Only Hope on You Tube

I stumbled across this video on youtube the other day (so far the video has over 100,000 hits). It is Charles Edward's piano duet arrangement of "Only Hope", the song made popular by the Christian group "Switchfoot". I am linking to it because it is a really nice arrangement that got me thinking about the power of a great melody. The best songs are a marriage of great lyrics and a great melody. At least that's where it's got to start. I'd love to see more song writers today (especially in Christian music) committed to creating really great melodies for their music.

Desiring God National Conference

My lovely wife and I have been enjoying attending the Desiring God National Conference entitled “Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints”. All of the sessions have been fantastic. A written summary and the mp3 from each session are posted within an hour of the session. Tonight Dr. Helen Roseveare spoke. Helen is an 82-year-old physician who has been single all her life and for much of it, served as a missionary in the Congo. Earlier in her ministry in the Congo she was kidnapped and held for 5 months. Throughout that time she was beaten and raped numerous times. After getting rescued she was sent back to England for medical attention and forced, against her wishes, to stay there for one year. Once she was permitted, she returned to the Congo to reach these people God had laid upon her heart with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is just something so beautiful about an 82 year old woman with snow-white hair speaking about living your life to the end, serving Jesus with all of your heart. Truly inspirational! Her session as well as all the sessions are being posted here on the blog. I’d encourage you to check out the sessions when you have time.

Nebraska Senator Sues God

My friend Chad just sent this my way. This was in today's Omaha World Herald. As a former Nebraskan I can attest to the fact that Senator Ernie Chambers has always been quite the character. Read below...

- - -

LINCOLN (AP) - Saying that God has caused "fearsome floods ... horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes," Nebraska's longest-serving state senator says he is suing the Almighty to make a legal point.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha filed a lawsuit against God in Douglas County District Court last week, saying that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

He's seeking a permanent injunction against God.

Chambers, a self-proclaimed agnostic who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, said he filed the lawsuit to show that anybody can file a legal action against anybody for any reason.

That, he said, was recently illustrated by a federal lawsuit he said triggered his lawsuit against God.

Tory Bowen, 24, sued a state judge who barred the words "rape" and "victim," among other terms, in the trial of Pamir Safi, who Bowen says sexually assaulted her. Bowen said Lancaster District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront violated her free speech rights.

Chambers said Bowen's lawsuit is inappropriate because the Nebraska Supreme Court has already considered the case and federal courts follow the decisions of state supreme courts on state matters.

"This lawsuit having been filed and being of such questionable merit creates a circumstance where my lawsuit is appropriately filed," Chambers said. "People might call it frivolous but if they read it they'll see there are very serious issues I have raised."

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, in an order last week, expressed doubts about whether Bowen's lawsuit "has any legal basis whatsoever" and said sanctions may be imposed against Tory Bowen, the accuser, and her attorneys if they fail to show cause for the lawsuit.

The Associated Press usually does not identify accusers in sex-assault cases, but Bowen has allowed her name to be used publicly because of the issue over the judge's language restrictions.

Cheuvront declared a mistrial in Safi's trial in July, saying pretrial publicity made it impossible to gather enough impartial jurors.

Bulletin Bloopers

OK, I know a few of these are as old as the hills and a few cheesier than a Packer's game, but there were some good ones in here worth sharing. Thanks for the forward mom.

• Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at St. Martin's Church. Please use the large double doors at the side entrance.
• The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
• The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight "Searching for Jesus."
• Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
• Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands.
• The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
• Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community.
  
• Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
• Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
• Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
• For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
• Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Father Jack's sermons.
• The Priest will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing "Break Forth Into Joy."
• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
• A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
• At the evenin g service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
• Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
• The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
• Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
• The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
• This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
• Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
• The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
• Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
• The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
• The Priest unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours!

Worship and Arts Vision

This evening I was asked, with the Pastors over every ministry in the church, to give a 10-minute summary of how our new vision statement will impact our ministry area. I took advantage of the time to share a number of things that have been on my heart and mind likely. In retrospect I realize I over intellectualized things a bit, but hopefully it is to some benefit. Here is the first half of my talk narrowed in specifically on the “movement of the Gospel” language within our vision. The question I was trying to answer was how the indicatives of the Gospel should be reflected in the Worship and Arts ministry. Please comment with any constructive feedback you may have. I appreciate the input.

- - - -

Parkview’s Vision is…

Parkview strives to be a movement of the Gospel through the University of Iowa, Iowa City area, and the world by developing servant leaders through personal conversion, community formation, and cultural transformation.

To start I would like to consider the statement “movement of the Gospel” and how this vision distinctive is reflected within the Worship and Arts ministry at Parkview. The statement “movement of the Gospel” is the indicative statement of our vision. Theologically speaking, a Biblical indicative is defined as a statement about…

a. Who God is
b. What He has done in Christ
c. Who we are in Christ

It is in these indicatives of the Gospel that much of what we do in the Worship and Arts ministry resides. In this regard, let’s take a moment to consider the songs we sing, the art we create, the ordinances we observe, and the community we experience.

THE SONGS WE SING
(Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16)

Let’s first consider the songs we sing… From “Crown Him with Many Crowns”, to “In Christ Alone”, to “Before the Throne of God Above”, to “Everlasting God”, to “Uncreated One” it is our commitment to sing songs that center on the indicatives of the Gospel. Now and in the future our music, art, use of technology, and service programming must be unwaveringly committed to upholding a Gospel-centered, Christ-centered, Cross-centered focus in all we do. Though our forms and styles must change and continually adapt to the culture, we must never back down from the central focus of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

THE ART WE CREATE
(Romans 1:20, Exodus 35-37)

Now, let’s consider the art we create. Good art displays the nature of God both in His creative power and in His character. From the Old Testament narrative to passages like Romans 1:20, we see how God’s creation of nature, the arts, and music can be a testimony of who He is and of His creative nature woven in and expressed by the hearts of men and women. This is why those of us in the Worship and Arts ministry try to excellently express worship through a diversity of different Arts forms such as music, dance, drama, technology, and visual art. The diversity and excellence of our art both reflects the essence of our creator while also making our artistic expressions relevant to the culture we are trying to reach.

THE ORDINANCES WE OBSERVE
(Mark 14:22-25, Matthew 3:13)

Let’s consider for a moment the ordinances that we observe in obedience to Christ’s teachings. These ordinances represent the indicatives of the Gospel, what God has done in Christ and who we are as a result. These ordinances are the Lord’s Table and baptism. Over the last couple of years, those of us in the Worship and Arts ministry have worked with Pastor Jeff to increase the emphasis on the ordinances within our worship services.

With the Lord’s Table we have tried to use creativity regarding how communion is performed within the service, our goal being to make communion a memorable event within each service it is observed. We have also started making our baptism celebration a part of the main worship service by using pre-recorded video testimonies followed by live baptisms in the chapel which are simulcast to the worship center.

We see both baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Table as immensely valuable, encouraging, and unifying activities commanded by Christ to take place within the community gathering of believers.

THE COMMUNITY WE EXPERIENCE
(1 John 3:1, Colossians 3:12-17)

As we consider the indicatives of the Gospel in regard to who we are in Christ, we realize that the gathered church in our community worship service is nothing less than a family and that the community we experience flows from this family identity. In response to this, we are working to prioritize community participation in all aspects of the service from our singing, to the reading of scripture, to the times we greet one another, to every aspect in the service where participation and community can and should be experienced.

Food Drive Update

Today we finished up the food drive following church services. It was a very encouraging and unifying experience for the church family. I loved walking around the grocery store and seeing people from Parkview everywhere filling their green colored grocery lists for the Iowa City Food Pantry and The Spot our ministry for at-risk youth. The people that worked at the Coralville HyVee were amazed by how busy the store was with people buying up food for those in need. What was more surprising to me was the three truckloads full of food you can see below. We've got a lot of sorting to do this week! Thanks to all of you who helped with organization and collecting the food items. If you didn't get a chance to hear Josh's message this weekend on doing justice, be sure to check it out at the Parkview website this week. It should be up by Monday afternoon.

Doing Justice

This weekend Josh Malone, our Pastor of Young Adults is delivering an excellent message on doing justice in our world. In it he discusses the purpose for doing justice and why, as believers who have been saved by the gospel, we should view evangelism and justice (i.e. social justice) as two wings on a plane. Obviously, this kind of balance makes us unrecognizable to a world anxious to ask if our church is a Republican or Democrat front. The gospel should definitely make us unrecognizable to either affiliation.

Following the message we encouraged the congregation to apply the message immediately by swinging by one of two area grocery stores to buy groceries for Iowa City’s food pantry or our ministry to “at risk” youth at our southeast location “The Spot.” I’ll post in a few days with updates on how much was donated.

Josh’s comments regarding political affiliations reminded me of this quote form Oz Guinness in his book “The Call”. It is a thought-provoking quote on the importance of avoiding the politicization of the church.

The problem of politicization is the lack of “tension.” Called to be “in” the world but “not of it,” Christian engagement in politics should always be marked by tension between allegiance to Christ and identification with any party, movement, platform, or agenda. If that tension is ever lacking, if Christian identification with a political movement is so close that there is not any clear remainder, then the church has fallen for a particularly deadly captivity… But to the degree that Christian activism in public life becomes a politicization of the church – an identification with political movements on either right or left without critical tension – to that degree Christian activism will betray Christ and stoke the fires of its own and the church’s rejection. There are signs that an American equivalent of Europe’s antipathy to politicized faith is already beginning to build. Few things are more fateful for the future of faith in the modern world than to see that this development stops.

Here's a few pictures of our food drop-off locations.

Battery Hack

Check out what is inside an A23 12 volt battery! Crazy!

(HT: Challies)

New Trends in Church Music

This was posted on Tim Hughe's blog a few days ago. Tim is the guy who wrote "Here I Am to Worship" and "Beautiful One" to name a few. Pretty interesting.

- - - -

Below is an extract from an American Newspaper objecting to new trends in church music.

“There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs, you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scam and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.”

Who were they attacking? It wasn't Delirious? or Matt Redman. They were attacking the hymn writer Isaac Watts, famous for writing ‘When I survey,’ in 1723! The old hymns once upon a time were radical and cutting edge. Our music and our songs must also always be pushing new ground. Let's go for it.

Piper on Cultural Engagement in Worship

The frightening freedom of worship in the New Testament is a missionary mandate. We must not lock this gospel treasure in any cultural strait-jacket. Rather let us find the place, the time, the dress, the forms, the music that kindles and carries a passion of the supremacy of God in all things. And may our communion with the living God be so real and the Spirit of God so powerfully present that the heart of what we do becomes the joy of all the peoples we are called to reach.

John Piper, “Our High Priest is he Son of God Perfect Forever” (Sermon)

(HT: Worship Notes)

End of the Rainbow

So it's true. There really is a pot at the end of the rainbow.

Evangelicals and Art

Forbes recently did a feature on the upsurge of the arts in Evangelical churches. It's an interesting read. Below are some clips from the article.

- - -

Evangelical unease with the visual arts dates to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Andy Crouch, editorial director for Christianity Today's Christian Vision Project, which examines how evangelicals intersect with the broader culture, notes that Protestantism traces its origins to an era when noses were snapped off sculptures in a rejection of Catholic visual tradition while the word of God was elevated.

Attitudes began to change in the 1960s and 1970s, when Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer and Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker challenged believers to emerge from their cocoons and engage the culture, including in the arts.

Now, Crouch said, those ideas are resonating with a younger generation of believers who live in an image-saturated culture. They sense a disconnect worshipping in churches bare of anything that's visually arresting.

"The very parched nature of evangelical visual culture is making people who have grown up in this culture thirsty for beauty," he said…

"If we as Christians believe that creativity and imagination is a gift from God, why have we neglected it for so many years?" said center director Steve Halla, a former Dallas Theological Seminary professor and a woodcut artist.

(HT: Taylor)

Parkview Anniversary Celebration

Parkview friends, I hope you are all planning to join us for our 75th Anniversary weekend celebration on September 15-16. On Saturday the 15th we’ll have a huge BBQ on the east side of the church facility. There will be activities for people of all ages including inflatable games, dunk tank, sand volleyball, singing (hymn sing at an early portion and youth band later in the evening), etc… One portion of the evening will involve Jeff and others from the past sharing thoughts and memories about Parkview’s history.

On Sunday the chapel venue will be joining the worship center for three services. The times will be 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 am. Because we are anticipating large crowds that weekend, it is imperative that as many as possible attend the 8:00 and 11:00 am service in order to free up space during the 9:30 am service. There will be overflow seating in the chapel but we are hoping to avoid using it if possible.

Finally, we are trying to round up a HUGE choir for the Sunday services, so please spread the word. We’ll have a sign-up, music, and CD’s available in the lobby for those interested in singing. Rehearsals will be September 5, 12, 14, and 15.

Stewardship of Creation

The Cornwall Declaration is an environmental statement crafted by an interfaith council including several leading Evangelicals. It's been around a while, but this is the first time I was able to read the statement. In line with yesterday's post on the redemptive qualities of our physical universe, I thought I would share these "belief statements" from the declaration.

- - - -

Our common Judeo-Christian heritage teaches that the following theological and anthropological principles are the foundation of environmental stewardship:

1. God, the Creator of all things, rules over all and deserves our worship and adoration.
2. The earth, and with it all the cosmos, reveals its Creator's wisdom and is sustained and governed by His power and loving kindness.
3. Men and women were created in the image of God, given a privileged place among creatures, and commanded to exercise stewardship over the earth. Human persons are moral agents for whom freedom is an essential condition of responsible action. Sound environmental stewardship must attend both to the demands of human well being and to a divine call for human beings to exercise caring dominion over the earth. It affirms that human well being and the integrity of creation are not only compatible but also dynamically interdependent realities.
4. God's Law–summarized in the Decalogue and the two Great Commandments (to love God and neighbor), which are written on the human heart, thus revealing His own righteous character to the human person–represents God's design for shalom, or peace, and is the supreme rule of all conduct, for which personal or social prejudices must not be substituted.
5. By disobeying God's Law, humankind brought on itself moral and physical corruption as well as divine condemnation in the form of a curse on the earth. Since the fall into sin people have often ignored their Creator, harmed their neighbors, and defiled the good creation.
6. God in His mercy has not abandoned sinful people or the created order but has acted throughout history to restore men and women to fellowship with Him and through their stewardship to enhance the beauty and fertility of the earth.
7. Human beings are called to be fruitful, to bring forth good things from the earth, to join with God in making provision for our temporal well being, and to enhance the beauty and fruitfulness of the rest of the earth. Our call to fruitfulness, therefore, is not contrary to but mutually complementary with our call to steward God's gifts. This call implies a serious commitment to fostering the intellectual, moral, and religious habits and practices needed for free economies and genuine care for the environment.

Becoming Human

For various reasons, evangelical Christians managed to give the physical universe a bad wrap. Comments like “it’s all going to burn” were frequently used in my younger Christian days. The reality is that much about the physical universe is, by God’s common grace, good and beautiful. Years ago I remember a Christian song which sang, “Why should the devil have all the good music?” I think a similar song could be sung, “Why should the devil have all of creation?” It is true that cancer, pollution, aging, and relational strife are all signs of the futility creation became subject to with the fall, but it is also true that Christ is presently and for all eternity in human form, that we physically participate in His sacrifice with the bread and wine of communion, and that natural creation testifies of God and His creative power. Followers of Christ are not only being renewed spiritually, but are being prepared for a physical renewal. Some of this renewal can be experienced now and other aspects will be fully realized in the new creation.

I’ll conclude with this quote from Gerhard Forde from page 30 in the book Christian Spirituality...

Instead of viewing ourselves on some kind of journey upward toward heaven, virtue and morality, our sanctification (growing in Christ likeness) would be viewed more in terms of our journey back down to earth, the business of becoming human, the kind of creature God made.

Gospel Series

This weekend at Parkview we're starting a new mini-series on the Gospel. Josh Malone, our Pastor of Young Adults, and Nate Hobert, our Pastor of College Ministries, are teaming up for this one. The series promises to include many important and impacting messages for our Church. The following is the schedule:

The Gospel in Your Heart
August 18-19: Nate Hobert

The Gospel in Your Community
August 25-26: Josh Malone

The Gospel in Your World
September 1-2: Josh Malone
Communion Weekend

The Mighty Furminator

A friend recently recommended that Carrie and I try the Furminator for our 2 year old black lab who sheds generously. Today after about an hour of working on “Amos” we ended up filling a box full of his hair. Supposedly this little tool cuts down shedding up to 90 percent. If you’ve got a shedding dog or cat, you need to get yourself the Furminator!

Suffering and Tragedy

A few days ago I posted a video from John Piper with images from the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. The message clip was from Romans 8. In this clip Piper was teaching how God subjected creation to “futility” in order to give us a taste of His disdain for sin and to create a longing for the glory of eternity with Christ and the “redemption of our bodies”.

There was a very interesting comment from my good friend John regarding how it is we are to explain the intentional role God plays in suffering to a person who is an unbeliever/seeker. What a great question! Some of the scriptures which talk about God hardening hearts (Ex 9:13), creating objects of wrath prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22), or subjecting all of creation to futility (Rom 8:20) are hard to understand, even for the Christian and especially for the non-Christian. The following is my attempt to wrestle a bit with this issue.

I recognize that even among Christian’s God’s role in tragedy is debated. Some Christians profess that the only reason we are living under the curse is because God gave man a free will and man sinned. In other words the curse was not an act of the Father in response to our sin, but rather a chain reaction or “knee jerk” that just happened as result of sin. Genesis 3:17-19 shows that the “curse upon the earth” was the result of Adam’s sin; however, it is also clear in the text that God had an active role in initiating the curse. This is confirmed very clearly in Romans 8:20. So, if God’s participation in calamity is clearly articulated in the Bible, why do so many deny it? I believe the primary answer is because it doesn’t seem rational to believe that an all-loving God would subject his children to suffering. It is far more rational (and palatable) to say it is completely our own fault because of our sin. The only problem with this type of thinking is, it reduces God to a state of helplessness and passivity that is contrary to what we read about Him in the scriptures.

So why did God subject all of creation to futility? This is a very difficult question to answer. Unfortunately when we study the Bible we find many realities about God that are difficult to understand. Take for example…

1. How can God be 3 and also 1? The Trinitarian nature of God is enforced throughout the scriptures and is a complete mystery. To believe He is only one being is rational, and to believe he is three independent beings is also rational. Despite these realities, the scriptures give us no choice but to believe that which is irrational, He is both three and one.
2. How can God be sovereign while also giving man a choice in His salvation? Romans 9 teaches that God creates some people to live eternally with him and others to be condemned to hell. Romans 10 teaches that people have the ability to choose salvation by faith. So which is it? Is God sovereign or is man responsible? To choose either one independent of the other would be a very rational thing to do; however, the scriptures don’t give us that option. We must believe that which is humanly irrational, namely that God is sovereign and man is responsible.

As we parallel these cases with the topic at hand, we can understand how for God, tragedy is both the exertion of His will and the result of sin.

If I was speaking with an unbeliever I would probably start by explaining the role sin had in the fall of humanity and the curse all creation is now living under. I would then explain how the scriptures teach that God also initiates and works through tragedy for several reasons. Here are a few…

1. God’s glory is magnified in the depths of suffering. It is like the consonance and dissonance in a beautiful music composition. The resolution is made more beautiful when shown in contrast to dissonance.
2. Suffering illustrates how desperately we need restored fellowship with God and how this restoration will one day be fully realized in all of creation by those who trust in Him.
3. For the believer, suffering is actually an act by which we are refined in our faith. (James 1:2)
4. As Piper taught, suffering illustrates for us the way our sin grieves the heart of God. Our response to this grief should be to surrender to the awesome and matchless grace of Jesus which removes our sin from us and clothes us in the righteousness of Christ.

In closing, I want to remind all of us where the scriptures lead us after considering the mysteries of God. Romans 11:33-36 says “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

* I understand that this is not a comprehensive discussion on the subject of tragedy and suffering. Please feel free to leave your thoughts or comments regarding this issue.

Why the Bridge Collapsed?

Here's a video from Desiring God ministries with footage from the recent bridge collapse set to a message by Piper. Pretty moving and challenging.



(HT: Desiring God Blog)

I Hate School Shopping

If you’re like me, you hate those long lists of school supplies that every class is required to buy before the start of the school year. For years we would go from store to store trying to find all the supplies in picked over and super busy school supply departments. Last year we tried purchasing the majority of our supplies from Staples.com and it’s been awesome! If you purchase up to $50 of supplies (no problem if you have 2 or more kids) then shipping is free. They are very prompt about shipping out the materials and for the kids it’s like Christmas in August when all their supplies come in. So, anyone else have some tips for getting school supplies without the headache of crowded shopping centers?