The Gospel and Relationships

Our very own Joseph Stigora and Erin Sutherland have written posts for the New Attitude blog recently on relationships, one article for girls and one for guys.

Enjoy,
Rick

CJ Mahaney Speaking

CJ Mahaney will be coming to preach at Covenant Fellowship Church this Sunday, April 27th. CJ has a unique gift for communicating the gospel in a way that brings application to our lives. This is a great opportunity to invite a friend out to church.

rick

Portraits of Hope

Spread the word. Portraits of Hope 2008 will be taking place this Friday.

Where: Covenant Fellowship Church
When: Friday, April 25 2008
Time: 7:00 PM

If you plan on attending be sure to visit the website and register so they know how much food to provide. Even if you don't have $1000 to spend on a photograph there will be smaller prints for sale that look outstanding as well. Be sure to come and tell others, especially your rich neighbors and relatives.

rick

Together for the Gospel

Last week was the Together For The Gospel (T4G) 2008 conference. It was an amazing conference. I recommend that everyone listen to the messages given by RC Sproul, John Piper and CJ Mahaney. They're available for free if you follow the link. Also check out all the books we were given for free!

Rick

Second Saturday

Second Saturdays are monthly mornings of outreach, packed with various community service, mercy, and evangelism opportunities. Show up and join in an outreach, or fill out an “Outreach Work Order” online to create an outreach of your own!

WHEN
The second Saturday morning of each month, rain or shine, year-round. Saturday 4/11/08.

HOURS
9:30 AM to 1:00 PM

WHERE
Meet in the church lobby

There’s also a free pizza lunch at 1:00 pm in the lobby.

Come out tomorrow and do some outreach and mercy at the church. See you tomorrow.

rick

Pray For Those Who Preach

This is a great article about praying for our pastors.

Rick

(HT: JT)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

This looks like an interesting new movie coming out with Ben Stein. See the preview below.

Meditations

I've been reading the book of Acts in my quiet time and this is one of the passages that I have been struck by lately.

...and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. -Acts 5:40-42

Lately I've been noticing how I can easily find contentment in things of this world rather than Christ. God used this passage to point it out to me as I read how the apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Christ. Talk about making little of yourself and much of God.

Free Scripture Songs

These are from Mark and Stephen Altrogge (Here).

rick

What Americans Call Sin

This is a sad list. More people consider not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change sin than they do having an abortion. Seeing numbers like this freshly reminds me of why we need to share the gospel with such a lost world...they need a savior.

WHAT AMERICANS CALL SIN

• Adultery: 81%

• Racism: 74%

• Using "hard" drugs, such as cocaine, LSD: 65%

• Not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change: 63%

• Having an abortion: 56%

• Homosexual activity or sex: 52%

• Not reporting some income on your tax returns: 52%

• Reading or watching pornography: 50%

• Gossip: 47%

• Swearing: 46%

• Sex before marriage: 45%

• Homosexual thoughts: 44%

• Sexual thoughts about someone you are not married to: 43%

• Doing things as a consumer that harm the environment: 41%

• Smoking marijuana: 41%

• Getting drunk: 41%

• Gambling: 30%

• Not attending church or religious services regularly: 18%

• Drinking any alcohol: 14%

Source: Ellison Research, August 2007, based on 1,007 adults through a representative online panel ad adjusted to be demographically representative of the USA Margin of error: ±3.1 percentage points. (Full Article)

rick

Soccer Skills

(HT: Stephen Altrogge)

I'm Back!

So lately things have been slacking, ever since I got engaged and had to get ready for the college New Orleans trip. But now I'm back and ready to keep posting. First big news, the wedding date is set, July 12th! Now some updates about our NO trip.

It was a great experience, we all survived the 22 hour car ride in a 15 passenger van and had great opportunities to serve the Sovereign Grace Church there, Lakeview Christian Center. We did tons of yard work to clean up properties for people who called the church asking for help. Everyone was very grateful for the help we gave and it was amazing to see how simply serving the community in this way has opened opportunities for the church to share the gospel and connect with their neighbors. I've done community service before but I found this to be one of the most fruitful experiences I've ever had. Look for a slideshow of pictures that will on the side of this page soon.

Also this week a group of students from Drexel are down at a conference in Panama City Beach, FL. Please pray for them, here's how:


…for traveling safety (
…for boldness in sharing God's Word with others
…for an openness to what God has for us to learn and to the ways He wants us to grow
…for the Holy Spirit's work upon those we will encounter
…that those planning and leading the trip would be following God's heart for the trip
…that we would use the week to grow us in community and fellowship

Don't Waste Your Easter!

In the spirit of John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life...

Easter is a great opportunity to invite our unbelieving friends out to church events like the Good Friday service or Easter Sunday. Though many of our friends do not go to church, many are willing to go on Easter (and Christmas...aka C & E'rs). Maybe they go out of obligation or tradition or for another reason - regardless, why not make the most out of this weird c&e'r phenomenon and invite them to Covenant. I challenge you all to invite at least one person to church this Friday and one to church this Sunday (or both to both)!

This is also a perfect (and probably the easiest) time to dialogue with our friends about spiritual things. To get into a spiritual conversation using Easter you could merely ask one of the following:

Do you celebrate Easter? Why? Why not?
What's the big deal about Easter anyway?
Do you believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead as Christians say he did?
Are you participating in lent? Why? Why not?
Do you like the easter bunny? (that's not a joke)

Take heart, the gospel is unstoppable!

1 Corinthians 2
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Bulletproof Vest Evangelism (or not)

Nathan Lee's story!

Biology vs.Spirituality: Fight for holiness

Article: The Sad Tale Of Eliot Spitzer, and What it Tells Us (and What it Doesn't)

Excerpt...

We must have the Spirit, men, and we must strive for holiness, both personally and in the embrace of the local church.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Are you trying to be something?

I just listened to a sermon by Matt Chandler, lead pastor at the Village Church in Texas (a Acts 29 church), called Foot-Washing. It was essentially about Christian service for Jesus. One of his points was explaining how God loves service that's done in private. He contrasted public service with private service by contrasting his churches parking team and the preaching team. He said that no one will ever thank the parking team, but the preaching team will always get emails thanking them for their service. Then he said something really convicting to me:

We’ve got far too many people trying to become something and not enough people trying to become nothing.

Are we serving humbly, trying to count others as more significant than ourselves?

Matt then referenced Philippians 2:1-11

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

CJ Mahaney

Come out to Covenant Fellowship Church to hear special guest preacher and author, C.J. Mahaney. C.J. leads Sovereign Grace Ministries (sovgracemin.org). He also serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and the board of CBMW. Some of his books include Humility: True Greatness; Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God. He also contributed to Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry, and to two additional volumes in the Foundations for the Family Series (Crossway).

*First-time guests will get a free copy of CJ’s book, Living the Cross Centered Life.

rick

Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Great Quote

So Rick asked me to post on the blog today... I did, just not till later...

I have been reading through Stott's commentary on Romans and have found it to be immensely helpful in my study of that book. Notably, his insight into the general themes found in the book, topics that I can have trouble finding, have been particularly helpful.

I don't underline, highlight, or write in the margins of any books that I own. Until I ran across this passage in Stott's commentary. Here Stott is talking about Paul's use of the phrase "The righteousness of God" in Romans 1:16.

"It seems legitimate to affirm, therefore, that 'the righteousness of God' is God's righteous initiative in putting sinners right with himself, by bestowing on them a righteousness which is not their own but his. 'The righteousness of God' is God's just justification of the unjust, his righteous way of pronouncing the unrighteous righteous, in which he both demonstrates his righteousness and gives righteousness to us. He has done it through Christ, the righteous one, who died for the unrighteous, as Paul will explain later. And he does it by faith when we put our trust in him, and cry to him for mercy."

Be encouraged by this faithful proclamation of what the Gospel of Christ is, and means for us now.

Clogged Hard Drives

D.A. Caron has a very insightful article on how we ought to do evangelism in our post-everything culture. Click here for the full article.

Dr. Carson essentially expounds how Paul evangelized to the Athenians in Acts 17:22-31.

excerpts:

Today we are dealing with a major worldview clash. People are not empty discs on which we seek to write new files of truth. Rather their hard drives are clogged with other files. There are some things they need to unlearn because the files they already have on their discs have so many bits that clash with the files (designed by Scripture) that we want to write on them. This communication process takes time and energy.

He goes on to say...

Paul at the Areopagus in Athens has established an entire frame of reference before he gets to Jesus. He has challenged the Greek worldview with his JudeoChristian worldview. If he had presented clichés like 'Jesus died for your sins' before he had established the appropriate frame of reference, people would necessarily have misunderstood what he was saying.

We too, today, in our biblically illiterate society need to establish this biblical framework. This might take five minutes, five hours or five years, but at some stage we have to do it.