http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2 Christ Community Covenant Church Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:05:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In his book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, William H. Willimon makes the strong point that the church does not exist to do mission, the church exists because of God's mission.  We participate with God in his missional effort to reach a world plunged into darkness as God ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=54 It would be fun to take a survey to find what we think is the role of the church in today's world.  Is it to provide a friendly place for those seeking answers?  Is it a place for only believers to hear God's word?  Should it compete in a marketing environment with ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=53 Are you prepared?  When something hard or unexpected comes into your life are you theologically prepared to handle it?  Some, when faced with a severe hardship have their concept of God severely tested.  Recall the followers of Jesus who grumbled and walked away when faced with hard sayings from Jesus ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=52 In a few minutes, we will being the memorial service for my friend, Bob Costello.  Bob lost the battle against cancer last Sunday, a year and eight days after his wife died of cancer and a year and two days after being diagnosed. Bob was a rough kind of guy.  He ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=51 Howgozit?  An aviation expression for a progress check: how goes it? Howgozit with my attempt at fixed hour prayers?  Not so good.  Morning is easy for me since I have a long-standing habit of rising early to spend time being attentive to God.  Noon is just hard.  I'm trying to find ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=50 Last time I talked about how the ancient Jewish community and the first centuries of the early church practiced prayers as fixed hours of the day based on their rhythm of life. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to establish a pattern of praying at loosely fixed times ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=49 We don't have much of a rhythm of life anymore.  Unless, of course, we count getting up early, going as fast as we can, and stopping late as a rhythm.  I think we have lost something as we have move without rhythm. In both my trips to Africa, the thing that ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=48 I wrote last week about being busy.  To be a Christian is to be counter-cultural; to be against busyness as the world defines it.  To be a Christian is to live by a different worldview: a Christ-centric worldview.  And, it is hard.  We are pulled from every direction.  How do ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=47 It's been a busy week.  However, I've been contemplating the busyness.  A friend gave me a quote by Eugene Peterson: "Busyness is the enemy of spirituality.  It is essentially laziness.  It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing.  It is filling our time with our own actions instead ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=46 Freedom is a central concept within Christianity.  God freed the Hebrews from Egyptian captivity.  The early Jewish Judges routinely protected or delivered ancient Israel from invaders.  God restored captive Israel to their land a second time. It is important to understand that freedom entails both the idea of being freed from ... http://www.christcommunitycovenantchurch.org/blog2/?p=45