20pluscommunitydigestion
There is a great difference in excellency, usefulness, and comfort between people of clear, digested knowledge, and confused, undigested apprehensions. -Richard BaxterArchive for faith working through love
what do you do with those not like you?
From the oft-cited site, Between Two Worlds:
Tullian has an excellent blog post here, excerpted from the book he’s working on (Unfashionable). Here’s a part of his post:
There’s a major difference between having a tribal mindset and a missionary mindset. The highest value of a tribally minded person is self-protection. They ask questions like: Since I feel the safest around those who are just like me, how can I protect myself from those who are different than I am? So they intentionally surround themselves with people who think the way they think, like the things they like, and despise the things they despise. As a result, they live with a sense of superiority, looking down on those who are not like them (for half my life I was convinced that surfers like me were far cooler than anyone on the face of this earth).In contrast to a tribal minded person, the highest value of a missionary minded person is not self-protection but self-sacrifice. A missionary minded person is a person that exists, not primarily for himself but for others. She is a person that is willing to set aside personal preferences in service to those whose preferences are different than hers. Missionaries are people who are willing to be inconvenienced, discomforted, and spent for the well-being of others. The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we be missionary minded, because the gospel is the story of God sacrificing himself for others.
2 Corinthians 8:1-15
in case you missed yesterday’s announcement:
In response to the devastating earthquakes that took place in China this past week, PCPC has set up a special fund for Earthquake relief. You can give to this effort by submitting your donation marked “China Earthquake” to:
Park Cities Presbyterian Church
c/o China Earthquake Relief
4124 Oak Lawn Ave.
Dallas, TX 75219
that whole “multiple-bottom-line” thing….
to any of you in the business-world, what if your bottom-line ended up looking more like the bottom-line in this business?
this ain’t no tract-printing operation.
so evangelism doesn’t always provoke perseuction…
…apparently it can sometimes prevent it.
ate, drank, talked shop about bringing in the kingdom
Following up the invitation post from a couple days ago, I spent time with several men in our church this morning from a wide variety of professions (commercial real estate, insurance, finance, paper mfg (not Dunder-Mifflin though), human resources). They all came to discuss honestly what it means to be in business–whatever business–for the glory of God. Businesses exist to survive and grow by providing a service people need or want; that’s what we all know as the bottom line. Bbut these men and their respective businesses do that guided by still other “bottom lines”–to borrow a phrase from a Tim Keller talk to investment brokers you should all take pains to hear. They recognize the importance of shepherding their employees and serving their clients in such a way that honors the Lord. Today, we listened to Tracy Taylor, CEO of Watson and Taylor Self Store, summarize his business and the manner in which he seeks to fulfill their business plan guided by their commitments to Christ. Those in attendance then had opportunity to ask him honest, even probing, questions about the nuts and bolts of running a business without having just profit-margins being the sole impetus for their efforts. Read the rest of this entry »
Eat, drink, talk shop, bring in the Kingdom
HEY! Listen up: this is about this Wednesday, January 30th. RSVP’s are due today, January 28th:
As you may have seen in the email update this week, coming on the 30th of this month, Pete Deison and Tracy Taylor have scheduled another breakfast for discussion and prayer concerning how to place our career in the service of our calling in Christ. You can click here for a brief synopsis of the effort’s intentions and values.
This won’t be the last time they’ll gather for discussion and prayer in service of this idea, but there’s no time like the present to get in on the discussion. It’s geared for anyone–not just those established in, or even clear on, a particular profession. So come along. Email us by January 28th (wednesday) at noon if you want to attend. Come along.
marriage requires and update in your prescription
We strike a balance around here–at least we try to: there are times for saying loudly and clearly, “singleness is not a second-class existence and possesses privileges as significant to the life in Christ as those that accrue to marriage.”
There is also time for speaking of and for marriage, and doing all we can to prepare you for it if you’re single, and fortify you in it if you’re married. To that end, here’s a series of youtube videos (HT: Between Two Worlds) from the author of When Sinners Say, I Do, Dave Harvey. They’re brief synopses of each chapter. Read the rest of this entry »
they go to love, so we go to pray
If you promised to pray or you want to know more about our team headed to Japan, click here.
“Become as I am. . .”
Yesterday, we considered Paul’s words in Galatians 4:11ff, and I mentioned briefly the difficulty with and the necessity of setting yourself out there as an example of faithfulness as part of what it means to “make disciples.” It may feel odd and egoistic to have people follow your example, but for some reason God has chosen humans to be images of what it means to be His–to be, as one has said, “Jesus with skin on.”
Here’s an update from Mo Leverett who directs DesireStreet Ministries in New Orleans. His comments bespeak that same combination of awkwardness and gratitude at being an example.
Within a few months, we hope to journey to New Orleans to help Mo in the rebuilding. Have a look at what’s going on.
What endures
David Wilcox sorta became the soundtrack for my wife’s and my courtship. He’d been a herald-of-understatement for the both of us separately–that is, his way of speaking truth was so subtle as to make it more compelling. When we began to listen to him together–his incongruities with our understanding of eternal truths notwithstanding–we still agreed there was much to be appreciated and heeded about his musings on what is true, good, perfect, and lasting.
My wife found this song again this morning, like an old, forgotten photo-album that when you revisit its contents has a peculiar effect on your soul: you’ve been in it before, but hadn’t felt precisely what it produced in you by anything else since.
I share it with you (yes, a free song, can you believe it? scroll to the bottom of the page to click on the flash recording of it), because it reaffirms something C.S. Lewis makes a case for in The Abolition of Man: that which is true endures. Certain virtues are virtues because they have emerged within every culture in every era.
And what David has to say in this song only echoes…and teases out what Jesus had to say about the primacy of giving (love). Yes, David likely has in view as he composes the love between two lovers, but I’m sure he wouldn’t narrow what’s true about giving love to that context alone; what’s true about love is applicable to any connection in which love can be expressed
So enjoy. And be reminded: His love endures forever because His truth has endured forever.
The Love You Give
Oh to be loved, good as that is,
No.
It can never take you where you want to go.
No.
Just to be loved, fine as that is,
No.
It can never teach you what you need to know.
To be loved can start the spark that gets your own love to burn.
But when you feel the fire of real love, you’ll learn.
That the only kind of love that makes a lifetime,
Into a life well lived.
The only kind of love that ever fills you,
Is the love you give.
So brave is the strength of broken hearts,
Yes.
To love and love again, and give nothing less.
Yes.
Like flowing water springs from mountain rock,
Yes.
The broken place reveals what you possess.
Like the mountain broken open finds the spring that flows,
Your heart can never open till it’s broken so you know.
That the only kind of love that makes a lifetime,
Into a life well lived.
The only kind of love that ever fills you,
Is the love you give.
Oh the love you get, seems like enough at first.
But then there’s that hunger, and that thirst.
And the more you try to get, it just gets worse.
There’s not enough on earth to get of it,
If getting’s all you try.
The giving that you hunger for,
Is all that satisfies.
The only kind of love that makes a lifetime,
Into a life well lived.
The only kind of love that ever fills you,
Is the love you give.
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