Agape Newsletter - 9-20-2008 (Special Escalade Edition)
Hello everybody, and a happy Friday to you. Welcome to another Agape newsletter, and happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Janet. (Does this constitute abuse of power?) :)
For those of you that have been newly added to the recipients of this newsletter - I try to send it out once a week (usually Friday afternoon). It contains announcments, prayer requests, fun/interesting links, and lots of corny humor.
Hope you all have had a great week, and that you have a wonderful Saturday tomorrow enjoying this crisp, clean fall air, and perhaps a few football games. Speaking of football games, here are my picks for the weekend: Take Florida over Tennessee by roughly 10 points - Tebow and company are too good for the Vols this year. I think The Georgia Bulldogs will handle Rudy Carpenter and the Arizona State Sun Devils fairly easily as well -by at least a touchdown, maybe a touchdown and a field goal. As for my beloved Crimson Tide, I see them beating Arkansas by two touchdowns - though next year the game might be significantly closer. I’m not a big Petrino fan, but he is certainly a good coach. As far as Auburn goes? Here’s a shocker: I think LSU has better personel, but Tommy Tuberville is the better coach, and AU often shines in this kind of matchup. I’ll take LSU as Chase’s loser this week - Auburn will win by a field goal. Please don’t use my advice for gambling purposes - that would be a bad idea on several levels, both morally and practically! :)
Enough nonsense - here are some announcements for you:
September 21 - The Leadership team meeting that was originally scheduled for 4:00pm has been postponed due to child care issues revolving around our involvement with Tres Dias.
September 26, 27 - Men’s Golf Outing. For more information, see Brian Perkins or Andy Gray - there is a sign-up sheet on back table. Alright men, listen up: I’m going on this golf outing, and I absolutely stink at golf - I haven’t played in about 3-4 years, and even when I was playing regularly (3-5 times a year) to call me a duffer would be an insult to duffers everywhere. The whole point of the golf outing isn’t really to play golf - it’s to hang out, to fellowship with each other, to be men, etc. YOU SHOULD COME - SIGN UP THIS WEEK!
Oct. 3,4 Youth Trip to Stewart Center in Atlanta, Georgia- see John Clayton King for more details.
Oct 11 - Youth Quake - Cullman - see John King. Here’s the website http://youthquake.org/cullman/index.html
Upcoming Sunday Mornings:
For this Sunday morning, we will be finishing up our series on Worship by looking at the value of worship in the midst of adversity, and how living a life characterized by worship will lead us to a life of overcoming trials and intimacy with God. Next week,.noted Scotsman and preacher David “Angus” McConnell will be bringing the word, followed by a bagpipe solo entitled “ode to my odious Tigers”. The next week after that - October 5th, I’ll be bringing a word on Godly leadership in the church - what the Bible says about Elders, Deacons, Pastors, etc. Following that, we will begin the process of choosing several more deacons to be servant leaders/ministers in our congregation. Be praying about that, please!
As I was typing this newsletter, I noticed that David was online, so I thought it might be a good idea to hear from the horse’s mouth (so to speak) what he would be teaching on next week. Here’s the transcript of our chat. (I’m me - He is David. He calls me Razor - perhaps because I remind him of former WWF wrestler Razor Ramon. I get that a lot.)
me (Chase): Hey yo
Just to be crystal clear (since emails can often be misunderstood), David was joking about the Escalades.
I recently read a book in which the author started his work by saying: ‘We know very little about the gospel today.’ So the question should come to our mind: is this true? Do we understand the gospel in its entirety? Are we seeing people experience it on a daily basis? Are we proclaiming from our hearts the message of hope that lives within us?
Sunday the 28th we will preview where we are going beginning in October, at our Crossroads service. We are going to begin a journey together to fully study the gospel that is the power of our salvation. We are going to look at the gospel from several different lenses. The gospel must be understood, it must be experienced and it must be proclaimed. Along the way, we are going to ask some hard questions; questions that are being asked everyday by unbelievers. We are going to challenge ourselves and test our faith, because it will make us stronger and better prepared to share the hope that sustains us. The gospel is the single most important communication of God to mankind, and it has been entrusted to us. I pray that we will have a deep hunger to study its entire message together.
David
That sounds inspiring, and exciting, doesn’t it?! I hope you make plans to join us at Agape Next Sunday to hear David bring the word - I know I’ll be there.
***** Here’s an interesting article from Chuck Colson - Churches Must Choose Courage over Comfort. A quote from the article (from a succesful lawyer who left for ministry at the height of his career): “If I can rescue one child from the unspeakable horrors of prostitution, it would outweigh any sacrifice.” Sean got his wish and a lot more. Through his efforts, he and his staff rescued hundreds of women and girls from sexual exploitation.” Click here for the article.
***** Speaking of Crossroads, as we did above, the main focus of the first six weeks of Crossroads was on Spiritual Disciplines. Quaker Richard Foster wrote one of the best books on Spiritual Disciplines, entitled, “A Celebration of Discipline.” Here’s an article from Christianity Today that has an extensive interview with Foster. (Click Here).
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and . . . every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25 ).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
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