the big 23.

Happy Birthday дорогая моя!!

Much love,
Jake & Maia

the city we live in

commitment?

Here is a great post on church commitment from Church Matters blog.



Short-term vs. Long-term

by Deepak Reju

Have you ever thought how long you will stay committed to your church? American society is very transitory. Often people leave their church to move to another part of the country because they’ve accepted a better paying job. They are moving up on the corporate ladder, buying a bigger house, and enjoying life with more disposable income.

Here’s a novel idea: Why not turn down a job promotion in order to stay committed to your local church? That is, make your church more of a priority than your career.

Matt Schmucker once said to me (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Maybe a few of us need to be willing to commit our lives to one local church over a lifetime. We need to be willing to sacrifice our lives for the sake of bearing long-term fruit for the kingdom.”


Now you might think I’m just talking about laypeople, but I’m also thinking about pastors here. Researchers say that on average, pastors stay at churches for only 3.5 years. Too many pastors are eager to “move up” to bigger churches with bigger sanctuaries, bigger salaries, more staff, and more ministries.

There is only so much you can do if you stick around for just a few years. In contrast, when you stay in a local church for a lifetime, you can think, plan, and act with a long-term vision. You can build relationships over the long haul. You can commit to transforming one community for a lifetime. A long-term vision with a long-term commitment can make a tremendous difference.

So what say you? Might you consider staying in your church over the long haul?

One caveat: Life is complicated. There are lots of normal transitions in life. For example: a high school student graduates and goes to college; a young girl gets married and moves out of her parents’ home; a seminary student graduates and takes his first pastorate; etc. Yet, with all of these exceptions in mind, I still think my point is valid. In general, people make church secondary in their major life decisions when it should be primary.

(P.S. Matt – you said to quote someone wiser than myself in my first post. How did I do?)

Books for 5$

All of you who appreciate John Piper's books would probably like to know that they are having a online sale with all books at 5$.

Check out the Desiring God Blog and see for yourself.

I highly recommend "The Pleasures of God" and "Let the nations be glad" and "Future Grace."

broken windows again

Once again our church windows were broken last night. I got the call around mid-morning like usual announcing that our windows had a few bricks thrown through them. Unfortunately this time they got all 4 sections, the most damage to date. Not only that but they destroyed our stain glass that we did a few years ago.




Broken glass didn't seem to bother Maia.

Maia and company

Baptism

Here is Valya. She recently got baptised at the blue lakes and actually did her hair before the baptism. If you only knew her! She is a great girl who serves a lot in the church and writes songs and poems in Ukrainian that we sing durring worship.

Dostoevsky

Last night Anya brought it to my attention that my little cousin Danny is way more cultured than I am in that he has read all of the Russian classics. I told her that I like history and I like theology, to which she replied, "you are so lopsided in your reading!"

And then came the task of reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky by the end of summer. I responded with Religious Affections by Edwards being read by the end of summer by her. She gladly accepted and today I started the last novel written by Dostoevsky.

I am not a big novel reader but I got sucked in immediately and am really looking forward to getting through the book. I am reading it in English as I wouldn't be able to enjoy wrestling with the unknown Russian words if I attempted to read the Russian version.

It is a shame it was an attack on my pride that prompted the reading because after the first chapter, I was loving it and wish I would have picked it up long ago.

Heb. 2

While studying Hebrews I am becoming more and more convinced that our salvation is so multifaceted that you can't simply define what it means to be saved in a few words. Today I was studying and thinking about how Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren and at the same time he is our high priest representing us before the Father. He is the one who sanctifies us, removes our sin from us, not only removes but absorbs the punishment in our place, he releases us from the slavery of death and renders Satan powerless over us. He knows our weaknesses as he himself took upon and lived in a body exactly like our bodies. He desires to help us, to show mercy, to be faithful.

At the end of the day he is making us holy to enjoy fellowship and communion with God the father. He has brought us into the family of God so that we could know, love, worship, and be near to God.

The work of Christ on our behalf has secured so much good for us - all because of God's grace. Why am I not more thankful, more worshipful, more joyful, more expressive, more humble, more hopeful?

english outreach

Next month we are going to offer free English courses every day for a week. We will meet at 10:00 and finish up at 1:00 with a English movie in the evening. We will break up into groups for grammar, meet in a hall for a short lecture, through which I will try to clearly present the gospel throughout the week, then break up into discussion groups. We will be giving away dictionaries and classic books each day. We will also break the folks up into 3 different levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced speakers.

Tracy came up with the name and I thought it stuck. Voice. So here is the ad that we will post around the city coming next week. It basically says what it is, where, for whom, and when.

We are praying for many to hear and understand the gospel through these classes.

the task of defining the undefinable

While reading a short booklet by C.J. Mahaney I came across this quote from J. Rodman Williams:

"Because all Christian doctrines relate to God who is ultimately beyond our comprehension, there will inevitably be some element of mystery, or transcendence, that cannot be reduced to human understanding. Nonetheless, within these limits the theological effort must be carried on."

I wholeheartedly agree. The greatest elements of mystery for me are, 1. The the problem of evil in relation to God's purposes, 2. Divine election and human responsibility, 3. The incarnation, 4. The Trinity.

The effort to describe the transcendent is not a task that can be finished. It is not a meaningless task either, I don't think any other effort could possibly make one more worshipful and amazed. You just cannot ever put a period on the end of a sentence or else you have claimed the ability to plumb the depths of God and in reality have shown a great deal of arrogance and ignorance.

I think David hit the nail on the head when he said, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it."

Rainy Monday

It is seriously raining cats and dogs outside right now. I ran out for less than 10 seconds and came in soaked to the bone.

Coffee is appreciated most on days like today. Monday is our official day of no work. Anya and I have been doing a lot of reading and talking and watching the rain.

Tuesday I will be trying to get a handful of things done in the city like finalize and submit my paperwork to get residency, design and print up advertisments for our English outreach next month, and try to get our gas project changed for our house so we can start redoing our kitchen. Wednesday we will head into Kiev to get Maia's passport in the works, visit Anya's parents, and pick up Chris and Renee from the airport.

Someday the paperwork will end, and Christ will be coming in the clouds!

Emma pestering Maia

Conor and I were in the store and this is what happened when we left two little girls in the front of the car.

Maia & water

We went to the blue lakes on our day off last week and we will head out tomorrow for a baptism. Maia really does love the water. She starts swinging her hands in cirlces leaning forward towards the water as we are walking up to the lake.

The Prosperity Gospel

In Ukraine you can't escape the prosperity gospel if you are a Christian. The biggest church in the former Soviet Union is in Kiev and preaches this gospel. The only Christian TV station in the country preaches this gospel 24/7. Copeland is on the local TV station constantly, not to mention the radio preaching this "gospel."

People go to church, they buy into it, they give and "believe" and after a few years move on because "it didn't work" when their kid got sick or they lost their job. These churches are large revolving doors and when folks file out, they usually don't want to come back.

I struggle constantly with wanting to work together with other Christians and not being able to stomach this "gospel" when it arises in nearly every aspect of life and conversation.

I agree with the video below and think it is a bunch of crap that makes a mockery of God, turning him into Santa Clause who dances at your "faith."

Faith in faith has replaced faith in Christ.

A new blog to check out

That is right folks. Conor McNamee has finally joined the bandwagon and entered the blogosphere. I have been telling him for months to get a blog to communicate with friends and family through pictures and words and he had been tossing the idea around for quite a while.

Then it happened.

In Plain Language was launched. You can click here to check it out for yourself.

I highly recommend this blog for four reasons:

1. Conor is funny.
2. Conor even when trying to be serious is funny.
3. He had to sign a convenant with his wife about the content so it should be edited pretty well.
4. You can find out about what we are up too in Chernigov through his blog as well. That gives me more blog time for Maia and history.

Church in the afternoon

When we made the move to the museum a few months ago we had to start meeting for our Sunday service at 4pm. It was a little different at first but I can say for sure that I really enjoy meeting in the afternoon.

I get to mull over the bible study with coffee for quite a few hours before giving the study. This was a luxury time couldn't afford when we met earlier.

a deadly mistake

While studying church history and specifically the first 3 centuries, one thing is very clear - what you believe about Jesus Christ is of the utmost importance. Christian ethics alwasy followed a confession of Christ as Lord. If the person of Christ was a question, all else was irrelevant compared to the importance of answering the Christ question.

It reminds me of one of the Christian phrases of our day that clearly demonstrates the superficiality of the modern evangelical.

"It is not what you believe but who you believe in."

I beg to differ, it is what you believe about who you believe in. I think the church fathers would be turning over in their grave after spending their lives seeing attacks from within undermine the faith and doing all in their power to fight back.

This also gives place for the creed because if you say "I believe in what the bible teaches" you effectively are saying the same thing Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and a lot of others say. "I believe in the bible only" doesn't clarify what you believe because so many whack conclusions are drawn from scripture.

Thus, the creed. Giving permanence and definition to what is orthodox vs. heretical.

The problem is that the modern evangelical has no framework in his mind to appreciate a creed because he has no appreciation for the history of the development of doctrine, or to use the really bad word, theology.