March 28, 2008

From The Treasury: Spurgeon Answers Dawkins

Well, considering the fact that Spurgeon lived about a century before his atheistic compatriot, perhaps the title should read "Spurgeon Anticipates Dawkins".

Whatever the case, his thoughts on Psalm 14 ("The fool hath said in his heart 'There is no God'") are quite relevant in light of the resurgence of atheism in Western culture.

He writes:

Such fools as those we are now dealing with are common to all time, and all counties; they grow without watering, and are found all the world over. The spread of mere intellectual enlightenment will not diminish their number, for since it is an affair of the heart, this folly and great learning will often dwell together. To answer skeptical cavillings will be labour lost until grace enters to make the mind willing to believe; fools can raise more objections in an hour than wise men can answer in seven years, indeed it is their mirth to set stools for wise men to stumble over.

Having thus described the problem, he prescribes a solution:

Let the preacher aim at the heart, and preach the all-conquering love of Jesus, and he will by God's grace win more doubters to the faith of the gospel than any hundred of the best reasoners who only direct their arguments to the head.

Apologetics has it's place, but the best arguments in the world are useless if the Holy Spirit does not illuminate the darkened heart.

Posted by Andrew at 6:04 PM // Comments: 2 //
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Overdue Camp Report

Seeing as how today is Friday and the Ladies' retreat ended on Monday, I guess it is time for me to give a report.

First off, if you followed the camp updates just before and just after Carnaval Retreat, you know that one of the major challenges we were facing was lack of water. Just as a reminder, here is a picture of the situation of the lake at around Carnaval time:

Fast forward a month, and here is the lake as it appears now:

Note that you are looking at the same bridge (albeit from a different side). The water level is right next to the walkway. Indeed, it would be covering the walkway if it were not for the built-in overflow system of the lake:

On Saturday night (the last evening of the retreat) it rained so hard that the level of the lake rose about the paths on either side of the bridge, leaving the dining area cut off from the chapel area and the cabins. To get from one part of the camp to the next, we had to walk through knee-deep water. I think we can officially declare the drought over.

The bulk of the ladies (perhaps that is a poor choice of words) arrived on Thursday morning. They came from all over the state of Ceará--eager to participate in an event that is in it's 49th year.

It is a time of friendship...

...edification...

...relaxation...

...refreshment (sometimes one plate is just not enough)...

You may recognize Nice...part of our puppet ministry. She gave a short puppetry course to some of the interested ladies.

The state ladies' association is one of the most faithful supporters of the camp. This year they donated all of the tableware you see in this picture. They are already raising money for next year's project--updating the lighting and wiring around the camp.

We are grateful for the participation of the ladies fellowship in the camp ministry, and for the way God provided for this year's retreat.

Posted by Andrew at 5:17 PM // Comments: 5 //
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March 26, 2008

Caption Challenge--Featuring Nathan!

It has been a while since we have done a caption challenge, but this picture--featuring Nathan and two of our seminary students--makes it obligatory.

Posted by Andrew at 1:42 PM // Comments: 7 //
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March 24, 2008

And We're Back!

We have survived another ladies retreat. Pictures and updates shortly.

Posted by Andrew at 7:41 PM
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March 19, 2008

Grieving Ministry Team Member

We are minutes away from hitting the road on our way to the Ladies Retreat at camp, but I wanted to take time to let you know that one of our supporting churches, Temple Baptist in Portsmouth, OH, is going through a time of grieving right now due to the loss of their youth pastor.

You can read the details on their website.

Please be in prayer for the young family he left behind, the grieving church, and the testimony of Christ in the community during this time of sadness.

Posted by Andrew at 12:42 PM // Comments: 1 //
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March 18, 2008

Fruits of my Labors

I am about to pull the plug on tonights activities, but wanted to share this poster for the first annual workday at the Iguatu camp.

Posted by Andrew at 12:55 AM // Comments: 3 //
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Late Night Apologetics

I am "burning the midnight oil" getting things ready for the upcoming ladies' retreat. It is a pleasant experience, however, because Tim Keller is keeping me company. The following video--which comes to this blog via Centuri0n, is well worth the time investment. Notice the graceful, humble way in which he debates matters of grave theological and eternal import.

Posted by Andrew at 12:41 AM
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March 17, 2008

Spitzer: The Brazilian Connection and Blaming Protestantism.

I have purposefully avoided any mention of the Spitzer case on this blog for a number of reasons. However, two articles which came across my "wire" this morning cannot go without comment.

First, there is a Brazilian connection. Somehow, I knew there was going to be a Brazilian connection. There usually is.

clipped from www.nydailynews.com Authorities want to speak to Brazilian madam about Eliot Spitzer: source Schwartz, who was convicted of running a high-end midtown brothel in 2006, told her family she was being deported and would arrive Saturday. Instead, she's stuck in the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, N.J., awaiting deportation. A source close to Schwartz said she'd been told she would be deported and was packed and ready to leave. Then, the source said, authorities wanted to question her about disgraced Gov. Spitzer and another prostitution ring.

The second item related to "Spitzergate" has to do with an article that came to me via Reality is Out There--one of my regular reads in Brazilian blogland.

Apparently a scientist named David Fleischer has definitively fixed the blame for the whole mess. And the guilty partner? Why, Protestantism, of course!

The following is my translation from an article that appeared in Brazilian newssource Terra:

"The problem is with the protestant ethic of moralism. It is a heritage. Adultery is a taboo. Just like it was a taboo not to elect a catholic president for fear that he would be subservient to the Vatican."

Um...no. Eliot Spitzer is responsible for his own demise. Protestantism had nothing to do with it. If our Protestant heritage has anything to do with the outrage felt by the nation over the events, then I say "three cheers for the Protestant heritage!"

Now let's pull this whole thing together: I feel for Spitzer. I feel for his wife and I ache for his teenage kids, but I especially feel for Spitzer. Hard times are only made harder when you know that what is taking place is entirely your fault. My hope and prayer is that he and his family will find the healing, forgiveness, and victory that can ONLY be found in Christ. As Christians, none of us are in any position to be throwing stones. Instead, we should be on our knees in prayer for Spitzer, his family, our state (those of us who call NY home), our nation, our generation.

God can and will get glory to His name through these events. May it be through the conversion and radical transformation of those involved.

Ok...the subject is closed on this blog. I promise.

Posted by Andrew at 1:04 PM // Comments: 1 //
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From the Treasury: The Power of Prayer

Back in my IBLP days I can remember hearing somebody from that ministry (I don't remember if it was the "head honcho" or one of the staff) remark that the reason Moody's ministry had prospered to this day while Spurgeon's had not was because Spurgeon smoked.

Apparently in the eyes of that person the volumes of literature that Spurgeon left us do not count. But I would be willing to wager (in a figurative sense--I don't advocate either smoking OR betting) that many more people have been blessed, challenged, and edified by the works of Spurgeon than have ever walked the halls of Moody Bible Institute.

Which brings me to today's "From the Treasury" selection. One of the best features of the edition of "The Treasury of David" that I am reading is the inclusion of the comments of great theologians of the past on virtually every verse of the Psalms. This particular selection on the power of prayer is by 17th century cleric Edward Reynolds:

Satan hath three titles given in the Scriptures, setting forth his malignity against the church of God: a dragon, to note his malice; a serpent, to note his subtlety; and a lion, to note his strength. But none of all these can stand before prayer. The greatest malice of Haman sinks under the prayer of Esther; the deepest policy, the counsel of Ahithophel, withers before the prayer of David; the largest army, a host of a thousand Ethiopians, run away like cowards before the prayer of Asa.

Through readings like this, messages I have listened to, and experiences at our church, God has been impressing on my mind the importance of prayer. I long to see God work powerfully as he did through Esther, David, and Asa. I ache to see His name lifted up in unmistakable ways through the humble prayers of his servants.

May God grant it, for His glory.

Posted by Andrew at 12:11 PM
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March 16, 2008

From the Funny Pages

Here is a cartoon from today's local Sunday paper that illustrates just how much Brazilians love their politicians:

The background is the capitol building in Brasilia, and the caption reads: "There is something rotten, and it is not in the kingdom of Denmark."

Another one, which takes a cue from the new Vatican ruling expanding the number of mortal sins:

Translation:

Donkey #1: The new capital sins are: environmental pollution, genetic engineering, excessive accumulation of riches, spread of poverty, use and traffic of drugs, morally questionable experiments and violation of fundamental human rights."

Donkey #2: Yikes! Brazil is up the creek.

Donkey #3: The politicians are going straight to Hell.

Donkey #4: Sheesh!

Posted by Andrew at 7:01 PM
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March 15, 2008

Book Review: The Pleasures of God

I have stopped calling this feature "Book of the Week" because...well...that got to be a laughable title.

I still read, however, and I still like to recommend books that are beneficial to me. One such book is "The Pleasures of God" by John Piper.

I enjoyed "Desiring God" and "When I don't Desire God", but in terms of practical theology and life-changing insight, "The Pleasures of God" is on a whole different level.

Subtitled "Meditations on God's Delight in Being God", the book deals with how God takes pleasure in various aspects of his being, his creation, and his divine plan. As mentioned in an earlier post, the chapter entitled "The Pleasure of God in the Prayers of the Upright" has already had a big impact in my own personal life and ministry.

Prayer is not the only subject that receives Piper's careful and challenging analysis, however. Such topics as election, the relationship between God the Father and God the Son, and why bad things happen to good people are considered with care, thoroughness, and accuracy.

Far from being a dry theological tome, "The Pleasures of God" challenges God's people to action. I will end this review with a quote from the chapter on prayer:

"The crying need of the hour--every hour--is to put the churches on a wartime footing. Mission leaders are crying out, 'Where is the church's concept of militancy, of a mighty army willing to suffer, moving ahead with exultant determination to take the world by storm? Where is the risk-taking, the launching out on God alone?' The answer is that it has been swallowed up by a peace-time mentality. Thousands of Christians do not hear the diabolic bombs dropping and the bullets zinging overhead. They don't smell the hellish Agent Orange in teh whitened harvest of teh world. They don't cringe or weep at the thousands who perish every week. They don't reckon with spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places and teh world rulers of this present darkness. In fact, it is not dark, they say. It is bright and comfortable and cheery--just look at my home and car and office and cabin and boat. And listen to my new disc-player and look at my new video equipment."

If that is not a convicting indictment of today's Western Christianity, I don't know what is.

PS. If you are a Piper fan, you might want to check out the new blog by his son Abraham. It is a study in brevity...kind of an anti-Challies if you will.

Posted by Andrew at 6:42 PM // Comments: 3 //
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Delays

(cross-posted from the Puppets with Purpose blog)

So I have on my computer the latest--and by far the best--segment our team has ever done. One problem--I can't put it up here until it goes on TV. And it won't go on TV until we get some more filmed and "in the can". And because we can only count on our cameraman 25% of the time, only God knows when that will be.

Argh.

Posted by Andrew at 6:29 PM
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March 11, 2008

Christian Fascism?

God was honored in a very special way at our sending church last Sunday. You can read about it in Divine Satisfaction--my brother's blog.

Posted by Andrew at 4:40 PM // Comments: 3 //
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March 10, 2008

Prince Charles in the Favela

Charges.com.br has added the embedding feature to their animations. I have linked the one below before, but now it is appearing on the site for the first time.

On a recent trip to Brazil, Prince Charles visited the Rio favela called Roçinha. What follows is a conversation with a couple of the locals.

Posted by Andrew at 10:32 AM // Comments: 1 //
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"Link"in' Park

Sorry, that's the best title I could come up with for this post, which is just to point out that this blog was mentioned on Marketing Twins as an example other religious bloggers might want to follow in terms of design.

Sure wish I knew something about design. I am passing this on to the guy who actually designed it however. Kudos to Kev!

Posted by Andrew at 10:00 AM
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March 9, 2008

Cellphone Economics

The following cartoon would be funnier if it were not so true. Or perhaps it is funny because it is so true. I don't know if it is this way in the US, but it is most certainly this way here in Brazil:

Translation

Panel 1: "You spent all your savings on this 'slim power, choco-diamond blaster with a 12 megapixel camera, playstation, and 2,500 gigabytes of memory! Can I make a call?"

Panel 2: "Call? It doesn't have any credit. Do you have any spare change?"

Posted by Andrew at 6:41 PM // Comments: 1 //
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March 7, 2008

Editing Complete

Last night I finished up editing the first of our new puppet clips. We have adopted a "newsroom" format that will allow us to take on current issues as they come up.

I can't post the video here for now because it has to run on the TV program first. Look for it here starting next Saturday (a week from tomorrow). This is by far the best clip we have produced (in technical terms)--but that is not to say that there is not much room for improvement.

Posted by Andrew at 1:35 PM // Comments: 3 //
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March 6, 2008

Praying in Prayer Meeting

Radical concept, huh?

My experience in churches on two continents, however, indicates that prayer occupies a very small part of that service called "prayer meeting". The church where Itacyara and I attend here (which is an outstanding church with a wise and godly pastor) is no different. We have fourty minutes of songs and prayer requests (not to be confused with actual praying), fourty-five minutes of preaching, with fifteen minutes of real prayer sandwiched inbetween. And I have my doubts about the "real prayer" part.

John Piper in his book "The Pleasures of God" makes the point that the Kingdom of God is supported by the preaching of the Word, and that the preaching of the Word is in turn held up by the prayers of God's people. He follows this with a stirring call for the church to return to a "military footing", developing a motivated and powerful prayer life.

With these convicting words ringing in my ears, I went to our pastor last Sunday and offered to take the young people and pray with them separately. At our church the young people have traditionally clustered together, spent a few minutes in prayer, and the rest of the time chatting. And actually, who can blame them. Better to chew the fat with friends than go through the motions with their parents.

Pastor graciously accepted my proposal, and yesterday a group of young people gathered with me in one of the upstairs rooms. I started the session my allowing as how we did not have much time, and had a lot of serious business to cover. I asked everybody to kneel, and spend a few minutes getting right with God--confessing sins that needed to be confessed and putting themselves in a right spirit for prayer. There was a good spirit of cooperation in the group, and everybody participated--at least outwardly.

Following this, we had a period of spontaneous praise. I asked them to praise God for one of His attributes, something that he is. Our "gimme" mode of materialistic praying is hard to break, and at first some of the young people had a hard time not adding requests to their praises--or praising God for something He did for them. However, as time went on, I got teary-eyed as I listened to the concert of praise that flooded the room.

After this praise session, I asked them to stand, and shared with them that we were going to focus now on praying for requests that had to do with the advancement of the Kingdom. I assigned different people to pray for specific issues--opposition that our church is facing in the community, the step-father of one of our young people who is dying without Christ, a missions trip our church is planning for this fall. We also spent time praying for the pastor, and for the Holy Spirit to work on the hearts of the unsaved who visit on Sunday.

We were in the middle of this session when the bell rang for people to gather back in the sanctuary for the message. The collective response of the young people was "já?"--"already?" Instead of looking at their watches to see how much time was left, they had been thoroughly engrossed in prayer. At a prayer meeting. Go figure.

I feel like yesterday was a good start, but we have a long way to go. There are several things that I would like to do--things like incorporating praise songs in the worship segment and spending some time sharing what God has done in response to previous prayer sessions. Some of these will require more time, and I have determined not to try to change the overall routine of the prayer meeting. I am a Baptist, and I know the consequences of messing with the routine. They are dire.

God willing, however, we will make the fifteen minutes allotted for prayer count for something.

Posted by Andrew at 7:57 AM // Comments: 2 //
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March 4, 2008

Veggie Worldview

Anybody who knows me know that I am a fan of Veggietales. Not only do I get a kick watching the capers of Bob, Larry, and Co., I am also fascinated by the ministry/business philosophy of their creater, Phil Vischer. It is much of what drives me to continue work on our Cidade Feliz project here in Brazil. Many people have commented to me that they thought the Veggietales programs were shallow and "fluffy'. To which I usually respond by humming sections of "The Bellybutton Song". Seriously--I don't know what kind of deep theology we expect from a talking cucumber.

However, you should read two articles Mr. Vischer just posted on his blog--in the process of announcing some new project that I am dying to know what is--, and tell me if you think they are shallow or fluffy.

If you don't have time to click through and read the articles, here is a money quote from the second one:

One half of all adult Protestants can’t define the word “grace,” a concept that was pretty central to the Protestant Reformation. “For by grace are we saved through faith….” So here’s a question: How exactly are we supposed to live out God’s saving grace in front of a watching world if we can’t even define the term? George Gallup, the pollster who discovered this and many other points of ignorance within the American church, concluded that most pastors have no idea how little many American Christians know about their faith. It isn’t that we know what we should do and are refusing to do it – it’s that we really don’t have a clue.

Hopefully, that will pique your interest to read the rest of the aritcles. I am dying to know exactly what he has up his sleeve. If it has anything to do with getting back to the Protestant concept of Grace--or better yet, if it will be helpful in teaching me how to live out Grace in front of the world--count me in.

Posted by Andrew at 10:42 AM
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March 1, 2008

Poor Dollar

With the dollar currently sitting at 1.67 against the Brazilian Real (compare that to about 2.20 when we arrived in Brazil a little over two years ago), a little comic relief is in order.

The following HSBC Brasil commercial (with captions provided by yours truly through the miracle of Overstream) cracked me up.

Posted by Andrew at 8:18 AM
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