Month: January 2010

Upcoming Studies


For Thursday night’s home fellowship, Lord-willing, we’ll look at Matthew 5:3-16 — Salt & Light; Then Sunday at the church, a message looking to The Coming Kingdom in Luke 17:20-37. If you’re in Cluj, please come. If not, there should be recordings of both sessions posted here within a couple hours after the services.

Stumbling Blocks and stuff


In Luke 17:1-10, Jesus talks about “stumbling blocks” and other topics, in the passage we studied for today’s message from the church. You can hear it online here, in English and Romanian.

Help Haitians in Need


Many are the sources where someone can help the suffering in Haiti with donations, but if you haven’t already found one, here is one that can be recommended: Samaritan’s Purse, is a truly Christian ministry that helps the needy and those facing tragedy with Christlike love and mercy, material help, and the gospel of Christ so that they might live forever.

Not above ANYBODY’s paygrade to understand this

As these ultrasound pictures of babies in the womb show, a person is a person before birth, and abortion is wrong. That isn’t debatable. It isn’t in dispute. Next week is the anniversary of America’s Supreme Court forcing the country to accept abortion as a “right” in 1973. The result: our country is now unsurpassed by any event in world history in the extent of violence and bloodshed of innocents. Thanks be to God, many still don’t endorse the slaughter. May God continue to have mercy on us. We certainly don’t deserve it. But we need it. And may God grant us change, so that someday in the future, we might celebrate the reinstatement of the right of human beings to live in our land.

Let’s Make a Deal – Genesis 25


Esau trades his future, his legacy, and his inheritance for a bowl of soup in Genesis 25, the passage we looked at in tonight’s home fellowship study, entitled “Let’s Make a Deal!” But what do we learn from his foolish mistake for our own lives? You can hear the audio recording of the message, in English and Romanian, here.

Heaven and hell


Today’s message at the church was on Luke 16, and Jesus descriptions of and warnings about the two places you might spend eternity. You can listen to the audio recording here. In English and Romanian.

Eternity whispers your name


“Don’t live for now; Live forever.” That’s the title of the upcoming Sunday’s message at the church on Luke 16:14-31. Lord-willing, the recording will be available here that afternoon.

On leading corporate worship


It surprises me when you do a search for help with worship leading online, how often you will find people who advise the worship leaders to do something like, “don’t worry about the people in the pews, just go up front, get into the music, close your eyes and worship God from the heart.”
I’m not a worship leader, as you know, but a pastor. As such, I have to correct what I think is a very misguided view on worship leading. The “just focus on yourself” advice for worship leaders would be akin to my telling a young preacher, “Don’t worry about the people in the pews; just get in the pulpit, open your Bible and talk to yourself about what God is saying to you. If you speak to the congregation at all, let it be to tell them, ‘Just open your Bible and have a quiet time of meditation with the Lord, as I do the same.'”
As a pastor, it is my job to do my private study ahead of time, and to be VERY conscious of the people in the pews as I try to teach them the word.
As a worshiper in the pews, it would be fine for me to just close my eyes and enjoy God’s presence as I sing to Him.
But when you are playing an instrument or singing at the front of the church, you are not there for yourself. You have taken on the responsibility for the people in the pews, and for leading them into the presence of the Lord to worship Him. You had better be VERY aware of them, encouraging them with your song, your eye contact, your smile, your prayers, your words of instruction and encouragement (stuff like “Sing out, now!”), and everything you are and do, to focus on the Lord. It is not about you and your one-on-one fellowship with Jesus on Sunday morning. Be worshiping alone all week to take care of that. When the pews fill up, it is time for you to function as a leader. When you are a leader, you must lead. When worship leaders just go up, close their eyes and sing to the Lord, then the only ones in the pews who worship too, are the self-led. They worship in spite of the lack of leadership. But they are few in number. Most people in the pews won’t do that. So there is absolutely no congregational unity.
A vibrant service is one where the whole of the congregation is heartily singing to the Lord, and that only happens because the leadership leads, as the Spirit of God moves on hearts that are unified in a desire to worship the Lord together as a Body, not as a group of individuals.

La multi ani! Happy New Year!

A brief video of us and some of our friends from the church watching the fireworks to ring in the new year 2010 in downtown Cluj.