Cutbacks

When do you start another ministry vs. helping to build one that already exists? In our church there are loads of new ministries started to reach different segments of the population. However, when we do this, often we end up hurting the existing ministries. I was at a Happy 5 leadership meeting last night, and the soccer ministry is going to have to cut back two fields this year. That means 64 to 72 kids (and their respective families) are not going to be able to join the Happy 5 ministry this year: 64 to 72 kids and their families that may otherwise have been introduced to First Bible and even more importantly may have been introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not because we don't have the fields, but because we don't have enough workers. So, I look at it and realize that the people that have stepped down from coaching and refereeing positions (which causes us to cut back the number of fields) are doing so because they have other ministries they are working in. Whether it be, Street Ministry, Paintball, Flag Football - or like me, just ministering to their families:

(you know those little hats they give to the babies at the hospital? That's what the boys are wearing!)

Rather than going to the people that I know and trying to guilt them into coaching or refereeing, I'm realizing that they are already ministering elsewhere, and they need to invest into those other ministries. Taking on a position in Happy 5 would just detract from their ministering elsewhere.

So, what do we do? Well, the Bible says to pray the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers into the harvest. But maybe He has sent them - just directed them elsewhere. It seems the available labor force is comprised of those people that I don't know: the people that honestly are not doing anything in ministry, but rather are just coming to church to be fed and to be ministered unto. There is a need for reaching out to different segments of the population - starting an evangelistic team that focuses on street work, visitation, public events, etc. However, we have over 500 kids and their families coming to our place on Saturday mornings, and we are not able to minister to them effectively. Do we drop existing ministries, or do we keeping pouring into them to make them better?

Cute Couple

Don't the Ritzes make just the cutest couple?

Cosmos

Be not conformed to this world (Greek word = Cosmos, hence the Title), but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). Love not the world , neither the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

My question is: What is the world? And what are the things in the world? It seems a pretty serious charge to refrain from those things, but how do we define it?

I think a common misperception would be that anything the world does, is something that the Christian should avoid... However, what do we do with things like: The world singing, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me? or, what do we do with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing, Hallelujah Chorus. Are we to stay away from those songs because the world likes them? I don't think so...

"Well, we are to refrain from their style of dress!" Well, again, how is that defined? I looked up the history of the necktie. Here's what I found:

In 1660, in celebration of its hard-fought victory over the Ottoman Empire , a crack regiment from Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), visited Paris. There, the soldiers were presented as glorious heroes to Louis XIV, a monarch well known for his eye toward personal adornment. It so happened that the officers of this regiment were wearing brightly colored handkerchiefs fashioned of silk around their necks. These neck cloths, which probably descended from the Roman fascalia worn by orators to warm the vocal chords, struck the fancy of the king, and he soon made them an insignia of royalty as he created a regiment of Royal Cravattes. The word "cravat," incidentally, is derived from the word "Croat."

Alan Flusser: dick.thefamilyowen.com/page5.htm

So then, clearly, we would want to avoid wearing the clothing of the world, and anyone that wears a necktie is truly apostate! ...Nah, it doesn't necessarily work that way either.

How about hair gel, Barone wears it, Blizzard wears it, (Putney use to wear it, but not any more)... Is that being worldly? I leave the answer up to you.

So, here's what I would like to suggest. Worldliness is defined as being something that is against the things of God. 1 John 2:16 says that all that is in the world is not of the Father. Since we have been called to be a consecrated, holy, separate, peculiar (peculiar means belonging only to one person exclusive of all others) people, then we need to avoid the things of the world, and dwell only in the things of God. 1 John 2:16 does us a favor in helping us to determine what is worldly: For all that is in the world: The lusts of the flesh, The lusts of the eyes and The pride of life. To stay non-worldly is to avoid doing things in order to fulfill the lusts of the flesh (cf. Ephesians 2:3 at your convenience), the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life - the three areas that seem to be present in all major temptations. Even though Jesus was not enticed by the temptation of the devil - He could not have sinned - but He was presented with the temptation in the same three areas. Eve was also tempted in the same way (Genesis 3:1-6).

What is my point today? Not conforming to this world, as I understand the Scriptures to mean, does not speak directly of clothing, music, places you visit, etc. all by itself, but rather it speaks of being godly. We determine what is worldly by what contradicts that which is godly.

• God says depart from iniquity, the world says whatever feels good
• God says not to have idols, the world broadcasts idols and even calls them such
• God says to be gracious and merciful, the world says do what's best for you first
• God says to be humble, the world boasts of its pride
• God says deny yourself, the world says indulge
• God says to guard your eyes, the world puts up sin on the biggest billboards
• God says to dress modestly, the world says draw attention to you
• God says to dress covering your skin, the world says take it all off

God says, whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. The world... well... it just doesn't say that.

Romans 12:2 tells us that we have our minds renewed when reading the Scriptures. That helps us to conform to the Scriptures, to what is godly. When we are not in the Scriptures, then our minds are renewed by what we see in the world, and we end up conforming to them.

Be Ye Holy!!!!

Consecration

Webster's 1611 dictionary (no, it's really Webster's 1828, but often treated as if it were the 1611!) defines the word Consecration as: The act or ceremony of separating from a common to a sacred use, or of devoting and dedicating a person or thing to the service and worship of God, by certain rites or solemnities. Consecration does not make a person or thing really holy, but declares it to be sacred, that is, devoted to God or to divine service; as the consecration of the priests among the Israelites; the consecration of the vessels used in the temple; the consecration of a bishop.

- Separating from a common to a sacred use -

This lunch time Sarah had a great hot meal. Macaroni and Cheese, green beans, cake, fruit bowl, it looked great! She was kind enough to give me her bread and water! So, while she, I mean WE were was eating, I had some Lunch-Time thoughts about Consecration.

The word Consecrate is tied to the words: Sacred, Sanctify, Holy. Perhaps too often we fail to undertsand "holiness," but it means to be separated for use solely of someone else. To be holy is to be separated wholly for God's use. So, to consecrate somthing is to separate it from common use to strictly being used for God.

We see prayers of consecration in the Bible when Aaron & his sons were put into their office of priests, when Solomon dedicates the Temple, when Hannah gives Samuel to the service of the Lord. And those last two ones were really where my thoughts rested.

First of all, First Bible Baptist Church is about to finish building their new building. The existing building has been consecrated to the Lord. It has been set apart for God's use and taken out of the common use. My thought was: Are we allowed to sell something that has been consecrated to the Lord to someone else? Or, must it remain set apart for God's use after the sale? That is, must the church sell the building to another church to keep it consecrated? I believe there was a principle found in the Mosaic Law about redeeming something that had been dedicated to the Lord by adding 5% on top of it or something like that, so I guess we're covered by adding 5% on top of it for the new building!

Secondly though, my little baby Esther. I would love to say (and frankly have said) that I consecrate her to the Lord. However, what a difficult and disciplined task (for me, not her) to carry that out! To make EVERY decision in her life based upon the premise that the decision being made must be made to further her work for the Lord, and for no other reason. Applying this to all of my kids - it means teaching them the Bible more than any other thing, not subjecting them to entertainment that would be against our God, treating them as I would expect them to treat others, and so much more... How difficult it truly would be to consecrate a child for the Lord - yet, we are supposed to.


I guess it makes the job easier to consecrate other things to the Lord, when we get the first part right: Be ye holy, for I am holy. When Christ died for us, He redeemed us, He bought us - and oh, what a great price for my redemption - and has made us His peculiar people. When we live our lives holy separated, consecrated unto the Lord in every aspect, then it becomes much easier to consecrate other things, or people. Hey, He is worthy of our giving everything to Him!

Also, this is my second post today, so don't miss the video on the previous post.

Esther's First Day

Esther Dorothy Hinds - 5/22/2007

Greetings, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God has blessed us with a beautiful, healthy and just wonderful little baby girl.

Esther Dorothy Hinds was born on Tuesday, May 22nd at Rochester General Hospital (that's not too close to Manitou Rd, by the way - it was a fun drive!)

Sarah started having some "pains" about midnight, and at 12:30 she actually started complaining about them hurting. She wasn't sure if they were contractions or not though. Finally we got her settled down and timed the pains, and they lasted for about a minute with a 30 second break in between. So, we went to the hospital!

After getting to the hospital, they got her a room and the Dr. on duty told her she was 7 cm. Sarah immediately asked for an epidural, and the Dr. wasn't sure because she was so far along. He checked with the Dr. from Sarah's office, and they allowed it to happen. We got to the hospital somewhere around 1:30. The epidural was finished at 2:15, and 15 minutes later at 2:30 in the morning, Esther was born!

Sarah is doing real well now - much better than when she was pregnant.

Esther was our biggest baby so far: 9 lbs. 4 oz. measuring 21 inches long. Not too much hair, but there is some. She is just simply adorable. God is good!

Commitments

I was thinking this morning about "Commitments" as I was emailing someone to cancel a commitment I had made before. You see, my beautiful wife does not want to have the baby when she is supposed to (last Friday), so now I have to change my schedule around and not do some of the things that I thought I would be able to do!

So, as I was cancelling this commitment, I asked myself this question (actually somebody else asked me the question) What Would Jesus Do? First of all, I realized that Jesus wouldn't have gotten His wife pregnant, as He did not have a wife - but that's another story. But I started thinking about what kind of commitments Jesus had made, or what kind of scheduled appointments that He had. These are the scheduled commitments that I see that Jesus made: His birth, Going to Jerusalem at the appropriate set times for the Jewish feasts, His triumphant entry into Jerusalem (fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel), and then of course the Cross and Resurrection. Those events in His life all had specific dates attached to them. Other than those 5 things however, I don't see that He "Scheduled" anything more into His life.

I was looking at Matthew 5:1, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, and it starts off with: "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit..." And for the next three chapters, the greatest sermon in the history of the world was preached. My point is this: If Jesus had the schedule today that most Christians had, He would not have been able to deliver that sermon. It might have read, "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain to lose them, running late for a preaching engagement in Nazareth."

So, after considering Jesus for a bit, I decided to go to the Apostle Paul. Now, Paul was a bit less scheduled than Jesus. He, like Jesus (though I didn't mention it above), seemed to schedule his sabbath days to be in the synagogues. Other than that though, the only other time sensitive thing I could think of was when he wanted to get back to Jerusalem at the set time of Passover. Paul didn't move without purpose, but I see him always as leaving himself "free" to move as God wanted him too.

I don't have answers today (because I'm too busy to think about it!), but I do know that it is a problem in my life when I do too many other things, and I end up staying up too late and not able to wake up early to meet my appointment with God.

In America today, it is almost a sin to miss or be late for an appointment. The reason being, you've commited to something, you've given your word to it. In most other cultures in the world, if you set a time for something, that really is just giving an idea of when things will take place. If in Guatemala we are going to meet at the park at 2:00, that really means sometime in the afternoon. To my limited knowledge, every where else in the world this is acceptable, just not in America. Could it be that the less restrictive "I'll get there when I get there" is actually the better method to take than the "you better be there 10 minutes before the time given" method? I know that it doesn't work in this culture, I'm just wondering if that's a flaw in our culture. We do need to remember that God's design for us takes precedence over culture.

Be still and know that I am God. At the same time, Always abounding in the work of the Lord, for your labour is not in vain in Him. I suppose Mary & Martha's example would be applicable in this story too...

Anyway, I didn't have time for a real lunch today because I was too busy - had too many commitments - but I wanted to write something on it. Priorities is another topic that should be considered along these lines.

Be still and know that God is God. Blessed is the man who meditates in God's law day and night. And Work and Occupy 'til He comes...

Ad Hominem

Just so there's no confusion, the Title of this post is not part of some cooking instructions.

ok, I'm not planning on posting over the weekends usually, but I was just here at my computer typing in my notes from a book I'm reading (The Other Side of Calvinism, by Vance) and had a thought I wanted to share. Maybe someone could comment and help me out...

When there is a debate about a topic, why do authors feel the need to make ad hominem attacks? (That simply means that you argue against the person making the opposing argument instead of attacking their argument.) For example, let's say I wanted to argue with Mr. Shannon Young about the types of food that he brings to Home Bible Study. "You should not listen to the choices of food that Shannon brings to Bible Study because 'Shannon' is actually a girl's name!" That would be an Ad Hominem attack, and truly has no point to the argument. There are times that an attack against the person becomes pertinent. Another example would be: You should not be concerned about missionaries in Italy because Michael uses too much gel in his hair, and he also uses a Mac.

Anyway, in reading this book about Calvinism, I am truly realizing that it does not matter what the man John Calvin did, wrote, believed or taught, at least as far as it goes for me today. That is, just because he baptized babies, persecuted heretics or whatever other evils he did, has no impact on the truth or fallacy of what he wrote on election and predestination. I've got to be fair to Vance (the author of the book). He does not just come out to rail on Calvin, but rather he is placing the man into the historical setting and helping the reader try to understand the environment and the life of the man whose name is so attached to these doctrines. Now, I can't think of anything nice that Vance said about the man either!

- I expect there will be more to come on this issue while I'm going through this book. Stay posted!