Twitter Updates for 2010-02-08

Posted in Tweets

  • a sick child means time @ home to work on #ReTrain but I greatly miss gathering for worship w/ Grace Bible Church http://gracea2.org #
  • $300 4 official adidas all-star game jersey? Are they serious? Schizophrenic shoe designs &outrageous prices. No wonder they're irrelevant. #
  • people who watch the #superbowl only for the ads are quiet disappointed. Count me among those #
  • Seriously under-estimated how long it would take to read Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture for #ReTrain #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-07

Posted in Tweets

  • after no work outs for 2 months, hittin it hard 2 days in a row is gonna kill me. Props to Mike @ Tortoise & Hare for the great core workout #
  • My love for Jesus is best measured by my willingness to let Him be the hero and not me. #
  • I must daily examine myself to put to death delusions of church planting grandeur. #
  • If people know me, we both lose. If people know Jesus, we both win. #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-06

Posted in Tweets

  • was just told by @mobileme tech support that being able to reply-to a message and delete part of the original email is not supported #
  • really? Web MobileMe email is so limited that reply-to doesn't work well? Sure works for #gmail #hotmail #live com, #yahoo & everyone else #
  • All done cataloging and labeling my library by LOC number. Thanks for the idea @PastorMark & @robberreth http://twitpic.com/11kzpl #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-05

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5 Tips for Communicating without Starting a Fight

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From the Crossway blog and Joe Carter, who writes for First Things, among many other places.

Whether you are defending your faith, telling someone about God, or simply in a discussion—these simple tips can help you communicate effectively without high blood pressure or raising your voice:

  1. Start with examples your audience will understand: Always start with an example or concept your audience knows, understands, or finds interesting, and connect it to your core message.
  2. Speak your audience’s language: When you speak to an audience, to the extent possible, you must speak their language.
  3. Use witness: Consider the use of witnesses essential to the construction of an effective message based on narrative and ethos. Wherever possible, elicit testimonies.
  4. Know when to speak: There are a lot of important topics in the world, and it is not necessary that you have something to say about all of them—particularly if speaking on the topic would hurt your credibility or detract from your primary goal.
  5. And know when to be silent: Silence is one of the most powerful forms of communication. It shows that you are in control and gives the person or people a moment to think for themselves and consider how they will respond to your message

Read full article from Relevant Magazine here. Adapted from How to Argue Like Jesus.

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-04

Posted in Tweets

  • lots to do for #ReTrain Finish papers, read Piper and Goldsworthy, and write vision/values statements for Engage Groups and COTR #
  • w/in my lifetime, conservative religious groups (Christian, Muslim, & Jew, etc) will lose tax benefits for contributions #
  • If you then stop giving, who are you actually putting your trust and hope in? #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-03

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Twitter Updates for 2010-02-03

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I Will Build My Church – Church Planting, John Piper, and Bethlehem Baptist

Posted in Church Planting, Faith

Among the many admirable attributes of Bethlehem Baptist Church is its commitment to church planting. On January 31, 2010 Pastor John Piper preached on the necessity of church planting and that God alone will build the church. Pastor John opened with statistics that demonstrate the necessity of planting churches

  1. There are about 200 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the four largest “unchurched” nations in the world.
  2. Each year about 3,500 churches close their doors permanently.
  3. Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.
  4. One American denomination recently found that 80% of its converts came to Christ in churches less than two years old.

He followed with a discussion of Bethlehem’s past, and future, church planting efforts and an exposition of Matthew 16:18. You can read the manuscript here and watch the video here.

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Great preaching IDEA from Kevin DeYoung

Posted in Faith, Preaching

Summarized from his blog post on the 9Marks blog

When you come to a passage there are four things you can do:

Illustrate – this is one of the two most difficult to do. “It requires a different part of your brain. You need to think creatively. You need to imagine what your people are or might be going through”

Defend – “it is rarely wise to spend a lot of time defending what your people don’t need defended”

Explain – “If the passage is especially obscure or controversial, it makes sense to land heavy on the E. But sometimes the passage is relatively simple. In this case, don’t spin your wheels on endless word studies that basically repeat with synonyms what everyone can see immediately in the text”

Apply – his is one of the two most difficult to do. “It requires a different part of your brain. You need to think creatively. You need to imagine what your people are or might be going through”

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