Friday Favorites - Zoo Music

SUNDAY, JULY 30
Steve Earle & The Dukes
The Cactus Blossoms
The Mastersons

Thursday Thinking - How Big Should a Church Be?

The Church and Dunbar’s Number
By Howard Snyder - July 1, 2017 · Seedbed.com

How large should your church be?

Silly question, you say. Depending on your theology or worldview, you might add:

- Large as possible! Bigger is better!

- That’s up to God!

- I’m shooting for 1,000 (or 2,000, or 3,000, or whatever).

- I like small and intimate!

Here’s a better answer: A congregation should be large enough to fulfill all the essential functions of Christ’s body—and small enough to really function as body of Christ.

So we might take a quick look at “Dunbar’s Number,” which happens to be 150.

CLICK TO CONTINUE READING THE COMPLETE ARTICLE (5 minutes)

Wednesday Words - The Farm

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.
He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet
and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose
and the jack-in-the-pulpits.
His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.
The dog and purple iris
keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,
a lightning bolt on the horizon.
His crops suck rain from the sky
and swallow the smoldering sun.
His fields are oceans of heat,
where waves of gold
beat the burning shore.

A red fox
pauses under the birch trees,
a shadow is in the river’s bend.
When the hawk circles the land,
my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.
Owls gather together to sing in his woods,
and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,
a hillside of white powder.
He parts the snowy sea,
and smooths away the valleys.
He cultivates his rows of starlight
and drags the crescent moon
through dark unfurrowed fields.

"The Farm" byJoyce Sutphen from Straight Out of View (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Joyce Sutphen.

Tuesday Tome - The Good Book

I'm reviewing this book right now and may be using it for Sunday Morning or Wednesday Night adult Bible study at Valley Christian Church starting in October. We would be doing one chapter a week. If you've read this book, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Do you feel it's well-written? Does it do a good job presenting Biblical themes? Would it be a good introduction for those who have never read the Bible? Does it have compelling ideas that will be meaningful to people who are familiar with scripture and have been Christians for some time? Let me know what you think.

THE GOOD BOOK
by Deron Spoo

Publisher's Description...

The Good Book offers a user-friendly guide to the Bible's biggest ideas. A chapter from the Bible accompanies each chapter of the book, which helps readers understand the context and content of the Scripture passages in a way that can open the whole Bible.

Designed as a forty-day journey through forty key chapters of the Bible, The Good Book will appeal to those who already love and read the Bible regularly as well as to those who are just beginning their Christian journey.
 

The Good Book is great for individuals, and it can also be used by small groups in an eight-week church-wide program or a forty-week journey that focuses on one Bible chapter each week. The Good Book will help people understand and live by the transformative truths of the Bible.

Monday Music - José González

José González: NPR Tiny Desk Concert - CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE

Sunday Supplication – Protect and Guide Us

O Lord, we ask you to give us clean hearts. We ask you to protect and guide us as we strive to be a growing and devoted part of your Church in the world. May your goodness and grace shape us and direct us. Help us to honor you and to follow faithfully in the way of Christ Jesus.

You know our weaknesses, O God, and you understand our limitations.  Our sins and failures are no secret or surprise to you. And yet, Dear Father, you are faithful to forgive, you are ready to renew, you are able to lift us up, and you call us to press forward in Christ.

In the same way, help us to forgive and to bless others. Make us gracious and merciful to others.

Thank you, O God, for Jesus, your Son who came to live among us, full of grace and truth. Help us to see him for all he is. Help us to grow in our relationships with him. Help us to follow him wherever he leads.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Good Timing

Friday Favorites: LAKEVILLE PAN-O-PROG

LAKEVILLE PAN-O-PROG CRUISE NIGHT

Tonight, July 7, Downtown Lakeville

FREE • 6:30-8:00pm

CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE INFORMATION

Thursday Thinking – Smaller Worship Centers

Six Reasons Why Church Worship Centers Will Get Smaller 
by Thom S. Rainer • June 29, 2015

I am a product of the Baby Boomer big worship center era. For many of us old guys, the formula for building a worship center was straightforward. We would project the church’s growth many years out and build a worship center to accommodate that growth in a single service.

Those days are ending.

The more common approach today is to build a worship center that will accommodate growth with multiple services, multiple venues, and multiple campuses. As a consequence, there will be no need for a large, single-service facility.

How did this change take place? Let’s look at six key reasons...

CLICK HERE READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE (5 minutes) 

Rainer's six key reasons summarized...
1. The pervasiveness of multiple worship services.
2. The growth of multiple venues.
3. The unexpected growth of multiple campuses.
4. The desire for perceived intimacy.
5. A greater emphasis on building stewardship.
6. The Millennial generation is sensitive to the issues of stewardship and fellowship intimacy.

_____________
Thom S. Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Prior to LifeWay, he served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism. He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Alabama and earned his Master of Divinity and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Wednesday Words - The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems: Volume 1,
© Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver.

Tuesday Tome - Grace for the Afflicted

This is the book selection for our Valley Summer Book Club on Monday nights.
Our next meeting is Monday night, July 10. We'll be discussing chapters 5 and 6.
Order your book and join us.
Get complete info about dates and reading schedule HERE.

Grace for the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness
by Matthew S. Stanford

Publisher's description...
Each day men and women diagnosed with mental disorders are told they need to pray more and turn from their sin. Mental illness is equated with demonic possession, weak faith and generational sin.

Why is it that the church has struggled in ministering to those with mental illnesses? As both a church leader and professor of psychology and neuroscience, Michael S. Stanford has seen far too many mentally ill brothers and sisters damaged by well meaning believers who respond to them out of fear or misinformation rather than grace.  

Grace for the Afflicted is written to educate Christians about mental illness from both biblical and scientific perspectives. Stanford presents insights into our physical and spiritual nature and discusses the appropriate role of psychology and psychiatry in the life of the believer. Describing common mental disorders, Stanford asks of each: "What does science say and what does the Bible say about this illness?"

Monday Music - Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale

CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE

Sunday Supplication - Bless and Multiply

O God, we believe you are the source of all truth and wisdom. We believe that you know our needs before we ask, and you know the needs we have but are unable to know. We look to you for compassion and provision and direction.

We confess our sins and weaknesses, Lord. We repent of the ways we have disobeyed and turned from you. We thank you for forgiveness and ask that you help us to turn away from wrong.  Transform us and give us the faith to press toward life, healing, restoration, holiness, and good deeds. 

You are so gracious to us, and we ask you to make us able and quick to be gracious toward others. Give us hearts, O God, to look beyond our own needs and to see the needs of others.

Dear Jesus, bless and multiply our meager resources so that we can bless and help others. When we feel too empty or weak to share, fill our hearts and hands with good things to give.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Self Awareness