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On the Mark – Psalm 19:1-6 – December 5th
By Trevor, December 7, 2010 10:16 pm
“Knowing and Loving the Creator and His Creation”
Psalms 8, 19, 29
1. Read Psalms 8, 19, 29. What do you hear from God’s Word about Him? About yourself?
2. What do these psalms tell you about the Creation? What do they say especially about the sky and storms?
3. According to Psalm 8, verse 3, how is perspective gained by considering the heavens?
4. As Americans of the 21st century we spend nearly all of our time indoors or in vehicles. David was outside for nearly all of the time in his life before the throne, and even after enthronement. (You could make a case that his sedentary life got him into deep trouble!) What do you think God may be saying to you a bout getting outside and looking up to the sky more often?
5. We are told in Scripture: “remember your Creator in the days of your youth”. (Ecclesiastes 12:1). To remember our Creator and to muse on His Creation will bring blessing. How have you forgotten Him? David says in Psalm 19:12-13, “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless; innocent of great transgression.”
Rev. Deborah Leighton – November 14th 2010
By Trevor, November 14, 2010 10:30 am
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Rev. Dr. Justyn Terry – Luke 19:1-10 – October 31st
By Trevor, October 31, 2010 10:30 am
Jesus and Zacchaeus
Introduction:
To what extremes have you gone to get tickets to a concert, show, game, or other event? What was it that you “had to see”?
Have you ever been friends with someone other friends of yours didn’t get along with? What did you do?
What are your dinner parties like?
Observation:
What town are they in? What happened there (Joshua chs. 2, 5, 6)?
What is Zacchaeus’ profession? How was that profession viewed?
What kind of restitution does Zacchaeus want to make?
Interpretation:
What do you think it meant for Zacchaeus that Jesus knew his name? That He came to his house? What point does it seem that Jesus is making about His mission?
Why would Jesus call Zacchaeus a “son of Abraham”?
What do you think this passage is saying about forgiveness? Restitution? Generosity?
Application:
What does it mean for you that Jesus knows you by name? What would it mean for Him to “come to your house”?
Is there anyone with whom you are being called to seek reconciliation?
Where is Jesus taking you to places or to people that others wouldn’t go?
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On the Mark – October 24th
By Trevor, October 24, 2010 7:00 am
On October 19, 2010, the Most Rev. Robert Duncan, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America addressed the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism, held in Capetown, South Africa. The full text of his speech is available at the Welcome Center. Echoing Luke 1:51-52, Archbishop Duncan discussed the decline of the Episcopal Church in terms of the Lord “scattering the proud and lifting up the lowly.” He then turned to lessons applicable to the whole church:
Four lessons are foremost. This session is not primarily about Anglicanism, but about the whole Christian Church…
Standing in God’s Truth raises God’s Allies. First, when any of us stand for God’s Truth in first order issues, where the salvation of souls rather than condemnation of opponents is our goal, it brings unity in the Church, true unity. The whole Church throughout the world is also challenged to stand with you….Allies emerge from countless unexpected places. Both ethnic division and denominationalism fade away.
Humility Builds God’s Partnerships. Humility and charity – as well as forgiveness and reconciliation – among those partnering are essential for God to work in situations where social, economic colonial and ecclesiastical inequalities have heretofore operated. New learning abounds. We in the US and Canada have learned a great deal about ways churches can be planted, about the necessity of ending our silence concerning resurgent Islam, about evangelism and discipleship, and even about how ancient structures might serve mission once again.
The rich have to become poor in the things they previously judged to be their riches, and the poor have to see themselves as God sees them: perhaps from the “weakest of the tribes” but “mighty men of valor” nonetheless. [Judges 6:11-16]
God does lift up the lowly. Global South Anglicanism is now majority Anglicanism. The average Anglican is now a woman, an African, a mother, and under the age of 20. We are not the Church of England anymore. God speaks to us of previously unimaginable possibility. In ACNA we believe God has set us to planting 1000 new churches in our first five years of life. I met with 20 eager Wheaton College students in August. None of them were raised Anglican. All believe themselves called to some kind of missionary life as committed disciples of Jesus. They want not only to tell about Jesus, but to do what Jesus did. From the ruins of the heretical and wayward denominations that marginalized, exiled and expelled the faithful of an earlier generation, a new generation is clearly being drawn to believing and serving in the humbled and renewed Anglican Church that is emerging.
Personal Conversion deepens with Gospel suffering and sacrifice. We have learned that the cross of Jesus is the way of life. We have firsthand evidence that those who are prepared to give up buildings and endowments and pensions and relationships and respectability, for the sake of the gospel, are far more committed disciples than they were before their trials and their struggles. Deciding for Jesus changes people, not only at the first but every time the cross is embraced. Among those already facing challenges of poverty, war, disease and famine – but who nevertheless act to help other suffering brothers and sisters, perhaps even on a faraway continent – for these God also deepens the conversion, often also bringing new friends and new hope, renewing godly self-image, and opening lines of provision for their original needs.
Scattering the Proud and Lifting Up the Lowly I speak to you with all humility. Ours is no North American triumph. Ours is a rescue story in a global Church. It is not necessarily an Anglican story. It is a story of the whole Christian Church at its best.
On the Mark October 24thOctober 24.pdf
On the Mark September 19th
By Trevor, September 19, 2010 7:28 am
Cædmon
Cædmon is the earliest of three historically accepted Anglo-Saxon poets. He was a herdsman in the monastery known as Whitby Abbey. Cædmon ‘s earliest recorded date would place him during the abbacy of St. Hilda (657-680).
Probably getting on in years, Cædmon believed he was unable to sing with the brothers; as a herdsman, he slept with the animals. In a dream one night, he had a vision of a male figure directing him to “sing his own song”. After weighing his attitude regarding being unable to sing, he did sing as he was charged, "the beginning of created things" which he completed with additional verses when he woke. Word of Cædmon’s ability reached the abbess who charged him to write a poem entitled “a passage of sacred text or doctrine”. Impressed with his heart-felt results, she then directed him to take monastic vows, and she assigned scholars to teach sacred history and doctrine to this new monk in their midst.
Avoiding heroic or worldly stories, Cædmon ‘s poetry is purely religious. He built on moral teachings and directives from the Bible. Bede stated that many other English writers fell short in trying to imitate Cædmonian sacred verse. His works featured his daily English life and monastic surroundings, vivid picturing of the armies heightened in comradeship and battle in the flight of
This was the beginning of a long history of English sacred poetry. Cædmon died in ecclesiastical care in about 680.
Here is a West Saxon rendition of Cædmon ‘s only surviving hymn:
Now (we) must praise the Protector of the heavenly
kingdom,
the might of the Measurer and His mind’s purpose,
the work of the Father of Glory, as He [made] each of the wonders,
the eternal Lord, established a beginning.
He shaped first for the sons of the Earth heaven as
a roof,
then the Middle-World, mankind’s Guardian,
the eternal Lord, made afterwards,
solid ground for men, the almighty Lord, (The Holy Maker).
Alex Malloy
Jim Leach – Spirtual Identity Theft – September 5th
By Trevor, September 5, 2010 9:29 am
Romans 8:19
Colossians 1:25-27
2nd Peter 1:2-5
Ephesians 2
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Rev. Deborah R. Leighton – Revelation 2:12-17 August 1st
By Trevor, August 1, 2010 10:30 am
To the Church in Pergamum
Introduction:
Can you look back to a time where you resisted doing what everyone else was doing? What was it like? Can you remember a time when you didn’t?
Have you ever heard words come out of your mouth and wondered where they came from? What happened?
Observation:
Where else do you see the phrase “the sharp, double-edged sword” earlier in this book?
What are the difficulties that this church is facing?
What are they commended for? What does the Lord have against them?
Interpretation:
Why would the fact that the Son of Man has the sharp, double-edged sword be of particular importance to the church at Pergamum?
Why would John say Pergamum is where “Satan has his throne”?
Why is it significant that Antipas is named? Why is he called a “faithful witness”?
What is the difference between the “hidden manna” and what certain members of the church were eating?
Application:
What cultural influences complicate your life with Christ? How have you suffered for His Name? What could He be calling you to change?
How has knowing Jesus changed your identity (“a new name”-v. 17)?
How does this word help you to overcome?
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On the Mark July 4th 2010
By Trevor, July 4, 2010 10:46 pm
The Fourth of July: Independence Day
Frankly, if we lived in 1776 it would be difficult to decide our allegiances. As Anglicans with a duty to obey the King, ours would be a mixed response to the violent overthrow of the government. Over 30,000 Anglicans fled the colonies to live in
Today, we find ourselves desiring to be faithful to Christ and His teachings and to be loyally committed as citizens of our country. We love our nation and its heritage. Yet, we also find disagreement about public policies and we know how very imperfect our government is. If it can be said we are , or were, a Christian nation, it must also be said with humility that we are not what we were meant to be.
I think this fact leads us to see the need to pray. We look at the way things are and we cry out to God to have mercy upon us. We see all of the advantages our nation possesses and we see our need to be faithful stewards of what God has given to us. In prayer, we remember our faithful forbearers who have dearly loved liberty and pain its price, even with their lives, and we thank God as we ask for help to serve others.
Americans are flawed like all people, but we are also a blessed people who have a history of service to the nations of the world.
The Collect from the Book of Common Prayer for July 4th helps us pray:
“Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Christopher
The Rev. Christopher P. Leighton
Rector
Themocracy