Here is a helpful description from a book review on Amazon.com:

The book is laid out in seven brief chapters which aim to uncover the extravagant (prodigal) grace of God, as revealed in this parable. Keller shows how the parable describes two kinds of “lost” people, not just one. Most people can identify the lostness of the “prodigal son,” the younger brother in Jesus’ story, who takes his inheritance early and squanders it on riotous living. But Keller shows that the “elder brother” in the parable is no less lost. Together, the two brothers are illustrations of two kinds of people in the world. “Jesus uses the younger and elder brothers to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery.” Both brothers are in the wrong, and when we see this, we discover a radical redefinition of what is wrong with us. “Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules. Jesus, though, shows us that a man who has violated nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors may be every bit as spiritually lost as the most profligate, immoral person. Why? Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.” As these quotes hint, Keller’s exposition of the two sons lays the groundwork for a penetrating analysis and critique of both moral relativists and religious moralists, showing that the latter are just as lost as the former. What both need is Jesus, whom Keller presents as “the true elder brother,” the one who comes to our rescue at his own expense. Through his grace, we are given hope and invited to the great feast of the Father.

Here are the series details:

• “He Welcomes Sinners” (Luke 15:1-10) – June 6
• “Give Me My Share” (Luke 15:11-32) – June 13
• “He Refused to Go In” (Luke 15:25-32) – June 20
• “Everything I Have is Yours” (Luke 15:1-6, 25-32) – June 27
• “We Had to Celebrate” (Luke 15:11-32) – July 4

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday mornings!

COME GROW WITH US AS OUR MINISTER OF WORSHIP!

Come join the team and help us create an environment of worship that will usher our congregation into greater appreciation of God and His glory! We’re looking for the right man or woman of God who will lead and equip our congregation to better accomplish our calling to CELEBRATE God, CULTIVATE Growth, and COMMUNICATE the Gospel in Greeneville, TN! We are a growing church with an average weekly attendance of 240 and a diverse congregation whose strong missional focus, generous provision of support and resources, and committed staff and leadership will ensure that your ministry here will be meaningful Kingdom work!

We’re praying (and paying) for a special person gifted with excellent musical ability, worship leadership experience, computer skills (Office, Publisher, MediaShout (preferred), internet savvy, intuitive figure-it-out-ability), exemplary communication skills (verbal and written), top-notch administrative giftedness and, above all else, faith in Christ and demonstrable Christian character who can fill this critical role as WORSHIP MINISTER at First Christian Church. The ideal candidate has experience in servant leadership in local church ministry, should have at least a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college/university, and also demonstrates the following balance of characteristics:

keen eye for detail,
insatiable appetite for organization,
dogged sense of follow through, and
visceral distaste for disorder and clutter

… along with:

humble and flexible attitude,
warm and tactful speech,
wisdom and initiative to make proper judgements and find resources, and
tender-hearted love for people.

Church ministry is not for the faint of heart! Those without a strong personal relationship with God in prayer and the Word need not apply. Those who are not actively worshiping and participating in a local church need not apply. Those unable to work hard in a sometimes fast-paced environment where strong internal motivation is a must need not apply.

If you don’t meet all the conditions of our ideal candidate but you still think you’re the right man or woman for the job, send/bring in/email us your resume and show us why you’re the one God has picked to help create an environment where meaningful worship of a living God motivates and equips the body of Christ to glorify God!

Check out www.fccgreeneville.org for more information about us. Email for a more detailed job description.

Please send resume and cover letter to:
Minister of Worship Search Committee
First Christian Church
1130 Temple Street
Greeneville, TN 37745
searchcommittee@fccgreeneville.org

“Wait, do you mean like an ‘onomasticon’?”

Umm, yes, actually… we do.

“That’s what I thought.”

Yeah… right.

Well, this is exactly like that but totally different. The goal of this Theosaurus series is to define God words so we can have language to express deep truth at the ready. It’s about theological literacy and knowing God. But it is also about knowing how to think clearly about sometimes complex theological concepts so our everyday interactions can be peppered with truth that a lost world desperately needs to hear! For some, it’ll be an education in big fancy God words. For others, it’ll be a refresher course and reminder to sprinkle their conversations with the gospel.

“Oh please, don’t bore me with big fancy God words. I know enough, uh… what do you call those things?… Oh yeah… words. I know enough words to describe God.”

Clearly.

Well, can you imagine trying to describe profound truth about an infinite God using just words from a McDonald’s menu?! Yeah, good luck with that. It takes more than talking about the big “Ronald McDonald in the sky” to describe some of the incredible truths revealed to us in the Scriptures.

“Why do you call it a ’sporadic series?’” Because we’ll go one-word-a-Sunday for a week or two (or five?) between other series here and there. It will fit in well when the calendar doesn’t want to cooperate with our preacher’s plans. (”I know, rude, isn’t it?!”) For example, Dr. Mike Sweeney, President of Emmanuel School of Religion, will be preaching Sun, Apr 18, and then we’re starting Theosaurus with Baptism on week one, Sun, Apr 25. Here’s the schedule for this first installment of Theosaurus:

• “Baptism” – Apr 25 – 2 Kings 5:9-14; Matthew 3:13-17
• “Lord’s Supper” – May 2 – Exodus 12:43-51; Galatians 2:11-14
• “Mother” – May 9 (Friendly Reminder… This is Mother’s Day!) – Matthew 23:36-38; John 19:25-27
• “Incarnation” – May 16 – Colossians 2:6-12; John 1:1-4, 9-14
• “Holy Spirit” – May 23 – Genesis 1:1-3; Acts 2:1-4; John 14:15-20

So, actually, it’s more like five straight words! (”Remember ‘or five?’”) After this first installment of Theosaurus we’re starting our (more serial-like) series called “The Prodigal God” for 5 straight weeks. At the beginning of “The Prodigal God” we’ll be launching our new Growth Groups (small groups) for the summer and they’ll be sermon-based (look in the bulletin for each week’s curricular focus for more.) Then we’ll probably do another week or two of Theosaurus… maybe… if it works well with the calendar. See? Clear as mud?

“Why the name ‘Theosaurus?’” Because “theos” is the Greek word for ‘God’ and “saurus” means ’storehouse,’ or ‘treasury’. “Oh, okay. Makes sense.” Well yeah, but does it make sense that “peruse” originally meant to study hard and now it is often used to mean giving a cursory glance? “Huh?!” Lemme explain… In our postmodern world where words are constantly being deconstructed and relativized, sometimes to the point of rendering meaning, uh, meaningless, we must take care to ensure we Christians understand what we mean when we make truth claims about God. Did you know that, in modern intellectual property law precedent, policing words and trademarks is the responsibility of the owner of that particular word or brand? It might be okay if the world steals benign words like “peruse,” but what happens when they start stealing “redemption” or even “God”? And while “Theosaurus” is certainly not about legal action against non-Christians’ use of supposedly Christian words, it is about being a people whose language communicates the gospel in ways a needy world can hear!

“What kinds of words will we study?” Oh, lots of ‘em… kinds (of words), that is. They will range from relatively simple words you may have heard numerous times before like Baptism, Communion (or The Lord’s Supper, or maybe even Eucharist), or Stewardship to nerdy sounding words like Atonement, kenosis (”Keno-what? And why didn’t you capitalize keno-what?”), Redemption, and Justification.

Come join us for this interesting study of some cool God words we’ll define from Scripture so we’ll be equipped to know God deeply and share the gospel with winsomeness and tact!

We’re kicking off a new sermon series called “Don’t Go Solo (in 2010)” that will take us right up to Easter and will focus on encouraging one another to do the work of producing Christian koinonia, or “fellowship” (see these links for more about koinonia: Definition of “Fellowship” in the Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Scriptural use of word “Fellowship” found on NetBible.org.) Let’s face it… We all at times feel lonely and isolated. We could all use more koinonia in our lives!

• “Alone in the Garden” (Genesis 2:8-18) – Feb 21 – God doesn’t want us to be alone.
• “Alone on Top” (Exodus 18:13-23) – Feb 28 – The need to share responsibility.
• “Alone in the Palace” (2 Samuel 11:16-26) – Mar 7 – The isolating effects of sin.
• “Together With Friends” (Matthew 9:10-17) – Mar 14 – The need for friendship.
• “Together in Transformation” (Mark 9:2-13) – Mar 21 – The long process of change.
• “Together on the Path” (John 6:60-70) – Mar 28 – Sharing the burden of the cross.
• “Together in Celebration” (John 20:19-22) – Apr 4 – Celebrating the resurrection.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday mornings!

1. I’m driving a minivan with a few dings in the back and I really don’t care… in the least. It needs a few things done to it. The shocks need to be replaced. The brakes squeak. The engine sounds, well, like it doesn’t work… well. But I really don’t care. So, I’m a 36-year-old man, sitting in line to pick up my daughter at school… driving a minivan. And I have no goal to drive anything fancier.
2. My daughter asked me to hold her windchime she made in VBS this past summer. It’s a little upside down clay pot with a few colorful beads and bells hanging on some wire. So, being an in-the-tank parent, I say with enthusiasm, “Why don’t I put it on the rear view mirror?!” And I realized a few seconds after I’d attached it, ‘Wow, that really does look pretty dorky!’ And, finally…
3. I’d been looking for literally the last few years for those clip-on sunglasses that will fit over my glasses. Y’know, the ones you find in Walgreens or CVS that are all together on a display. But I hadn’t been able to find ones that fit my nerdy hipster Verizon-guy glasses… until last week. It said, “Fits plastic frames.” I finally found them, and I was excited! I even tried on those gargantuan plastic sunglasses that fit over the entire frame, just to see. And I was excited. Actually excited that I finally found them.

So here I am, 36-year-old man, pulling out of my driveway in the morning in a dinged-up minivan, with my child’s homemade wind chime hanging from the rear-view mirror, and goofy clip-on sunglasses… signs I’ve given up being cool. At least I’m not wearing those clip-ons with the flip-up shades my grandpa used to wear… at least not yet!

If you are hungry to follow Jesus with courage and faith, then let’s go:

• BEYOND the Old Life (Mark 1:14-20) – Daring to follow Jesus past the edges of the way things are–even when you know it means leaving treasured things behind–so he can lead you to a new place. You need to drop some nets, because the life you are living right now is the Old Life. In so many ways, Jesus is calling you BEYOND.




• BEYOND the Great Omission (Matthew 28:18-20) – Making more and better disciples–with Jesus-like passion for both and letting God stir in us an equal passion for reaching the lost and growing up disciples.




• BEYOND Words (Matthew 4:23) – Being Jesus in word and deed through holistic global impact–that makes our mission more than just talk. When the Word becomes flesh, faith becomes action.




• BEYOND Racial Zones (Galatians 3:28) – Moving past our self-segregating ways to the way Christ’s church looks in Acts. When we realize this issue is close to God’s heart we’ll move beyond racism… to gracism.




• BEYOND The Walls (Matthew 5) – Reaching beyond our buildings into our community with uncommon love and service. We need to stop going to church. It’s time to be the church.




• BEYOND Me (Numbers 13-14) – Living today with an eye on eternity will help me make an impact, and finish well. The biggest obstacle to going BEYOND is… me.

On the shores of Galilee, Jesus called out to some friends one day with words that would change their lives forever. “Follow me.” When they dropped their nets and followed Jesus it changed everything. Those first disciples found themselves going BEYOND what they knew to new worlds of trust, love, courage, and powerful action. That’s what it meant to follow Jesus back then.

It still does. In days like these, those who truly follow Jesus are being led BEYOND where we’ve been as disciples. BEYOND where our comfortable Christian lives are these days. BEYOND where our churches are right now. BEYOND the horizons of our expectations, and BEYOND the limits of our comfort zone.

The world is in trouble without Christ. Our culture is adrift. More and more people are hurting and misguided–so many aimless sheep without a shepherd. The colossal problems we see in our families, our communities, our cities, and our nation are overwhelming. It’s truly BEYOND us.

What’s worse, the Christian church in America is losing ground–big time. Many congregations seem invisible. Most have lost their impact. Too many Christians are seen as irrelevant, often missing the issues people–and Jesus–care about. In the world’s eyes, the reputation of Christians is bleak: we are bigoted, marginal, irrelevant, weak.

And inside the church we sometimes wonder if we’re really getting the job done–are we truly making real disciples, transforming lives, changing the world the way Jesus intends?

This is no time for business as usual. We need the Power and the Presence that will take our lives BEYOND where we are now and lead us BEYOND. It’s time for our ministries to go BEYOND our current ways of “doing church.” We need believers with guts and leaders with faith who will drop the old nets and follow Jesus–wherever he leads–even if it means changing everything. Ready to go BEYOND?!

At the conclusion of our time we have a little worship service together that ends with participating in the Lord’s Supper. This time my Dad started by talking about the generations of Wakefields who have followed Christ. He held up pictures I’d never seen and read from a Bible owned by my great grandmother. I felt a great sense of pride and belonging as we sat around the table and listened to him talk about how generations of Christians before me remained faithful, sometimes at great personal cost.

With my arm around my daughter, and my son sitting on my wife’s lap, we heard him talk about his own dad’s faithfulness… How for years he served in church leadership; how he helped plant a church in Southern Illinois; how he was generous in helping those who needed help, even if money was scarce; and how he stood for what was right, once telling the church leaders that if they wouldn’t let him bus in both black and white kids to Sunday School, they could find another bus driver. (”You go, grandpa!”)

And then he read, from that old Bible, these beautiful words from Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (English Standard Version).

Our faithfulness to Christ, recognized as the true founder of our faith, is bolstered when we remember the “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone before. And we are encouraged to keep from sin and remain faithful, like them, based on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

May we stand on the shoulders of our forebears… acknowledging today that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is reason to remain faithful, no matter the cost to us. Friends, Jesus’ death on the cross was too costly a price to pay for us to be anything less than faithful!

For the sake of the Kingdom,

Scott

Most of the time, I don’t care if someone says “Ain’t” or a sign says, “Kidds eat free.” (True story.) But I couldn’t keep quiet on this one for what it says about our laxity in multiple ways. The pharmaceutical behemoth Merck has a vaccine for cervical cancer called Gardasil. On their commercials young women hold up a sign reading: “One less” to show they are one “less” woman affected by cervical cancer, which is, of course, great. But, grammatically, this is wrong. It’s one FEWER woman. One woman is a quantifiable entity. (”Well, at least in theory!”)

Here’s the rub… There is no way that mistake escaped the dozens of marketing people to which Merck outsourced that campaign. No… possible… way. So, assuming I’m right that “less” did not escape the notice of many well-educated professionals, that means Gardasil’s motto is intentionally incorrect. Intentionally wrong.

Why? Because (I know, don’t start a sentence with “Because!”) it’s easier to capitulate to rules of language passively directed by democratic principles than principles derived from hundreds of years of the evolution of English. Apparently communicating correctly is less important than communicating easily, which is a malady that subtly and carelessly conveys the lie that our world is just chemistry and matter. Casual language doesn’t reckon with the idea that what we say means something, that our words are far more weighty than we are aware. Language is so important it can be sacramental, carrying the weight of eternity.

Jesus came as a written as well as lived Word. When Jesus said “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” he was stating in principle that our earthy, seemingly mundane existence is never really just that, but that we can help or hurt with our mouths. James writes, “Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing.”

Of course ‘less’ versus ‘fewer’ often seems to count only in English class and I realize blessing and cursing are far weightier causes than grammatical accuracy, but ‘help’ versus ‘hurt’ is an important principle for language, and disciplining one’s word usage can be part of a lifestyle of using the resource of language to bring God glory instead of disrepute.

Sometimes there really are better words, regardless of the cultural vote. God’s creation deserves better than the soft bigotry of language by democracy. And, while I am sometimes (okay, regularly) accused of straining out a gnat to swallow a camel, God’s creation deserves better, and I don’t think we’re called to succumb to the lowest common denominator.

Fewer shoddy words, less inadequate language… for the sake of God’s glory!

Scott

“During my life of sin,” Francis wrote, “nothing disgusted me like seeing victims of leprosy.” Exuberant in his newfound faith and with joy flooding his soul – and remembering he was now to love and even treasure those things he formerly loathed – Francis chose not to run from the leper, as he would have done earlier in his life. Instead, he leaped from his horse, knelt in front of the leper, and proceeded to kiss the diseased white hand.

He kissed it.

Francis then further astonished the leper by giving him money. But even that wasn’t enough. No, Francis was determined to “drink great sweetness” from what he formerly loathed, so he jumped back on his horse and rode to a neighboring leper colony. Francis “begged their pardon for having so often despised them” and, after giving them money, refused to leave until he had kissed each one of them, joyfully receiving the touch of their pale, encrusted lips. Only then did Francis jump back on his horse to go on his way.

In that indelible moment, Francis’s faith became incarnate. His belief didn’t just inspire him; it transformed him.

Thomas continues…

Witnessing the dynamic witness of a young Francis,… I feel embarrassed at how small-minded we can be when discussing the Christian faith with young people today. The apostle Paul exalted life in Christ as the most exciting and compelling life anyone could choose. In a marvelous take on 2 Timothy 4:7 (MSG), Eugene Peterson recounts Paul telling Timothy, “This is the only race worth running.”

Today’s believers often lose touch with this sense of the glory of being a Christian. We settle for so little – a tame religion, a few rituals, maybe even an occasional miraculous answer to prayer – and so pass our lives without understanding our true identity in Christ, embracing our calling as God’s children, or fulfilling our divine purpose.

Is the Christianity taught today large enough to seize our hearts? Does its promise of transformation so compel us that we would give all we have to take hold of it?

The contemporary American church’s vision of “being a Christian” is anemic and not hardly compelling enough to call people to join in the beautiful fight of transformation into Christlike holiness. If you look at what we’re producing in our churches, you’d think we’re calling people to satisfaction in worldly values instead of God. Instead of “reducing our faith to a set of intellectual doctrines and a list of forbidden practices” (Thomas’ words), we desperately need to call our young people to a compelling vision of the Christian life. For the sake of the continuing witness of the gospel and our childrens’ souls, we must raise young Christians who will forego the values of hipness and security for the sake of the gospel calling of being a witness. Sell the RV and vacation home and cash in the 401K to model participation in something of far greater consequence than earthly gain! At the least we should be systematically and intentionally orienting our lives, families, and resources around Kingdom priorities. Your kids will FOREVER thank you.

Thomas concludes this section:

The ‘Beautiful Fight’ invites you to explore the depths of a truly transforming faith, an incarnational spirituality that doesn’t dwell merely on a list of prohibitions and forbidden sins but powerfully ushers us into something so precious, so profound, and so stirring that we would gladly give up all we have just to lay hold of it. It is what in our deepest longings we truly want to become.

We just had a great time with our Children’s Ministry’s annual Easter Egg Hunt! The kids had, of course, a lot of fun hunting eggs and getting candy, but they also heard a great message about Jesus’ Resurrection from Tommy Staggs, our Youth/Family Life Minister, complete with cool magic trick! So check out this page of great pictures of our recent Easter Egg Hunt that were taken by Eric Garrison: http://www.fccgreeneville.org/Photos/2009Easter/index.html. (You can also just hover over Media/Resources and go to the “Pictures” page.) They’re really great photos… Thanks, Eric! (Also, BTW, you’ll be able to purchase these soon!) ]]> http://www.fccgreeneville.org/2009/05/03/easter-egg-hunt-pictures/feed/ 0