Agape Newsletter - Special John Talley edition. (August 21, 2009)

Hello everybody, and welcome in to this week’s Agape newsletter. This Sunday John Talley will be preaching the word, and I am very excited. John, who has preaching in his blood (through God, as well as his grandfather and others) will be exciting, challenging, interesting and unorthodox (in delivery, not theology!) I think that hearing him will be a treat for you, and I hope you will all come and join us in worship!

Events for the rest of August:

* This Sunday night, August 23rd - 6:00pm - Leadership team fellowship and discussion at the parsonage.

* Tuesday, August 25th The Nest - Our ministry to the homeless of downtown Birmingham. Meet at Agape at 6:00 to help load the van, and then leave for downtown at 6:30 pm.

* Wednesday night, August 26th - We will have food pantry from 6 to 8 pm, and we certainly need your help to deliver food to people. Come as early as you can!

* Wednesday night, August 26, 7:00pm: Bible Study and youth worship. The adult Bible study will focus on a discussion of the baptism/filling of the Holy Spirit.

* Saturday morning, August 29th, 8:30am: CHURCH BEAUTIFICATION DAY! One week from this Saturday, we are going to have a day of focus on our church building. We will be working in the bathrooms to fix and beautify them, working on the grounds of the church, working on the ditch in front of the church, working on the sanctuary, and small group classes. NOW HEAR THIS: We need all of you!! We will have team sign ups available this Sunday, so you can see the areas that we are focused on, and you can join a team.

* Sunday night, August 30th, 7pm-?? SWIM PARTY! This is for everybody - youth, kids, adults.  We’ll be swimming, and eating, and hanging out at the Woodhaven clubhouse in Pinson. Meet at Agape @ 7:00pm. More details next week!

Some good links to read:

(note on the links: Last week, I linked to a story that indicated 70 percent of homosexual men claimed to be Christian. I thought that particular statistic was very interesting,, but did not agree with some of the rest of the article…I just linked it for the statistic, and for the implications of that statistic)

*****     Kevin DeYoung writes a fascinating article (the beginning of a series) on social justice and the poor, in essence, what the Bible teaches us to do about the poor. CLICK HERE

*****     Chernobyl 25 years later (in pictures). Quite fascinating! CLICK HERE

*****     SBC leader says that Southern Baptists are structured like 1950’s businesses, and will die unless change comes: CLICK HERE

*****     Are you a bad tipper? Do you pray over your meals and then act rudely to the wait staff at restaurants? Do I?  PLEASE DON’T!  CLICK HERE

*****     Albert Mohler writes about 2 unexpected witnesses on the issue of abortion. CLICK HERE

Prayer Requests:

Finally, I close with a powerful challenge from John Piper (via Adrianwarnock.com): Fasting poses the question: do we miss him? How hungry are we for him to come? The almost universal absence of regular fasting for the Lord’s return is a witness to our satisfaction with the presence of the world and the absence of the Lord. This is not the way it should be. In Luke 18:7-8 Jesus says, “Shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?”

. . .This is what is missing in the comfortable Christian Church of the modern world. Where in the West do Christians cry to Christ day and night that he would come and bring about justice for his elect? Where is there that kind of longing and aching for the consummation of the kingdom? It is no surprise then, that the question of fasting for the coming of the Bridegroom is scarcely asked. If the cry itself is not there, why would one even think of expressing it with fasting? Piper, J. (1997). A hunger for God: Desiring God through fasting and prayer (page: 84).
See you Sunday!
Chase

Agape Newsletter - August 14, 2009

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome in to another action packed edition of the Agape newsletter - rated “G” for the language content, but rated “Q” for the action and violence!!

This Sunday at Agape, we will be continuing our study of Ephesians, as well as continuing our pursuit of understanding and knowing the Holy Spirit better. Our focus this week in Ephesians will be on 2 great truths: 1. The Holy Spirit and 2. The fact that we are heirs of something even greater than just an entrance ticket into heaven.  Let me ask you a question: Have you heard the phrase that “The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus”? If you Google the phrase, you will find that it appears on 44,300 webpages. I am sure that you have heard that taught, and I am quite sure that I have said it myself, but is it a misconception about the Spirit, or is it true? We will explore that Sunday, as well as one other great mystery and controversy about the Spirit. Are we filled/baptized by the Spirit at conversion, as many Christians (and Baptists) say? Or could it be that there is a “second work”, or “second blessing” where the Holy Spirit can move on us in a greater way as many other Christians (like D.L. Moody, Hudson Taylor, Charles Finney) and others say.

Time permitting, we also will begin to look at what should be one of the most exciting concepts in the Bible. If a news crew, and a team of attorneys showed up at your doorstep this afternoon to inform you that you were somehow a full heir of Bill Gates, set to receive a 100 percent share of his inheritance when he passed on, I imagine your excitement would know no bounds. I’m afraid that scenario is extremely unlikely, but we are blessed with a better hope, the fact that we are joint-heirs with Jesus. How could this be???? Join us Sunday!

After a quiet July, August is a very bustling month for us at Agape, beginning tonight with a special ladies night out at the parsonage! How exciting (unless you are forced to vacate your home and wander around aimlessly in swamps with roughly a dozen children….but that only applies to one of us). The Ladies Night Out will be here at the parsonage tonight beginning at 7:00pm - come one, come all (provided you are female….sorry John Talley), and bring some food and fun with you.

Coming at the end of the month, we will have a church wide beautification day on Saturday, August 29th, beginning at 8:30 pm. Ladies, we need you to challenge your husbands to come and help beautify our church building, that we might be good stewards of what God has given us. Men - when the ladies start riding you about helping out on August 29th, be sure to tell them that they are needed too, and it is time for them to put their money where their mouth is. Kids can come and help too! Mark it down on your calendars, and don’t miss it!!

On Sunday, August 30, we will be having a swim party at the Woodhaven clubhouse in Pinson. Meet at Agape at 7:00pm, and bring your tennis rackets, swimsuits, towels, and food. A food sign up sheet will be posted next Sunday.

Finally, allow me to share a portion of a challenge that worship pastor Greg Cusimano sent to the Agape pastoral team this week: 1. We need to Develop a Hunger for the things of God. Psalms 42: 1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  To have studied deer in the wild, of course to kill and eat,  it makes no sense to me that a deer would leave the safety of their hiding place to venture out for a drink, or some food or relationship in the middle of the day, when they are more likely to be in danger.  This is the picture the psalmist paints for us, that we desire the things of God regardless of what it costs me.  Do I have that kind of conviction?  Conviction is a strange word that is over used and misunderstood.  Conviction is something you die for!  What would I die for? Would I die to see Agape flourish?

Here are a few good links worth reading:

*****     How to be married to the same person for 60 years (great, short article on a real key to marriage): CLICK HERE

*****     TV commentator still honors the sabbath in his work, despite the fact that many sports events are on Sunday. (Incredible!) CLICK HERE

*****     Birds are smarter than we realized. Maybe Hitchcock was right! CLICK HERE (cool video)

*****     70 percent of Gay men claim to be Christians. What should the people of God do about that? (And lest you misunderstand me, I mean, with so many people in the homosexual community having a hunger for God and Jesus, how do we better reach them with the Gospel and with the Truth?) CLICK HERE

*****     From the peer reviewed Journal of Human Sexuality: “There is significantly greater medical, psychological, and relational pathology in the homosexual population than the general population” CLICK HERE

*****     And now for a few words from…(funny): CLICK HERE

*****     Lest we forget, Christians are still being persecuted and martyred at alarming rates in the world today. CLICK HERE

*****     Perinatal Hospice (yes you read that right): CLICK HERE

See you Sunday!
Chase

Agape Newsletter Part 1 - August 10, 2009. Welcome pastor Viorel!

Hello everybody, and welcome in to a few new people that I added to our newsletter list. If you don’t want to get this newsletter, the 5 time winner of the Felix Morton Church newsletter of the year (The Heisman Trophy of church newsletters), please let me know, and I will remove your email address from our distribution list. I usually only write once a week - sometimes twice, and sometimes not even once…like last week.

First and foremost, I need to let you know that we have a change of plans for this Wednesday night. I announced Sunday that we would be discussing predestination on a deeper level Wednesday night, but now we are going to put those plans on hold for one week, due to a surprisingly unexpected visit from Viorel Cruceru, the pastor of our sister church in Romania. Not Romania, Alabama, but Romania, Romania (as in the country in eastern Europe). I have never met pastor Viorel before, but I do get to grab some lunch with him tomorrow, and I am told that it was great the last time he came and spoke at Agape. If you aren’t a regular on Wednesday nights, allow me to encourage you to change your plans and come out and hear from our sister church. If you are a regular, then I hope to see you there as well. Also - we will be taking a love offering that Wednesday night for pastor Viorel and our sister church in Romania.

Some other announcements: (more details to come in newsletter part 2, due out this Friday)

Saturday August 29th - mark your calendars now, because we are having a church beautification day. Women’s bathrooms - prepare to be cleaned up, fixed up, and made beautiful!!!! We start at 8:30am, so please make plans to come and join us!

Sunday August 30th - we will be having an evening swim party/food gathering and hang out time at the Woodhaven clubhouse in Pinson. The action starts at 7:30 - bring your tennis rackets, your swim suit, and some sort of snack food/desert/drink. Food sign up sheets and more details to come soon.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for Benny Cusimano, Greg’s brother. He had chest pains today, and will be having an arteriogram tomorrow morning.

Please also continue to pray for baby Sadie Hall, my niece, and the newborn daughter of Janet’s brother Stephen and his wife Kelly. After 26 days in the NICU, Sadie is finally home, and was even able to go to church with her family this Sunday! She is still bleeding occassionally, but she is doing better. Please pray for her full physical healing!!

Please also remember brother Paul Marshall, as his blood pressure has been very low lately, and his wife Ruth.

Finally, remember to pray for Jamey Benton, Logan’s older sister and Terry and Dianne Benton’s daughter. She is serving in Honduras as a missionary beginning this week. Please pray for the whole Benton family, as I am sure that they are lonely for her!

Grace and Peace to you, and I look forward to seeing you Wednesday and/or Sunday!

Chase