(From the beginning of this blog, I have used this space to reflect theologically on the things we experience in the culture around us.  I would also love to use this space to give more people at NewLife the chance to share, exhort, encourage, edify, and teach the things that God is putting on their heart to share.  In that spirit, here are a few exhortations from our guest writer, Wes Feshler.  Given our current series on the life of Joseph, which deals heavily with the subject of trusting that God is working towards a good purpose even when He seems absent, here are a few of Wes’ exhortations related to that topic:)

(1) Trust God

Proverbs 3:1-8 - My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart,  2 for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.  3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  4 Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.  5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;  6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.  8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

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As I was finishing up the recent Why Believe? sermon series and the Why Go to Church? series on the blog, someone encouraged me to follow them up with a Why NewLife? post, in order to highlight some of the reasons why I feel NewLife is a church worth being a part of.  As I mentioned in an earlier Pulse, I am not fond of religious consumerism, where “church shopping” becomes like looking for a good mechanic (“I like the music, and the seats were comfortable, but the sermon was too long”).  However, I do think it’s worth testifying to what God is doing in our church, in the hopes that more might become a part of what He is doing in and through our community.  So let me offer five reasons (among many others) why I love our church:
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This week I’m taking a break from writing something original, but I want to recommend to you three very interesting things I found on the web this week, two of which will enhance the recent “Why Believe?” series.  The first is a “blogalogue” debate between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman on the subject of pain and suffering.  N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, has taught at McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge, and has authored many books, including one that is relevant to this dialogue, Evil and the Justice of God.  Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of God’s Problem:  How the Bible fails to answer our most important answer – Why we suffer and Misquoting Jesus, among others. 
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This past Sunday, I finished up a five-week series called Why Believe?, where I tried to answer some of the major objections people have to the Christian faith and the God of the Bible.  I have found the series to be very strengthening for my faith, yet at the same time incredibly challenging as I spent a great deal of time reading and listening seriously to the objections that people have.  The general attitude of many of the new atheist books has been summed up as “God isn’t real, and frankly, I don’t like him very much either,” and believers in God are generally characterized as unsophisticated, pre-scientific, arrogant people who enjoy having someone tell them what to do and have serious wish-fulfillment issues.  While I have heard many fair criticisms that should motivate believers towards repentance and discipleship to the true gospel of Jesus, I obviously disagree with their main conclusion and much of the route by which they get there.

I wanted to end my interaction with the objections to the faith today by dealing with a challenge that Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything, throws out in his book and in most talks I have seen him give.  His challenge is meant to communicate the fundamental unnecessariness of religion, and goes something like this:

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“Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God… Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.”

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Over the past three Sundays, I have been preaching on some of the major objections people have to faith in the God of the Bible – issues like Hell, the exclusivity of Christ, and the resurrection – in a series I’ve called Why Believe?.  One of the most meaningful aspects of these Sunday worship gatherings, however, has been giving individuals in our church the opportunity to share some of their story of why they believe.  Sharman Anderson, Danny Cordero, and Maggie Proulx have all shared about how they came to faith in Jesus and the difference He has made in their lives, and in the process have helped me (and hopefully others) to see God in new ways.  I have found that there is something about hearing a testimony of how God has worked in someone else’s life that can be incredibly strengthening for our own faith. 

I think that this is church at its best Read more »

As I’ve been considering the question Why Go to Church?, one of the biggest struggles I (and many other pastors) have is how to encourage someone to go to church without reinforcing a consumer mentality.  Read more »

This past Sunday, I began a new preaching series I’m calling Why Believe? in order to address some of the biggest objections people have to faith in God and belief in the God of the Bible.  I began with the central question of Christianity – did God raise Jesus Christ from the dead? – which also required a brief treatment of the question of the reliability of the New Testament gospels and the question of whether miracles can happen.  If you weren’t there on Sunday, I would encourage you to listen to the sermon on the website, which includes a powerful personal testimony by Maggie Proulx.  Over the next four weeks, I’ll be dealing with the following objections:

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And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…

1 Corinthians 15:17-20 

I’ve written many words on this blog over the last year on many different topics.  Some have probably challenged you; others have angered you.  Some have increased your love for God and other people; others have left you scratching your head.  This week, I want to leave all the other issues on the periphery, where they belong.  Only one thing truly matters, as Paul wrote in the verses above:  If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our lives are pitiful; all my pontificating and sermonizing has been “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  But if Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…

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If you get The Hartford Courant at home, you probably saw the grim-faced couple on the front page, with the headline underneath that read “What Was He Thinking?”  Above the picture, it read “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”

My initial reaction, to be honest, was to laugh.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I certainly wasn’t laughing at the fact that Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, got caught soliciting a prostitute, Read more »

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