If you want to know my convictions on the president-elect, Barak Hussein Obama, then read my personal blog: http://dyingtruthfully.blogspot.com.

However, I have one thing to add to all of these arguements about Obama as our new president. As I watched his acceptance speech that Tuesday night as the polls were coming to a close, I looked upon a man who had been through the ringer for 2 years, his family as well. The exhaustion dripped from his face. Yet, his speech was of a joyous occasion.

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Imagine you and a large group of your companions (about 100 million or so) have been shipwrecked and washed ashore on a deserted island – something akin to the TV show, Lost. After landing, you discover you are not alone – that the island is inhabited and run by a group of evil, Godless pirates who lock you and all your friends up in cages.

Then the waiting begins.

Every day they come to the gate and haul a few more of you away, never to be heard from again. They steal all your possessions, rape your women, and turn all the men into slave eunichs or corpses. At least, that’s the story that’s going around the cages.

And there you sit, waiting for your name to be called. (more…)

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After reading the question posed by C., I got inspired.  In today’s world of text messages and emails rarely do people write letters, but yesterday I began writing.  I wrote of politics, elections, and change.  I wrote from an honest heart that is full of conviction and hoping for positive change.  My letter was to Barack Obama.   After calling his senate office in Springfield, IL, I addressed placed a stamp on and mailed the letter (I was hoping the the postal attendant would not notice the name on the envelope and laugh at me).  I doubt that I ever get a reply from the President-elect, but I sent it just the same, if for nothing else my own sense of patriotism and optimism. Here is my letter: (more…)

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I guess I knew that it was inevitable that we would post about the election results. For my first take on the election, zip over to www.paxperpugna.blogspot.com and see.

Now, let’s get this straight before we get into the meat of this post. I’m praying for Obama, think that our government definitely needs change, and am glad to have our nation’s first black president. All that being said, here goes:

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Now I am going out on a limb by doing this because it has been such a touchy topic for the past two years, but I feel that as leaders of our church community, as we all are, it would be a great time to express our convictions and ideas about this historical moment as we elect our first black president.

I don’t want any of us to go on a rampage of pro-republican or pro-democratic, but what your feelings are being that it has been almost a week since the election. Let the good times role!

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The whole Methodist movement was founded on discipline, doing something over and over until it becomes instilled in you and a part of you and your being. Also, his extreme emphasis on the sacraments (Lord’s supper). He did not downgrade or lose the meaning of what the bread and wine symbolized and stressed the high importance of partaking in it as much and every chance you could.

Even his phlosophy on mission and evangelism was highly, intensely important the meaning of being a Christian. Your life becomes about being a missionary everywhere you went, and listening to where God may be sending you. It is apparently that Wesley had a grasp of the grace of God and what it meant to follow Christ.

Even this morning in church, learning of the grace of God, an excerpt from Wesley’s diary read:

In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
                                  (From Wesley’s journal, Wednesday, May 24, 1738)

Through there may be many things that I disagree with in the Methodist doctrine, and sometimes I feel that Wesley is looked up to and respected more than God and/or scripture, he was a man who emfluence people around him and the world with his beliefs, convictions and insight in to what God had for the people of creation.

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-Roger Williams

No one can question the courage and fortitude of Martin Luther to nail his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg door and to defend, at the risk of his life, the principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded.  That said, Luther’s move was relatively conservative.  As time progressed, many of the Roman evils against which the Lutherans and Reformed Churches rebelled became evidenced in their own respective settings.

Enter Roger Williams, who emerged in the American colonies as a prophet of reform.  His writing and powerful oratory became a potent instrument in his quest for the freedom of the individual to independently seek truth before his God.  Translation:  he took it seriously that we are a kingdom of priests (1 Peter 2:9).

The Puritan Church, by whom Williams was ordained, was in some respects no different from the Roman system it had abandoned. (more…)

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I’m happy that Joel posted about Cranmer, because one of my favorite Reformers, Richard Baxter, was also an Englishman, member of the Reformer movement, and absolutely brilliant theologian. Other heroes of the Reform would of course include Luther and Calvin, as well as Zwingli and Knox (hey, even named my last Labrador after him!), but Baxter is the one whose work has hit me in the face.

a month or so into my three years at Turning Point, my college mentor, Dusty Thomspon, shared with me a little bit about the work of Baxter titled The Reformed Pastor. In this book, Baxter tackles issues that any pastor will face, and deals with them in a reformed theological way.

The main thing that really stuck with me was how passionate Baxter was about ministering to the whole family. It wasn’t just to individuals (although his discipleship was), but ministering meant including entire families. I tried to do this (but not very well) in my time as a pastor, and it is something that I will continue to grow in as I build into relationships at NEXT, Providence, and here in the Metroplex.

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Here is the situation: (more…)

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