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No YA Monday, May 22nd
Hey Friends!
We are not gathering Monday May 22nd for Young Adults. Our church is hosting the East Coast Pastor’s Conference for Calvary Chapel. Many of your Home Group leaders will be attending. I encourage you to pray for them, that they hear what the Lord has for them. I also encourage you to listen to the studies and be blessed by them. They will be posted a few minutes after each session Monday May 22nd – Wed May 24th. https://resources.ccphilly.org/
See you all at our Memorial Day Picnic on the field at Calvary Philly May 29th!
Friendship with God
Book Recommendation
Have you ever read a classic book and found yourself struggling to read and comprehend, yet alone finish? There were many times where I would find myself reading the same page repeatedly. I sometimes even doubted if I knew how to read with the vocabulary being used. It can be a struggle to push past the dead language and stick with the book until the end, especially with old theological books. Maybe you totally resonate with this or remember a time when this would happen to you.
I remember when I was handed my first christian classic; everyone raved about how good it was, but I found myself struggling to read and to comprehend. I will admit, however, that with some mental fortitude, we can stretch our minds to read and comprehend these works. If you work through the “pain and suffering”, you might discover a really rewarding experience and the next time will be a little easier, maybe. I truly found it easier with each book, so be of good cheer and keep pressing on!
Why This Book?
When I first read Communion With God by John Owen, it was one of those experiences. It was first written in the mid-1600s but to this day is one of the best books on a Christian’s communion with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I was excited to see, not a modernized translation, but a modern adaptation with a purpose of presenting the same ideas as the original. Enter Friendship with God by Mike McKinley. “The problem (and the reason for this book) is that Owen can be difficult to read and understand. His language is outdated, the world that he was writing to is very different from ours, he never tires of listing out points and subpoints, and his writing style can seem overly complicated at times (he never seems to explain anything in ten words if he can explain it in fifty!).”
God desires to have a close relationship with us. He not only died for us, but He calls us his friends, his bride, and his family. What does that mean for us practically?
In an even greater way, Christians might struggle to imagine that God would actually want to be friends with us. We have been given faith to believe that he has saved us from our sin and provided us with eternal life in Christ, and honestly that’s far beyond what we have a right to expect. But the idea that he wants even more for us, that he wants to be in a close relationship with us? That all seems like a bit much. The second difficulty that Christians run into is that it can be hard to know what it means, practically speaking, to have a friendship with God. When we become followers of Christ, someone usually gives us some sense of what to do next: go to church, avoid sin, read the bible, and pray. But the question is, what does any of that have to do with being God’s friend.
Therefore, I would like to recommend this book to you. The goal was to “mine some of the most precious diamonds of Owen’s spiritual insights and make them available and applicable to you as you grow in your enjoyment of the friendship of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. Grab it from your favorite bookstore at church or check it out on audio read by the author. I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me. Let me know if you read it.
Labor Day Picnic tonight—Cancelled!
Monday 9/5– Everyone, sorry about this, but we’re going to have to cancel our Labor Day gathering out front, due to impending rain.
Next week we’ll be back on schedule with home groups on 9/12. And the following week (9/19) we’ll all be back at the church building for our large group gathering. Hate to miss you all tonight, hope your Labor Day evening is blessed regardless!
NO YA Monday July 4th
Hello everyone, we’ll take the week off from meeting for July 4th.
Next week (7/11) we’ll be back at the church building for our large group meeting.
There’s a lot going on, right? Stay close to Jesus. Stay in step with the Spirit. Listen to the word above all else. God knows who we are and what he wants us to do.
See you next Monday.
Memorial Day, With YA
When: This Monday, May 30 @ 6:30 pm
Where: Front, Ballfield, in front of the church building
What: Cookout, Worship, Testimony, Hang Out
Food: Bring a side or dish to share, and we’ll grill up the meat!
Note: Hello everyone, we’re experiencing trouble with our Instagram account, as you may have noticed, so we can’t currently post this info. Maybe we’ll find out we don’t even need it, but in the mean time, feel free to share this info with anyone you know who might want to join us. See you then!
A Hymn for Tuesday Night
The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
The darkness falls at Thy behest;
To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.
We thank Thee that Thy church, unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.
As o’er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.
The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren ’neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.
So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.
–By John Ellerton
No YA tonight – 12/27
Hey friends, what a great time with you all last Monday night at the Christmas Hymnsing.
Just a reminder that we do not have young adults fellowship tonight (12/27)—the church building is closed.
We’ll be back together next week (1/3) in our home groups, and then our first large group of 2022 will be Monday night 1/10. And then we’ll be back on our usual every-other-week schedule. Peace! And happy new year.
“Boundless Shall Thy Kingdom Be”
A hymn for Christmas Eve, by Ambrose of Milan:
Savior of the nations, come,
virgin’s Son, make here thy home!
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
that the Lord chose such a birth.
Not of flesh and blood the Son,
offspring of the Holy One;
born of Mary ever blest,
God in flesh is manifest.
Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child
of the Virgin undefiled!
Though by all the world disowned,
still to be in heaven enthroned.
From the Father forth he came
and returneth to the same,
captive leading death and hell,
high the song of triumph swell!
Thou, the Father’s only Son,
hast o’er sin the victory won.
Boundless shall thy kingdom be;
when shall we its glories see?
Praise to God the Father sing.
Praise to God the Son, our King.
Praise to God the Spirit be
ever and eternally.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Don’t Waste Your Twenties
This is a repost from July of 2014…Hope you enjoy.
A writer named Trevin Wax, who is 33, gives these pieces of advice for those of you in your twenties:
- Read beyond the requirements of college, church, or work. That’s right. Read. Feel free to enjoy video games, movie-watching, or other fun activities, but make sure you are intentional about deepening the well of your spiritual and educational life. You’ll soon discover how much need to draw from that well.
- Build relationships and connections with people who care about similar things. Find people you respect. Learn from them. Walk with people in ministry and learn from their successes and failures. Seek out mentors and listen to them.
- Embrace the big markers of life. If you believe God is calling you to marriage and childbearing, don’t postpone those two things indefinitely. Truth is, no one is ever really “ready” to have a kid. Ever. You’re never “mature” enough or “financially stable” enough to get married or have kids. I actually think, most of the time, the reverse is true. Marriage and kids are often what God uses to grow us up.
- For those who are single by circumstances or by calling, please do not misinterpret the previous word as suggesting that you can’t be mature without marriage or kids. History is filled with examples of Christians whose singleness (whether permanent or temporary) provided the opportunity to channel passion and wisdom into fruitful ministry. Take John Stott’s advice: “Go wherever your gifts will be exploited the most.”
- Future pastors, sermon preparation doesn’t start when you get a ministry position. It’s the result of whole-life preparation. Remember that. And start preparing now. Immerse yourself in the Word and in the lives of people.
- Future missionaries and church leaders, you are on mission now. You don’t need a title, a ministry position, or a seminary degree before you’re on mission. Jesus’ commissioning is all you need to love God, love people, and witness to the truth of the gospel. John Mayer sings ”Waiting On the World To Change.” It did. 2000 years ago when a dead Man walked out of His tomb. So let’s get going.
- When the day arrives and a leadership role is thrust upon you, you’d better be the person you need to be. You can and will do some training, of course, but so much of your role requires you to be a certain kind of person, not just do a certain kind of thing.
- Be willing to serve in the trenches of ministry without praise or acclamation. Serve your church. Work hard at whatever job you’re at. Encourage the people around you. If God chooses to expand your sphere of influence, wonderful. If not, then be the best you can be right where you are.
He ends with this encouragement:
Friends, if you are entering or still in your twenties, let me exhort you: do not sit these years out. Do not wait on the big job or the amazing ministry you think you deserve. Love God and love people now.
Become the person you want to be in your thirties; prepare for the role you’d like to have, even if, like me, you’re busing tables at Cracker Barrel. You’re not waiting on anyone, and time won’t wait for you either.
If you’d like to keep thinking about your twenties, last year I wrote a booklet specifically for you called Surviving Your Twenties and you can download it here.
The Abiding Influence of the Obsolete Tutor
Last night in our home groups we continued our discussion of the Old Testament Law and what it has to say to followers of Christ today. For the discussion, I shared a very helpful passage from Allen Ross’ book Holiness to the Lord. Ross has some good insight into how the Law, while no longer over the follower of Christ as a law-code, still can act as a helpful guide to God’s will for our lives:
The law was a pedagogue [a tutor] leading to Christ. [See Galatians 3:19-29.] The law in many ways laid the foundation for the full revelation of God’s plan of salvation that came in the person of Jesus Messiah, the Son of God. A pedagogue was a servant who came alongside he child as a tutor and supervised that child in everything until maturity. Then the pedagogue was no longer needed. The people of God in the Old Testament represent the beginning of the household of faith; they were living in the promises and awaiting the fulfillment. Now that the Messiah has come and the promises are being fulfilled, the household of faith no longer needs the pedagogue, but can live in the light of the fulfillment of the promises. Nevertheless, what the pedagogue was teaching through the ritual and the rules can now be freely applied in the spiritual life.
The law was thus both regulatory and revelatory. The regulatory aspects of the law – kinds of animals, composition of incense, handling of blood, and all the other ritual acts – were bound up in the culture and experience of ancient Israel. The revelatory aspects of the laws – holiness of God, nature of sin, access to God, forgiveness of sin, removal of impurity, and all the many theological meanings of the acts – taught the abiding truths of the person and work of the Lord as they were unfolding in Scripture. When Christ came and inaugurated the new covenant, the regulatory aspects of the law came to an end: there was no longer a temple, sacrifices, or a functioning priesthood based on the Sinai covenant. But what all these laws revealed about the nature and will of God did not come to an end, for they are binding revelation.
For further study in the concepts Ross is working with here, see New Testament passages like Galatians 2:15-21, Galatians 3:19-26; Matthew 5:17-18;and Romans 10:4.
Get In Touch
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Feel free to contact us and get in touch.
Hope to hear from you soon!