Coram Deo Blog
Archive for August 2008
26 August 2008 at 4:13 pm by Bob Thune · announcement, family
On September 19-20, Coram Deo is excited to host a conference on marriage and parenting called Redeeming Family. We are unashamedly asking everyone – especially married couples – to come to this conference.
Why? Because being married and raising kids is really hard work. And it’s work that, statistically speaking, most of us give up on. Over half of marriages end in divorce. One third of kids grow up in single-parent households. And 25% of kids under 3 are being raised by daycare providers.
We want to help you not give up.
Nobody “just knows” how to be a good spouse or a good parent. We learn by example. And the fact is: many of us just don’t have good examples to learn from. Our families of origin are all screwed up. We have no clue what we’re doing. And we’re not sure who to ask.
We want to provide a forum where you can ask. We’re not going to pretend that we have all the answers. But we do have some of them. God has given our pastoral staff some unique insight into marriage and parenting through the lens of the gospel. Will and Debbie will share how a covenantal commitment has anchored their marriage through some really rough times. Bob and Leigh will pass along the biblical wisdom on parenting that they learned from a community of older, wiser mentors. And in addition, we’ll introduce you to some of our friends outside the Coram Deo community who have done marriage and parenting well.
This seminar will be anchored in the biblical storyline of Creation-Fall-Redemption and saturated with biblical wisdom. You won’t walk out with a magic bullet that will solve all your problems. But you will walk out with some helpful tools in your toolbox and a biblical grid to assist you in using them well.
We’ve crafted this seminar primarily with the young families of Coram Deo in mind. But we want to issue an open invitation to anyone and everyone who might benefit. If you’re not part of the Coram Deo community – who cares? Join us! Even if you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, don’t let the fact that this is a “church thing” keep you away. We’re not selling used cars; we’re helping people build strong families. The stuff we talk about will just be downright useful, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey.
It will be an honor to have you join us. For schedule and registration details, follow this link.
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24 August 2008 at 6:57 pm by Bob Thune · humor, idols
The Batting Stance Guy was at Coram Deo this week. He is a friend of a friend. He started out as a YouTube phenomenon and has gone viral… Walker predicts that you will see this guy all over network TV within 12 months.
If you are not a baseball fan, you won’t get the humor. If you ARE a baseball fan… trust me, you can waste hours watching this guy. He is uncanny.
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24 August 2008 at 8:29 am by Bob Thune · theology
On Sunday 8/24/08 we talked about repentance. There are some Christians, I hate to say, who think that repentance is not necessary for conversion or for sanctification (spiritual growth). They consider repentance to be a vestige of Roman Catholic legalism – an addition to biblical faith. They insist that what Jesus required was simply faith in Him, and that any notion of turning away from sin introduces some measure of “works” into the equation. They call this point of view “Free Grace.” I prefer to call it “Bad Scholarship.”
Behind the New Testament idea of repentance (Gk. metanoia) are the Hebrew words naham (change one’s mind) and shuv (turn back, return). The Old Testament prophets are continually calling God’s people to turn away from their sin and return to him (shuv). It is clear from the whole tenor of the OT that God expects nothing less than a turning away from sin and toward God. The New Bible Dictionary rightly connects this OT background to the NT concept of repentance: “Repentance [is not just] feeling sorry, or changing one’s mind, but… a turning around, a complete alteration of the basic motivation and direction of one’s life. This is why the best translation for metanoia is often ‘convert,’ that is, ‘to turn round.’”
Repentance, then, is the mark of a true Christian. A willingness to turn from sin is evidence of a soft heart toward God. Unwillingness to repent of sin is the biblical sign of a hard heart that reaps God’s judgment.
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23 August 2008 at 3:47 pm by Bob Thune · subculture, theology
Sometimes in my sermon research I come across stuff that has nothing to do with my sermon, but does have implications for what it means to follow Jesus and to help others follow Jesus. This is one of those things.
Read: Titus 1:6-9. “An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”
Compare: Joel Osteen on Fox News Sunday, 23 December 2007:
[CHRIS WALLACE]: …Is a Mormon a true Christian?
[OSTEEN:] Well, in my mind they are. Mitt Romney has said that he believes in Christ as his savior, and that’s what I believe, so, you know, I’m not the one to judge the little details of it. So I believe they are.
[WALLACE:] So, for instance, when people start talking about Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, and the golden tablets in upstate New York, and God assumes the shape of a man, do you not get hung up in those theological issues?
[OSTEEN:] I probably don’t get hung up in them because I haven’t really studied them or thought about them. And you know, I just try to let God be the judge of that. I mean, I don’t know.
I certainly can’t say that I agree with everything that I’ve heard about it… [but when a Mormon] says that Christ is his savior, to me that’s a common bond.
?????
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22 August 2008 at 11:53 am by Kendal Haug · hannahisms
- Learning comes from ideas that are simply put and endlessly repeated. That is the role of a teacher.
- Don’t take your best moments of the day and do the most frivolous things.
- If your life is not commiserate with your confession you should doubt both.
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20 August 2008 at 6:48 pm by Bob Thune · announcement, sermon
Starting September 7, we will spend 6 weeks preaching on some of the major objections to Christianity. Based on your votes, the topics will be:
- Tolerance: Christianity discriminates against certain people by claiming that their behavior is sinful; therefore it is intolerant and wrong.
- Free Will: The Christian ideas of free will and an all-knowing and sovereign God are incompatible.
- Exclusivity: There are many roads to God; therefore it is arrogant for one religion to claim exclusive truth.
- Relativism: Absolute truth either does not exist or is unknowable; therefore any religion that claims to be true must be rejected.
- Literalism: The Bible is a valuable book in some respects, but no one should take the Bible literally, as an absolute authority.
- Injustice: Christianity has been a vehicle of oppression and injustice in the world; therefore it should be rejected.
In addition to our Sunday morning gathering, we have slated at least 2 Sunday evenings (and may add more) where I’ll be hosting an open-forum type of discussion at the Brazen Head Pub to allow for more interaction over these topics. The idea will be to offer a cogent answer to each objection on Sunday mornings and then invite dialogue and questions on Sunday evenings.
Feel free to invite anyone and everyone who would benefit as we seek to “give an answer to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us” (1 Peter 3:15).
(Also: If the objection you were voting for didn’t make the final cut, let me know and I’ll happily suggest some books and resources where you might find thoughtful answers.)
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18 August 2008 at 6:51 pm by Kendal Haug · music
I am really excited about this announcement — go ahead and mark your calendars for a Luke Pettipoole house show on Sat, Sep. 6 starting at 7pm at the Whealy’s house. The show will be outside in the backyard, so there should be plenty of room for everyone and your friends.
Some of you might have met Luke around the CD community sometime, but what you might not know is that he is a profoundly gifted and entertaining musician. If you haven’t heard Luke’s music, he is the frontman for the Iowa-based indie group The Envy Corps, and you can give a listen at their Myspace. They are signed with the major label Vertigo and their debut album Dwell will undoubtedly be tops on my list for 2008. The show will be an acoustic/storyteller show of Luke and I promise…
YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS THIS.
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17 August 2008 at 9:57 pm by Bob Thune · prayer, sermon
On Sunday we talked about the importance of prayer in the work of spiritual renewal. And I joked about how it’s hard to preach on prayer because most of the lame/odd/strange experiences people have had in Christianity have something to do with a prayer meeting. I told stories of some of the lame prayer gatherings I’ve been a part of and some of the strange prayers I’ve heard people pray. What about you? What bad experiences have you had in prayer? Post away.
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17 August 2008 at 9:46 pm by Bob Thune · church history, sabbath
The Church Fathers is the title respectfully given to those writers, leaders, and pastors who led the church in the first 600 years of its existence. Any modern student willing to mine writings of these old saints will find a rich repository of history, theology, and devotion. The writings of the Fathers – available as a multi-volume reference set in most higher-education libraries – are generally divided into two categories: the Ante-Nicene Fathers (those who lived before the Council of Nicea in 325 AD) and the Post-Nicene Fathers (those who lived and ministered after Nicea).
During my sabbatical, I devoted myself to reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers series (containing the writings of those fathers who lived before 200 AD) as well as three volumes from the most eminent of the Post-Nicene Fathers: the great St. Augustine, who died in 425. Today’s reflection is from one of the preeminent apologists of the early church: Justin Martyr.
The First and Second Apologies of Justin Martyr
[In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. I, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885).]
Justin lived circa 110-165 AD and was a convert to Christianity from Greek paganism. As a philosopher trained in the Socratic/Platonist tradition, he used reason, logic, and sarcasm to contest the persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities. The Romans in Justin’s day often condemned and persecuted Christians for the faith they professed, falsely assuming that Christians were atheists (because they did not worship the Greek pantheon) and cannibals (because of the Lord’s Supper). Justin’s First and Second Apologies are polemical works designed to refute these false claims and chide the Roman authorities for their lack of thoughtful reasoning.
The First and Second Apologies display a number of notable features:
- They establish beyond a shadow of a doubt the historical veracity of the life and death of Jesus. Justin is writing less than 150 years after Jesus’ death, and he appeals for proof of Jesus’ life and teachings not only to Scripture, but also to secular historical documents that would have been accessible to his pagan readers. “There is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judea” (Chap. XXXIV). [Speaking of the crucifixion]: “And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate” (Chap. XXV).
- Justin spends much of the First Apology appealing to fulfilled prophecy as an apologetic for the Christian faith. This is interesting in light of the fact that he is writing to Romans who are not familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. It suggests that fulfilled prophecy has a strong apologetic value even for non-religious audiences.
- Justin gives a detailed synopsis of the worship services and traditions of the church in his time. For all who are interested in learning about the early church’s practice of baptism, communion, and gathered worship, these chapters of the First Apology (chap. LXI – LXVII) are worth consulting.
- A key component of Justin’s apologetic method is his appeal to the changed lives of converts: “…we who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all” (First Apology, Chap. XIV).
- As a philosopher, Justin claims all truth as God’s truth and asserts that Christianity brings resolution to every other philosophical system. This is perhaps my favorite quote in his writing: “Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians” (Second Apology, Chap. XIII)
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13 August 2008 at 4:43 pm by Bob Thune · poverty
Since our infancy as a church, Coram Deo has been privileged to partner with and learn from the good folks at Mosaic Community Development. MCD serves the poor and at-risk population in downtown Omaha. Their approach to helping the poor is simple yet profound: it’s all about relationships. The more visible type of poverty (material/economic) is usually rooted in deeper issues of relational and spiritual poverty.
MCD is launching a new initiative this fall called SupportWorks that targets the relational roots of sustained poverty. The goal is to link up people in need with “companion partners” who will walk alongside them in life, forming a bond of friendship that will benefit and shape both parties. The first information and training session takes place on August 24. We at Coram Deo want to take the lead in mobilizing people for SupportWorks because we think it’s a great way to serve the city in the name of Jesus. Below is a short blurb from MCD giving more details. Please consider whether God is calling you to step up to this opportunity!
SupportWorks (SW), a ministry of Mosaic Community Development, has been uniquely designed to mobilize an effective, sustainable, and highly untapped alternative to programs – you. No program times. No program walls. Just relationship. Just you.
Isolation resulting from failed relationships is “the single greatest cause of sustained poverty in our cities”. For a person to successfully transition from poverty, he/she must have the love, encouragement, and support that comes with committed, authentic relationships. Unfortunately, many of the relationships that those in poverty know are either broken, destructive, or purely service-oriented.
SW effectively affronts poverty through the establishment of supportive community networks. These networks offer holistic development for homeless, transitioning, and at-risk individuals and families. As a trained, committed, and loving SW Companion, you can help fulfill the indescribably important role of simply being a good friend to someone in need (you may find that you will gain the support of a new friend, as well).
Please contact Katie@MosaicCD.org to register or for more information on becoming a SW Companion today!
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