Cigar, a stout, and spurgeon

"Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are." Spurgeon, p.164 in "Lectures to My Students."

I am sitting on my porch, it's about 10:45pm enjoying a Mayorga cigar (Nicaragua) and a Black Hawk Stout reading Spurgeon. My block is pretty quiet and I am a blessed man. My wife just came out to pray with me. We haven't done everything right in our marriage but the one thing we have done consistently for 9 years is pray every evening before we go to bed. I am just thanking God right now for her and the cross that allows us to pray to the God of the universe. Wow... I am so blessed!

Tomorrow my kids go back to school. Miriam is going into third grade and is ready to go. Samuel on his way to first is a little nervous and was acting out today because of it. That was tough to deal with as I wanted to come down hard on him for teasing his little sister and talking back but I had to also have some grace for him as he is worried about tomorrow. Ellie is going to pre-k and she too was starting to tear up as she thought about the unknown of "school." My wife and I just prayed for them asking God to protect them, give them a good teacher, and good friends. Again I am thankful for my kids and all the joy they bring me as a father. Truly it is a blessed thing to be a parent.

I haven't written in awhile. I hope all is well with the five of you who read my blog. I hope to hit this up more. I've had a great summer and have been spending alot of time praying and writing in preparation to begin casting a vision, gather a core team, and prayerfully launch a church in the city of Baltimore sometime in the next year.

I close with the quote I started with. Spurgeon has reminded me to look to Jesus alone and I pray you will do the same.

peace to you and your fam...

p.rob

Another Sermon

Please take a moment and listen to a recent message I did on "servant evangelism" and the obstacles to why many people don't share their faith. One of those obstacles which took up most of the sermon was on the reality of Hell.

Click the link

http://www.infinitylaurel.com/Default.aspx?tabid=130

Then click on the "audo sermons" box and find my pic with the title "servant evangelism"

love to hear your thoughts

God hates visionary dreaming

Provocative title huh?

They are actually the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a small book he wrote called "Life Together." His words are challenging to us who follow Christ and are a part of His community called the Church. Read them carefully...

"Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this," (p. 6-7). We come into this community through Jesus. We exisit in community with Jesus. And our community is not centrally anything more or less than this!

This is significant to me because I often hear zealous Christians within the church and non-Christians outside of the church making comments on what the church should be. However, Bonhoeffer challenges us with our ideals about church.

"Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it," (p.14).

Wow! We cannont come to the church with some lofty ideal of what the church should be. This would include visions of perfect brotherhood, no division, no sin, a perfect racial diversity (for those of you who think every church should be equally balanced culturally), a "cool" church that "really" reaches the unchurched, etc. A warning to us is to examine our hearts and minds. Do we have a specific ideal of what "church" should be? Or do we come with a simplicity that realizes our fellowship with each other is in Jesus and then seek to work that out?

A warning to Church Planters...

"Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to sruvive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the later, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial," (p.15).

Often times those of you who may be church planters or thinking about planting a church are encouraged to "dream big" for your church plant by various church plant networks and denominations who may be involved in your plant. This is dangerous. It encourages you to falsely come up with some dream of what you want your church to look like and usually with younger planters like myself we have a specific type of person we see in our church and we see a specific type of culture represented there (usually young, cool, hip, etc.). Planters are often asked, "What is your target group?" This allows us to play into ourselves and our preferences too much and we can easily make our "target group" people like us and people who we feel most comfortable with. But may I suggest that Christian community ceases whenever we get to pick all of those with whom we are in community with. Jesus picked the 12 disciples from varying back grounds. They didn't all know each other naturally and didn't all grow up in the same neighborhood. James warns us in Chapter two to "show no partiality" and I am afraid that much of this does exactly that.

Shaun Garman, pastor of Red Sea Church in Portland, Or taught me this principle well. We don't get to choose who comes to our churches and who doesn't. Our job is to throw the gospel seeds everywhere we can and watch to see where they grow. Then we need to effectively tend those "shoots" by discipling those who respond to the gospel.

If we don't heed this warning this is where it takes us...

"God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visonary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of the brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself," (p.15).

While I have been addressing church planters this warning goes for all of us in the church who at times become dissatisfied with the church and perhaps cling to an ideal. Read these last words by Bonhoeffer to get a biblical picture of Christian Community.

"Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders [ie. demanding a certan ideal of Christian Community exist] but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness and HIs promise," (p.16).

"Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize: it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it," (p.l9).

don't waste your life

I was recently listening to a great message by John Piper. I dare you to listen to it.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/RecentlyAdded/1858_Dont_Waste_Your_Life/

The benefit of preaching

Recently I read a blog that I really enjoyed. (so yes I am blogging about a blog). When you get a minute check out the link, his thoughts are better than mine.
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/critics-of-the.php

Read this quote from Marsden's biography on the life of Jonathan Edwards...

“Critics of the awakenings alleged that when people heard many sermons in one week they would not be able to remember much of what they had heard. Edwards countered, ‘The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.’” Marsden concludes, “Preaching, in other words, must first of all touch the affections” (Page 282).

Read Edwards quote again... ‘The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.’”

As a preacher, this really rings true to my heart. It seems like the spirit of most preaching today is geared exclusively toward application. What I mean is that the value of hearing a sermon isn't in the hearing of it and in the experience of meeting with God through the preached word but rather on how it will be applied. We will often hear something like, "what you are hearing on Sunday only counts if you apply it in 'the real world' Monday - Saturday." Often this diminishes preaching itself as something that is necessary (though that is now debated) but something we need to "get through" so we can get to the "real work" of applying this in our lives.

The scariest piece of this in my opinion is that preachers in preparing a message neglect good exegesis and the actual preaching of the word and instead preach their outline, their points, or the "application" they pulled from the text. Where this leads us to is moralistic or "good Christian" preaching where the saints/sinners are just encouraged each week to try harder at following Jesus. People always leave with something to do rather than being more impressed with God and more in love with Jesus having just spent time with him.

I am still thinking this through but I think Edwards has it right.

Enjoying Asher

My baby boy turned two years old today. Happy Birthday buddy! As you can see from the pic he's one of the cutest little dudes you've ever seen. Asher... his name means happy (Genesis 30.13). It fits him well!

I want to slow down and just enjoy him (and my other kids) this summer. He'll be exploring alot in our back yard and I want to be there for it all. Man, I can't believe how much joy I get from being with my son. It wasn't always like that for me. After our third was born God did a work in my heart and I had to repent of not fully embracing my role as a father. Even though I loved all of my kids, prayed with them, took care of them etc. There was something not yet right in my fathering. During an intense period of my life God broke me and then my wife and I decided to try for one more kid.

Thus... Asher was conceived. He was conceived out of happiness. He was concieved out of the happiness that repentance brings. I want to enjoy him! I want to enjoy every moment I have with him.

Message on Unity and Maturity

Hey fam...

Here is a link to a recent sermon I preached. Check it out and give me your thoughts.

http://www.celebrategospel.com/viewMusic.php?fileID=26