me, responsible?

I try to live a responsible life.  Getting up early, physical exercise, reading a book in the morning, not procrastinating on sermon preparation… I am respectively responsible, I think.  I even just returned from taking my family to Disney World, and I responsibly lost none of my three wanderful children!  (It was the airline that irresponsibly lost our luggage!)

But while running the beaches of New Smyrna, Fl – I listened to and meditated upon a few sermons preached by Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  1 Peter 3:1-6 – “Marriage and Women.”  1 Peter 3:7 – “Marriage and Men.”  OK, so maybe Driscoll has a rep of being a theological bully, but I will say… most men, myself included, need to be kicked in the crotch by Word-expositing preachers.  Driscoll did just that in his sermons (GO! Listen to them – http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial?page=2).  Take notes, repent…

There were a myriad of bruise-inducing applications for any man or woman, and I could not help but pray for marriages and husbands and wives in our congregation – sometimes in anger at the extent of the “accepted” brokenness in the homes of the sons and daughters of God.  

But what hit me most was the consideration of my not-so-responsible, gospel-shirking self.  Jesus Christ is the perfect husband to his bride the church.  True.  He laid himself down in full, sacrificial, life-giving headship.  True.  He did not take away the weakness of his “weaker vessel” bride, but he did make himself RESPONSIBLE for her security, identity, health and care.  He did not commit any of his bride’s sins – they are hers (mine are mine), but he did lay his life down on the cross as though he were RESPONSIBLE for her condemning sin.  He took RESPONSIBILITY for the beauty and purity and magnanimous freedom of his bride!

Am I that kind responsible – as a husband and father?  Ahem, well… I mow the lawn weekly, wash dishes most nights, read bed-time stories…  BUT AM I THAT KIND OF A GOSPEL-LIVING, WIFE-HOLDING, CHILDREN-SECURING, CHRIST-EMBODYING RESPONSIBLE HUSBAND AND FATHER? 

[silent, repentant, joyous, intentional consideration...]

Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.  – 1 Peter 3:7

Responsible me?  No, it is responsible me.  Period.   Responsible to hold and honor and humbly lay down my life for the sin and struggles and specific growth of Kori, Lina, Meggie and Nate.  O Lord, in my weakness I take it.  I want it.  That responsibility will change me as much as it will change them, because its the gospel!!!  Thank you Responsible Jesus for covering the irresponsible me.

O, did I mention I do our banking?  I wrestle with the kids? 

Shut up and quit shirking your responsibility.

rediscovering something old

I am rediscovering weakness… or even pursuing it again.  I think, I pray, I hope with a new actual awareness (or alomost awareness) of all the weak and broken parts of myself that the Lord has shown me over the past year.  Indeed it was a year ago that I enjoyably blogged about discovering the gospel in weakness, reading and recording the thoughts of Henri Nouwen (Wounded Healer) or  Richard Sibbes (The Bruised Reed) or Kyle Strobel (Metaphorpha) or just my own musing thoughts.

Through the past year, the Lord has, I think, shown me his Fatherly affection by placing me over his knee and WHACK.  Chastening the child he loves.  Showing me my personal fear of weakness/sin/struggle even as I “theologically” engaged it with passion.  Putting me in a place where the wrestling match with weakness was… hell.   May I say with truth and candor: church planting has been the most difficult life experience, even as God has grown his church and planted us in the “west valley.”    I am so thankful for the fog of last Fall, and the slow unfolding of a spiritual Spring over the past few months.  I have seen life come from death.  Energy returned.  Weakness confessed.  Habits exposed.  Righteousness (my own) revealed as filthy.  Gifts (preaching and teaching) used as a cop-out for true pastoral leadership.  Otherness revealed as a serious weakness.  Exhaustion evidencing gospel-thirst.  Excessive work falsely defined as “success.”  Being at home with my family confronted with what it truly is to “be home” and undistracted.  Loving my wife compared to laying my life down for her.  On we could go.

Maybe this is what freedom feels like.

We are in confining quarters, indeed, when we are enclosed in self, but when we emerge  from that prison, and enter into the immensity of God and the liberty of his children, we are truly free.

Though it sounds strange to say it I am rejoicing that God has reduced [me] to a state of weakness.  Oh, how painful, but how beneficial these times of weakness!  As long as any self-love is remaining, we are always afraid it will be revealed.  But God does not give up as long as the least symptom of it lurks in the innermost recesses of heart, God pursues it, and by some infinitely merciful blow, forces it into the open.  And the sight of the problem becomes the cure.  Self-love, forced into the light, sees itself as it really is in all its deformity and disgrace.  And in a moment, the flattering illusions of your whole selfish life are dissipated.  God sets before your eyes your idol: self.  You look at that spectacle, and you cannot turn your eyes away.  Nor can  you hide the sight from others.  To expose self-love in this way without its mask is the most mortifying punishment that can ever be inflicted.

When you finally see self for what it is, weakness has become your only possession.  Strength is not even in the picture.  And if you had any, it would only make the agony longer and more distressing.   If you die [to self] from weakness and weariness, you will die more quickly and less violently.

What, then, shall we do?  Do nothing.  Seek nothing.  Hold to nothing.  Simply confess everything, not as  a means of getting relief, but because of humble desire to yield unto Jesus. (Fenelon, Let Go)

But [Jesus] 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.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamaties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

O Lord my God, thank you for this church planting weakness exposition – all for your glory and display of your grace.  Amen.

 

Letting Go, by Fenelon

A church member and friend has coerced me into reading a book by Fenelon, “Letting Go: to get peace and real joy”.  I say coerced because I know he asked me to dig through it (short but stout) because of my desire to control aspects of life that, well… are in need of God’s continual control.  Say, like pastoring a church plant that is the living body of Christ.

It is a brief book of letters written by Francois de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon, the Archbishop of Cambrai, France during the seventeenth century.  He was writing to a small group of people at the Court of Louis the Fourteenth.  Apparently they lived in a world of shameless immorality and struggle, kinda like us.  Try his words on for size and may they be a blessing to you.

The good that comes from any experience of personal weakness is the realization that God wants us to be lowly and obedient.  So may the Lord keep you!

I am amazed at the power that comes to us through suffering; we are worth nothing without the cross.  Of course, I tremble and agonize while it lasts, and all my words about the beneficial effects of suffering vanish under torture.  But when it is all over, I look back on the experience with deep appreciation, and am ashamed that I abore it with so much bitterness.  I am learning a great deal from my own foolishness!

The great Physician who sees in us what we cannot see, knows exactly where to place the knife.  He cuts away that which we are most reluctant to give up.  And how it hurts!  But we must remember that pain is only felt where there is life, and where there is life is just the place where death is needed.  Our Father wastes no time by cutting into parts which are already dead.  Do not misunderstand me: He wants you to live abundantly, but this can only be accomplished by allowing Him to cut into that fleshly part of you which is still stubbornly clinging to life.

Learn to cultivate peace.  And you can do this by learning to turn a deaf ear to your own ambitions and thoughts.  Or haven’t you yet learned that the strivings of the human mind not only impair the health of the body, but also bring dryness to the soul.

Love of self, which the world advocates, is a thousand times more dangerous than any poison.

Be careful about your motives in this eager chase for knowledge.  You are aware, aren’t you, that all we need is to be poor in spirit, and to know nothing but Christ and him crucified.  Although being a know-it-all makes us feel important, what is really needed to strengthen Christian character is love.  You certainly don’t think it possible that the love of God and the dethroning of self can only be reached through the acquisition of knowledge.  You already have more knowledge than you can use.  You would do better to put into practice what you already know.  Oh how we deceive ourselves when we suppose that we are growing in grace because our vain curiosity is being gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect!  We need to be humble, and to understand that we cannot receive God’s gifts from man.  The love of God comes to us only from Jesus.

where have I been

I recently heard that the first way to lose blog readers is to not blog.  Brilliant.  In by bogged downedness I blog lessedness.  So my taking a month off has surely made this post worthless… can I find a reader?

Well, just in case a bloggerby stops in (in addition to my tech saavy grandma), perhaps I should post a prayer update.

I have been to the mountains for five days, virtually alone.  I journaled, slept, read, hiked, yelled at the rocks and trees, and bowed my knees before a Creator who reminded me that he alone makes the trees sway.  More than that.  He moves me.  He did so in the woods.  I came to a stop in the woods… Haven’t stopped like that in 10 years.  Seriously.  O, and I was in the woods as the speaker/preacher for a camp of Lehigh University college students.  I gave six 45 minute sermons, and they gave me five days of rest and rediscovery.  Thanks to God.

I came back from the mountains.  I struggled.  God, you are good – so good to expose me to your grandeur in the hollowed hills, then to  expose me to myself and my need for a God as glorious and merciful as YOU.  I have been back for 2 weeks now, and I am amazed at my stress, anxiety, busyness and well… wrestling match to remember the God of creation who communed with me in the quiet winds of the woods.  I know now why mountaneering is worshipful.

I went to the NJ shore with my family.  Thanks to God for community and friends – laughter on the roof top under the stars.  Playing with the kids in the sand.  Suddenly all three of my kids love finding and holding crabs.  A long way since last year…

I came back from the shore.  I struggled.  God, you are good – so good to expose me to your grandeur through the magnificent ocean, then to  expose me to myself and my need for a God as glorious and merciful as YOU.  I have been back for 2 days now, and I am amazed at my stress, anxiety, busyness and well… wrestling match to remember the God of creation who communed with me through my family on the shore.  I know now why beach vacations are worshipful.  (deja vu, I know)

Apologies for my bloglessness.  God is continuing the good work he has begun in me – in my family – at West Valley PCA.  He is making us feel our need for Christ… “the only fitness he requires of us is to feel our need of him” (Come Ye Sinner Poor and Needy).  But our immaturity and Satan’s devouring presence lay close at hand.  O God have mercy as you show us the powerful KINGSHIP of Christ over our hearts, our heads, our happenings.

Since blogging is clearly slow… If you desire to check into my oral “writing” that I actually spend time on each week,  visit www.westvalleypres.org for sermons on Ecclesiastes. 

This weakchristian is dependent evermore on a strong Savior and King.  Sorry for my failure to devotionalize on this blog site.  Some stressful seasons don’t allow for time… even more, they don’t need public blogging so much as private journaling and gospel-dependent prayer.

Much love to my family and praying friends.  A formal “prayerletter” from a West Valley PCA coming soon!

jim

blogging about weakness, believing in election

It has been some time since a flapped my gums, or played sticky fingers with my laptop … since I’ve blogged about weakness.  The whole point of this whole thing is a deep confidence that the whole of ourselves is wholly weak the whole time we live in this whole life under the sun!  So why have I failed to blog about weakness… or at all for that matter.

First, personally things are busy and hectic at home and at West Valley PCA.  God has continued to bless and work in our home as we adjust as a family (even 3 years into this) to living in the North East.  We just bought our “lifestyle” house, a mile from the home we have owned the past 2 years.  What a blessing to still be able to walk/bike to work, to the coffee shops and farmers market… and yet to be a bit removed from the buzz,  and to have a house with some space and kids rooms and play room and garage!  Thanks to God for his undeserved gifts. 

On the church-front, we are continuing to seek the face of God and be astounded by his provision at West Valley.  God is gathering weak believers, missional believers, in addition to weak and broken unchurched skeptics who return hungry for something that is just beginning to whet their palate.  So I am trying to learn how to lead a church that is 9 months old and dealing with gospel-incarnation, community needs,  space constraints, and vision/identity ownership!  May God remain central and glorified, gathering whom he would for his glory – our SOVEREIGN GOD alone is planting this church.  We long to be the conduits of a kingdom that is from eternity, to eternity “in our West Valley as it is in heaven.”  Suffice to say, my joy and submission to God’s calling our family here for such a time and season and people and gospel-work as this is envigorating.  As such, blogging has been less-exciting, and less of a call to my wandering mind than it was before the winds of my soul have changed…  Thank you for dropping us off here, O God.

And so I say all of that to blog an ounce about weakness.  Specifically, this morning I think of all my weakness (tiredness, sin-ness, self-ness,  soreness, etc.) in connection to believing in the comforting biblical truth that God has providentially ordered all of our days, our finances, our rooftops, our street names, our church facilities, our growth stages, our discipline needs, our hard-lessons learned, etc… even as he has predestined our “election” as his eternally redeemed children who have no other hope than his call and care and conservation of our very selves whom he has effectively given his grace, first to last.

What am I saying? 

I can’t believe I am a recipient of the mercy of Christ, by his sovereign grace and election alone.  That in my weakness I am all the more in Christ who rescued my broken frame from a world of pain solely because of God’s election to glorify himself by the extension of his mercy to one who has done NOTHING (Eph. 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9).  I deserve to be a recipient of wrath, that he might be glorify his own justice.  But in Christ who gave my righteousness and took my just punishment, I am a recipient of grace, that God might glorify his own mercy!  And so I ask the only thing I can ask (even as a PCA pastor who has studied and made vows regarding the biblical doctrine of election): why me, O God?  I did nothing to deserve or receive your mercy!  Weak and impotent that I am to stop sinning, to love others well, to speak truth in love, to pastor people the gospel-treasure… Why me?

That question changes everything.  Everything is put in context!  I am weak but will worship my electing rescuer.  I am humbled to engage the broken around me, because I have done NOTHING to not be broken – God and God alone has elected to restore what I can’t fix.  I pray you know this gospel of God’s sovereign grace to bind up the broken of NOTHING in them and ALL for his glory.

How many Christians stumble on in weakness, burdened with doubts that would be erased if only they knew their salvation rested not in themselves but in God?  The doctrine of election tells us that it was God who sought us and not we who sought him; that God called us to him self in time because he chose us in eternity.  (Richard Phillips)

west valley pca april/may prayerletter

It was a Sunday evening.  March 8^th, 2008.  It was our “burden inculcating” gathering.  We met at a local coffee shop to begin the church planting conversation among 30 adults from Cornerstone PCA who lived in the target area that would soon be called the “West Valley.”  That night, we discussed the necessity of studying our culture and the people in our neighborhoods even as we study the Word of God.  It was at that meeting that we first prayed, “Thy Kingdom come in our West Valley as it is in heaven.”   We discussed everything from the musical tastes of our demographic to the children of our neighborhoods.  We avoided all banter about style of music in worship or philosophy of kids ministry.  The good ole days!  It was a time set apart by God to talk about “doing KINGDOM” in our community.   We still talk about that.  In many recent conversations about West Valley, I find myself confessing that we are only eight months into public worship and only a year old in totality.  We are infantile, immature, adolescent, and a bit toddlerish.  And yet, so much has happened.  Church-plant years are like dog-years, I think. 

After our March 8^th meeting, we entered formation mode.  We sought a biblical philosophy of ministry for our North East context.  We landed on five core values (the Word, the Gospel, the Kingdom, the Church, and the West Valley).  We painted a vision to be a church for the West Valley, in order that Jesus Christ is celebrated as the only hope for the brokenness in us and around us.  We committed to seek after it as the church of God, according to the Word of God, in the enjoyment of God, for the glory of God (our mission).  It was exciting to craft a model of KINGDOM to the best of our discernment of both the Word and our culture.  But then again, it was what it was.  Just a model of ministry.  Just words on a paper.  Just a plan that started like many conversations do… at a coffee shop.

 How goes it now?

 Well, we are still praying, “Thy Kingdom come in our West Valley as it is in heaven.”  We are seeing neighborhood friends join us in worship and God-exploration through the Word.  We have intellectual skeptics joining us Sunday after Sunday, even embarking on one-on-one discipleship journeys to test the gospel more intimately.  We have become a small home away from home for college students who bring friends.  We are doing a community assessment to learn what physical and spiritual needs are untouched in our target demographic (i.e. we have been burdened by the lack of transitional housing for people without shelter).  We are partnering with other churches that likewise declare the gospel as the only hope for the brokenness in us and around us.  We are seeking the Lord regarding our facility stewardship, as we can fit no more than the 160 chairs we have in our worship space.  Specifically, we are curious as to how we can continue to be a blessing to our community by inhabiting and perhaps transforming a warehouse or spacious building into a place of transformative KINGDOM engagement.  (Our main Street space has affected our DNA.) We are engaging 120+ people each Sunday with the gospel incarnate – through fellowship, through sacrament and through declaration.  We are so thankful that God would continue to gather us weekly to exalt his loftiness, his glory, his gospel, and his PLAN to redeem his people.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is, I hope, intruding on the lives of believers and inquisitive unbelievers alike, regardless of their connection point of brokenness.

 BUT…

 There may be a glaring need in our midst.  Even as we have celebrated the centrality of the Word of God, that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”(Rom. 10:17); and even as we are confidently desperate in our celebration of Jesus Christ, the only hope for the ravaged and wrecked among us.  Even still, it seems we are just now growing HUNGRY for the transformation that only the Holy Spirit can bring to his church, to his people in this sin-soaked, self-saturated, spiritually-suffocating world. 

 John Calvin summed up the Christian life as “rejoicing in the Holy Spirit.”  Christians glory in the presence of the Holy Spirit, without which glorying Christianity itself does not stand!   As I consider the people at West Valley – both those who have been historically churched and those who are newly engaged – I am seeing hunger for transformation… a simultaneous awareness and desire for God the Spirit to be in our midst!  People are weighed down by personal pain, relational scars, financial debt, identity crises, guilt, anger, fear, lust, depression, despair.  I look into their eyes every Sunday with the Word in my hands.  And yet, what I am learning is that God’s people do not merely need to hear me wax about “Jesus Christ, the only hope for our brokenness.”  They do not merely need to learn the power and purpose of expositional preaching in context of celebratory worship.  They do not merely need to be reminded to incarnate Christ’s love to their neighbors and business partners.  No.  We ALL universally need the Holy Spirit to change our human hearts, to “reform our affections,” to transform us! 

 I am committed to gospel-centered expositional preaching and I have been called of God to pastor a missional church plant.  Yet in this winepress of sanctification (as one of our members so affectionately termed church planting) I habitually forget that effective gospel preaching depends wholly on the power of the Spirit as Christ offers himself in the gospel.  If we neglect to proclaim the work of Christ or to beseech the work of the Spirit, all preaching is lifeless and impotent (Thabiti Anyabwile).  Paul made the point CLEAR in 1 Corinthians 2:12 – Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us.  Wow.  No believer will understand the Word and experience the transformative power of the gospel apart from the Spirit.  No skeptic will grasp the relevant dead-to-life promise of the gospel apart from the Spirit. 

 So, one year into the planting of West Valley Presbyterian Church, I ask one thing of you: will you pray for the Spirit’s transformation through the Word – as Christ himself is offered to us in the gospel?  Will you pray that for every person we engage at West Valley?  No, that’s not big enough.  Will you pray that for the entirety of our mission field of the West Valley, for our city?  Will you?  Will you pray that for my life, my family and the families of a growing church plant?  Will you?

Today I pray it for you.  May God transform us all for his glory by his Spirit through his Word.

 Rejoicing in the Spirit, jim

If you desire to partner financially with West Valley PCA, please contact me at jim@westvalleypres.org and/or send any gifts to West Valley Presbyterian Church, 326 Main Street, Suite 1 – Emmaus PA 18049.  All gifts will be tax-deduct and a year end statement will be provided.

 

 

Below is a poem/prayer titled “Resurrection” in the Valley of Vision Puritan Prayer Book.  Few posts in this chaotic time at West Valley PCA.  May God be delighted with the gratitude and joyful offering we bring to him.  May he resurrect our broken lives and stir us to actually believe what we believe.

 

O God of my exodus,

Great was the joy of Israel’s sons,

when Egypt died upon the shore,

Far greater the joy

when the Redeemer’s foe lay crushed in the dust.

Jesus strides forth as the victor,

conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing might;

He bursts the bands of death,

tramples the powers of darkness down,

and lives forever.

He, my gracious surety,

apprehended for payment of my debt,

comes forth from the prison house of the grave

free, and triumphant over sin, Satan, and death.

 

Show me herein the proof that his vicarious offering is accepted,

that the claims of justice are satisfied,

that the devil’s scepter is shivered,

that his wrongful throne is leveled.

Give me the assurance that

in Christ I died,

in him I rose,

in his life I live,

in his victory I triumph,

in his ascension I shall be glorified.

 

Adorable Redeemer,

thou who was lifted up upon a cross

art ascended to highest heaven.

Thou, who as Man of sorrows

wast crowned with thorns,

art now as Lord of life wreathed with glory.

 

Once, no shame more deep than thine,

no agony more bitter,

no death more cruel.

Now, no exaltation more high,

no life more glorious,

no advocate more effective.

Though art in the triumph car leading captive

thine enemies behind thee.

What more could be done than thou hast done!

 

Thy death is my life,

thy resurrection my peace,

thy ascension my hope,

thy prayers my comfort.

west valley pca march 2009 prayerletter

 

www.westvalleypres.org

presbyterian church in america

 

 

 

 

I write this prayer letter to connect with you.  Maybe it will happen, maybe not.  After all, writing only works if a connection is made.  Every now and again, I read a book and the author’s semantic style or sense of humor or something magnetically attracts all of me to all of what he/she has to say.  Have you ever read a book wherein the words moved (as though living) from a mere place on paper to a central place in your thoughts?  Have you ever discovered your elusive stream of consciousness through a coherent combination of vowels and consonants?  Have you ever had a page of prose or poetry expose and interpret your childhood memories? 

 

Yesterday I read a book that may have done all of that and more.  A two-hour time warp in which it all coalesced for a moment: my childhood in Colorado collided with family rearing and church planting in Pennsylvania.  The words came from Ken Gire, in his book Life as we would Want It… Life as we are Given It.  Subtitle: The Beauty God Brings from Life’s Upheavals.  Gire is a magnificent writer and student of literature.  Consider his words:

 

I was browsing a bookstore one day when I happened upon a topographical map of Colorado, molded in plastic.  A yellow line representing Interstate 25 ran down the center, dividing the map in half.  I stooped to pick it up and ran my fingers across its surface.  The eastern half had barely a dimple on the landscape.  The western half had peaks and valleys that formed the southern range of the Rocky Mountains.

 

Eastern and Western Colorado.

Smooth, even terrain… and bumpy, uncertain terrain.

Life as we would want it… and life as we are given it.

The physical landscape [of Colorado] was a metaphor of the landscape of our lives.  One had no upheavals.  The other was full of them.

 

I grew up on Interstate 25 in Colorado.  To the West of our home in Fort Collins was Horsetooth mountain and reservoir.  To the East were the wind-swept plains, the Kansas-like and rarely-mentioned expanse of Colorado.  On our day trips to Denver, the view out one window afforded a sense of awe, the other a sense of “are we there yet.”  The point of Gire’s landscape parable is simply that in life – we generally PREFER the smooth landscape of Eastern Colorado, though we genuinely LONG for the grandeur of the Mountains.  However, mountains are only formed by upheaval… and they are more prone to upheaval. 

 

I recall road-biking with my dad.  I preferred the Eastern flat, but the ride up the Big Thompson canyon to Estes Park brought glory and joy and accomplishment (amidst personal PAIN and upheaval).  In fact, nothing about the mountains is easy – whether a hike, or cycling ride, or cross-country skiing saunter.  Even more, the “better” the climb (Longs Peak at age 11), the worse the upheaval and AGONY.

 

That is the way of the mountains.  That is the memory of my childhood.

That is the way of church planting.  That is the reality of my present.

 

While in truth, I might prefer to walk away from the cell phone and busyness and just hike a mountain with my family (its in our family blood, both Kori and me), the reality is that the Lord has set the Powells on a mountainous climb, spiritually speaking.  We have seen the grandeur of the kingdom of God through church planting in a way that (I don’t think) other paths would have afforded.  Just the same, however, we have experienced the shifting rocks under our feet.  We have slipped time and again, our breath is short, the climb is stressing.  Lina is now hiking with us (she is aware of the strain), Meggie needs to be carried now and again, and Nate – well, he’s still in the hike-pack (but he’s heavier now).  I never dreamed 3 years ago that our family would experience the goodness and glory and awe of ministry in such a ‘mountain-parabolic’ way. 

 

So – praise God for his grandeur in our midst:

1. Kori and I continue to see how the gospel for sinners (Cheer up, you’re worse than you think, but you’re also more loved in Christ than you ever dared imagine!) is the WHOLE of our Christian life, and is the growing hope of our kids.  Thank you God!
2. We are growing in our connectivity to the “West Valley.”  Community needs are now being directed to us by business and community leaders, who have seen that we are passionate about being a blessing amidst the brokenness.
3. Our Main Street location has become a strategic gathering point – as neighborhood people have discovered us and boldly begun a journey of faith, beginning their hike wherever they are.
4. Praise God for his connecting with his people through the preached word in the book of Ecclesiastes!  The entire book is about the upheaval of life under the sun, and we are seeing MANY long for the hope of the gospel in all its grandeur through such an honest assessment!
5. In September 2008 we gathered as 60 adults/children from Cornerstone PCA.  In March 2009 we are at the tipping point of having more new regular attendees than mother-church missionaries.  We are becoming a church for the West Valley!

 

Also, pray for us in the midst of the upheavals:

1. Upheavals of personal faith.  God has drawn people to our church who are ready to journey the mountain… so long as they can freely (perhaps skeptically) hike at their own pace.  People are looking for answers – but NOT pat answers!  Please pray for wisdom, as our feet often slip on shifty ground.  Please pray for my confidence in the power of the Word of God to change hearts.  Pray for conversions by God’s Spirit through his church!
2. Upheavals in family life.  Please pray for the marriages and children of our families.  God has exposed some magnanimous things in the lives of many.  Pray for those who are wading through their broken pasts and presents… that they would see the “beauty God brings from upheavals.”
3. Upheavals in finances.  Please pray for the job-loss and job-stress from which we have not been immune at West Valley. 
4. Upheavals in the ‘West Valley.’  Please pray for our community involvement, as we are seeking to provide work and housing – mercy and grace – to the poor and hurting who are in our very community.  May we realize that “ignorance is really ignoring which is really oppression” (my summary of Ecclesiastes 5:8).  How will our presence in this community change the physical, emotional and spiritual lives of the people in this place?!
5. Upheavals in churches.  We are so thankful to be seeing the beauty of God in such visible ways as a young church plant.  Please pray for the churches of our Presbytery, many of which are struggling financially in the economic landscape.  These churches have sacrificed to launch us out… and yet they are exhausted from their climb in the Northeastern spiritual terrain.  God give them grace.

 

We praise God for your partnership on this climb.  It has been a YEAR now since many of you received our first “give us money packet” (as I was once heard it so affectionately called).  THANK GOD FOR YOU.  We are seeing the kingdom come in our West Valley as it is in heaven.  We need continued prayers for wisdom to be good stewards of the mystery of the gospel and the gifts of God’s people.  We need continual financial partnership to saturate this one-million person Lehigh Valley with the gospel!  As the Lord led some of you to pledge annual gifts, would you please prayerfully fulfill your desire? 

 

Many thanks, and to God be the glory!

 

 

 

If you desire to partner financially with West Valley PCA, please contact me at jim@westvalleypres.org and/or send any gifts to West Valley Presbyterian Church, 326 Main Street, Suite 1 – Emmaus PA 18049.  All gifts will be tax-deduct and a year end statement will be provided. 

don’t feel bad for your self, just contempt

I am reading a newly published biography/collection of essays - John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine and Doxology (Reformation Trust, 2008).  I have read and re-read a particular statement by Sinclair Ferguson with regard to Calvin’s view of himself and God’s kingdom.

Calvin sought, personally, to develop a balance of contempt for the present life with a deep gratitude for the blessings of God and a love and longing for the heavenly kingdom.

This is killer.  As the Sonship (World Harvest) curriculum teaches us about the gospel… we only magnify the cross as we grasp the magnitude of our sin.  And therefore if we minimize our sin and stuggle, we shrink the cross.  SOOOO – contempt for my life and this broken world it is… contempt for my perpetual struggle to control my tongue, my rash anger, my attitude. Contempt for my struggles to listen to people, to have my heart break with/for people.  Contempt for a broken world of oppression and ignoring people who hurt and disease and death and broken relationships.

Only by that contempt comes a CROSS magnified comprehension of all for which Christ came to live and die!  Only by that contempt comes KINGDOM passion and desire and surrender. 

Should I feel bad for myself when life does not work out the way I want, when my weaknesses in my flesh get the best of my body, mind or soul?  No, not bad… just contempt, whereby I might have a contemptuous comprehension of a comprehensive cross.  Amen.

a few thoughts – leadership and the gospel

for those of you tracking with the Powells and West Valley PCA, I owe you a blogreport.

God is at work and challenging my heart, soul, mind and body.

I am reading leadership books – trying to learn my strengths to lead a congregation that is a body of the Spirit in need of the Word… as well as a Leader!  Yep, a weakchristian seeking to know his gifts and strengths so as to lead others in their God-given gifts, even as we are all weak, and broken and in need of a gospel that is stronger than we are weak.

If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.  While our society encourages us to be well-rounded, this approach inadvertently leads to mediocrity.  Perhaps the greatest misconception of all is that of the well rounded leader…. paradoxically, those who strive to be competent in all areas become the least effective leaders of all. – Strength Based Leadership, Rath/Conchie

While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are.  – Strength Based Leadership, Rath/Conchie (my friend Stosh Walsh was a contributor to this book by Gallop)

I am reading a biography on the life and heart and passion of John Calvin.  O God reform us by your Word/Spirit and revive us!  Bring reformation through your church being true to your Word.  What words Calvin penned that have lived on in the church… and yet, as I am learning – no mere words of mere men live on apart from the work of God to revive the heart.  Calvin had a heart for God as much as a mind for truth!  Make me a servant who, like Calvin, knows his sin and need and exposits Scripture in truth and power…

As the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads.  Let this, then, be our first step, to abandon ourselves, and to devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God.  – John Calvin

Let us, then, unremittingly examine our faults, call ourselves back to humility.  Thus nothing will remain to puff us up; but there be much occasion to be cast down.   – John Calvin

And so… what to do with the combination of pursuing to be a good leader that utilizes the gifts/strengths God has given me.  To train and raise up leaders in a church that is growing and needs a LEADER.  And yet, to do this while examining and asking for the Lord’s help to see ALL my faults ALL the time to cast my weak and needy self on Christ and him alone (not, after all, on my style of leadership, or even progress in it)

Go at it God.  Go at it in the West Valley.  Train and equip and lead us into the gospel in a way that is faithful, effective, and humble.  Continue to bring the broken and poor and needy to our doorstep that we may show them YOU.