our angel

I AM FREEZING

Yesterday I had to place a electric space heater under the hood of our van for 2 hours and then under the engine block for an hour before the thing would start. Now it is morning and I have to go see if the same thing will be needed today.

Ecclesiology: more important than you know

A few thoughts on the church:

1.God designed us to be in a community, not be by ourselves. The Church has been that community man was ever created and will continue to be God’s community throughout eternity.

2. God is triune and his nature is in essence is communicative. Being created in his image, we are also communicative and in the context of the church, this communication or community is found.

3. When we are saved, we are baptized into one body, one church. God does not see us a Christians apart from the larger Christian community. Our being a Christian implies membership and participation in this body.

4. God’s main means of keeping us from falling is the church, whether it be close friends or the leadership, people are in our lives to confront us when we go astray and support us as we continue on this road of faith.

5. God’s main means of discipline and correcting us is supposed to be the church.

6. Those who consider themselves Christians but are not actively involved in the life of a church usually (not always but in most cases) within a few years cease to be active believers at all and their faith dies off slowly. So the church is the environment where our faith is kept.

7. The church is the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all. In other words, we, as the church, are designed to fully represent the person of Christ on earth. He calls us his fullness. This means we have a incredible calling, to show Christ in such a way as to fully reflect who he is. This representation of Christ is the church, not an individual.

8. Every heavenly scene in the book of revelation involves corporate worship, not individual worship. We live in a city together, not each with his own big yard so his neighbors are far away.


I think there is a serious problem in American Christianity that speaks only in terms of “a personal relationship” with God. We are so individualistic as a nation that we have individualized our faith when it was never designed to be independent and singular.

This results in people wanting their type of church and wanted their needs met by the church, as if the church existed mainly to satisfy their needs. The church exists to honor and reflect Christ, not man.

To be totally honest, I think our independence that is so deeply ingrained into the fabric of our society and our very self-identity has robbed us of the church, and left us with ourselves in it’s place. Sure, most of us go to church, but we don’t identify ourselves mainly with it, but with our style, our possessions, our interests, ourselves.

Do you see yourself in the larger context of a community of believers? Is your identity a child of God or a child of God now in a large family of God?

We are a holy people, chosen race, a people for God’s possession. Not persons, not individuals, but a people, tied together and renouncing all independence and self-ownership.

I imagine that this independent American spirit is what has led to the irreverence for church history and neglect of our heritage as a community that has been around for 1900 years.

To put it simply, you need the church. Yes, churches are messed up and some are pretty lame, but nonetheless, you need Christian community structured around the word of God and worship. You need communion, you need prayer, and you need people.

I only hope that we as a small church family will grow in our appreciation of the church and commitment to it, being the expression of our appreciation of and commitment to Christ.

Little girls

I must say that little girls rock. I am sure that little boys are fun and all, but little girls are the best.

video #2

My Auntie asked me to post some video of Maia each week so that the family could see how she grows. Sorry if you aren't family and are tired of the many Maia shots, I will come up with some great political or theological posts someday! Shots of Maia just come easier.

video: 1

Here is Maia this morning.

one chair changes lives

My Dad sent us a chair swing that runs off of batteries. It is pretty much the greatest invention in the world and Anya and I are really thankful for it.

Basically, Maia can sit and swing and look at her little teddy bears turn around and listen to music all by her self!

This has freed Anya up to do other things, like recover this chair.

Thanks GRACO, Dad, and a more reliable Ukrainian postal service.

Well, it has been a while since I posted any photos. We went for a walk the other day when it was about minus 300 degrees outside. They say that the cold air kills all the bacteria in your body, I say it kills your body.

Maia is growing at an exponential rate, with her cheeks continuing to throw off her equilibrium as they are disproportionately heavier than all other parts of her body.

The best part is that she is smiling all the time now, which makes everything a lot more fun.

another quote!

Men today do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on the Index, as it once did. But men destroy it in the form of exegesis: they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal, literary form, by ignoring its historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible's own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history....

- Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City

smart people making smart commercials

This is something worth watching.

Newsletter

I plan on writing a newsletter and posting quite a bit on all that we have going on here right now. It is a pretty exciting time in our church with some moves taking place that will hopefully give us more opportunity to carry the gospel into this city.

Lewis

The Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have begun thinking less of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this . Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you get neither.

C S LEWIS

Owen on teaching the bible

A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.

- John Owen