In July, continued preaching through Ruth. PM messages focused on God’s Word and its impact in our lives. Heard from a friend of mine that he was leaving a comfortable ministry and going to help with church planting in New York City. Pretty encouraging story. Watched church softball games. Continued with Elders Meetings and meetings with men. Celebrated Meg’s bday. Read Disciplines of a Godly Man by Kent Hughes. Read Dallimore’s Volume 2 on Whitefield. Went to Student Life Camp in Shawnee, OK. Ben Stuart was camp pastor and Addison Road led music. Headed out for some R & R at my Mom’s and got the privilege of building a deck with a friend. Ended up being a pretty exhausting trip.

My wife tipped me off to this group: Straight No Chaser.

They are an accapella group from Indiana University who recently performed at the Christmas in Washington Spectacular. Here’s the video of their take on the song 12 Days (with over 9 million hits). Enjoy.

Read the ads for the biggest shopping day of the year.

Yes!

This weekend at our Crestview, we will be exploring the nature of true religion that honors God. In the morning service, we will be seeing Jesus indictment of the scribes in Mark 12:38-40. In the evening service, we will be looking at the true fast of Isaiah 58 as a model for movement into social action. After this PM message, we will hear a presentation from YouthFriends, encouraging us to be involved in the lives of children and students in mentoring/tutoring relationships.

The thing about empty religion is that it is so easy to deceive others. But we can’t shake the reality of what is in our hearts. I hope that God accomplishes heart change in us this weekend and the result is a deeper love for God and our neighbor.

Starbucks flirts with a clover.

Among other things, Matt Perman’s blog, What’s Best Next, gives us good tools in organizing our lives better. The stated purpose of his blog is: “integrating the big picture with everyday decisions so that we can do things better in life, work, business, and society.” There are lots of helpful things here like filing, managing favorite web pages and managing email accounts. Increase in productivity by availing yourself to his recommendations.

Had someone write in today asking for a good reference book that explains the gospel in an apologetic format.

At T4G, we were given the book If You Could Ask God One Question by Paul Williams and Barry Cooper.

The Christianity Explored website is filled with good information as well as an area designed for this book. Enjoy!

For this week’s featured audio, I would like to commend the audio from our church’s Bible conference this past weekend. The theme was loving relationships in the church. Pastor Joe Braden, from FBC St. Peters, was our guest. Here are the sessions:

11/9/08AM – Foundations for Loving Relationships – Ephesians 4:32-5:2
11/9/08PM – The Enemy of Loving Relationships – Galatians 5
11/10/08PM – Directives for Loving Relationships – Romans 12:9-21

Enjoy.

Last night, in the final session of our Bible Conference, entitled, “Directives for Loving Relationships” from Romans 12:9-21, Joe Braden alluded to 3 questions from Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book Because He Loves Me. In case you couldn’t get them, I thought I would post them here. Joe was speaking of the importance of “FaceTime” and asked these (found on pp.183-184 of Fitzpatrick’s book):

1) Am I more interested in attending programs (or watching programs) that I am in relationships with others? Why?

2) Am I satisfied with superficial answers to questions or do I wisely and humbly seek to draw others out [Prov. 20:5] for the goal of helping them grow in Christ?

3) Am I transparent about my sin and seeking accountability?

So, how is your love for others displayed in Gospel-centered relationships. Your answers to the above questions would be pretty telling.