Tonight we start the new series, Forward Motion. I have been covering for a while what it means to be a follower of Christ, the amazing adventure and call it is. We have talked a lot about the depth of that call. That we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. It cannot be about us. On Sunday mornings we just finished a book called Do Hard Things. This book challenged the students to not just be preparing for the future but to make the best of right now.
A lot of what we have been talking about can be a little bit overwhelming, seems like a HUGE leap to get to where we are supposed to be. That is why in this series we are going to talk about setting goals and taking steps towards those goals. Does Jesus have some high callings on our lives as believers, absolutely He does. But, He doesn't demand that we arrive there today. We need to take steps towards getting there. This process is called progressive sanctification. We will be posting podcasts of the messages so that you can go through this series with us, or just come on Wednesday nights. . .

On today, I feel you must take time to sit back and remember. We must remember the dark unfortunate history of racism in our country. But more than that we must remember that it was the Church that took the strongest stand against this injustice. Every year on this day I try to listen to the famous speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. for who we commemorate. This excerpt really struck me this morning when reading it:

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. *We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Rev. King was quoting Amos 5:24 (ASV) In this chapter God is angry with his people for making empty rituals of religion and empty religion of his rituals. Let's look at it in context of some verses around it:

Amos 5:21-27
21 I hate, I despise your feast days, And I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; For I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
24 But let judgment run down as waters, And righteousness as a mighty stream.
25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, The star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, Saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.

My prayer is that today we are convicted, inspired, humbled and encouraged. That we not make empty rituals of what God has given us and we not make empty religion of our rituals, but that we take seriously the call to the hard narrow road of a follower of Christ.

This past wednesday we had Christmas parties for both the youth ministry and college ministry. Between the two parties we raised enough money to bless some less fortunate in Kenya. With $155 we bought a goat, 4 chickens, and a duck for needy families in Kenya. I would encourage you to think about some creative ways to spread the grace of Christ this season.

With being a full time seminary student, student pastor, creative director, dad and husband things can get pretty crazy.  One of the things I have had the hardest time with is some of my seminary projects.  It seems that most of them lately require a very large amount of library time.  Living off campus, on the other side of the city, library time really eats into my family time.  Until. . . . dunh. .  dunh. . dunh logos entered into my life.  I have two word study projects due this next week and instead of having to do them at the library, I was able to do them on my computer in my bed, next to my wife last night.  All thanks to the logos system on my macbook.

It gets even better. . .
I look on twitter this morning and I see that @logos is saying something about a seminary scholarship that you can apply for.  Not only does it give you $1000 toward school but also the top of the line version of there software.  The software is worth more than the scholarship.  I can't imagine having $13,000 worth of books in my study library on my macbook.  Not only that, they give you $500 credit towards their store to get other books.  I seriously would probably never have to go to the library again if I won that.  Which, my wife would be grateful for.

Here's hoping I win it!

Labels: family, library, libronix, logos bible software, new orleans, scholarship, seminary, seminary scholarship, Seminary student, student ministry

I am so excited about our new strategy for discipleship with students.  Instead of having Sunday School on Sunday mornings, we will be having LifeGroups directly after my message on Wednesday nights.  We kicked it off last week and I think it went really well.  The students seemed to really get into it. 

I love it, 'cause it helps students avoid "spiritual bulimia".  Spiritual bulimia is a serious disorder that many Christians struggle with.  It causes you to hear the word when it is preached, even be inspired and encouraged or challenged by it, but spiritual bulimia doesn't allow you to digest what you hear.  You become spiritually malnutritioned.

By putting students in LifeGroups directly after the message they are forced to digest the word they just heard, thus avoiding this serious disorder that plagues so many. 

We also have a lot of fun, playing games and hanging out.  Look for more info here on the Stir Blog coming each week.