ICYMI Thursday

 

In case you missed it:

I want a T-Shirt from the Liberal Redskins (“Home of the Angry Red!”) but their online store probably isn’t prepared for the orders about to come in.

 

An Austin smoke shop is taking bids for a “drunk hipster soul.” It was given to them by a customer in exchange for a lighter, and now sits in a jar on their counter.

 

Losing Korean baseball team replaces missing fans with cheering robots.

 

“Do a barrel roll,” “Zerg rush,” “Google in 1998,” and other search terms that generate unusual results in a Google search.

 

David Murray says there are 14 kinds of spiritual seekers. “It would help ‘seekers’ if we acknowledged they exist and that there are many different kinds of them with many different and challenging needs.”

 

First Things Pete Spiliakos says conservatives send a “mixed message” on immigration and the way forward is to make sure that “internal immigration enforcement (especially universal job verification and a visa tracking system) is put in place first and that, after such a system is institutionalized, long-standing unauthorized immigrants get both legalized status and a relatively quick path to U.S. citizenship."

ICYMI Thursday

This was from the Hillcrest Picnic and Baptism 2013.
We’re doing it again this Sunday!
Learn more here.  

In case you missed it:

Everyone In Middle East Given Own Country In 317,000,000-State Solution

 

A tree planted in memory of Beatle George Harrison is being destroyed by…beetles.

 

You need The Nostalgia Machine today.

 

“We force the servers to grovel for tidbits left out of the kindness of customers' hearts, and we extort customers into paying their salaries. No matter where you go and who you talk to, it seems like everyone hates America's tipping culture.” Hear hear.

 

Sermon Illustration Alert: If you’re a preacher and you can’t find a way to use this story in a sermon, turn in your ordination card. In “The Chameleon,” the New Yorker’s David Grann reports on a French serial impostor who has taken on the identities of the missing or dead, including the long-lost son of a Texan family.

 

“‘The Dark Night Project,’ is an effort to document, analyze, and publicize accounts of the adverse effects of contemplative practices.” Adverse effects? Of meditation? “In late January this year, Time magazine featured a cover story on ‘the mindful revolution,’ an account of the extent to which mindfulness meditation has diffused into the largest sectors of modern society….What the cover story did not address are what might be called the revolution's ‘dirty laundry.’” The “dirty laundry” includes meditation practitioners who were “fairly out of commission, fairly impaired for between six months [and] more than 20 years.” After all, meditation isn’t about learning to “get in the zone” but about discovering things such as life’s impermanence and the self’s non-existence. Interesting perspective.

 

Anderson Cooper tries getting through a typical day using a schizophrenia simulator.

ICYMI Thursday

In case you missed it:

8 of the Absolute Worst Times to Take a Selfie

 

Kathryn Gin Lum of Aeon does a pretty good job with her overview of the concept of hell—and why it’s not going away any time soon.

 

I bet you didn’t know some Southerners moved to Brazil after the Civil War instead of endure Yankee occupation. Enclaves of descendents still exist.

 

Is man-made climate change “settled science”? And who benefits from overblown climate change forecasts? An interview with Lord Christopher Monckton.

 

OZY reports on Swiss “Carriers of the Secret” or “Fire-Cutters” who have been healing burns for centuries with prayers they don’t charge for. Doctors are baffled.  

 

“Millennial politics is simple, really. Young people support big government, unless it costs any more money. They're for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they've heard of. They'd like Washington to fix everything, just so long as it doesn't run anything. That's all from a new Reason Foundation poll surveying 2,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 29. Millennials' political views are, at best, in a stage of constant metamorphosis and, at worst, "totally incoherent," as Dylan Matthews puts it.” The Atlantic

 

“If a brother or sister has cancer, diabetes, or a stroke, we pray that God will give the doctors and nurses wisdom and skill to relieve their suffering. We realize there is an important place for caring for their bodies and souls, for their medical needs—which are beyond the church's competence—and for their relationship with God. And yet, when it comes to mental illness, we still don't really believe that it is a medical problem.” Michael Horton explains how ignorance about mental illness is based in poor theology.

On His Mind, In His Heart, The Apple of His Eye, From the Foundation of the World

Christ died for a people he would bring to himself. We were on his mind, in his heart, the apple of his eye, from the foundation of the world. As we sometimes sing (emphasis added):

The church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation
by water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.

John Piper explains five results that come to pastors and their congregations when gripped by this conviction:

Knowing and experiencing the reality of definite atonement affects us with deeper gratitude. We feel more thankfulness for a gift given to us in particular, rather than feeling like it was given to no specific people and we happened to pick it up.

Knowing and experiencing the reality of definite atonement affects us with greater assurance. We feel more secure in God’s hands when we know that, before we believed or even existed, God had us in view when he planned to pay with his blood, not only for a free offer of salvation but also for our actual regeneration and calling and faith and justification and sanctification and glorification—that it was all secured forever for us in particular.

Knowing and experiencing the reality of definite atonement affects us with sweeter fellowship with God. A pastor may love all the women in his church. But his wife feels a sweeter affection for him because he chose her particularly out of all the other women, and made great sacrifices to make sure he would have her—not because he offered himself to all women and she accepted, but because he sought her in particular and sacrificed for her. If we do not know that God chose us as his Son’s “wife” and made great sacrifices for us in particular and wooed us and wanted us in a special way, our experience of the personal sweetness of his love will not be the same.

Knowing and experiencing the reality of definite atonement affects us with stronger affections in worship. To look at the cross and know that this love was not only for the sake of an offer of salvation to all (which it is), but more, was the length to which God would go so that I, in particular, would be drawn into the new covenant—that is the bedrock of joy in worship….When a church is faithfully and regularly taught that they are the definite and particular objects of God’s “great love” (Eph. 2:4), owing to nothing in them, the intensity of their worship will grow ever deeper.

Knowing and experiencing the reality of definite atonement affects us with more love for people and greater courage and sacrifice in witness and service. When a profound sense of undeserved, particular, atoning love from God combines with the unshakable security of being purchased—from eternity, for eternity—then we are more deeply freed from the selfish greed and fear that hinder love. Love is laying down one’s conveniences, and even one’s life, for the good of others, especially their eternal good. The more undeservingly secure we are, the more we will be humbled to count others more significant than ourselves, and the more fearless we will be to risk our lives for their greatest good.

From the closing chapter of the book, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, Various Authors

ICYMI Thursday

Nothing says "Happily Ever After" than
wedding photos with a tornado in the background.

 

Sermon Illustration Alert: A Chicago author who co-wrote the book “How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona” was gored Wednesday morning during the Pamplona bull run

 

Booze Causes 10 Percent of Working-Age U.S. Deaths

 

The Time headline is: “What Starbucks Tells Employees About Breastfeeding Customers.” My guess is they tell their employees not to. But maybe I should read the article.

 

British phrases Americans should start using right away:

 

Kirsten Powers: “Liberals who obsessed over President Bush's abuses of executive power are suspiciously silent now, or worse, defend the same behavior they found abhorrent in a Republican.”

 

“Some people are asking whether society’s concern for the constitutional rights of people with mental illness has led to their abandonment.” WaPo

New Adult Groups and other Hillcrest Happenings

Several new Common Ground groups are starting this summer. All of these will begin on July 20 in the MPC unless otherwise noted.

Newt and Judy Hamlin begin a group for grandparents.

Paul and Marina Rusch begin a group for parents of middle schoolers.

Charles and Jan Dunn have already begun a group for parents of children in the later years of high school and college.

On August 17, David and Linda Green will begin a group for young couples “BC” (before children).

Diane and I begin a “newcomers” group on July 20. In addition to reaching out to newcomers, we’ll invite worship service attendees who haven’t yet connected to a small group. After 8-10 weeks in our group, participants will be guided to join the Sunday School class or Common Ground group that’s best for them.

No one is being asked to leave their existing group to participate in these new formations. But if you’re interested in joining any of these new tables or if you have questions, contact me. Be in prayer for the continuing growth of our Bible study ministry!

Church Picnic and Baptism. Join the Hillcrest Family for a picnic and outdoor baptism! On July 27, we'll gather for worship at our normal time (10am) and place (Steck Avenue). Then at 11am, instead of gathering for small group Bible study, grab some lunch and bring it to City Park! We have a section of picnic tables reserved until 3pm. You can learn more at our website, where you’ll find a video explaining baptism and a slide show of last year’s picnic.

“God Is Closer Than You Think.” This week our Sunday morning sermon series continues with a message called “Finding God in Your Crisis.” In 2 Kings 6, when Elisha was surrounded by enemy forces, his servant was in a panic. The prophet prayed for his servant: “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” The prayer was answered, and the servant saw they were protected by angelic forces in “chariots of fire.” Join us this week so you’ll be ready to look for God at work in your next crisis.

Discover Hillcrest. This Sunday I host my “Discover Hillcrest” class for those ready to join and for those just checking out the church. It’s a one-time class that meets for one hour in the MPC after the morning service.

“The Supreme Court has assumed such overwhelming national, unilateral authority”

Baylor prof Thomas Kidd on the Hobby Lobby case:

The fact that four of the justices would not extend even such a modest grant of religious liberty is sobering. It reveals again why perhaps the most important issue in presidential politics is the question of Supreme Court appointments. The Supreme Court has assumed such overwhelming national, unilateral authority on issues such as religious liberty, that the switch of just one justice can reverse the status of a basic freedom in America today. This is not a good system, and one wishes that on this and many other issues we could return to an actual federal system in which states and localities had leeway to craft their own policies according to local sensibilities, instead of those of five unelected justices. But we are where we are.

ICYMI Thursday

Not sure why you’d want to advertize
how slow your church services are…

 

In case you missed it:

Tim Howard: Futbol’s most famous saver knows the Savior.

 

Utah man sent to jail for fighting—over church seating

 

Why Younger Evangelicals May Feel Uneasy In A Patriotic Church Service

 

ESPN’s Jon Mooallem wants you to meet the pastor who has baptized 66 professional umpires, “calling them safe in the only way that matters.”

 

Here’s a woman who set her apartment on fire to kill a spider

 

The average American reads 19 minutes a day