame (ft. Martina McBride)” — both co-written by Stan Lynch — nod to the place Don Henley called home before “Hotel California.” Listen to both songs here.
14 Best Songs by Andrew Peterson. Dave Trout and Andrew Peterson share their thoughts about each selection.
New Andrew Peterson Release. The Burning Edge of Dawn will not be released until October 9. However you can pre-order the album now and instantly be able to download three of the ten new songs. Andrew writes about the three songs: 1) “We Will Survive” is a song I wrote for Jamie about a tough season I went through last year. She has been a steady reminder of God’s good intentions during long months of uncertainty. 2) “The Rain Keeps Falling” is about the same thing—this one was partly inspired by a Luci Shaw poem called “Forecast.” It features my good friend Ellie Holcomb, along with my daughter Skye singing harmony. 3) “The Power of a Great Affection” is the closest thing I’ve written to a corporate worship song in a long time, and tells a little of the story of my life with Jesus. I read somewhere that about 100 years ago, when someone became a Christian they often said, “I’ve been seized by the power of a great affection.” That’s a beautiful sentence if ever there was one. That affection seized me and has never let go.” I’ve been listening to these new songs since last Wednesday and I have to tell you that they are excellent.

Come Lift Up Your Sorrows

I’ve been significantly blessed by Michael Card’s ministry (music, books, teaching) for more than thirty years. I’ve heard him say numerous times that out of all the songs he’s written his favorite is “Come Lift Up Your Sorrows”, which was originally included on his 2006 album The Hidden Face of God. Watch him perform the song here.

If you are wounded
And if you’re alone
If you are angry
If you’re heart is cold as stone

If you have fallen
And if you are weak
Then come find the worth of God
That only the suffering seek.

Come lift up your sorrows
And offer your pain
Come make a sacrifice
of all your shame
There in your wilderness
He’s waiting for you
To worship Him with your wounds
for He’s wounded too.

He has not stuttered
and He has not lied.
When he says come unto me
you’re not disqualified

When you’re heavy laden
You may want to depart
But those who know sorrow
They’re closest to his heart

In this most holy place
He’s made a sacred space
For those who will enter in
and trust to cry out to him
And you’ll find no curtain there
No reason left for fear
There’s perfect freedom here
To weep every unwept tear.

Music Quote:

Take care of your family, be kind to your co-workers, pay attention to

the downtrodden. These are daily acts of worship. Fernando Ortega

September 10, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

A Praying Life: Connecting to God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller. NavPress. 288 pages. 2009
****

On a recent trip to Europe I had a providential encounter with Paul Miller, this book’s author, and his wife Jill, in a cable car high above Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. I had previously read this book a few years ago, and recently decided to read it again, the third book on the subject of prayer that I’ve read this summer. Our church had hosted one of Miller’s A Praying Life seminars a few years ago, in which this material was covered.

Reading this book gives you the feel of sitting down with the author to talk about prayer as he shares many interesting and helpful stories – biblical stories and those about his family, particularly about his special needs daughter Kim – to illustrate his teaching on prayer.

The book is comprised of thirty-two chapters in five parts. In part one he writes about praying like a child. In part two he writes that the opposite of a child-like spirit is a cynical spirit. He shares six cures for cynicism from Jesus. In part three we learn how to petition God. I enjoyed his section about what to do about Jesus’ extravagant promises about prayer here. In part four we learn about living in the Father’s story. Part five was very practical, with the author discussing how he uses prayer cards and prayer journals. For example, he prefers a prayer card for each individual, feeling it is easier to use than a prayer list, which I use. He shares that he sorts his cards by categories such as family, work and church. I found this to be very helpful.

A few of the things I wrote down while reading the book were:

The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. The gospel frees us to ask what is on our hearts. We can’t do it on our own, we need to pray.
Helplessness is how the gospel works.
God taught him to pray through suffering.
Most Christians are frustrated with their prayer lives.
What he describes as a praying life is one that is interconnected with the rest of our life.
Miller discusses how he parented through prayer and how he uses short and continuous prayers.
Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.
Should we pray for parking spaces?
God wants our material needs to draw us into our soul needs. To abide means to include Him in every aspect of our lives.
Pray to change your children’s hearts.
He excesses caution about systems in prayer.
To discern when God is speaking to us, we need to keep the Spirit and the Word together.

This is a book to savor, and not rush through. It’s also a book that you will benefit from reading again and again. Highly recommended.

The Secret of Mother Teresa’s Greatness. Here’s an excerpt from Eric Metaxas’s new book, 7 Women and the Secret of Their Greatness.
Books on Calling, Vocation and Work. Here’s a wonderful list of books from Hearts & Minds.
The Most Popular Bible of the Year is Probably not What You Think it Is. Daniel Silliman writes about the new NIV Zondervan Study Bible and other popular Bibles.
Crucial Questions: 22 Free eBooks from R.C. Sproul. To further help Christians know what they believe, why they believe it, how to live it, and how to share it, in May 2013 Ligonier Ministries made the ebook editions of R.C. Sproul’s Crucial Questions series free forever. We continue to publish new ebooks in this series and this year have added Can I Lose My Salvation? and What Is the Great Commission?
Rosaria Butterfield. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield shares her journey from lesbian academic to Christian convert, and talks about her book Openness Unhindered.
Free Audiobook from Christianaudio. The Free Audiobook of the Month is AHA : The God Moment That Changes Everything by pastor and best-selling author Kyle Idleman. From their website “We’ve all had “aha!” moments in our lives — times when a sudden revelation surprises us with insight. We can experience this same kind of “aha!” in our spiritual lives by awakening to the reality of our true spiritual condition. We then see ourselves and our need for a Savior with renewed honesty. The result is a life-changing, destiny-altering collision – an AHA moment that leads us home to our loving Father.”

BOOK CLUBS – Won’t you read along with us?

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

This book made a significant impact on my wife Tammy when she read and discussed it with friends thirty years ago. When I picked up my diploma the day after graduation ceremonies from Covenant Seminary last year I was given a copy of this book. After enjoying Lloyd-Jones book Spiritual Depression (and the sermons the book was taken from), I couldn’t wait to read this book, which is the printed form of sermons preached for the most part on successive Sunday mornings at Westminster Chapel in London. This week we look at
Chapter Three: An Introduction to the Beatitudes:

Happiness is the great question confronting mankind. The whole world is longing for happiness and it is tragic to observe the ways in which people are seeking it.
The Sermon on the Mount says, however, that if you really want to be happy, here is the way. This and this alone is the type of person who is truly happy, who is really blessed.
There are certain general lessons, I suggest, to be drawn from the Beatitudes. First, all Christians are to be like this.
From the standpoint of character, and of what we are meant to be, there is no difference between one Christian and another.
It is the Roman Catholic Church that canonizes certain people, not the New Testament.
The second principle I would put in this form; all Christians are meant to manifest all of these characteristics.
None of these descriptions refers to what we may call a natural tendency. Each one of them is wholly a disposition which is produced by grace alone and the operation of the Holy Spirit upon us.
These descriptions, I suggest, indicate clearly (perhaps more clearly than anything else in the entire realm of Scripture) the essential, utter difference between the Christian and the non-Christian.
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.
Our ambition should be to be like Christ, the more like Him the better, and the more like Him we become, the more we shall be unlike everybody who is not a Christian.
The Christian and the non-Christian are absolutely different in what they admire. Then, obviously, they must be different in what they seek. Then, of course, they are absolutely different in what they do.
Another essential difference between men is in their belief as to what they can do.
The truth is that the Christian and the non-Christian belong to two entirely different realms.
What is this kingdom, then? It means, in its essence, Christ’s rule or the sphere and realm in which He is reigning.
It can be considered in three ways as follows. Many times when He was here in the days of His flesh our Lord said that the kingdom of heaven was already present.
It means that; but it also means that the kingdom of God is present at this moment in all who are true believers.
The kingdom of God is only present in the Church in the hearts of true believers, in the hearts of those who have submitted to Christ and in whom and among whom He reigns.
The third and last way of looking at the kingdom is this. There is a sense in which it is yet to come. It has come; it is coming; it is to come.
The vital questions which we therefore ask ourselves are these. Do we belong to this kingdom? Are we ruled by Christ? Is He our King and our Lord? Are we manifesting these qualities in our daily lives? Is it our ambition to do so? Do we see that this is what we are meant to be? Are we truly blessed? Are we happy? Have we been filled? Have we got peace?

Prayer BOOK CLUB

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

Christians are taught in their churches and schools that prayer is the most powerful way to experience God. But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act. Won’t you read along with Tammy and me? This week we look at:

Chapter 5: Encountering God is conversation with God.

We do not want just to know about God, but to know God, to seek his face and presence.
The primary theological fact about prayer is this: We address a triune God, and our prayers can be heard only through the distinct work of every person in the Godhead.
There are three persons within the unity of God’s being, who are equally divine, who know and love one another, and who from all eternity have together worked for our salvation.
The implications of the Triunity of God for prayer are many. It means, to begin with, that God has always had within himself a perfect friendship.
We can see why a triune God would call us to converse with him, to know and relate to him. It is because he wants to share the joy he has. Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself.
To be a child of God means access. We know God is attentively listening to us and watching us.
Prayer is the way to sense and appropriate this access and fatherly love, and to experience the calm and strength in one’s life that results from such assurance of being cared for.
You know that God responds to your cry with the intense love and care of a parent responding to the cry of pain of his or her child—because you are in Jesus, the true Son. You can go to God with the confidence of receiving that kind of attention and love.
Paul doesn’t speak merely of the Spirit of adoption but also of the Spirit as “intercessor”:
Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.
We come to the Father not only in the Spirit but through the Son. We can only be confident that God is our father if we come to him through the mediation of Christ, in Jesus’ name.
How could God be our intimate friend? How could we approach him with complete confidence? It is because God became like us, equally mortal and subject to suffering and death. He did it so we could be forgiven and justified by faith apart from our efforts and merits. That is why we can draw near.
This leads us to an important related directive of the New Testament regarding Christian prayer—Jesus taught his disciples that they must always pray in his name.
That’s the ground motive of Spirit-directed, Christ-mediated prayer—to simply know him better and enjoy his presence.
In our natural state we pray to God to get things. When life is going smoothly, and our truest heart treasures seem safe, it does not occur to us to pray. Seldom or never do we spend sustained time adoring and praising God. In short, we have no positive, inner desire to pray. We do it only when circumstances force us.
For most of us, he has not become our happiness. We therefore pray to procure things, not to know him better.
All this changes when we discover that we have been mired all our lives in forms of self-salvation, and we turn to Christ.
John Calvin argues that you may know a lot about God, but you don’t truly know God until the knowledge of what he has done for you in Jesus Christ has changed the fundamental structure of your heart.
Without the gospel, there is no possibility of passion and delight to praise and approach the true God.
Jesus lost his relationship with the Father so that we could have a relationship with God as father. Jesus was forgotten so that we could be remembered forever—from everlasting to everlasting. Jesus Christ bore all the eternal punishment that our sins deserve. That is the cost of prayer. Jesus paid the price so God could be our father.
Prayer turns theology into experience. Through it we sense his presence and receive his joy, his love, his peace and confidence, and thereby we are changed in attitude, behavior, and character.

September 9, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

CHRISTIAN LIVING:

Next-Door Strangers. Marshall Segal writes “It’s never too late to be a better neighbor. The awkwardness may last a few moments initially, but the results also may endure eternally. Take the next step in their direction — they’re only a few steps away — and trust God will overcome the weaknesses in you and the brokenness in American society to draw his own to himself.”
How I Learned to Live Joyfully. J.I. Packer gives two reasons why Ecclesiastes is his favorite book of the Bible.
The Promise of God in Threatening Pain. Garrett Gilkey a center and guard for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL) writes “As I was hit from the side in my knee, I felt the pop, fell to the ground in excruciating pain, and knew my year was over before it had even begun.”
Speak to Persuade, Not Only to Rally. Gospel Coalition editorial director Collin Hansen sits down with two leaders who excel at engaging those who don’t already agree with them—Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. Together they consider speaking the truth with courage and compassion, how to keep from pandering to one camp and clobbering the other, discerning blind spots, the art of persuasion, and more.
How God Gives Assurance. Jon Bloom writes “Am I truly a Christian? Few questions cause more fearful trembling in believers, and few soul-shepherds are as helpful as John Newton in explaining to trembling saints how God cultivates assurance in the Christian life.
The Gospel Coalition Launches Podcast Network. Are you looking for edifying audio to redeem the time you spend commuting, cleaning, or working out? The Gospel Coalition has expanded its offerings to three distinct podcasts updated regularly to bring you new episodes throughout the week.
The Incomparable Christ. Tim Challies shares this wonderful quote about our Savior.

THEOLOGY AND CHURCH LIFE:

George Mueller Did Not Have the Gift of Faith – Thankfully. In writing about George Mueller, John Piper writes “This response is enormously important. It means every Christian is expected to trust God to fulfill all the explicit promises made to the church in the Bible. It would be sin not to believe them. But it is not sin not to believe God will do a thing that is not explicitly promised in the Bible — like heal his wife, Mary.”

One Strategy to Rule Them All. How can the church be more effective in equipping young people to keep the faith when they leave home? Learn How to Answer Skeptics from Romans 1.

Why Should We Study Systematic Theology? Kevin DeYoung offers four objections against and then six positive reasons for systematic theology. DeYoung also offers these helpful resource suggestions.

The Biblical Basis for Missions. R.C. Sproul writes “It is the church’s duty to fulfill the Great Commission, to send people into all the world. That’s what missions is all about.”

The Place and Purpose of Parachurch Ministries. Jon Saunders writes “Parachurch, come alongside the local church. We need some help. You’ve thought through strategies and models we could use. We’re thankful for this work. And local church, let’s go. Our King has handed us a commission he intends to fulfill primarily through us.”

John Calvin’s Conversion. In this one minute plus video, Ian Hamilton describes what we know of John Calvin’s conversion in this excerpt from his new teaching series, Calvinism and the Christian Life. Hamilton will be one of the speakers at the 2016 Ligonier Ministries National Conference next February in Orlando.

How Sinful is Man? R.C. Sproul writes “When the Protestant Reformers talked about total depravity, they meant that sin—its power, its influence, its inclination—affects the whole person. Our bodies are fallen, our hearts are fallen, and our minds are fallen—there’s no part of us that escapes the ravages of our sinful human nature. Sin affects our behavior, our thought life, and even our conversation. The whole person is fallen. That is the true extent of our sinfulness when judged by the standard and the norm of God’s perfection and holiness.”

CURRENT EVENTS:

My Wife’s Plea to Christian Men. Tim Challies’ wife Aileen writes “You who keep choosing to sin, you who keep visiting those websites, you who have secret lives you keep hidden from your friends and your wives: Why won’t you stop? You know that God loves to give victory over every sin. ….I plead with you. I plead with you on behalf of your wives, on behalf of your future wives, on behalf of Christian women everywhere: Stop. Just stop.”
Ligonier Suspends R. C. Sproul Jr. over Ashley Madison Visit. Ligonier Ministries Teaching Fellow and son of founder R.C. Sproul has been suspended until July 2016 due to his admission that he visited the adultery matchmaking website Ashley Madison. Here is Sproul’s article “Judgment and Grace”.
Predictable, All Too Predictable. Carl Trueman, who I enjoyed a wonderful class on B.B. Warfield at Covenant Seminary a few years ago, has some interesting thoughts that I agree with regarding the return of Tullian Tchividjian to a ministry role. As an elder in the PCA myself, I’m watching this with some particular interest – and concern.
GREAT QUOTE about the Tullian Tchividjian situation:
- When a pastor falls to disqualifying sin and is given a way out of ongoing shepherding by being quickly hired by another church, the process in place meant to guide the man to mature repentance is undercut and the health of the church put at risk. Todd Pruitt
Should Adulterous Pastors Be Restored? Kent Hughes and John Armstrong write, “We conclude with the wise plea and rationale of a fallen anonymous minister to his fellow servants who have fallen: “The question is character and integrity. Yours are shattered. I plead with you, face the issue now! God’s grace does restore. There is hope. However, that requires a process, much time, and even more grace. Confess, step down. Become accountable. Seek the cleansing and healing you need. Do it this day, do it now!””
Can a Label Edify? Richard Phillips and Ray Ortlund comment on the Tullian Tchividjian situation and challenge each other.
5 Problems with Roman Catholic Confession. In the wake of the news about Pope Francis stating that priests can now absolve women who have had an abortion, Jordan Standridge writes that it is important that we as believers understand the truth of why Catholic confession is not Biblical.
The 9^th Planned Parenthood Video. Justin Taylor includes the latest, and all nine of the videos that have been released to date.
“In this World You Will Have Trouble” — Welcome to Rowan County. Albert Mohler writes “But the hardest question in this case has to do with the fact that Kim Davis holds a constitutional office that now requires her, according to the federal courts, to do what she believes she cannot do in good conscience. Anyone who sees this case in simplistic terms simply doesn’t understand the issues. Christians of good conscience may answer these questions in different ways. In a fallen world, some questions seem to grow only more vexing.”
Dr. R.C. Sproul returned to the pulpit at Saint Andrews September 6 after being away for months due to health issues. He preached on Luke 19.
Amazing Grace Amazingly Staged. Eric Metaxas writes about the new Broadway musical Amazing Grace that is based on the life of John Newton.
Lazy Writing, Cheap Restoration. In regards to faith-based films, Kenneth R. Morefield writes in Christianity Today “But when it comes to screenplay writing, the genre seems stuck in a rut. It’s more committed to heavy-handed providential plotting than imaginative explorations of character or setting.”

SPORTS:

PGA Golfer Makes Two Holes in One in the Same Round. Brian Harman became only the third golfer in the history of the PGA tour to accomplish the feat.

Cub’s Player Takes Curtain Call Fans Didn’t Ask For. Watch Jonathan Herrera take a curtain call that the Wrigley Field fans hadn’t asked for.

JUST FOR FUN:

New Star Wars Teaser. Denny Burk shares this brief Star Wars teaser.

Doug Michael’s Cartoon of the Week

GOOD NEWS!

Brethren, who are we that God should have been so good to us? Charles Spurgeon

The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died. Tim Keller

Ordinary, daily faithfulness is equally as extraordinary as a spectacular conversion experience. Scott Sauls

People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don’t be surprised by messiness. Tim Keller

Where Jesus is our portion and desire, we lack no true treasure. Zack Eswine

CHRISTIAN LIVING:

We’re to love our children for who they are, not for what we want them to become. Alistair Begg

There is no higher human state than to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and for that desire to be satisfied. Dr. Robert Yarbrough

The more we grow in Christ, the more our excitement for Friday turns into a greater eagerness for the arrival of Sunday. Burk Parsons

Conviction is not repentance; conviction leads to repentance. But you can be convicted without repentance. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Today, we often use the same vocabulary, but a different dictionary. Rosaria Butterfield

If in a Christian pulpit you have no business saying, “I suggest to you” No! “These things I declare to you.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name in it, it ought to be his last. Charles Spurgeon

How can you admit that your only hope is divine grace and then throw condemnation at another sinner when you see them struggle? Paul David Tripp

Life is not an experiment. God gave you a life, and God gave you a Book. John Piper

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Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Monthly Archives: September 2015

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Do You Have a Personal Mission Statement?

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Movie Review ~ The Visit

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4 Things I’ve Learned “Not to Do” from My Leaders

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Movie Review ~ War Room

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The Wonderlands: Darkness by Jon Foreman
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The Wonderlands: Darkness by Jon Foreman ****

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