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CCPCVision.pdf (122 KB)

Since I was just printing it out to copy for Sunday, I figured I'd post it here too.  This is the vision document for our church.

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I love this quote from Thomas Manton's sermon on Colossian 1:14;

We look upon the threatenings of the law as a vain scarecrow; therefore, for the terror and warning of sinners for the future, God wold not release his wrath, or release us from the power of sin and Satan, which was the consequent of it, without a price and valuable compensation.  None was fit to give this ransom but Jesus Christ, who was God-man.  He was man to undertake it in our name, and God to perform it in his own strength; a man that he might be made under the law, and humbled even to the death of the cross for our sakes; and all this was elevated beyond the worth of created actions and sufferings by the divine nature which was in him, which perfumed his humanity, and all done by it and in it.  This put the stamp upon the metal, and made it current coin, imposed an infinite value upon his finite obedience and sufferings.

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I love this quote from Calvin. 

He [Paul] shews us, however, at the same time, that we must draw from the fullness of Christ everything good that we desire for our salvation, because such is the determination of God — not to communicate himself, or his gifts to men, otherwise than by his Son. “Christ is all things to us: apart from him we have nothing.” Hence it follows, that all that detract from Christ, or that impair his excellence, or rob him of his offices, or, in fine, take away a drop from his fullness, overturn, so far as is in their power, God’s eternal counsel.

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I love the portability that technology brings. I'm sitting in an auto shop waiting area working on my sermon for Sunday—Colossians 1:15-23. All I have with me is my Bible, iPhone, and MacBook (sans wifi). But with just these I have at my finger tips the ESV text, ESV study Bible notes, the Greek text (UBS27), Calvin's commentaries, and the Reformation study Bible notes. Technology is a beautiful thing— especially when it's used to exalt Jesus.

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I read this great quote this morning in DA Carson's, The Cross and Christian Ministry.  This is the kind of punch to the gut I need every morning as a church planter.

"Western evangelicalism tends to run through cycles of fads.  At the moment, books are pouring off the presses telling us how to plan for success, how 'vision' consists in clearly articulated 'ministry goals,' how the knowledge of detailed profiles of our communities constitutes the key to successful outreach.  I am not for a moment suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such studies.  But after a while one may perhaps be excused for marveling how many churches were planted by Paul and Whitfield and Wesley and Stanway and Judson without enjoying these advantages.  Of course all of us need to understand the people to whom we minister, and all of us can benefit from small doses of such literature.  But massive doses sooner or later dilute the gospel.  Ever so subtly, we start to think that success more critically depends on thoughtful sociological analysis than on the gospel; Barna becomes more important than the Bible.  We depend on plans, programs, vision statement—but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning.  Again, I insist, my position is not a thinly veiled plea for obscurantismm, for seat-of-the-pants ministry that plans nothing.  Rather, I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed brom the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight.  Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry."

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This move to Culpeper has been anything but expected.  In fact several things have been down right discouraging.  Like,

1. Having the washer break when we got here.  That's right, Hallie hasn't been able to do a single load of laundry for almost two weeks.  They ordered a part for the machine.  The tech was here to install it this morning and that part was broken too.  Now they are ordering another part for us. Hallie is at the laundromat right now as I type this.
   
2. We just had to have undercarriage repaired on our minivan.
3. I found out that the paper loader on my work printer doesn't work at all.  HP is shipping me a new printer.
4. Our house is still for sale in MS.
5. We've looked at every home for sale in Culpeper and haven't come up with any good options.
6. Just found out that ATT inadvertently canceled my text message service a month ago without notifying me.  Oops.  I just spent 20 minutes on their customer service.  They corrected their error, reestablished service, and credited my account.
7. Add to this the difficulty of moving to a different state into a 4 month rental.
   

The cross is the constant reminder to me that what God is doing isn't punishment but rather Fatherly love.  If I didn't have the Cross I'd think God were furious with me right now.  But he isn't, in fact he has never been more affectionate—an easy truth to type and a hard one to work into my heart. 

I know other families have problems that make my petty list look like a vacation at Disney World.  But for us, this has been hard... and we are right where God wants us.  I'm learning about God's grace during difficult times.  He is sovereign and good—especially when I'm mistrusting of him.

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This morning I asked my Twitter and Facebook compatriots to narrow their Christ-centered blog picks down to the top 3. Here are some of their responses in no particular order.

• Joe Thorn's Blog
• Feeding on Christ
• Reformation21 Blog
• Desiring God Blog
• Challies.com
• True North
• Between Two Worlds
• Christ is Deeper Still
• The Resurgence
• The Gender Blog
• Al Mohler's Blog
• Of First Importance
• The Gospel Driven Church

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I'm a child of American Evangelicalism.  I've inherited it's genes.  Some are good, some are bad, and some are mutations.  One of my biggest struggles to overcome as a young Christian was understanding the Old Testament correctly—seeing laser focus on the person and work of Jesus.  My secret desire is still to read the Old Testament like a New Testament Christian Jew. 

Why?  Becuase when you read Paul you can't help but see how much he loved the Old Testament.  He saw how it all fit together to glorify his Lord and mine—Jesus Christ.  He and his other New Testament authoring friends are serial Old Testament quoters.  They just couldn't stop.  They saw in it glory ammunition—an arsenal for the praise of Jesus.

One of the things I've done to to try and genetically engineer my spiritual genes is underlining New Testament quotes in the Old Testament.  My hope is that as I read the Old Testament over and over again, those blue lines will teach me to start seeing the text like Paul did—through the lens of the Cross. 

If you're interested in more on this subject you should read Graeme Goldsworthy's, According to Plan.  You could also pick up a colored pencil and start writing in your Old Testament.

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