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Connecting man to man to God! Week of November 4, 2007 Issue 181
CONNECTIONS is the opt-in newsletter for the men & friends of Minister Frank Coleman. It's a periodic service that helps connect you with God and with other men. If you'd like its delivery to your email address stopped, scroll down and follow the instructions at the end of this message. Also let me know if you change your email address and want to keep subscribing to CONNECTIONS.
"The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
CONSIDER "You are as happy as you choose to be." Rick Warren
TAKING REVIVAL TO THE WORLD Step into a Hillsong London service and you walk into the Dominion Theater, which seats 2,000 people. Choose a seat on the balcony or on the ground floor, and when the strobe lights and sophisticated video images begin flashing in the dim theater, you might wonder if you're waiting for We Will Rock You: The Queen Musical!, the show currently running at the Dominion.
Hillsong Church, which recently celebrated its 20th year in Sydney, Australia, is growing its global reach Sunday by Sunday. As the largest church in Australia's history, it regularly attracts 20,000 people to its weekend services. GOD TV, a Christian satellite channel, broadcasts many Hillsong events, boosting its potential audience to 400 million worldwide.
A member of the Assemblies of God denomination, Hillsong has burgeoning church plants in London, Paris, and Kiev, Ukraine. It has also been holding services in Moscow and Berlin. Hillsong's reputation alone is enough to generate huge interest. In London, a Saturday night service and three Sunday services are necessary to accommodate the 7,000 in attendance.
Hillsong is perhaps best known for its music. Its famous worship pastor, Darlene Zschech, wrote the song "Shout to the Lord." It is estimated that 25 million Christians sing that song each week worldwide. Since the 1990s, Hillsong has released about 50 praise and worship recordings. Hillsong United, its youth ministry and band, has sold recordings by the millions in the American market.
Last fall in London, 3,000 people gathered at the Excel Center for the first-ever Hillsong Conference Europe. On the first night, the crowd hushed and then broke into applause as the lights went off and words appeared on the video screens at the front: "The church is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body in which he speaks and acts and fills everything with his presence".... Read this in full at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/october/44.34.html
LIVE IN SYNC "His influence is behind the building of countless schools, cathedrals and orphanages. His followers have lead the way on a global and historical scale in shaping our planet: in providing literacy and education for the masses, hospitals, aged care, the abolition of slavery, women's rights, exploration, science, charities, lobby groups and welfare organizations. His teachings have influenced our history and our laws. So entrenched is he in our culture that his name has - unfortunately -- become a curse word used by people who hit their thumb with a hammer.
And ultimately, his teachings directly influence the thoughts and actions -- the very way of life -- of billions of people around the world every day. He inspires those who follow him to live in sync with the way God wants...to serve others and to live right, to live the way we are supposed to. Jesus clears away the muck that clogs up our lives and restores us into a right relationship with God." Peter Downey and Ben Shaw, Everything You Want to Know about Jesus: Well...Maybe Not Everything but Enough to Get You Started
BIBLICAL FAITH CONFRONTING OPPOSING SPIRITUAL REALITIES by Willard M. Swartley Regardless of what one thinks about Halloween, the day should at least remind us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of the age. There are two issues I find vital. First, how do we become a true people of God who have the courage to stand against every opposing spiritual reality, clothed with the full armor of God? And second, how can we make our worship services vibrant proclamations of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that worship is evangelism, an evangelism that delivers from darkness to light?.... Read this in full at http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1051
OF EVIL ANGELS by John Wesley (1872) What did the great founder of Methodism, John Wesley, think about demons? "...From the time that [these angels] shook off their allegiance to God, they shook off all goodness, and contracted all those tempers which are most hateful to him, and most opposite to his nature. And ever since they are full of pride, arrogance, haughtiness, exalting themselves above measure; and although so deeply depraved through their inmost frame, yet admiring their own perfections. They are full of envy, if not against God himself, (and even that is not impossible, seeing they formerly aspired after his throne) yet against all their fellow-creatures; against the angels of God, who now enjoy the heaven from which they fell; and much more against those worms of the earth who are now called to "inherit the kingdom." They are full of cruelty, of rage against all the children of men, whom they long to inspire with the same wickedness with themselves, and to involve in the same misery...." Read this in full at http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/72/
3 LESSONS There are three lessons I would write, Three words, as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light, Upon the hearts of men.
Have Hope. Though clouds environ round, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put off the shadow from thy brow: No night but hath its morn.
Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven-- The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth-- Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven, The inhabitants of earth.
Have Love. Not love alone for one, But man, as man, thy brother call; And scatter, like a circling sun, Thy charities on all. Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
WHY DO YOU SEEK GOD? "I fear that many people seek to hear God solely as a device for securing their own safety, comfort and righteousness. For those who busy themselves to know the will of God, however, it is still true that 'those who want to save their life will lose it.' My extreme preoccupation with knowing God's will for me may only indicate, contrary to what is often thought, that I am over-concerned with myself, not a Christlike interest in the well-being of others or in the glory of God." Dallas Willard (b.1935), Hearing God [1999], p. 28
IN GOD'S NAME The November 1st edition of The Economist magazine has an extensive special report on the role religion is playing around the world.
"...For most elites of the 20th century, God had been undone by Darwin, dismissed by Marx, deconstructed by Freud. Stalin forcibly ejected Him, but in much of western Europe there was no need for force: religion had been on the slide for centuries. In Britain the "long withdrawing roar" of Anglicanism that Matthew Arnold lamented faded to a distant echo in the 20th century.
"In America the number of churchgoers stayed high, but evangelical Christians retreated from politics, embarrassed by the failure of prohibition and the Scopes Monkey trial (in which creationists were mocked). In 1960 Jack Kennedy assured the country that his Catholicism would not pollute his politics. In 1966 Time magazine famously ran a cover asking "Is God dead?"; three years later man reached the moon, metaphorically conquering the heavens.
"For modernizing post-colonial leaders in the developing world, secularism and progress were indivisible. "The fez", said Kemal Ataturk, "sat upon our heads as a sign of ignorance and fanaticism." In India Jawaharlal Nehru wished to make "a clean sweep" of organized religion: "almost always it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation and the preservation of vested interests." In Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser, the champion of Arab nationalism, clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Africa's new rulers nationalized the Christian mission schools that had taught them. Even "the Jewish state" deemed religion a distraction: after Israel's founding in 1948 the secular David Ben-Gurion agreed that rabbinical law would prevail in matters such as marriage and divorce partly because he assumed the Orthodox would melt away.
"In retrospect, the turning point came long before Osama bin Laden declared his jihad on Jews and Crusaders. For Timothy Shah, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York who is writing a book on secularism, the symbolic turning point was the six-day war of 1967...." Read this in full at http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10015255
LEADERSHIP TIPS (BUSINESS, FAMILY, LIFE) "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt
"A leader is a dealer in hope." Napoleon Bonaparte
VERSE TO PONDER "May the God of peace sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thessalonians 5:23
CONSIDER "We will never crave to be filled until we are convinced that we are empty."
THE WRONG PERCEPTION by Jerry Jenkins I find it depressing, though I suppose inevitable, that evangelicals are all painted with the same brush. I hope we are not guilty of the same generalized thinking as we engage the culture. Yes, we extend across a wide philosophical spectrum from the Jim Wallises and Tony Campolos to the James Dobsons and Gary Bauers, but where we land on the political landscape should not be how we are judged. The New Testament makes clear that we should be known for our love for one another. It seems to me that the more political we get, the less loving we appear...." Read this in full at http://blog.beliefnet.com/blogalogue/2007/10/the-wrong-perception-jerry-jen.html#more
HA! A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk I have a work station.
INTERVIEW: ATHEIST TURNED BELIEVER For the last half century, the world's most famous atheist was Antony Flew. Long before Richard Dawkins began taking swipes at religion, Flew was the preeminent spokesman for unbelief. But now Antony Flew is the world's most famous convert to belief in God. What turned his world right-side-up? "I must say...that the journey to my discovery of the Divine has thus far been a pilgrimage of reason. I have followed the argument where it has led me." Read this interview in full at http://www.tothesource.org/10_30_2007/10_30_2007.htm
PEBBLES IN MY MIND by Dr. Del Tackett As I was halfway through my run this morning, I became aware of a sharp pain in the bottom of my right foot. I have felt this kind of thing before. It was a stone in my shoe. With every step, this stone was making an impression upon the nerves in my heel. Those nerves were sending little messages to my brain. My brain was interpreting those messages and informing me that not only was there "something" in my shoe, but it was a sharp and painful "something."
In the past, I have stopped at this point and taken the time to remove my shoe and dump the "something" on the ground. But not today. No, today I was feeling stubborn. I continued to run because I didn't want to take the time to stop, untie my shoe, take it off, remove the stone, put my shoe back on, and then tie the laces again. I chose to ignore it and continue running. But ignoring it didn't work... Read this in full at http://deltackett.com/2007/09/10/pebbles-in-my-mind/
A HIGHER ECCLESIOLOGY FOR EVANGELICALS Bryan Litfin's Getting to Know the Church Fathers, which has chapters on Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Perpetua, Origen, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria, is designed to introduce the ancient church to evangelicals. Litfin writes about the lives and major issues of each person, then lists possible study questions, books for deeper exploration, and a short excerpt of the church father's writing. He is concerned that many Christians have rejected the church fathers under the impression that they were detached from Scripture, Roman Catholic, and that they represent the "fall" of Christianity after Constantine's conversion. Litfin spoke with Christianity Today about introducing evangelicals to Patristics.
Q: Whom did you write the book for? A: Someone like me, someone who had heard of the concept of the ancient church and thought Yeah, there were people in togas who got thrown to the lions. But I didn't really know who they were, and I certainly didn't feel any spiritual or theological connection to them. Then I began to see them as real people. I began to see them as my forefathers, that I might feel an organic connection. And that church history is a continuous story.
We can recover the fathers as our own and we can recover them through a direct line back, so that all the richness of church history becomes ours. That's what I want to do for the Christian today: I want the Christian to understand that there's a richness to their history that they're missing; embrace it and let it be something that inspires you.... Read this interview in full at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/143-53.0.html
A PRAYER THROUGH THE CENTURIES "Teach me, Lord, to sing of your mercies. Turn my soul into a garden, where the flowers dance in the gentle breeze, praising you with their beauty. Let my soul be filled with beautiful virutes; let me be inspired by your Holy Spirit; let me praise you always." Teresa of Avila
RICHNESS OF BEING "Yale theologian Miroslav Volf says that there are two kinds of richness in life: 'richness of having' and 'richness of being.' We seek richness of having, but what we really want is richness of being. We want to be grateful, joyful, content, free from anxiety, and generous. We scramble after richness of having because we think it will produce richness of being, but it does not.
We can have very little and yet be rich. A rich soul experiences life differently. It experiences a sense of gratitude for what it has received, rather than resentment for what it hasn't gotten. It faces the future with hope rather than anxiety. The apostle Paul discovered that when he was living as a friend and companion of Jesus, who 'though he was rich, yet for [our] sakes he became poor.' Paul himself experienced richness of being." John Ortberg, When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box
CONSIDER "Christians should have...such abundant life that in poverty they are rich, in sickness they are in spiritual health, in contempt they are full of triumph and in death full of glory." C. H. Spurgeon
VERSE TO PONDER "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2
THIS WEEK'S HYMN: CREATION'S LORD, WE GIVE THEE THANKS Words: William D. Hyde, 1903
Creation's Lord, we give Thee thanks That this Thy world is incomplete; That battle calls our marshaled ranks; That work awaits our hands and feet.
That Thou hast not yet finished man; That we are in the making still, As friends who share the Maker's plan As sons who know the Father's will.
Beyond the present sin and shame, Wrong's bitter, cruel, scorching blight, We see the beckoning vision flame, The blessèd kingdom of the right.
What though the kingdom long delay, And still with haughty foes must cope? It gives us that for which to pray, A field for toil and faith and hope.
Since what we choose is what we are, And what we love we yet shall be, The goal may ever shine afar -- The will to win it makes us free. >from CyberHymnal at http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/l/clwgttha.htm
A PRAYER "Almighty God, who created humanity after your image and gave them living souls that they may seek you and rule your creation, teach us so to investigate the works of your hand that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengthen our intelligence for your service. And grant that we may so receive your Word as to believe in him whom you sent to give us the science of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins. All this we ask in the name of the same Lord Jesus Christ. Amen." James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
PRAY FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS TODAY http://christiansincrisis.net/
DAILY BLESSING PACT Use the following list as your daily prayer guide. Think of a brother or situation that applies and lift them up in prayer.
I am agreeing in prayer with you for God’s blessings to overtake you!
PERSONAL Marital harmony Family unity Children saved Faithful pastor Spirit-filled church Real friendships Relatives redeemed Educational benefits Recreational time Fulfilling career Favor with God and man Be in God’s will
FINANCIAL Better Jobs Raises or bonuses Benefits Sales & commissions Business Growth Settlements Estates & inheritances Investment increase Rebates & returns Checks in the mail Gifts & surprises Money to be found Bills decrease while blessings increase
"And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God" (Deut. 28:2).
[As you travel on business or vacation, let me know if you'd like the church guys to pray for your safety and spiritual effectiveness. I'll add your name to the list for the time you'll be away.]
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Darth Vader Does the Blues (turn your speakers on) http://www.ysmarko.com/?p=2091
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Are you giving God what is right, or what is left? Min. Frank Coleman, Editor
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We offer a variety of activities for men to interact with other men on our journey of faith in Christ together. Large group, small group, and one-to-one events encourage relationship building and spiritual strengthening that result in maximizing the potential we all have in Christ. Contact Min. Frank Coleman, 773-410-1483, [email protected] if you'd like to participate in a men's discipleship program.
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