Claimed, gathered and sent

It has been a week of being recreated from the inside and that is painful. God has brought me to the Spiritual Formation course through Regent University for "such a time as this" (Esther 4:14). The means of being taken apart and put back together by God has been spending more deliberate time in his presence by the use of an ancient method called lectio divina or divine reading. More about that in another post. Of course, living the truth God shows you is quite another matter. For me this week has been difficult at work. We had a staff meeting followed by individual meetings with our supervisor where we each got "our ears boxed" so to speak. My prayer all week has been that God would make me more like Jesus. The means however, is through the school of hard knocks. The kicker was the verse I was meditating on yesterday, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer" (Ps 19:14)....

This is an interesting post by Scot McKnight on his JesusCreed.com blog. Women, Mary and Jesus Class 1 Filed under: Women and Ministry — Scot McKnight @ 2:20 am On the first day of my new class — Women, Mary, and Jesus, we looked at pp. 14-15 of William Webb, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. We read these verses and I asked the students to “vote” for each verse: A, B, or C. That is, “A” means “universal and transcultural,” and “B” means “Christians don’t agree” and “C” means “Cultural and not for Christians today.” Now it’s your turn. (read more…) We voted for each verse and then we got in groups and discussed group “C.” And we discussed “why” we decided the “C” items were not to be practiced today, or why we thought they were “cultural” and not “universal.” Try it yourself. Vote for each, and then ask yourself what leads you to see the “C” verses as no longer the things Christians need to do. The reasons you give are essentially what the “redemptive trend” is all about. Now I’m curiou...

The Worst of Sinners One extreme statement must still be made, without any platitudes and in all soberness. Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware. It sounds like an exaggeration, an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost, i.e., the worst of sinners (I Tim. I:15). He said this at the very place in Scripture where he was speaking of his ministry as an apostle. There can be no genuine knowledge of sin that does not lead me down to this depth. If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others; not only for my sin is there n...

I just got an email from Christianitytoday.com mentioning a new blog for women in leadership. the URL is: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/giftedforleadership/. There are a number of churches and denominations that do not encourage women in their callings unless it's motherhood. It looks like it will be a tremendous resource.

This article really addresses much of what God has been laying on my heart lately. Enjoy! The following article is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2007/001/3.26.html Fresh Air 3 practices to breathe life into your conversations with God. by Keri Wyatt Kent I t's ironic. I used to call the time I set aside for God my "quiet time." However, those times, filled with words—the words I read, studied, wrote, or whispered toward the ceiling, wondering if God even heard—felt anything but quiet. They felt more like "doing" times—as in completing tasks on a list. And, truth be told, sometimes they also felt like "doing time," as in punishment or an obligation. I knew Jesus offers us "life to the full" ( John 10:10 ), but I wondered if that was possible. I tried to study my Bible, but I'd forget the words I read as soon as I closed the book. Or I'd think, I've read this all before . It seemed stale. But just when ...

Sorry, I'm posting so much at once, but with classes beginning again, it's been crazy. The Ears of God For Christians, pastoral care differs essentially from preaching in that here the task of listening is joined to the task of speaking the Word. There is also a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. This impatient, inattentive listening really despises the other Christian and finally is only waiting to get a chance to speak and thus to get rid of the other. This sort of listening is no fulfillment of our task. And it is certain that here, too, in our attitude toward other Christians we simply see reflected our own relationship to God. It should be no surprise that we are no longer able to perform the greatest service of listening that God has entrusted to us - hearing the confession of another Christian - if we refuse to lend our ear to another person on lesser subjects. The pagan world today knows something about per...

Here's a piece written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the importance of listening. This is an area of my life that God is really working on lately--being a better listener to people and to God. Enjoy! Listen Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God's love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God's Word, but also lends us God's ear. We do God's work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to "offer" something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longe...