Quick Hits

  • It’s almost nice not having church every Sunday. I get to enjoy the day, enjoy sports, enjoy good food with Miranda, and actually take a Sabbath (I work on Saturdays).
  • I wonder where Donald is right now…he went on a random trip to nowhere this weekend with a mutual friend who’s wrestling with things in his life right now.
  • Haven’t seen Pablo in a while…wonder if he’s still alive?
  • I’m back Twittering. Check it out here: Derek on Twitter
  • Can’t wait until Resurrection Day.
  • It’s going to be a hectic week…but looking forward to it.
  • So…Miranda washed my iPod. I didn’t get mad. It’s all good. Not the iPod. But still…
  • Did I mention Easter @ Harmony is going to be like a Pit Bull in Vick’s apartment? Off the chain…

Wow that last one was bad.

Can’t Catch Greenville.

I just read that 1 in 4 American teenage women has a STD. Meanwhile, I was informed not even a week ago that 1 in 3 college aged women in Greenville has a STD. Still have some work to do, America. You can’t catch us here in Greenville.

On a serious note, pray that these women will come to know Christ and will be a keystone in Godly families that will change the culture here in the Emerald City.

The Importance of Raising Godly Men

At Harmony Church we value raising up Gospel-centered men and women. People often look at our focus on raising men as a chauvinist approach to ministry, but there are definitely reasons for it. Men are supposed to be the leaders of the family and the church. But often times, we fall short and well-intentioned women often fill those roles that they should not be filling, though they are capable. I’ll go ahead and say it: Men in the church are often not the men that they are supposed to be. They play games, are not masculine, and truly don’t love Jesus. They wrestle with who they are in Christ, and who they are as a man. An example of that wrestling is here: Pray for Revolution Church.

Pray for this church, for David and his family, and most importantly that we can avoid the same mistakes by raising Gospel-centered men here in Greenville.

Thoughts on Our Mission: Love

Our mission is to create followers of Jesus who love God and people, live intentionally within the Kingdom, and echo this Way to others. Here’s some expansion on that that has come as I’ve recently been thinking about direction for our church as we begin to feel out who we are becoming.

Love

Love is a vertical action, beginning first with God’s love coming to us, and us, having seen the wondrous glory of Christ, returning adoration towards Him. As this amorous exchange occurs within us, it overflows out of the vertical plane and begins to affect our horizontal relationships; namely, other people. This is what this looks like graphically:

Cross: Love

Hopefully the cycle continues, as the love shown to others because of the overflow from our vertical relationships is originally from God. The love shown to others, having originated from Love Himself, is really and truly God showing His love to others [as it is outside our natural state to love others unconditionally]. Thus, the cycle, when allowed to continue unbroken, can be a fractal of the image above, with each numeral ‘3′ becoming a numeral ‘2′ for a new iteration of the display of the Divine love.

The cycle, when unbroken by sin, continues to eternity, with God-originating love affecting a finite amount of persons infinitely.

Resolutions Remixed: Part III (Resolutions 21-30)

(Part I here, Part II here)

21. I resolve to never do anything that I would hate someone else for doing.

22. I resolve to work to my happiness and delight with all my might and power, as long as it does not conflict with the Gospel.

23. I resolve to analyze my deliberate actions, tracing them back to the original intention. If that intention is contrary to the glory of God and/or the Gospel, I will take the action to break Resolution 4.

24. I resolve to, whenever I do something evil, to trace it back to the original cause, and to fight that cause with all my might and prayer.

25. I resolve to examine myself closely in order to identify the one thing that causes me to doubt God. I will then fight and pray against that one thing with all I am.

26. I resolve to fight and pray against anything that causes me to doubt my salvation.

27. I resolve to never not do something, unless not doing that thing is for the glory of God. I will also constantly examine what things I am not doing.

28. I resolve to constantly study Scripture and to make sure that I am growing in the knowledge of God.

29. I resolve to always pray as if I believe that God will answer it, and to always confess as if God will accept it.

30. I resolve to try every week to grow in knowledge and passion of God, and to be a better example of God’s grace to others than I was the week before.