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Monthly Archive for December, 2010
Who will you remember at 11:59PM this evening?
“Auld Lang Syne” is a song that asks the rhetorical question, “Should loved ones who have gone before us be forgotten?” The song essentially answers, “No, the end of one year and the beginning of another is the time to remember those who have gone before us.”
In a Wall Street Journal article, Peggy Noonan explains the song we will be singing this New Year’s Eve and how it asks and answers a very appropriate question.
You know exactly when you’ll hear it, and you probably won’t hear it again for a year. The big clock will hit 11:59:50, the countdown will begin—10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4—and the sounds will rise: the party horns, fireworks and shouts of "Happy New Year!"
And then they’ll play that song: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"
It is a poem in Scots dialect, set to a Scots folk tune, and an unscientific survey says that a lot of us don’t think much about the words, or even know them. The great film director Mike Nichols came to America from Germany as a child, when his family fled Hitler. He had to learn a lot of English quickly and never got around to "Auld Lang Syne": "I was too busy with words like ‘emergency exit’ on the school bus," he told me. "As a result, I find myself weeping at gibberish on New Year’s Eve. I enjoy that."
The screen and television writer Aaron Sorkin, who this year, with "The Social Network," gives Paddy Chayefsky a run for his money, says that every year he means to learn the words. "Then someone tells me that’s not a good enough New Year’s resolution and I really need to quit smoking."
"Auld Lang Syne"—the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer. . .
The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn’t be. We’ll remember those times and those people, we’ll toast them now and always, we’ll keep them close. "We’ll take a cup of kindness yet."
Read the rest here.
HT: Josh Harris
David Murray prescribes 3 “pills” for those battling SAD (seasonal affective disorder). They are three pills I need to do a much better job taking.
Are you SAD? from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.
See also Feeling down as the season comes to an end?
HT: Tim Challies
In a fallen world, conflict is never far away. This is reality. This being the case, it is imperative that we know how to unpack forgiveness. Only Christ and His Word can show us how to unpack forgiveness on our own. The wounds are too deep and the questions are too complicated for us to do it on our own.
It is a special privilege to preach three expository sermons on forgiveness this Sunday at Grandview Park Baptist Church (Des Moines) in the GSOI.
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9:00 AM – Should I just get over it? How do we decide when we should confront someone and when we should let it go?
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10:00 AM – What if they’re not sorry? What does a person who has been deeply injured and the offender takes no ownership?
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6:00 PM – How can I stop thinking about it?
A question and answer period will follow the evening service.
In my absence, Brian Hanson of Morningstar Baptist Church, will preach in our church.
Collin Hansen:
As the end of the year approaches, we eagerly look forward to 2011 and make resolutions. The challenges of 2010 fade as we dream of new possibilities next year. But it’s also worthwhile to reflect on what’s changed in the last 12 months. The discipline allows us to transcend the constant, daily internet noise and take stock. So I’ve compiled a list of the top ten theology and church stories from 2010 in the United States. This list includes many of the most-read and most-discussed stories on TGC’s site. But I’ve also applied subjective analysis of stories that have shaped evangelical life, thought, and mission. Before the calendar turns, let’s take one last look back on 2010.
10.) Crystal Cathedral Files for Bankruptcy
The famed Southern California church made headlines in recent years due to a messy transition between founding pastor Robert Schuller, his son, and then his daughter. Still, when church leaders announced in October that they had incurred $55 million in debt, media couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious failure of the church’s hallmark “Possibility Thinking.” Lest you be tempted to rejoice in Schuller’s downfall, consider that his ministry has already spawned a thousand Crystal Cathedrals small and large across the United States and around the world.
9.) BioLogos Stirs Debate Over Evolution
National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins launched BioLogos in late 2007 with money from the John Templeton Foundation. This year BioLogos reignited the evolution debate among Christians in earnest. Thecontroversy began last spring. Venerable Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke resigned from Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando after recording a video for BioLogos in which he said Christianity risked becoming a cult if the “data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution.” Then BioLogos picked a fight with Al Mohler, a young earth creationist. Neither side appears willing to retreat.
8.) Philip Ryken Becomes President of Wheaton College
Some stories flare hot for a day, a week, or even a month. But other developments bear the potential to simmer for decades. That’s the sort of influence beloved university presidents can wield with the support of their board of trustees. Ryken served his alma mater on its board before taking over as president in 2010. Students sported “I’m Likin’ Ryken” T-shirts to celebrate their president’s return to Wheaton. Ryken’s career change also left vacant the senior pastorate at one of the most prominent evangelical churches in the country, Tenth Presbyterian in Philadelphia.
7.) Liberty Removes Ergun Caner as Seminary President
Ergun Caner has developed a reputation as an outspoken, provocative educator, apologist, and speaker. He has captured attention with dramatic stories of his childhood and conversion. But it turns out those stories are filled with contradictions. Liberty University investigated the seminary president and demoted him this summer. But they retained him as a theology professor, leaving one major question unanswered: Was Dr. Caner raised in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad?
6.) Matt Chandler Fights Malignant Brain Tumor
Chandler suffered a seizure on Thanksgiving 2009 and learned his grave diagnosis later that year. His prognosis improved a great deal in 2010. He spoke candidly about his fears and doubts, but he consistently expressed faith and hope in the God who is sovereign over all things. Christians surrounded him with prayer, as at the Together for the Gospel conference in April. His model of suffering caught the attention of several major mediaoutlets, giving Chandler an opportunity to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and declare his dependence on God.
5.) Glenn Beck Grabs the Religious Right’s Megaphone
Read the rest here.
Do you know of a church looking for a pastor?
When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search is now shipping. Kevin DeYoung (who endorsed it) posted on it this morning on the Gospel Coalition blog:
Earlier this year I was asked to write an endorsement for Chris Brauns’ book When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search: Biblical Principles and Practices to Guide Your Search
(Moody 2o11). I can’t do many blurbs (fewer and fewer all the time), but I really liked Chris’ last book (Unpacking Forgiveness) and the topic for this new book sounded interesting.
Obviously, this book will not scratch everyone’s itch. In fact, if everyone in the congregation starts reading this book, the pastor is bound to get anxious. And the board will get antsy if your pastor starts passing out the book at the next leaders retreat. So this is not a must read for everyone.
But it is for anyone on a search committee. Most Christians will have a pastoral search process take place in their church at some point. And from the stories I hear, many search committees have no idea what they’re doing.
Read the rest here.
Pastor Jeremy Carr of Oxford Bible Fellowship responds to those who find it difficult to believe that Hell is eternal.
Jeremy Carr:
It seems that the biggest hang-up people have with the concept of hell is that it is eternal. The argument goes like this, “It doesn’t seem fair that someone who sins for a relatively short time on earth should have to pay for their sins by being eternally punished in hell.” This is an important concern for us to consider. Why is hell eternal?
I want to offer three lines of thinking in answer to this question. The first comes from C.S. Lewis via Tim Keller. The other two are more original (though I believe they have the support of Scripture, and others have probably formed similar thoughts). At the same time, I’m still processing them, so any thoughts you have would be helpful. You can comment by clicking “Discuss this Post” below.
1. A relational explanation (Lewis/Keller).
This explanation basically goes like this: At some point our body will die on this earth, but our soul lives on into eternity to experience what we have desired and lived for in this life. So if you desire Christ and trust him as your Savior, that is your eternity. If you rejected your Creator and want to live without him here, you will do so for all eternity. There’s a lot more to this, but you’ll need to read chapter 5 of The Reason for God for more.
The rest here.
If you read blogs, then understanding RSS feeds will benefit you greatly.
Watch this video!
J. D. Greear, Lead pastor of the Summit Church and author of Breaking the Islam Code, says:
Every church has got to make a decision whether or not it’s going to be a seed that exists for itself or whether it’s going to be a seed planted in the ground that dies [to be a blessing for the nations].
IMB Vid 2 from The Summit Church on Vimeo.
HT: Desiring God
