Grace Blog
Adding An Additional Service - Pray and Participate
Over the past several months, the pastors have been meeting to assess the encroaching needs of our congregation in our gathered meetings on Sunday morning. While we grieve over the loss of several families in recent months due to the economy and relocation, God has continued to bless Grace with an increase of 35-40 more in attendance compared to last year. While the importance of this issue has not gone unnoticed, the urgency of it became acutely aware when extra chairs were necessary to seat guests during the month of August, a summer month with typically lower-than-average attendance.
Not only has seating capacity been an issue, we are also needing to address traffic flow, restroom availability, and parking availability. These practical reasons were addressed on Wednesday, October 7 by Pastor Tom. Here are the downloadable resources for your use:
* Practical Considerations (13-page PDF)
* Practical Considerations (audio/MP3)
On Wednesday, October 14, Pastor Tom (along with pastors Ken and Tim) will address the theological considerations and in particular how adding an additional service plays a part in facilitating what God is doing at Grace through the blessing of new attenders, believers, and members. A PDF and MP3 of that presentation will likely be made available as well.
The recommended Sunday morning schedule will change slightly with the addition of a new service. The pastors are recommending that beginning Sunday, November 1, 2009, the Sunday morning schedule change to the following:
8:00AM-9:15AM Early Worship
9:30AM-10:30AM Sunday School
10:45AM-12:15PM Late Worship
11:00AM-12:00PM Spanish Sunday School
12:15PM-1:45PM Spanish Worship Service
As you can imagine, there will be several opportunities to serve among the various ministry teams in both services including the nursery, greeting team, welcoming team, media team, ushers, and parking team. A survey will be made available to you on Wednesday, October 14th to discover the ways in which God may be leading you to serve in any of these areas. On the following Wednesday, October 21, we will hold our annual members’ meeting and vote on adding another Sunday morning service.
We ask that all members of Grace continue to pray and participate in this important process to discern God’s will as we seek to be faithful stewards of all His wonderful blessings, not the least of which are the people from our community who are coming to hear the gospel preached through the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is an exciting time in the life of our church, and the pastors look forward to carefully lead in a manner that faces the future in faith by addressing the present opportunities with a passion for God’s glory in the advance of His church.
Labels: Additional Service, Grace Baptist Church, Resources | posted by TimBrister at 8:27 pm | Categories: News and Announcements, Resources |
Resources on Union with Christ
In my last post, I mentioned a great little resource on union with Christ from the writings of John Flavel. There are a couple of other books worth checking out, though they are a little more academic in nature (and more costly!). In any case, the place where you can find nearly every resource related to the doctrine of union with Christ is on this blogpost by Phil Gons. There you will find everything from books, articles, essays, chapters, and even conference papers! Be sure to check it out.
A couple of other books that I recently picked up that might be of some interest to you are:
Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press), 2008.
Maurice Roberts, Union and Communion with Christ (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books), 2008.
Labels: Resources, Theology, Union with Christ | posted by TimBrister at 1:59 pm | Categories: Jesus, Resources, Theology |
Books on Biblical Theology
In my last post, I provided some links online that explain the study and discipline of Biblical Theology. Under our “Media” menu bar, there are lists of recommended reading, one of which has to do with Biblical Theology. I am, however, reordering them focusing on the “beginner” to the more “advanced” reading. Here are some books you might want to check out, especially those in the first section.
“Beginner” Reading:
1. According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible by Graeme Goldsworthy
2. Life’s Big Questions: Six Major Themes Traced Through the Bible by Vaughan Roberts
3. New Dictionary of Biblical Theology by IVP
4. The Goldsworthy Trilogy by Graeme Goldsworthy
5. God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible by Vaughan Roberts
6. Central Themes in Biblical Theology: Mapping Unity in Diversity by Scott Hafemann and Paul House
7. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments by Geerhardus Vos
8. Biblical Theology: Retrospect & Prospect by Scott Hafemann
“Intermediate” Reading:
1. Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ by John Owen
2. The God of Promise and the Life of Faith: Understanding the Heart of the Bible by Scott Hafemann
3. The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen
4. The Promise-Plan of God: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments by Walter Kaiser
5. The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology by Charles Scobie
6 . The Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson
7. The Christ of the Prophets by O. Palmer Robertson
Labels: Biblical Theology, Books, Resources | posted by TimBrister at 8:05 am | Categories: Biblical Theology, Books, Sunday School Stuff |
Three Main Steps to Starting Family Worship
My friend and fellow blogger, James Grant, has written a helpful article wherein he provides three simple steps to starting family worship. His three steps are:
1. Plan to have family worship after an evening meal
2. Read through a good book
3. Say the Lord’s prayer after reading the book
James breaks down each of these points in further detail, so I encourage you to read the whole thing as he also points you to some helpful resources as well.
Labels: Family Worship, Resources | posted by TimBrister at 6:31 am | Categories: Parenting/Family, Resources |
Free Theology Lectures on iTunes
Some of you may be familiar with the large amount of lectures available through Reformed Theological Seminary on iTunes U. Most recently The Theology Program, directed by C. Michael Patton and geared for theological training of lay people, has made several of their classes available for free as well on iTunes. These lectures serve for edifying drive-time listening if you have a commute or can be listening to while exercising, doing yard work, or simply during around your daily devotions.
You may be wondering: How do I do this? What do I need? I will try to offer a little assistance.
Here’s what you need:
* internet access
* iTunes on your computer (which you can download online)
* an MP3 player (with wired accessories)
Here’s how to get the MP3’s:
1. Click on the links above. If iTunes store does not open immediately, click on iTunes as the program of choice.
2. A menu of items will show up on the iTunes store. Click on the lecture series or course that you like, and click “get this” for the MP3’s you would like to have downloaded to your computer. Some series have a “get all” button where you can get all of the audio in a series with one click of a button. At this time, iTunes will begin downloading the audio to your computer.
3. One the downloads are completed, go to your iTunes playlists, and you should find your downloaded content there.
Hope that helps, and enjoy some good theological training!
Labels: Resources, RTS on iTunes, The Theology Program, Theological Education | posted by TimBrister at 11:00 am | Categories: Resources, Theological Education |
Theology for Kids: Recommended Resources
In the December 2008 edition of Themelios e-journal, Andy and Jennifer Naselli provide 10 helpful annotated theology resources for children. Before they offer their brief reviews, they provide these helpful words:
Many people have an opportunity to teach children about God, including parents, grandparents, older siblings, babysitters, and Sunday school teachers. Teaching theology to children is a joyful yet sober responsibility that many seem to take lightly. It is not as easy as one may suspect. It is challenging to communicate truth about God and his creation to children in an accurate and easily understandable way.
1. Communicating accurately requires a grasp of the Bible’s storyline and how all the little stories contribute to the one big story. It requires a sound biblical hermeneutic that does not promote the trivial, extrapolate illegitimately, read between the lines, miss important nuances, or focus on people rather than God.
2. Communicating in an easily understandable way requires clarity, conciseness, imagination, creativity, excitement, and appropriateness (e.g., in word choices, length of teaching, level of detail, and means of conveying spiritual truth).
This is hard work. Thankfully, some fine theology books for children are available. (And they are edifying for adults, too!) Without pretending to be experts on theological children’s literature, we have sorted through recent theology books for younger children and compiled a short list of outstanding books. Other books are undoubtedly worthy of mention, but these are our favorites. What follows organizes them in three categories and ranks the books in order, beginning with our top recommendations.
You can read all their reviews here.
Labels: Books, Children, Resources, Themelios, Theology | posted by TimBrister at 3:49 pm | Categories: Parenting/Family, Resources |
Watch Modern Parables
Modern Parables is an original film-based Bible study curriculum that transforms the way people see Jesus’ parables. For a limited time, they are giving everyone a chance to watch all their films in their entirety. Here’s a little more information about this film project:
Modern Parables seeks to re-create the emotional immediacy that Jesus’ 1st-century audience felt when hearing the parables. It does this by using some of the best parable scholarship and exploring it through creative filmmaking. The gut-level understanding made possible by the films is intended to drive listeners into a deeper understanding of the Bible.
1. Extremely Biblical – The films are not just loosely based on the parables, but very accurately follow the original text. The goal of the films is to re-create the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual impact of the original parables. It is the high integrity to the Word of God in all its parts that makes the study so effective.
2. Very Entertaining – All of the films have been produced with strong production values that are immediately apparent to an observer. Furthermore, each of the films has been based on the style of different directors from the past, so each film looks and feels very different from the rest. Because the films are entertaining and based on the Bible, everyone seems to enjoy the learning process.
3. Truly Relevant – By modernizing the parables, they become more accessible to a contemporary audience. People can immediately relate to what the films are saying as well as to what the pastors are teaching. The pastoral application videos show how the parables relate to our daily lives, as well as how we each fit into the broader scope of the Kingdom of God.
Labels: Media, Modern Parables, Resources | posted by TimBrister at 7:49 am | Categories: Jesus, Media, Resources |
Biblical Parenting Resources from The Resurgence
A Biblical Parenting Conference was recently held at Mars Hill Church (Seattle, WA), and The Resurgence website has just made the conference media available. Ted Tripp was the speaker, who is author of several excellent books on Christian parenting, including Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart.
Here’s the media from the conference:
Session 1: The Call to Formative Instruction
Session 2: Giving Kids a Vision for God’s Glory
Session 3: Helping Kids Understand Authority
Session 4: Helping Kids Understand the Heart
Session 5: Overview of Corrective Discipline
Everyone wants to be a great parent—the biggest responsibility of parenthood is teaching your children to love Jesus with all of their heart, soul, and strength. For parents with children of any age, Dr. Tripp’s insightful, biblical teaching provides perspectives and procedures for shepherding your child’s heart into the paths of life.
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
Labels: Biblical Parenting, Resources, Ted Tripp, The Resurgence | posted by TimBrister at 12:44 pm | Categories: Parenting/Family, Resources |
