Update on Bless Burma!

Austin City Life website has new information on the Bless Burma! project.

 

Author of Total Church has a new book

Tim Chester, perhaps best known in the U.S. for his book Total Church (forthcoming in U.S. by Crossway), is releasing a new book in the U.K. called You Can Change. You can Change is endorsed by Tim Keller and looks promising for equipping gospel-centered sanctification.

Here are the table of contents:

1.   What would you like to change?
2.   Why would you like to change?
3.   How are you going to change?
4.   When do you struggle?
5.   What truths do you need to turn to?
6.   What desires do you need to turn from?
7.   What stops you changing?
8.   What strategies will reinforce your faith and repentance?
9.   How can we support one another in change?
10. Are you ready for a lifetime of daily change?

You can see him discussing the book here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LG74hvjgY74.

 

Pimping Einstein for God

Much has been made of the recent letter from Einstein to Eric Gutkind regarding his dismissal of the Bible and the God of the Bible. Atheists and Christians alike have pimped Einstein for their faith agendas–belief in God or belief in no God. Al Mohler cuts through the pimping with a level-headed review of the letter and its implications for all believers, theist or a-theist. He remarks:

The emergence of the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind goes a long way toward setting the record straight. Evangelical Christians are prone to over-excitement when any famous person, living or dead, is claimed as a believer in God. This is not an attractive habit, and it often leads to intellectual embarrassment. The truth of the Gospel and the reality of the self-revealing God are not enhanced by vague expressions of a non-theistic spirituality or a sense of nothing more than an inexplicable sense of meaning in the cosmos. (more)

Ironically, Einstein showed us more about God through his Physics than his Theology. In this regard, we could say that God pimped Einstein for God…but that would be inflammatory. God did not pimp Einstein; he gave him an incredible intellectual capacity and personal discovery that warranted belief in God. These gifts have illuminated Science and humanity in marvelous ways. Yet, despite these gifts Einstein’s mind and heart remained fallen, in need of spiritual awakening to embrace the God who is there. To know God is a gift, one that can only be received by asking in faith.

 

Burma vs. China

Read this BBC article on the swift action of Communist China to the sluggish response of Dictatorship Burma.

 

Hatch, Noll, & Piper on Last 40 Years of Evangelicalism

Here is a link to the audio from a recent symposium at Wheaton College, where Nathan Hatch (Democratization of American Christianity), Mark Noll (Scandal of the Evangelical Mind), and John Piper (Desiring God) discussed the strengths and weaknesses of American Evangelicalism over the past 40 years.

HT:JT

 

Bless Burma!

Austin City Life started a Bless Burma campaign last Sunday. This campaign will last at least four weeks and is intended to raise and channel financial aid for the Burmese affected by cyclone Nargis. If the Burmese people do not receive the necessary aid, some estimate the death toll could reach 1.5 million. Unfortuantely, the military government (junta) is restricting outside aid and attempting to personally distribute the aid without outside help. Not only does this slow aid down, it will ineveitably lead to more loss of human life.

In a stroke of providence, Austin City Life is well connected with some people who work in Burma. These workers have access to suffering Burmese and can get roofing supplies and fresh water to those in need. We are partnering with OMF and Partners. Here is the OMF project for Burmese (Bamar) Relief, which also includes more information about the crisis and people of Burma.

In the weeks to come, we will have a missionary share about their experiences in Burma and continue to learn about how we can best serve the Burmese during this time. More details forthcoming.

 

Superficial Prayers?: Praying Beyond Sickness

So often our prayers and prayer requests remain generic and superficial: God help so and so, bless this, heal that, and so on. Generic, superficial prayers are heard by God, but we have to wonder if we are really “praying in the Spirit” when we maintain a generic, superficial course in prayer. He’s not a healing or blessing genie. God is set on changing us, making us into his likeness, confronting our sin, renewing our souls, strengthening our faith, deepening our joy. The Spirit specializes in “deep interior” prayers, guiding, shaping, convicting, renewing, leading to repentance and faith. In Speaking the Truth in Love, David Powlison comments our superficial prayer in sickness:

Too often pastoral prayers, prayer meetings, and prayer lists disheartened and distract the faith of God’s people. Prayer become either a dreary litany of familiar words, or a magical superstition. It either dulls our expectations of God, or hypes up fantasy hopes. Prayers for the sick can even become a breeding ground for cynicism: wouldn’t these people have gotten better anyway as nature took its course or medicine succeeded? Prayer can also become a breeding ground for bizarre obsession with health and medicine,; naming and claiming your healing…Sickness, like any other trouble, can force us to stop and face ourselves and find our Lord. I may find sins I’ve been too busy to notice: irritability, indifference, self-indulgence…Is God interested in healing any particular illness? Sometimes. Is he always interested in making us wise, holy, trusting, and living, even amid our pain, disability, and dying? Yes and amen. People learn to pray beyond the sick list when they realize what God is really all about.

 

Is it Burma or Myanmar?

BBC provides a helpful article clarifying the confusion around the different names for the country, noting the political implications for using one over the other.

 

New Austin City Life website

Check out the new, vastly improved website for our church, Austin City Life. We are launching it in stages and will be working out the kinks, so its not all filled out. However, there’s plenty to check out and its pretty cool. Let me know what you think.

**View in Firefox or Safari for now, if possible.

Design and photography by Jen Cota (also a calligrapher).

 

True Humanity sermon

A message I recently gave on True Humanity, in which I consider the difference between Darwin and God’s understanding of what it means to be truly human.