Bridgeview Bulletin for December 5, 2010

Welcome to worship today!  I am so glad that you are here today. If you are a visitor this morning I want to take a moment to tell you how special you are to us. There are so many churches in our area, some of them are really good, some are not, but you chose to worship here today and I am honored that you made that choice. Bridgeview is like no other church that I have ever seen, we are a group of real people with real problems who make real mistakes who have chosen to come together and worship a real God who loves us in spite of us, and I hope that you will be comfortable here and join us.

Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is flying towards us at what seems like warp speed. We look back and it seems like 2010 just began and now we are preparing to close it out. I spent some time this week trying to remember what my New Year’s resolutions were for this year and I honestly can’t remember one of them. Maybe forgetfulness is a blessing in this case. I am tossing around the idea of writing my goals down for 2011 and posting them in my office; but it would be hard to eat an ice cream sandwich in peace when I know that I have resolved in writing to lose weight.

Now is the time to begin thinking about our goals and resolutions for 2011 and over the next few weeks I am going to offer a few suggestions and ideas for you to consider as we look toward 2011 and where we hope to be this time next year. We are going to look at prayer and Bible reading specifically and I hope I can give you some tool that will make your goals more attainable.

If you miss a week, most of the time you can find this section of the bulletin on my blog: www.closertoday.blogspot.com or you can let me know and I will get you a copy. Enjoy being in God’s house today, I love you and God bless you.

Another Book

I've just ordered this book from Amazon and I can't wait to start reading it. I listen to Chip Ingram on Faith Radio almost every night, he is a great teacher.

Hair-cut Day

It is amazing how easy it is for your child to break your heart. I realized this cruel fact the other day at the barber shop. On every other normal hair- cut Saturday this is what happens: I get in one chair and start getting my hair cut while Riley gets in another chair and gets his hair cut and just to ensure that there is no catastrophic incident Bridget stands with Riley.

This system worked perfectly fine until just a few weeks ago when Bridget decided to send me and Riley alone to get our hair cuts. Now I am a big boy and I can handle standing there with him while he gets his hair cut (he is actually very good because he wants a sucker), but something happened on this Saturday that I almost could not handle. Riley sat in the chair and I took my position by the counter talking to the lady cutting his hair, he looked at me, and said, “What are you doing?” I told him I was standing there like Momma does and he politely told me that he did not need me to stand there and I could go read a magazine or something. I’m sure that I looked like a scolded dog walking to the waiting area with my eyes swelling and my heart breaking. My little boy is growing up.

What Riley did not know was that I never took my eyes off of him, at the first sign of trouble I would have been there. I couldn’t read a magazine (I had read that issue of Women’s Day anyway) because all of my attention was on him as he bravely did what we have been training him to do. I guess we never know if our parenting is working until we let go.

As I thought about this sad hair-cut day I realized that once again God was using my son to show me something about Him. God loves us more than we could ever love someone and His complete attention is constantly on us, not because He wants to punish us when we fail, but He wants to witness it when we succeed. God enjoys seeing His children do what is right, He wants us to do good, that is why He takes the time to mold us and correct us.

So the next time you feel like you are all alone, when you start to worry because you can’t feel God right there with you, just look around He is watching and He is never too far away.

Mixing Politics with Religion again

This is a week late on here, but this is what I wrote for our bulletin at church October 31st(the Sunday before the election). I just wanted to post it for future reference.

The founders of our country said in the Declaration of Independence that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Like these men, I believe that freedom is a gift from God, but it is a gift that comes with responsibility.

As Americans we are familiar with our freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion, but we also have the freedom to choose. We are able to choose what kind of society we will live in, we can choose how much we will pay in taxes, we can choose the moral standards of our society and we can choose how we will relate with the other countries of the world.

This is what our founding fathers planned for our society; the problem with this plan would be in the execution. We cannot gather millions of people together to make all of these decisions together, what a mess that would be. So instead of gathering all Americans together every two years to discuss and plan how we will use our freedom, each state is allowed representatives who do meet together to plan how their constituents will exercise their freedom.

So as Election Day closes on us, it is important for each person to carefully examine the candidates and ask the question, “Which one of these people will use my freedom in a way that I would use it?” You see, voting is more than selecting a representative, it is commissioning a messenger, it is entrusting someone with your freedom to choose and allowing them to choose on your behalf.

To not participate in the process is to allow someone else, right or wrong, to choose how your freedom will be used. I hope that you will make plans to participate in the process by praying, educating yourself on the candidates and voting.

The Newest Addition to my Library

Dispensationalism is a very controversial issue for most Christians. My problem with this doctrine is that there are not many dispensationalist who can actually offer an apologetic for their belief, but Charles Ryrie is an exception. I am about half way through the book now and have learned a great deal, so go ahead and order it, throw a book cover from one of your Max Lucado books on it so no one knows what you are really reading and enjoy.

What I am reading now

I would not recommend this book for casual reading, but it is a must read for church leaders. What an encouragement it is to be reminded of just how powerful God is. It doesn't matter where your church is spiritually God can still do something great, however it may not be easy or pleasant. Make sure you check this one out.

BOLO for Christ

With all the garbage on the internet these days it is encouraging to find a good site that builds you up instead of tearing you down. A friend of mine has started a blog and I wanted to recommend it to you. You will find a link to it on the right side of your screen and I hope that you will check it out.