JESUS and CHANGE

Mars Hill Church's 10th anniversary video. (This year is now their 11th year, and the two things they say have remained constant are JESUS and CHANGE.)

God, would you continue
and increase
this same work of
transforming lives
by the Gospel of Jesus
in cities all over America
and beyond.
Make us true disciples and disciple-makers,
for your glory
and for the good of the world around us.

Orthodox and Born Again

Dr. Brad Nasiff of North Park University and an Orthodox theologian reflects on what has kept him believing in Christ after years and years of scholarship and life. His answer may surprise you!

http://audio.ancientfaith.com/nassif/so5_pc.mp3

Great Light of the World Come to Impart (old and new)

I make the cross of Christ upon my breast,
over the tablet of my hard heart,
and I beseech the Living God of the universe -
may the Light of Lights come
to my dark heart from Thy place;
may the Spirit's wisdom come to my heart's tablet
from my Saviour.

-From the Aidan compline, who lived in the early 7th century in Ireland.

Sometimes at night
I am afraid
I cover my eyes,
Cover my shame
So here in the dark
Broken apart
Come with your light
And fill up my heart
Oh great light of the world
Fill up my soul
I’m half a man here
So come make me whole
Oh great light of the world
Come to impart
The light of your grace
To fill up my heart

The wind of this world
Can push us around
Folding us up
Backing us down
But here in the dark
I’m not alone
So come with your strength
And carry me home
Oh great light of the world
Fill up my soul
I’m half a man here
So come make me whole
Oh great light of the world
Come to impart
The light of your grace
Oh great light of the world
Fill up my soul
I’m half a man here
So come make me whole
Oh great light of the world
Come to impart
The light of your grace
To fill up my heart
The light of your grace
To fill up my heart

-Bebo Norman, Great Light Of The World

The Two Tasks

"...Responsible Christians face two tasks-that of saving the soul and that of saving the mind. No civilization can endure with its mind being as confused and disordered as ours is today. All our ills stem proximately from the false philosophies that have been let loose in the world and that are now being taught in the universities.... Save the university and you save Western civilization and therewith the world."

-Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanese educator and statesman

______________

The United States Supreme Court ruled, "The classroom is peculiarly the 'marketplace of ideas.' The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth 'out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection."

.
— United States v. Associated Press, 52 F. Supp. 362, 372.

______________

"We have a gospel to proclaim. We have to proclaim it not merely to individuals in their personal and domestic lives. . . . we have to proclaim it as part of the continuing conversation which shapes public doctrine. It must be heard in the conversation of economists, psychiatrists, educators, scientists, and politicians."

—Lesslie Newbigin, Truth To Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1991), p. 64.

->for more on what some are doing about this, check out www.clm.org

We ignore the academy and marketplace of ideas at great peril to the rest of the world that is at their mercy and the subject of their policies and publications. Let us embrace the call to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Only then can we fulfill the call to love our neighbors as ourselves.