12 Months & Counting

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Don’t you just hate it when billboards display outdated info? Some event stays logged on the sign for all to see when in reality it happened days, even weeks ago? Bugs the tar out of me. I am so easily perturbed.

I refused to let that happen yesterday after our groundbreaking celebration.

I cornered our contractor after the ceremony.

“OK, Dave, give the straight scoop. How long before we get in this thing?” I asked. He never even blinked. “One year,” he replied.

Say no more. I shot over to the office and pulled the new letters for our sign.

Come March 6, we’ll do it again with eleven. April 6, ten. And so on until we start to count the days in 2012. Won’t that be sweet?

If per chance you missed the groundbreaking for some reason, we still have vials of soil with a commemorative label on them from the event. We’ll have them at the SDA this Sunday if you want to pick one up.

If you missed the service as well, the message from Matthew 7:7-11 is now on the website. You can access the audio here. I would urge all covenant members to make a point to listen to this message entitled Each One Seek One. In it I made an application challenge for our people aimed at closing the $100,000 gap in our capital fund raising campaign for the building.

My thanks to all who labored so hard to make yesterday such a moving and special event. We won’t soon forget it. Lord willing, only twelve months to go before we get to experience the even greater thrill with the dedication of our new church home.

I’ve already started dreaming potential plans for that weekend! Wonder how busy Mr. Stanfill and his group will be around that time?

Soup, Soil, & Super Sunday

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If you think I’m referring to the big game tomorrow night, think again.

In my mind the significance of Super Bowl XLV pales in comparison to the day before us at Orlando Grace tomorrow.

In the first place, we get to practice Titus 3:14 – And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.

Hunger, particularly in these tough economic times, is always an urgent need. Every year on Super Bowl Sunday, the Christian Service Center of Orlando petitions the churches of this city to collect non-perishable food items to help restock their food pantry for feeding the hungry. Have you pulled your items from the shelf yet? The deacons will have a designated spot in the entry way tomorrow for you to leave your offering. Let us do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8) as Evan reminded us so well in last week’s message.

In the second place, we get to break ground for our facility (pray for good weather)! At 3 PM tomorrow afternoon we will participate in a service of worship on our property for giving the construction project of our church over to God. After the turning of the soil, those who call OGC their church home will bring soil from their own households to put in the hole symbolic of each one’s investment in this kingdom enterprise. Have you dug up your bit of ground yet? That’s ours in the baggie on the right.

As some of us put the finishing touches on prepping the property this morning for the ceremony, we mentioned numerous times our growing sense of excitement at the historic day and process before us. We will really get to do this, if God continues to give us favor!

Will you join with me this evening and throughout the day tomorrow that God will be glorified in all we say and do and that our joy will grow as we embrace the challenge He has put before us? Watch with me tomorrow and throughout the rest of the year as He will do immeasurably beyond all that we ask or think (Eph. 3:20-21)!

Dads in the Gap

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Learned something I didn’t know before from the DG pastor’s conference this week.

Rick Husband, the commander of the Shuttle Columbia that disintegrated upon reentry to earth’s atmosphere back in February of 2003, loved Jesus and cared deeply for his wife and children.

Before he lifted off into space, Husband recorded a series of videos of him leading family worship for every one of the days he would spend away from them in space. He also led a weekly prayer group at his church called Dads in the Gap.

A portion of a videotape of his was played at the memorial service at his church. In it he said this:

If I ended up at the end of my life having been an astronaut, but having sacrificed my family along the way or living my life in a way that didn’t glorify God, then I would look back on it with great regret. Having become an astronaut would not really have mattered all that much. And I finally came to realize that what really meant the most to me was to try and live my life the way God wanted me to and to try and be a good husband to Evelyn and to be a good father to my children.

Joel Beeke referenced Husband and his passion for leading his home in family worship in a message well worth hearing by every family man.

You can listen to the audio here.

May God give us men who stand in the gap for their wives and children.

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor

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Greetings from the Desiring God 2011 conference for pastors. This year, thanks to a most generous OGC benefactor, I traveled with a friend, Jack Jenkins, pastor of Faith Baptist, Orlando. Thank God for a peer to compare notes on such a strategic theme as prayer in the life of God’s man.

God as done so much already. Consider this sample of quotes:

We’re a room full of ordinary jars of clay. Sam Storms

One of the ways we will be most relevant to the world is by not being like it. Mark Dever

If some sermons had the small pox, the text would never catch it. Mark Dever (Think about it.)

All the things we care about the most are impossible. John Piper (Ain’t that the truth?)

Whenever you lack the impulse to pray, then pray. Joel Beeke (keynote)

American culture is the hardest in the history of humanity for praying. Paul Miller

Helplessness is one of the biggest secrets to prayer. You can’t live life on your own. Paul Miller


You can be so focused on the work of God that you neglect the person of God. Francis Chan

Prayer differentiates us from the rest of the world. Our God listens to us. Francis Chan

Do people see you as someone who just can’t get enough of God? Francis Chan

My peoples’ greatest need is my personal holiness. Robert Murray M’cheyne (biography by John Piper)

Tomorrow we hear from Jerry Rankin on prayer and missions (buckle your seat belt) and then the panel Q&A. The Lord and weather permitting we fly out of MSP at 3 PM, local time.

What a rich privilege to attend yet another DG conference on this the 25th anniversary of the publishing of John Piper’s seminal work, Desiring God, the book that put me on the road toward a God-entranced vision of all things (if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for?). I got so excited at one point this afternoon I shouted Hallelujah in the session – from what I could tell the only one out of 1700 hundred  in attendance. Not sure why no one else was similarly moved, but no matter. When I get back home, ask me about it. I’ll be glad to tell you what moved me so.

Oh to experience an abiding with God that amounts to a walk in love that leaves the stamp of God on the work of God through a man of God.

What God Truly Requires of His Covenant People

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Today’s message is now online. You can listen to the audio here.

Matthew Henry writes this about what God requires of His covenant people in Micah 6:8:

The good which God requires of us is not the paying of a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but doing the duty which is the condition of our interest in the pardon purchased. (1.) We must do justly, must render to all their due, according as our relation and obligation to them are; we must do wrong to none, but do right to all, in their bodies, goods, and good name. (2.) We must love mercy; we must delight in it, as our God does, must be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it cheerfully. Justice is put before mercy, for we must not give that in alms which is wrongfully got, or with which our debts should be paid. God hates robbery for a burnt-offering. (3.) We must walk humbly with our God. This includes all the duties of the first table, as the two former include all the duties of the second table. We must take the Lord for our God in covenant, must attend on him and adhere to him as ours, and must make it our constant care and business to please him. Enoch’s walking with God is interpreted (Heb. 11:5) his pleasing God. We must, in the whole course of our conversation, conform ourselves to the will of God, keep up our communion with God, and study to approve ourselves to him in our integrity; and this we must do humbly (submitting our understandings to the truths of God and our will to his precepts and providences); we must humble ourselves to walk with God (so the margin reads it); every thought within us must be brought down, to be brought into obedience to God, if we would walk comfortably with him. This is that which God requires, and without which the most costly services are vain oblations; this is more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.

May we heed Evan’s exhortation to live each day with eyes to see the opportunities He puts before us to live well with both bottom-line trajectories, horizontal and vertical, in mind.

Masculine Mandate & Oxford Club for Men

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Our next meeting for the men of OGC will take place on Saturday, Feb. 5, at 7 AM at the office.

If you need a jolt to motivate yourself to jump in on our study regarding biblical masculinity, take a gander at this clip.

Sobering, to say the least.

If that doesn’t rattle your cage and make you want to read chapter two in Richard Phillip’s book, I don’t know what will. It’s not too late to get on board and join the discussion. We’ve only tackled the first chapter so far. Copies of the book are available at the resource table on Sundays for $7.50.

Here is the study guide for chapter two to help get the most out of your reading.

The Masculine Mandate
Study Guide #2

1. What character from literature, film, or TV have you identified at some point as a “walking cornucopia of manliness?” How would you sum up that character’s approach?

2. How again does Phillips define our calling in life (Gen. 2:15) on p. 12? What two words say it all?

3. What would you say best describes your understanding of your calling before encountering Phillips’ grid? How do the two perspectives compare and/or contrast?

4. How would you unpack in your own words the first component of our masculine mandate? How does 2 Thess. 3:6-15 (not cited in the book) add to your insight about this component?

5. What two areas belong to the “gardens” to which we as men are called to give ourselves as cultivators? Of the two, where do you feel more competent and why?

6. What great misconception regarding gender roles does Phillips attempt to explode on p. 14? How do you react to his statement: God has given the primary calling of emotional and spiritual nurture to men and many of us fail to do it well? Why do you think men struggle with nurturing?

7. How would you unpack in your own words the second component of our masculine mandate? What further insight do you gain from Psalm 128 about this dimension of our calling?

8. How does the author exhort us to apply our responsibility to “bear the sword” at the bottom of p. 15? Where do you find yourself most challenged in these three areas and why?

9. How does Phillips define greatness at the end of the chapter? Whom would you identify as an example of this in your own life or in the greater body of Christ today and why?

10. What steps of practical application do you derive from this second chapter? How might you approach your own masculine mandate differently as a result of the reading and our discussion?

Groundbreaking Countdown!

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It has been so long since I’ve done a blog post, I’m not certain I remember how to do it!

Fortunately our website has returned to the land of the living. Thanks, Greg, for going the extra mile to get us back in service.

What better way to return to the blogosphere than by reminding everyone that in just a little over a week we will break ground for our first ever facility?

Here’s what you need to know:

As the sign indicates, the date is set for February 6th at 3:00 p.m (not 4 as originally communicated) on our property at 872 Maitland Avenue. We will be having an informal picnic on the property immediately after the worship service. Pack a lunch or go pick up something from your favorite take-out place and bring it to the property. Also bring lawn chairs (extra for guests if you have them) and/or blankets for seating. Parking will be on the vacant adjacent property just south of our parcel. Portable “facilities” will be on site for our convenience. Please, each household also bring a finger food to share among ourselves and our guests after the ground breaking (A-M – savory; N-Z – sweet). Drinks will be provided. Members, and those working toward membership, will also want to bring a couple of ounces of dirt from their own properties to place in the hole that will be turned by our groundbreaking shovels to symbolize the participation of all our people in the building of God’s church. Every family that attends will receive a special gift memento.

The property won’t look like this for much longer. February 6 is right around a corner. It will be a banner day in the history of our church!

Please pray that the invitations that have gone out to the surrounding homeowners will result in some attending the groundbreaking ceremony and that the gospel of Jesus will touch their hearts.

And it wouldn’t hurt to pray for decent weather as well, now that I think about it.

Hang on to your hats. It’s gonna be a great year for Orlando Grace Church!

Two Ways to Live

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If the way you share your faith at this point looks something like this (or worse you don’t share Christ with others at all):

But you would like the way you share your faith to look something like this:

Then make plans to join us for our new 9:30 equipping hour emphasis, Two Ways to Live – Know and Share the Gospel – starting January 2, 2011, in the SDA sanctuary.

Participant guides for the class are available on Sundays in the church entryway for $7.50 a piece, or whatever you can afford.

Please note, at 9:30 this week only we will conduct a Skype video call with Julia Mitchell from Laos. The intro to 2W2L will begin at 10:00 AM.

When Deity Delivered from Dying (Part Two)

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Today’s message from John 11:38-44 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is the quote from Jonathan Edwards about the meaning of the term glory:

The word glory denotes sometimes what is internal. When the word is used to signify what is within, or in the possession of the subject, it very commonly signifies excellency, dignity, or worthiness of regard. This, according to the Hebrew idiom, is, as it were, the weight of a thing, as that by which it is heavy; as to be light is to be worthless, without value, contemptible. . . . And the weight of a thing arises from its magnitude, and its specific gravity conjunctly; so the word glory is very commonly used to signify the excellency of a person or a thing, as consisting either in greatness, or in beauty, or in both conjunctly (as quoted in Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory, p. 231).

I mentioned this morning that I would post a link to Francis Chan’s message, Think Hard, Be Humble. Turns out I already did a blog post about it! To read it and watch the message click here.

Praise God Jesus gives the answer to the canyon question that we may be delivered from ultimately dying!

Why Giving Makes Sense at Christmas & Always

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Last night’s Christmas Eve message from 2 Cor. 8:1-9 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is the quote from Octavius Winslow (1808-1878) with which I closed the sermon:

And shall we not pause and bestow a thought of admiration and gratitude upon Him, who was constrained to stand in our place of degradation and woe, that we might stand in His place of righteousness and glory? What wondrous love! what stupendous grace! That He should have been willing to have taken upon Him our sin, and curse, and woe! The exchange to Him how humiliating! He could only raise us by Himself stooping. He could only emancipate us by wearing our chain. He could only deliver us from death by Himself dying. He could only invest us with the spotless robe of His pure righteousness by wrapping around Himself the leprous mantle of our sin and curse. Oh, how precious ought He to be to every believing heart! What affection, what service, what sacrifice, what devotion, He deserves at our hands! Lord, incline my heart to yield itself supremely to You!

May the Lord do a deep work in all our hearts toward the end of our sacrificial giving in all aspects of our lives because we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.