Children and salvation

Ht: John Bracken
http://www.ccwonline.org/cconv.html

Discipline with Faith

http://harmonyridge.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/discipline-with-faith/

I like Mat Kearney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkX_i3eYR3o

Re-think Education

The recent court ruling that favors the ACLU’s viewpoint regarding public schools has created much talk. As I understand it, the view is that the absence of God should be the norm in public schools. The end result is nothing short of atheistic worldview indoctrination and therefore has gone too far. For example: no teacher may discuss their views of God in the classroom, and no adult is permitted to thank God out loud at banquets. Evidently, the court’s ruling was so severe that the ACLU thinks the district was in violation because someone prayed at a banquet that was done after school hours, for non-instructional employees, and in which no students were present. How come our government officials pray before special events and banquets? Where was the ACLU when President Obama had Rick Warren pray at the inauguration? It is a good thing the inauguration wasn’t held in Santa Rosa County and God forbid, at Pace High School. Furthermore, teachers may not participate in student-led Christian clubs that meet prior to the school day. We are not even allowed to be supportive of our young people’s faith by reading the Bible with them before school. If a person has read the Pensacola News Journal they would be inclined to believe that prior to Judge Casey’s ruling, teachers were frequently using class time to indoctrinate students in their particular religious viewpoints. As things presently stand, teachers may not discuss various viewpoints about religion (Christianity in particular) in the classroom, and then give their personal opinion. Discussion and free thinking have been outlawed, because of the rights of a few.
We have reached the point in Santa Rosa County where it is illegal for school leaders to speak of Christ in a positive manner. Why would we want to educate our kids in such an atheistic environment? Even now zealots are calling for Mr. Lay’s resignation. Mr. Lay does not live in isolation, so you can not mess with Mr. Lay without messing with a bunch of us. Maybe it is time for the Church to a make a massive exodus from the public schools. Yet sadly, I think that most Christians don’t really care enough about all of this to do much of anything. I have been a public school teacher in Santa Rosa County for twenty years. My observation is that though we are home to so many great people, few public school parents have raised their kids with a solid Christian worldview. Even good ole Pace High School didn’t help much in that area. The extent of most people’s Christianity is this - frequent church attendance and a solid youth group. We want our teens to be entertained in a wholesome environment. Our biggest concerns are: making a good living, sports, keeping our kids off drugs, protecting our kids from tough teachers/ensuring our kids have high GPA’s, and helping our children avoid teen pregnancy. The fact that everything has been created through Christ and for him is not on the radar.

To the Dentist and Beyond

The following is from Josh Patterson at the Village Church.

I have a good friend who just went to the dentist and has nine cavities. At one time? Nine? I asked my friend, “Do you brush with sugar?” How is this possible? I thought it had to be some kind of record. But, my friend informed me that we have another mutual friend who had 13 cavities in one visit. This was not as shocking to me because this friend is from Louisiana and, well, just the fact that there are 13 teeth in the first place is something noteworthy.

The cavity scandal generated a lot of questions for me. I began polling people to better understand this mystery, and, hopefully to find the key to cavity free teeth. Did you have your teeth sealed at the dentist? Most had. I asked if people brushed. Most do (at least once a day). Do you floss? Most don’t (count me in the “no” category). In general most people had their teeth sealed, brushed daily and flossed intermittently. Isn’t this the formula we are supposed to follow? Close. The last piece of the puzzle is a regular trip to the dentist. And, interestingly enough, an infrequent visit to the dentist was the common denominator in my lackluster research.

What does this have to do with anything? Apparently, a lot. A visit to the dentist is a preventative measure. It gives us the opportunity to catch something early. It allows us the chance to have someone else assess the situation and help. My friends who are cavity laden have waited years between a visit to the dentist (they had dental insurance the whole time). This has led me to think about the parallel to my own life. Neglecting checkups from others is costly.

If I live in isolation, never open up and let someone else check out what’s going on, then I run the risk of rotting out. I might be doing some of the “prescribed” measures, but I can’t do these alone. They are insufficient in isolation and are most effective in community. Cavities are one thing, but rotting your heart is a whole new issue. Who knew that cavities and community had some parallels?

Auburn - Baylor impressive

My son Mark, his friend Jonathon, and I took a road trip to Auburn yesterday. We partook of the usual pregame food stops and t-shirt purchasing. We enjoyed a visit with my daughter Bethany who attends Auburn. Toomer's fresh lemonade did touch our lips as well as the backs of our throats. We actually watched the girl cut the fresh lemons and crush them just to make our drinks. The game against Baylor was all that an elite 8 NIT game should be. The score went back and forth all the way down to the last seconds. I haven't seen Auburn's basketball team play so well in years. I was particularly impressed with the Auburn team's leadership. It seems that they have the team playing not only hard, but also exhibiting very good sportsmanship. Baylor did as well. The most significant part of the day happened just as the game ended. Auburn had been defeated on their home court in the last seconds of the ball game. But I noticed that both teams (all of them - coaches and all support staff) met at half court for what appeared to be prayer. And they lingered long enough to show that this was no mere superficial formality. I have noticed many such events through the years, but never with the entire teams benches participating. Truly, such sportsmanship, in the midst of defeat and victory is what sports are really all about. Both coaches and players were kind, congratulatory, and respectful on both sides. It appeared that both team chaplains had planned well for this encounter. I wish I knew for sure. I am thankful that these players have men in their lives who are helping them to handle themselves with composure, and grace. It appears that through sports they are learning to train, perform, and persevere under pressure. Maybe sports are not a complete waste of time after all.

Those who are called

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.' Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ESV

In first-century Corinth, "wisdom" was not understood to be practical skill in living under the fear of the Lord (as it frequently is in Proverbs), nor was it perceived to be some combination of intuition, insight, and people smarts (as it frequently is today in the West). Rather, wisdom was a public philosophy, a well-articulated world-view that made sense of life and ordered the choices, values, and priorities of those who adopted it. The "wise man," then, was someone who adopted and defended one of the many competing public worldviews. Those who were "wise" in this sense might have been Epicureans or Stoics or Platonists, but they had this in common: they claimed to be able to "make sense" out of life and death and universe.
An organizing system, a coherent world-view, conveys a sense of power. If you can explain life, you remain in control of it. The Greeks were renowned for their pursuit of coherent systems of thought that ordered their world. In short, they pursued "wisdom." DA Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry (Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians) Pages 15-16

This is why, apart from the grace of God, no one is converted. The people to whom we communicate the gospel, who are not in a crisis of some sort, are already functioning quite well with a worldview that makes sense out of life. The gospel threatens to rip that system to shreds. And, by the way, what is up with Paul's reference to "those who are called"? To those people, the gospel is the power of God and the wisdom of God. But to the average guy whose heart has not been awakened, the gospel is very bad news. He is not king of the universe; Jesus is!

The temptation for the called is to live with a combination worldview. We often straddle the fence and live life with a somewhat vague Christian worldview, while still clutching the wisdom of this world to boot. God is calling us to trust him, and to live having our minds informed by a clear and biblical worldview. We should live risky lives today for the kingdom. Our lifestyle should not make sense. It should be ridiculous to people - Christian and non-Christian who have a less than biblical worldview. May we live in such a way that if the gospel is not true, then our lifestyle is to be pitied. See 1 Corinthians 15:19

Carson quote

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions that God has graciously made. While all true worship is God-centered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered by the Spirit and in line with stipulations of the new covenant, it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel, which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and therefore also with our fellow image-bearers, our co-worshipers. Such worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent revelation and anticipate the consummation.
D.A. Carson Worship by the Book Pg 26