The DeSocio's.com: Life, Faith, and Learning

Ed Clowney on the Mission of the Church

Sam — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:18:37 +0000

Mission is not an optional activity for Christ’s disciples. If they are not gatherers, they are scatterers. Some supposed that a church may feature worship and nurture, leaving gathering as a minor role… Such a church is actively involved in scattering for the congregation that ignores mission will atrophy and soon find itself shattered by internal dissension. It will inevitably begin to lose its own young people, disillusioned by hearing the gospel trumpet sounded every Sunday for those who never march.

The Church p.159-160

Hiatus

Sam — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:27:59 +0000

I am taking a month long break from my psuedo-regular blogging. I need to concentrate on Graduating and on Ordination exams which are coming up in May.

Pray for me.

What The Heck?

Sam — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:58:22 +0000

totally speechless……..

Really Bad Theology

Sam — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:04:12 +0000

Sometimes you click on a few sights and you can’t help but link to the videos.

Two crazy videos with Benny Hinn, both are absurd, and a bit sad.

This last one is a little more subtle but read these quotes about and from Jesus afterward.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 14:14 [Jesus said] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

1Cor. 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Everything Changes, Yet Remains the Same.

Sam — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:33:43 +0000

All Europe is coming across the ocean, all that part at least that cannot make a living at home, and what should we do with them they increase our taxes, eat our bread, and encumber our streets and not one in 20 is competent to keep himself.
New York Resident Philip Holme 1840’s.

Death, Life and Brokeness:Dialoguing with “The Fountain”

Sam — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:46:29 +0000

Last night my wife and I watched Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. The film started Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The visual mood set by the film was simply beautiful. The plot of the film revolves around Jackman and Weisz as they are played out in three time periods set hundreds of years apart, 1500’s, 2000’s and sometime in the distant future. I found the film enjoyable, and fortunately it had the right pacing, and was only about an hour and forty minutes in length. What struck me the most about the film was what it was saying about the human experience.
–Spoiler Alert–
The film revolves around Jackmen’s, quest to save his beloved, Weisz. At the film’s heart is one man’s war against death itself, for the Astronaut, it is reaching the center of a decaying star, for the scientist it is finding a cure for his wife’s tumor, and for the conquistador it is finding the fountain of youth. As the film develops we find out that the conquistador’s story is actually being written by Izzi as she is dying of a brain tumor, while Tom the scientist and Tom the Astronaut turn out to be the same man, Tom has found a way to prevent death but not before it has taken his wife. As the three storylines intertwine what I was left with was a sense of loss and confusion surrounding death. Aronofsky, either coincidentally or intentionally, seems to be drawing attention to the wrongness of death in our reality. In fact the only real antagonist of the film is death itself, Tom at one point speaks of death as a disease, which he will stop.
Watching this film from a Christian perspective, I could not help but relate and root for Tom to try and defeat death, yet all the while knowing that he would be unsucessful. As a christian I hate death. Death is a constant reminder that something is wrong with the world, and the universal notion that we fight against death simply verifies that an animosity towards death is not something reserved only for Christians.
As I said before, I can sympathize with the despair that Tom experiences as he watched his wife’s life slip away. Yet, as a Christian I believe that death is not some cosmic happen-stance, but a result of the sin of one man. Death is not something that tells us that God is unfair, on the contrary the Bible clearly states that God shares the same hatred of death as we do.

As I watched Tom’s fight against death become more and more futile, I began to pity him. Tom was a man who spends hundreds of years searching for a way to defeat death, and ultimately fails. At the climax of the film he comes so close and yet cannot do it.

I related so much to Tom because if I had not had a radical encounter with Jesus, my life would ultimately be a less flashy, less climactic telling of the same story–Man loves woman, man looses woman, man dies trying to regain that woman. Tom is not powerful enough to overcome death, and neither am I. Fortunately I do not have to try and fight against death, the way that Tom did. I do not have to try because someone has already overcome death in my place. Jesus did what neither I nor Tom could do, he overcame death. He did this because he loved me and knew that I could never do it, on my own.
What really struck me at the end of the film as the credits rolled and Clint Mansell’s stirring soundtrack filled the room, was the fact that there are millions of real people today, like Tom. People who are, as I type, fighting against death like the Character Tom, and all of them are coming to the same end that he came to, minus the hollywood frills.
Death is a bitter thing. It should dig at us. It should outrage us. It should stir those seeking answers to ask questions. And, it should, motivate christians, in the face of death, to cry out: “There is hope. Death is not God’s pattern, it is our mistake! Yet Jesus has done what a thousand Tom’s could never do, he has defeated death itself.”

A Visual History of the Church

Sam — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:50:50 +0000

Do The Test- Pittsburgh

Sam — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:58:04 +0000

thx -BikePgh

The Church or the Church in Reaction?

Sam — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:00:04 +0000

I heard a lecture recently where the speaker was talking to Alan Hirsch about his banging of the missiology drum almost to the exclusion of everything else. Hirsch’s response was that the rest of the church is going one way so much, that he is seeking to strike a balance by going the other way.

In class today, I was presented with a similar situation. Our Hebrew class was talking about Psalms such as 139, which speak about the vengeful murder. Some of the men in the class were arguing that it is fair to focus on such texts because much of the church has forgotten that God is Just.
I argued that God is just, that he will make everything right and that our focus must be the expansion of grace, and in light of that fact we don’t want to swing the pendulum to one extreme because others have fallen on the other side.

Maybe this is one of those things that reveals my youthful optimism, and maybe I am just too young to see it this way, but it seems fair to say that many of the Christianity’s biggest problems are found when one group is swinging against the extremes of another group.

Wouldn’t it be better if the church was the church in every situation, constant and moving forward, rather than swaying from right to left depending on the decade or the issue. Maybe we should simply be balanced and trust that God is in control and that he will balance those groups that are on the extremes. I want to be balanced not the balancer.

I hope that every church that I am a part of will be a church of fasting and feasting, of contemplation and emotion, of joy and lamentation, of grace and justice. Never sacrificing one thing for the other.

Job Offers, Graduation and Exams

Sam — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:08:53 +0000

Since the cat is out of the bag at church,I’ve decided to announce, that I have been offered the Assistant Pastor position at City Reformed Presbyterian Church. For those of you who don’t know, City Reformed is a PCA Church located in the center of Pittsburgh’s most densely populated neighborhood, which happens to be the location of several world-class universities, Including Pitt and CMU. The church was started 3 years ago, and they moved to a Sunday morning services about a year and a half ago. In my opinion the church has shown how those “stuffy” presbyterians can be radically faithful to the work of Jesus. In February they were organized as a church with its own leadership, and now two months later they have decided to call me as their assistant pastor while they only have 80 members.

Why are they doing this? Well I haven’t got to hear the official answer from our elders but here are some of the reasons I can think of: They are firmly committed to caring for as many people as possible. They are firmly committed to the expansion of the Kingdom. They have a hope for more churches in Pittsburgh.

Before I can even official accept their offer, several things have to happen. Many of these things are tied to the Presbyterian Denomination with which I am linked. I need to finish my masters degree which I have been working towards for the last three years. I have to complete the necessary requirements for ordination, in the PCA, this includes submitting a few papers, to show that I wrestle with the important issues that face pastors every day, and taking my ordinations exams which can be pretty grueling. After I’m able to be ordained the Presbytery, the regional network of elders and pastors, will examine the actual job offer that City Reformed has made. Once that is all accomplished I will able to official accept the position at City Reformed.