This past Sunday’s service was great! Everybody did a terrific job! I want to again thank everyone who shared. I was also super encouraged over the fact that we gave almost $1,300 toward a love offering that will significantly bless some families within our church family! Thanks for being willing to share so generously!

I also have some positive news regarding December’s budget. We haven’t closed the books quite yet, but it appears that our giving exceeded our expenses for a third month in a row. I’m so thankful to the Lord for His provision, and for your willingness to faithfully honor Him with your tithes and offerings. Traditionally, giving amounts tend to dip during the first few months of the year, but I’m praying that through God’s enablement, that our giving will continue to be cheerful, sacrificial and regular (II Cor. 9:7).

This coming Sunday is going to be a big day with a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! We’re going to be making an important announcement about an addition to our ministry that is going to be a tremendous blessing to our church! I can’t wait to tell you about it!

Here are a couple of other reminders of some upcoming events:

• Saturday, Jan. 2 - Clothing Closet Ministry from 8:30 to Noon
• Tuesday, Jan. 19 - Christ’s Church is hosting THE TABLE at 6:35 pm
• Fri-Sat, Jan. 22-23 - S.W.A.T. Lock-In Rescheduled
• New Sermon Series starting January 10
• 

I hope all of you have a Happy New Year! I’m looking forward to new opportunities for ministry and service in 2010!

I think we made the right decision to cancel our services today. Even if we had hired someone to plow our parking lot, you would have needed a vehicle with 4-wheel drive to traverse Spruce Street Ext. Shawn and Katie said that eight cars ended up in the ditch on Friday night. All of them had to be pulled out.

I drove over to the building last night to reprogram the thermostat and the street had still not been plowed. Not only that, I had to wait to get through because another car had gotten stuck in the middle of the street about 200 yards from our parking lot. Thankfully some ‘Good Samaritans’ had stopped to help. One of them was in a large pick up that had a wench on the front bumper. I just sat in the road and watched them pull the stuck car out of the way.

I was in my truck and even with 4-wheel drive enabled, it was a slippery challenge to get in and out of our parking lot.

That being said, I will miss getting together this morning. I love Sundays! I love our fellowship! But I’m looking forward to relaxing with my family today. We may listen to an online message together and have a our own ‘family worship service’ in the home.

Please don’t forget that we’ve rescheduled the breakfast and special service of praise for next Sunday (Dec. 27).

Anybody who knows me knows that I love technology. I’m especially interested in the different ways it can be leveraged as a tool for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ. I had a blast at our recent Table gathering where anybody in attendance with a cell phone had the opportunity to text in questions to a panel of pastors who discussed and attempted to answer each of them on the fly.

Very cool. But more than cool, it was helpful and resourceful. But like practically everything else, technology can be a wonderful servant, but terrible master. I just read an insightful post along those lines.

N.T. Wright on Managing Technology

Do you think the questions that Gabe raises are worth considering? What questions or concerns does it raise for you?

Every Tuesday morning Tim and I get together for a “staff meeting” (although I’ve officially dubbed it “staff hanging” because it’s more about hanging out and connecting than it is about having an official meeting). Besides coffee, conversation, planning and prayer, we study together. We recently finished up Wayne Grudem’s Bible Doctrine, which was a rich systematic study of the key doctrines of Scripture.

If you love God’s Word, making your way through Grudem’s book is like enjoying a thick ribeye cooked to perfection. Seriously, it’s that good. I recommend it highly.

Beginning in January we’re going to be reading and discussing John Piper’s book, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. I am so stoked! With more and more books about ministry focusing on church growth via a business model, it is so refreshing to see that Piper has not strayed from the simple priority we see in Scripture to keep the emphasis on the ministry of the Word and prayer.

Piper offers this rationale for the title:

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is the not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness, there is no professional tenderheartedness, there is no professional panting after God.

The title of this book is meant to shake us loose from the pressure to fit in to the cultural expectations of professionalism. It is meant to sound an alarm against the pride of station and against the expectation of parity of pay and against the borrowing of paradigms from the professional world. Oh for the radically Bible-saturated, God-centered, Christ-exalting, self-sacrificing, mission-mobilizing, soul-saving, cultural-confronting pastors!

We kicked off a short two-message series yesterday entitled, CHRISTMAS QUESTIONS. Yesterday’s message dealt with the issue of DOUBT. We contrasted the responses of Zechariah and Mary –– both of whom had angelic encounters with the angel Gabriel (Luke 1). Zechariah struggled with unbelief (vs. 20). Mary believed, but had questions about how everything would take place (vs. 34).

We talked about how there’s nothing wrong with having questions. In fact, Christianity is big enough to handle the hard questions. Anselm, the church father called it faith seeking understanding.

That was Mary’s response. She didn’t argue with God, or disagree with God, she simply wanted to know, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Zechariah wanted proof, Mary wanted to know the process.

In that regard, doubt is not the opposite of faith, unbelief is. There’s a difference between the two:

• Doubt can’t believe – Unbelief won’t believe
• Doubt is honesty – Unbelief is obstinacy
• Doubt is looking for light – Unbelief is content with darkness.

The simple fact of the matter is that practically every believer has experienced doubt (re-read Matt. 28:16-17). God never turns an honest doubter away. In fact, the greatest doubters often become the strongest believers (John 20:24-31).

I also brought up Matt Chandler in the message yesterday. He’s the lead teaching pastor of the Village Church, and one of my favorite preachers. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor about a week ago and underwent a serious seven hour surgery to remove it this past Friday. Please join me in continuing to pray for he and his family.

I mentioned a very moving blog post that he wrote right before the surgery. A video has also been posted that was taped before the surgery and shown to their church family yesterday. I’d encourage you to check out both entries:

Matt’s Blog

Updates (on Facebook) from the Village Church Elders