This Sunday is the first Sunday of our annual Missons Conference.  Every year we set aside two Sundays and a Wednesday to focus on our Missions programme, begin raising funds for the support of our missionaries and missions agencies, pray for the persecuted church, and bring in some guest preachers to preach to us regarding some aspect of Gospel mission around the world and in our neighbourhood.

The theme for our conference this year is an old and familiar one, “Let Your Light Shine”. We have invited three men to come and share with us regarding God’s call upon us to shine as lights in the world.

This Sunday, February 24, at our 10:45 a.m. worship service Shawn James of Urban Promise Toronto  is scheduled to preach on  “Shining Our Light in Our Community”. Urban Promise “Camp Victory” which seeks to reach children and families in our community meets in our building four days a week for an after school programme dedicated to helping children with school work and teaching them the Gospel. We are committed to working with Urban Promise in reaching the families with whom they work. Shawn is the Community Director for Camp Victory and Camp Freedom.

In the evening service this Sunday our preacher is Mourad Kadsi. Mourad was born in Egypt and was converted to faith in Jesus Christ in his early twenties. He has been teaching high school mathematics at North Albion Collegiate Institute since 2002, where he also leads a student Bible Study group. Mourad is going to speak to us about shining as lights in the workplace.

On Wednesday, February 27 we meet together to pray for Christians around the world who suffer persecution because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Sunday, March 3 our guest preacher is Daniel Edwards. Daniel is the Academic Dean and Middle East Co-ordinator for Pioneers Canada . He was born in Sudan, and is a graduate of Toronto Baptist Seminary . Daniel will be preaching about shining as lights in the countries of the world.

One of the most popular highlights of our conference is the “Parade of Nations”. The people in our church wear native costume or their country’s colours and we parade around the sanctuary singing and then finish it off with a reading of Revelation 5:6-10

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”

We have people from about 25 – 30 countries in our church and the parade is a wonderful demonstration of the unity of the Gospel and a tiny foretaste of the perfect fellowship that will be shared in the eternal state.

You are more than welcome to join us, this, and every Sunday.

The theme song for the conference this year is “This Little Light of Mine”. There must be a thousand renditions of it on the internet, so I chose this one.

But you may prefer this one

Or even this

Let the light of the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ shine through you today.

The human spirit is simply an amazing thing. The horrors that people survive and then triumph over is simply stunning. The power of the human spirit is seen in all kinds of situations and in all kinds of people. We are all made in the image of God and while that image is horribly marred, it is not completely defaced.

There are many things that can be said as a response to the video posted below. My wife’s first remark is that this shames us who live in such an affluent part of the world. She’s right. We complain about everything while possessing so much. We have excuses lined up as explanations for all our failures and we sometimes seem more adept at explaining why we cannot do something exhilarating than actually trying to do it.

My first response to this was stark wonder at people who make music, beautiful music, out of garbage. While this video is about making real music out of real garbage there is a deep message here about the human spirit’s ability to make metaphorical music while living in the garbage disposals of life. This is truly soul stirring stuff and it deserves to be seen. It should send many of us, me included, to our knees seeking the forgiveness of God for the way we have wasted the resources He has given us. No, not the garbage, but the spirit and determination and vision to make music while living in whatever dumpsters God has seen fit to allow us to pass through.

The garbage collectors and artisans and musicians and parents and teachers represented in this video deserve more thanks than I can possibly express. With the technologies that we now have at our fingertips, I have no doubt that they will all become very famous in a very short span of time. That fame will try to suck out the glorious, God reflecting passion and ingenuity and hope that they are demonstrating. I pray that it will fail.

In the meantime, watch this and be amazed at the reflection of the image of God.

This appeared in Ref 21 today. You can go here or just read the whole thing below. Nice to see that somebody in the blogosphere gets it. It is not hard to grow weary of the blogs and articles telling us how to succeed in ministry. Not hard to find ten more points on how to lead, heal the wounds of all who ask for help, preach flawless sermons. I could easily get going on a rant here so I better stop. Just to say that the article below is true greatness. Its honesty is gloriously refreshing and its faithfulness to the Scriptures greatly encouraging. I hope you find it as helpful as I did.

II Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Of excellence and failure

Last Sunday I failed again. I often fail on the Lord’s day, but this Sunday evening was one of those particularly noticeable occasions. There were a number of factors at play, as there always are, but there was at least one that meant I was never going to succeed. In fact, I had set myself up to fail.

I had the privilege of preaching at another local church, and the morning seemed, by God’s grace, to go well, although – to be honest – I failed. In the evening I was preaching on Psalm 36.7: “How precious is your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings.”

I only had two basic points: a precious quality and a proper response, with some applications along the way. In the first part, my intention was to bring out something of the excellence of the covenant faithfulness of our redeeming God, as the psalmist brings his lovingkindness from the heavens of verse five into the experience of men in verse seven. But how do you communicate God’s steadfast love? How do you begin to begin to explain its preciousness?

We considered it as divinely excellent, and I failed. I spoke of it as greatly extensive, and fell short. We thought of it as transcendently sweet, and my words thudded to the ground. We looked at it as unquestionably sufficient, and it was beyond my communication. We marvelled at the fact that it is unshakeably consistent, but I could not get that across. We noted that it is profoundly valuable, but how little of that was explained. We recognised that it was entirely undeserved, but I barely scratched the surface. Along the way, we sought to illustrate this from the life and death of the Lord Christ, and I missed the mark.

In a sense, that was the point. As William Plumer points out, “I had rather hear the exclamation, How excellent! than the cry, I know it all!” You see, we were always going to be defeated. I was always going to fail. I had no other possibility. I cannot say “I know it all!” but I can at least cry, “How excellent!”

The truths that preachers handle are, in a real sense, beyond us. We pray for the Spirit’s help as we prepare and preach. We long for enlarged hearts with which to feel our themes, for acute minds with which to explore these realities, for tongues of angels with which to speak of our discoveries and desires, and – with the best we have in this world – we are like men who leap and drop; our words like arrows that fall short of the target, though truly aimed; our thoughts the thoughts of those who stumble in murk; our feelings the feelings of those who are barely awake.

And we keep trying and failing. It is a miserable, glorious, constant failure. We speak of God’s holiness, and fail; we preach peace in Christ, and fail; we explore the divine wisdom and power in salvation, and fail; we consider the beauty of election and the wonder of perseverance, and fail; we dive repeatedly into the unsearchable riches of Christ, and come up having barely begun to plumb the depths or search out the vast reaches of his glorious being and doing.

And we try again and again and again, for we have no other theme. I walked out of the pulpit on Sunday evening having aimed very high and fallen very low. The more I preached the further I seemed from my goal. The more I strove, the more my efforts collapsed. Here I was, with this incomparably excellent thing – the lovingkindness of God – and I could not display it as it deserved; this quality incalculably precious, and I could not communicate the least part of its value.

But I could try. If we aim lower, we can hit the target. If we are content with something else, we can succeed. But, in this, it is better to aim true and fall necessarily short, and – by God’s grace – sometimes to get a little closer than at other times. And so this Sunday I expect to fail again, and I am preparing accordingly. I will continue setting myself up to fail, and pray that I might miss by less than last time, because the preacher’s calling is to declare the precious lovingkindness of God in all its splendour and majesty, not so that anyone can say, “I know it all!” but so that some will say, “How excellent!”

Wow. Propaganda has put this rap  together about the Puritans and the support of some of them of slavery. It is good for us to wrestle with such things and this is a good contribution to throw into the mix.

Then I found this on a website this morning in rebuttal to the above contribution. Great poetic ability. None of the arguments are particularly new but the poem itself is very well done.

Debates among brothers, I trust.

We’ll give the final word to Thabiti in this analysis. Thabiti wins the day for me.

Here is an excerpt form an ancient document dated around 124 A.D. regarding the behaviour of early Christians. It was written by a man named Aristides to the Roman Emperor Hadrian. I post this today with the prayer that such things could be said about the church today without fear of contradiction. The world will not be attracted to Christianity through great events and stunning miracles. It needs to see that we live our everyday lives in simple faith, no matter the cost. This letter is part of a larger one that can be found here.

“But the Christians, O King, while they went about and made search, have found the truth; and as we learned from their writings, they have come nearer to truth and genuine knowledge than the rest of the nations. For they know and trust in God, the Creator of heaven and of earth, in whom and from whom are all things, to whom there is no other god as companion, from whom they received commandments which they engraved upon their minds and observe in hope and expectation of the world which is to come. Wherefore they do not commit adultery nor fornication, nor bear false witness, nor embezzle what is held in pledge, nor covet what is not theirs. They honour father and mother, and show kindness to those near to them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols (made) in the image of man; and whatsoever they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others; and of the food which is consecrated to idols they do not eat, for they are pure. And their oppressors they appease (lit: comfort) and make them their friends; they do good to their enemies; and their women, O King, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest; and their men keep themselves from every unlawful union and from all uncleanness, in the hope of a recompense to come in the other world. Further, if one or other of them have bondmen and bondwomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother; for they do not call them brethren after the flesh, but brethren after the spirit and in God. And whenever one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them according to his ability gives heed to him and carefully sees to his burial. And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him they set him free. And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them. Every morning and every hour they give thanks and praise to God for His loving-kindnesses toward them; and for their food and their drink they offer thanksgiving to Him. And if any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another near. And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God; and if moreover it happen to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. And further if they see that any one of them dies in his ungodliness or in his sins, for him they grieve bitterly, and sorrow as for one who goes to meet his doom.”

The testimony of former Korn guitarist Brian Welch. If you’re interested in reading more his web site is here

Running very late today. Rush, rush, rush. I think I need to write something about the stupidity of rushing, overbooking, tight scheduling.  It is the sin of not being still and knowing He is God, the pride of self importance and the lack of trust in others to mention just a few.

In any case here is something I found at another site that I encourage you to read, especially if you have ever wanted to be famous or part of a famous church. Enjoy.