New Hope @ Worship - At the Table

We normally meet as small groups on Sunday night, but after the weeks we used to prepare for Easter, everyone wanted to continue worship once a month. With Mother's day, father's day and all the other days, this was the first time we actually did. Each time we met during the run up to Easter, we shared the Lord's Supper. We varied the ways we did it, varied the elements we used, and tried to make it a time that was less about how well we pulled it off and more about allowing the Holy Spirit room to move us.

This whole week I've been thinking about how easy it is for us to slip from gratitude to take it for granted. And so I chose the story below to open our time of sharing.

5 So David sent for him and brought him from Makir’s home.6 His name was Mephibosheth ; he was Jonathan’s son and Saul’s grandson. When he came to David, he bowed low to the ground in deep respect. David said, “Greetings, Mephibosheth.”

Mephibosheth replied, “I am your servant.”
7 “Don’t be afraid!” David said. “I intend to show kindness to you because of my promise to your father, Jonathan. I will give you all the property that once belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will eat here with me at the king’s table!”
8 Mephibosheth bowed respectfully and exclaimed, “Who is your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?”
9 Then the king summoned Saul’s servant Ziba and said, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family.10 You and your sons and servants are to farm the land for him to produce food for your master’s household. But Mephibosheth, your master’s grandson, will eat here at my table.” (Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)

Ziba replied,11 “Yes, my lord the king; I am your servant, and I will do all that you have commanded.” And from that time on, Mephibosheth ate regularly at David’s table, like one of the king’s own sons.
2 Sam 9:5-11 (NLT)

There's no way Mephibosheth got there alone. He had to be carried there, just as we have been carried by God's efforts into His Kingdom - to His table. I used this video to reinforce it.



How much the Father must love us.
How awesome it is to know we'll never be alone.
How wonderful to be a child of God.

She's Sick

Bunny had to leave early from the Movie the other night because the heat got to her. She's been sick all day today and went to bed early. If you'd say a prayer for her speedy recovery I'd sure appreciate it.

New Hope @ Worship 29 June 2008

Great feeling after the "Movies in the Park" outreach last night as all the Newhopians might have been a little tired, but it was one of those good tired's. Bunny was sick today so one of the things she's been working with Sean on for a while finally came through. Sean was the lead guy today in the praise team. We had Jarrod on bass, Amy on flute, and yours truly on acoustic.

"Come, Now Is the Time To Worship" - chose it because it might be old now, but it's something people love to sing. Maybe those endless commercials for WOW CD's paid off.

"God of Wonders" - worked well with Sean's Rickenbacker guitar on lead.

"Ancient Words" - totally different feel without keyboard. I think it needed the piano.

"A Shield About Me" - I love this song, especially when we break into the Hallelujahs at the end. To me, it is really worshipful. The instrument mix worked pretty well on this one.

I'm having some difficulty with invitation music. There seems to be so little out there to use. And I'm wondering if we couldn't shake up the end of the service some to give people more space to consider the opportunity for commitment. We used

"Have Thine Own Way" - I know we've sung it forever, but it just didn't seem to "do" anything today. Got to work on more songs for this important part of the service, or change what we do there.

We continued the "Identity Theft" series by looking at what our culture has tried to do to Jesus.

Movies In the Park - The Wizard of Oz

There were so many details that needed to go right in order to make our first effort a success. People, publicity, place, weather, equipment - just to name a few. We had some hiccups but overall we got a result beyond anything we could have expected. I'd guess we had 65-75 people down there before it was over, and lots of those were families with their kids, out to enjoy a free evening.

I met a lot of people, invited a bunch to come and join us in worship at New Hope, and had a great time doing it. But I was and am SO PROUD of the people of New Hope who worked SO HARD down there. GREAT JOB GUYS!

Thanks go out to Jessie Mason with Valparaiso Communications for the most excellent projector, Michele Servino and the staff of the NW Florida Heritage Museum for their hospitality (and the use of their outside wall :) ), to Lydia Johnson and the City of Valparaiso, and to Turner Classic Movies. Well done!

See you in July!

Little Help Over Here...

Follow the Yellow Brick Road - Saturday 8PM!!!

Woo hoo! It's getting closer! We are hoping to be able to bless a bunch of people down there Saturday night. Please pray for great weather and an awesome turnout. If it rains, we'll move it up to New Hope.

Learning About Worship

Okay, tomorrow a new term at Rockbridge begins. I'll be enrolled in my last "core" course.

The Theology & Practice of Worship W5301
An examination of how to provide biblical worship in today's culture. Learners will study the doctrine of God, explore the biblical theology of worship, examine the heart of the worship leader, and learn how to work with a team to develop worship experiences in the church. (Formerly named “The Life of Worship”)

This is something I really need. How do you "provide biblical worship" in the average sized church? We all have seen what can happen with waves of talented musicians and vocalists. But what about in places like here?

Some of you are aware that New Hope has operated without a worship leader for two years now. At first we used a group of girls - teenagers and younger, as a praise team. What they brought to the table was sincerity and a sense among the congregation of appreciation that they were New Hope's kids. Over the last few months, we've added some adults to the mix and have been very grateful for their willingness and hearts.

As a pastor, my hope from the music is that it takes us nearer to God as a congregation, just as I hope that the message I prepare and deliver does. With that in mind, I have been choosing the music for the last two years trying to make that happen. I love music and love to worship God through it. But I'm not a musician like someone who is called to lead worship is. My wife Bunny does a great job in getting the praise team ready every week, but she is confined to playing the digital piano on Sunday morning, so we really don't have a worship leader.

I've been praying that God sends us someone to lead, because I believe we are leaving a lot on the table each week. The praise team is great, but I think we need a point person for worship that can "see" what is possible and lead us there. That will have to be a God thing, for providing for such a person is way outside our ability as a congregation right now. Living here is expensive, and living here as a church is too. I hope and pray God will grant our request. But until then, I need everything I can get about worship.

So tomorrow morning the adventure begins. We'll be using a text by Robert Webber, who was until his passage recently, one of the more irenic spirits in the worship spectrum. I have a couple of his books, but not this one - Worship Old and New.

(He has a couple of new ones out - Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting Gods Narrative (Ancient-Future)and Who Gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals , that I will order along with the class text.)

There's a lot going on in churches today, and I am really feeling like we are about to recapture our sense of worship. We're far enough along that the battles of the past are almost gone, and now we can use the best of what lies behind us while always looking ahead.

So stay tuned.

Final Sunday Night Thought

"Qualifications of a pastor : the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros." Stuart Briscoe

There be dragons.

New Hope @ Worship 22 June 2008

We were in a mood to celebrate today, with a longtime member returning from Kansas and her daughter's shower occurring after the service. Then too our "away" team was back form their mission trip to Kentucky - great opportunity to praise God.

Began worship with "O Worship the King" the Christ Tomlin arrangement
Then another with "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)"

It's so wonderful to have updated version of the old hymns that really honor and add to them.

Then "Your Name" from Hillsong

And "Still" a newer song for us.

"My Jesus I Love Thee" was the hymn of commitment.

I played this commercial right before the sermon.



My goal with this sermon was to help people find their identity in Christ, not what the world has told them. I think it worked pretty well. No audio recording though as something went wrong with the equipment, so I won't be able to review it tomorrow. That's a shame.

Great Article on the "Must-have's" for evangelism

While reading some blogs yesterday, I engaged in a discussion about evangelism. In that discussion, which came from the social gospel POV, I defended my belief that unless such ministry was empowered by a passion for souls won for Christ, it exchanged temporary benefit for everlasting life.

Today I read Timothy Brister's article linked below where he quotes Kuiper's work. Go read the whole list. The excerpt below is the last, and touched my heart.

Evangelism’s Must-Have’s « Provocations & Pantings

6. He must have an overwhelming love for the Saviour, who first loved him, and therefore exclaim:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Himself being a sinner saved by grace, he ought to proclaim the love of God more eloquently than can the angels. Such communication of the evangel God is wont to bless and to use.

- R.B. Kuiper, God-Centered Evangelism (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1966, reprint 2002), 217-18.

We're Off To See the Wizard!

Just sent the press release to the local newspaper for our first "Movies in the Park". We're working with the City of Valparaiso, the Heritage Museum, and Valparaiso Communications to offer families a FREE movie each month this summer. We're treating it as a service outreach and will be doing all we can to bless the folks that come and build some relationships that the gospel can travel over.

I'm pumped! June 28th at 8PM - come and have a great time with us! It'll be at the Heritage Museum on Westview Ave. in old Valparaiso.

Is There Room At the Table?

Last night Bunny and I shared a meal with some friends from New Hope. We talked about a lot of things. Some trivial and some not so. One of the questions I was asked was "What is the church going to do about the "gay marriage" issue"

When we got home, I received a blog post from Chuck Warnock about a related issue. Go over there and read his post, and put his blog in your reader. He's doing some amazingly good stuff up there in a Kingdom sort of way. Chuck is writing about the effort by Soul Force, a pro-gay group, to have some mega church pastors sit down to a meal with them and talk.

My comments on Chuck's blog were basically, if it's a sincere desire to fellowship and learn more about another human being created in God's image, then why in the world would you not want to break bread with them?

We've had gay people here at New Hope on occasion, and have had repeated visits a while back from one half of a lesbian couple and I think one visit from them together. So when I think about this issue, I think about real people, not some made for TV stereotype.

And I think about the real Jesus as He demonstrated what God's love looked like while He was here in bodily form. The way that the religious people thought they were slandering Him by calling Him a "friend of sinners."

Used to, we wrote songs about how great that was.

Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners

1. Jesus! What a friend for sinners!

Jesus! Lover of my soul;

Friends may fail me, foes assail me,

He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Chorus: Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Hallelujah! What a friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving,

He is with me to the end.

2. Jesus! What a strength in weakness!

Let me hide myself in Him.

Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,

He, my strength, my victory wins.

(Repeat chorus)

3. Jesus! What a help in sorrow!

While the billows o’er me roll,

Even when my heart is breaking,

He, my comfort, helps my soul.

(Repeat chorus)

4. Jesus! I do now receive Him,

More than all in Him I find.

He hath granted me forgiveness,

I am His, and He is mine.

(Repeat chorus)

Friends, by almost any measure, I am a conservative. My conviction from Scripture is that homosexual practice is a sin. That marriage between homosexuals may be recognized as legal by the state, but it isn't marriage as God created it.

All that stated and firmly held, backed by Scripture - I have a lot in common with the members of Soul Force. I am a sinner who needed a savior. I was created in God's image - the Bible uses the word "poema" which could be translated "masterpiece" to refer to those created by God's hands. So were they.

So yes, let's go get some fried chicken and green beans (Baptist inside joke).We'll disagree over sexuality, the meaning and interpetation of verses related to it - no doubt.

But do we have to agree on everything to share a meal together?

What? Head Evangotech is out? Funny from Bobby Hyatt

5 Titles Pastors should avoid at all costs...

5. Chief Strategic Officer

4. Cultural Architect

3. Lead Sermonizer

2. Head Evangotech and Pastorpreneur

1. PawPaw (I wish I was making this one up...)

HT - bob.blog

A New Operating System

You're reading the very first devotional I have ever written using the Ubuntu operating system. For the less geeky among us, the operating system (Windows, OSX, Linux) is what makes the computer more than a collection of interesting electronic parts. Valuable those parts may be, but unless someone tells them how to live and how to live together - they're just parts.

Yours truly, in the interest of pursuing yet another geek merit badge, and having mastered Windows and Mac, is now working on learning how to work using Ubuntu. It's open source, which means it is freely available to everyone, and that people with programming skills can help develop it further. In fact, some of the neatest applications available for it were produced by people just to help others.

Pretty cool, huh.

Well, I'm sitting here thinking that there are some real parallels to what happens when a person begins their journey with Jesus. When they allow God to work within their lives, they receive a new "operating system." Then God uses them to bless other people and to tell everyone who will listen that what He's offering can't be bought for any price, He's already paid that through Jesus. But that in order to use the new operating system, you have to choose to change.

1 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life— your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life— and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

Changed from the inside out. That's how God works within us to change the way we think and make us what we were created to be.

Think about it. Maybe it's time to change your operating system.

Grace and peace to you,

David

Visit with me at my blogs:
http://davethepastor.vox.com/
http://itslikeherdingcats.blogspot.com/
Or visit New Hope!
http://www.newhopevalp.org/
http://www.churchcloud.com/new-hope-valp/

Hulk Mad!

I received an email tonight.

This email though, was a forward that the sender thought might be helpful to local pastors. The email proceeded to list several artists, musicians, and personalities that had "died before their time" and link their deaths with the "wrath of God." It used texts from all over the Scriptures to point to the tragic deaths of these people created in God's image and basically revel in what the writer saw as the certainty that they now burn in the unquenchable fires of hell.

I just don't get it.

No, I guess I do, and it makes me mad, because that's not the way Jesus would have reflected on the lives and deaths of these people or any other person who died outside the Kingdom of God. Jesus was headed to His death at the hands of sinful people, but as he looked over the city, He said this:

34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets,
abuser of the messengers of God!
How often I've longed to gather your children,
gather your children like a hen,
Her brood safe under her wings—
but you refused and turned away!

Luke 13:34 (MSG)

Why would Jesus long to gather killers and abusers?

16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. 17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.
John 3:16-17 (MSG)

He loves them.

I can remember reading once about D.L. Moody's conversation with a person who was thrilled to preach on hell and excited to see the wicked get their just reward. Moody looked at the man and said, "Never ever preach about hell, unless your eyes are filled with tears over those who willfully go there."

Why rejoice? Why boast? If we got what we deserve, we'd split hell wide open.

Such emails and the motives behind them are far, far from God's grace. And the person far from God reads them and sees what are supposed to be people of grace rejoicing over their fall. No wonder people turn away.

/rant off

tears...

The Dandelion Effect

It's Sunday night here in Valparaiso, and I'm winding down. I've done some email correspondence to New Hope at large and to some folks who were missing today. Then I worked on some seminary projects, read a little and watched some TV. But before I went to bed, I wanted to get some thoughts down about an image that keeps popping into my head when I think about New Hope.

The dandelion.

Yes, that's right. The dandelion.



When you look at the plant, you can see that God created it to spread. The way He designed the seeds to release when the wind blows or when the plant is affected by someone passing by is just sheer genius. But then it also helps that when the plant matures, it sends out a taproot deep into the soil, as well as presenting a pretty flower to the bees who will help the plant spread.

For some reason that plant just seems to embody what we as a church should be doing. Putting down roots in our community and being nurtured by God's Word just as the dandelion is nurtured by the soil it grows in.

Blessing our neighborhoods with the beauty of lives lived with purpose - to glorify God in whatever we do.

And following the wind of the Holy Spirit away from our homes and multiplying.

I think there's something we can learn from what God has done.

New Hope @ Worship 15 June 2008 - Father's Day

We had a bunch of people on mission in KY this week, plus a couple more families on vacation. With Mother's day, many times you can experience a jump in attendance. Not so with Father's Day.

On Mother's day, I had used the story of Hannah and Samuel to discuss the special qualities of a God honoring Mom. Today I continued the story but from the standpoint of how BAD a father Eli was. What happened? Why did this man of God lose his sons to wickedness? What can parents do to try to ensure their kids don't turn out that way?

In planning music, I knew we were not going to be able to tie that to the text, so I just worked on preparing people for worship.

The Heart of Worship - (To try and make sure we weren't focused on any father but our Father in Heaven.
Thank You Lord
He Has Made Me Glad
It Is Well With My Soul
Amazing Grace

Every now and then, I think I need to make an effort to place one of the older and beloved hymns into a place that the words can do their work. "It is well..." did that today. If I had it to do over, I would have chosen something else than "Amazing Grace".



Audio of the sermon

I'm ending a sleepy afternoon, missing my father, and missing my sons. One's in Kentucky on a mission trip, and the other is in Warner Robins, GA. I don't know why, but this year's Father's Day has been tougher than most.

I had preached from this text back in 2000, and as I reread what I did then, it was true to the text, but it left out something that I found out to be very important, so I added that to my notes.

That is - finish strong. My brother and I are still dealing with the effects of our father's weakness at the end of his life. Nothing about that I can change. But I can ask God to give me what I need to achieve a life lived for Him until the end of my life. I do not want to out live my integrity.

I am thankful for what my father did for me. But that pales in comparison with what my heavenly Father has done.

Father's Day 2008

Yeah, I miss him.

"It's A Good Tired"

Get the word out. Teach all these things. 12 And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. 1 Tim 4:11-12 (MSG)

This week New Hope has been supporting a group of youth and their leaders who were doing a Mission OK (backyard Bible Club) across the street from us at Valparaiso Elementary. Our church has been involved over there in some other things during the past year as part of our ministry of service, but this was a Rocky Bayou Baptist initiated and led project that we were thrilled to be able to participate in as support staff.

Today we served all those hard working kids and their support staff lunch over here at New Hope, and I got to spend some more time with them. Friends, I never get tired of seeing people, especially young people, serving others in Jesus' name. Those kids sung, played, taught, witnessed, and puppet-ted (is that a word? :) ) for the neighborhood kids all week and then today they spent the morning ( a coolish 95 degree morning) cleaning up a disabled person's yard.

They came in dragging a bit, and we sent them out refreshed. Or at least refreshed enough to get back home to take a good teenaged nap.

At one point in the week, the adults were a little bummed out. The YMCA kids, who are at the school all day during the summer, would not be coming outside to where the Mission OK kids had their stuff set up. It was too hot. They had already been outside.

One of the youth participating took the whole situation in. Then he said:

"Why can't we go to them?"

So they did. And gained air conditioning and the use of the sound system to help do what they were doing -even better.

Someone said once "a little child will lead them."

Well, from what I saw this week, we need to expand that to include youth.

It was thrilling. I hope we get to do more with our friends from Rocky Bayou, our friends from Valparaiso Elementary, and for our friends from the neighborhood.

Please pray for our New Hope "away team" as they head to Big Creek, KY tomorrow for a week of missionary service.

Grace and peace,

David



Visit with me at my blogs:
http://davethepastor.vox.com/
http://itslikeherdingcats.blogspot.com/
Or visit New Hope!
http://www.newhopevalp.org/
http://www.churchcloud.com/new-hope-valp/

Co-Laborers

We've been supporting a sister Baptist church the last few days as they offered a "Mission OK" (backyard Bible club) across the street from us at Valparaiso Elementary. The youth of that church have done a great job every day serving the kids who came.

The first day I helped a couple of them knock on doors in our neighborhood reminding people that the event was happening. It was great to be able to tell them that two churches were working together and to point to New Hope's steeple and say "that's where I'm from."

When I first found out about the undertaking by another church in our neighborhood, I cannot say I reacted in a Kingdom worker way. I had just seen our church ignored by our local Baptist association the day before, and when people from a mega church miles away showed up at my front door inviting me to send any kids I could find to their event... well, I was upset.

Remember, I'm the guy who WANTS to partner with other churches and other social organizations to reach Valparaiso for Jesus. And our church is engaged in ministry in the same school where this event was taking place. So I thought that we'd be certain to get an invitation or at least a notice that such an activity was taking place.

I emailed a friend over at the Big Church, and he was so gracious in his reply I found myself backing up as fast as I could go. They had no idea we were engaged there and frankly didn't know much about what we at New Hope are about. He made sure we were welcomed as friends and colaborers for the gospel.

We ended the week together just now with lunch at New Hope, and I think it was a great adventure and blessing for both. The kids were great, their leaders were gracious, and on our side - we tried hard to bless their socks off and support them as fully as we knew how.

Good job, guys.

Why is it so hard to work together?

Lack of communication.

We really don't know each other. We really don't know what we are engaged in within our neighborhoods. We really don't know much about what we hope to be doing for Jesus there in the future.

I used to be plugged into the local area ministerial association and very involved in our local Baptist association. But it always seemed like we met to be meeting, with very little talk about ministry - unless it was to brag. So I withdrew from those. So now I have to find another way to network and get things done.

Maybe we began another network today. Sitting around the table with three teachers from Valparaiso Elementary - all followers of Jesus - talking about how we can be used of God to love people as fully as Jesus did - sounds like the birth of a ministry network to me.

Those fields are still ready for harvest. Let's work together and call others into the fields with us.