Village Life

Prayer Requests for the Week of August 30 - September 5, 2010

2010-08-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

Monday – Many of our Sunday morning communities are changing times and rooms this Sunday. Also, a new community is being formed second hour. Please pray that God would bless or communities as we seek to grow together in the gospel.

Tuesday – Pray for our Children’s Ministry as we begin a new Sunday School quarter this Sunday. Pray that God would use this ministry as one of the means by which we disciple our children.

Wednesday – Pray for Carl Nelson, Director of Pastoral Care, as he visits and cares for those who hospitalized or shut-in.

Thursday – Pray for Drew, Jen, and Logan Lints as they adjust to life in Colorado and Village Seven. Drew is our new youth pastor. They are expecting their second child in a few weeks.

Friday - Pray for our Town Hall Meetings where we will be discussing the new building project. Pray that the leadership will be effective in clearly communicating the project and need.

Saturday – Pray for Tim O’Donnell and his staff as they serve us by caring for our facilities.

Sunday – Pray for our worship services this morning, that we will worship in Spirit and in truth. Pray that God would be honored and that we would be transformed by His presence.

Taming of the Shrew- Benefits Life Network

2010-08-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Maybe you saw the tents and the flying carpets in Leonard Hall. It took two months of preparation, two weeks of rehearsal, 30 advertisers, 27 student actors, almost 700 audience members, one corporate sponsor, an Eagle scout set project, two rival sisters and a genie in a bottle to create Shakespeare Off the Lawn's rendition of Taming of the Shrew (Arabian nights style)! But the results were both dazzling and rewarding. Each summer this local company of students benefits many: the unborn, the students who love to act, those who are shy of Shakespeare, those who love Shakespeare all cleaned up, and also the widows of our congregation (with a free show for their luncheon). But they primarily raise money to benefit Life Network, a sanctity of human life ministry that impacts and transforms people with the love of Christ. And this year was their biggest yet raising more than $7400.00 above the cost of production. Thank you, everyone who helped, came to see the show, sponsored an ad or threw in an extra sum toward the matching donation!

Prayer Reqeusts for the Week of August 16 - 22, 2010

2010-08-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for the many families that are starting school this week and next. Pray for our Village Seven family in the following ways:
· For those who serve in our public schools – pray that God would use them to be a blessing to our community and a testimony to God’s grace.
· Pray for our school, Evangelical Christian Academy and its faculty. Ask God to bless our school as it seeks to prepare young men and women to be servants and leaders.
· Pray for our homeschooling parents who are working hard to train their children to walk faithfully with God in every area of life.
· Pray for those who serve in other Christian and private schools in our city. Pray that God would bless them as they invest their lives in the children of our community.
· Pray for our students as they return to school. Ask God to give them a heart to walk with him in boldness and joy. Also pray that God would use them to be a witness to the glory of Christ.

Tuesday – As school begins, pray for our Youth and Children’s Ministries, that God would use them to take the gospel to the many schools in our community. Pray particularly that God would help us to be a light in the public schools.

Wednesday – Pray for Steve and Kendra Kammer and our College Ministry at Village Seven. May God use this ministry to disciple our covenant children and to take the gospel to our local college campuses. Pray also for those at the Air Force Academy, that God would enable us to impact these students with the gospel as they prepare to serve our country as leaders. Also pray for our college students who are going off to college this fall, that they would walk faithfully with the Lord.

Thursday – Pray for Doug Tharp, our Director of Young Adult Ministries, as he works to create a vibrant and effective ministry at Village Seven to those in their 20’s and early 30’s. Pray also for Doug as he prepares to preach this Sunday.

Friday - Pray for our Architectural Team as they work with our architect to enhance our ministry by making improvements to our campus. Also pray for our Capital Campaign Team as they work to communicate the vision of Village Seven to the congregation.

Saturday – Ask God to make Village Seven a vibrant witness for the gospel in Colorado Springs. Pray that God would use us to bring many people to Himself.

Ephesians 1:9-12 All According to Plan

2010-08-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

Read Ephesians 1:3-6.

Note: In the original Greek, 1:3-14 is one very long, complicated sentence. In order for it to make sense in English, translators have broken it down into several sentences. However, it is important to remember that 1:3-14 form a single thought. This week, we will focus on verses 9-12. However, even here, there is some question about the grammar. In verse 8, Paul says “with all wisdom and understanding.” The translation we use in church, the New International Version, assumes that this goes with verse 8 (God lavished his grace on us with all wisdom and understanding). However, other translations (The English Standard Version and The New American Standard Version) assume that it goes with verse 9, meaning that God made known to us his will with all wisdom and understanding. The grammar is not clear. I tend to think that the ESV is correct.

1. The church in Paul’s day would have seem rather weak in the Roman Empire. Christians were a very small minority and were outsiders of the power circles. Many would have suffered persecution. By all empirical evidence, the church seemed to be on the losing side. How do you think this would have affected the faith and confidence of Christians in the early church?

2. Think of a time when it seemed that your life was spinning out of control (it might be right now), or a time when nothing is going according to your plan. Does this ever cause you to doubt God? What other circumstances might cause you to doubt God, or to doubt his goodness and power?

3. Paul uses several words to show that God is in control (chose, predestined, according to his will, etc.). Write down each word or phrase in verses 3-12 that show that God is in control.

4. Why would Paul find it important to remind the Ephesians that God is in control? How could this help them as they faced their circumstances?

5. In verses 9 and 10, Paul says that God is putting his purpose into effect. What does verse 10 say is the purpose or plan that God is putting into effect?

6. In verse 11, Paul connects our salvation with the truth that God works out everything according to what He wants to do. How can that give you assurance that God is caring for you?

7. What does Paul say in verse 12 is the ultimate purpose of God’s actions?

8. Life often seems out of control. Things rarely go according to our plans. Yet, Paul insists that everything that is happening to you today is going according to God’s plan. How can that give you confidence? How would your life—your thoughts, actions, and emotions—be different if you fully believed that everything in your life really is going according to God’s plan?

9. Living by faith means living as if the things we say we believe are true. What will you do differently today as an act of faith that everything in your life is going according to God’s plan, even if it is not going according to your plan?

100% Missions

2010-08-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

This very interesting perspective on missions is from David Dorr and his blog that is entitlted Helping People Trust the Church Again http://davidpauldorr.com

Our church gives 100% of its budget to missions.

That’s because our church is a mission.Staff salaries are mission. Benevolence (our fund to support those who are in need financially) is about missions. Paying the rent, again, missions.

And why shouldn’t we think of church in America like this? Are we still under the assumption that we are the chaplains to our culture, to use Ed Stetzer’s apt illustration? We are missionaries. We are not at home, even in our home country. We don’t share similar world views with people outside of the body of Christ.

It’s hard to think like missionaries. It is not intuitive to see the world where WE LIVE as missions. After all, it’s home. We speak the same language, we wear similar clothes, listen to similar music. But we have forgotten, or maybe never learned, that we are really different. This culture doesn’t share similar assumptions about God, man, justice, love, righteousness, etc. We don’t have a common language anymore for these concepts.So we must adapt, just like a missionary would.

No missionary would think that the culture where they are sent has to adapt to the missionary’s cultural norms. The missionary, if they are worth anything, seeks to understand the culture and then find creative ways to communicate the gospel in a way that the people will understand.

All of this is rooted in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. If we are to walk as He walked, then we need to be a missionary like He was; a missionary that did not look to his own interests, but the interests of others. The Son of God came in a way we could understand. He laid aside His rights as God to reach us — why should we not do the same?

Prayer for the Week of August 2 - August 8, 2010

2010-08-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

Monday – Praise God for the return of our High School Belize Missions Team. 28 people went on this trip to serve the church in Belize. Students helped with children’s ministry, served in the clinic along with Dr. Spees, and worked with the children. Pray that God would continue to strengthen the church in Belize and would also give our students and our church a vision for the world.

Tuesday – Pray for our Architectural Team as they work with our architect to enhance our ministry by making improvements to our campus.

Wednesday – Pray for Celebrate Recovery as it continues to meet throughout the summer. Pray that those attending would experience the joy of the gospel and freedom from addictions.

Thursday – Thank God for the wonderful children’s programs that have taken place this summer. A number of children have made professions of faith at our soccer camp, Vacation Bible School, and basketball camp. Pray for the Children’s Ministry as they gear up for the launch of fall ministries.

Friday – Pray for our new Adult Communities as they seek to proved rich biblical teaching as well as true Christian fellowship for our congregation.

Saturday – Pray for Pastor Bates as he prepares to bring us God’s Word tomorrow. Pray that the Holy Spirit will empower Him to preach truth to the heart.

Sunday – Pray for our worship services this morning, that we will worship in Spirit and in truth. Pray that God would be honored and that we would be transformed by His presence.

Free Dental Screenings & X-Rays for Kids

2010-07-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile will be at Northern Churches Care on Thursday, August 5 providing free dental screenings and x-rays to children ages 0-18. Please call 719.277.7470 x124 to schedule an appointment. Please let any neighbors or friends who might need this service know.

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Pantry (For Northern Churches Care)

This week’s Needs:

Sugar, Canned Fruit, Spaghetti Sauce, & Chicken Noodle Soup

Always in need of: Tuna, Pasta, Spaghetti Sauce, Toilet Paper, canned veggies (all varieties), Jell-O, personal items (i.e. deodorant, bar soap, toothpaste etc.), canned soup-10 ¾ oz. size (chicken noodle, cream of…), peanut butter & jelly, ramen noodles, crackers, pudding, canned fruit, feminine hygiene products, and laundry detergent.

Food donations can be dropped off outside the V7 Sanctuary in the narthex next to the missions table.

Missionary of the Week

2010-07-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Ron & Peg Smith
Mission to the World

Grand Cayman/Caribbean Region

We are pleased to report good news of great progress in ministry, thanks to the support and faithful prayers of many back home.

Our long-awaited employment visa was granted in March, opening wide the door for ministry throughout the Cayman Islands, and on other islands throughout the Caribbean as the Lord directs. Missions ministry trips are already on the calendar for September. I will be teaching Lifestyle Evangelism in Jamaica and Grenada.

Church Revitalization Continues At Boatswain Bay Presbyterian Church

God Is Working! Life and liveliness are on the upswing at the church in Boatswain Bay. As the
Gospel is shared and the way of faith explained, we are seeing men and women, young and old surrender their lives to Christ. We will be adding new members to the church in several worship services during July.

Various ministries are going and growing, including a Young Professionals group, a Parents group, and Men’s Fellowship. Peg is helping and encouraging the children’s and women’s ministries. The women of the church are working together on projects in both the church and the community of Boatswain Bay. Their plans include a Women’s Retreat in the fall.

A couple needed a “bi-lingual pastor” for their wedding and they found Ron by “divine appointment.” They came to faith during pre-marital counseling, and are now attending BBPC. He’s a Brit; she’s from Ecuador!!

Our Men’s Fellowship has grown to around 20 men who have made a commitment to put God first and walk His way. We are seeking to persuade others to commit their way to the Lord, believing that if the men of the church stand up for Jesus, God will bless our homes, our families and our community.

The Elders and Deacons are planning a Leadership and Vision Retreat in September. We are seeking the Lord’s guidance in defining who we are, where we are going and how we are hoping to get there.

Prayer Requests from the Smiths:

· Pray for VBS in July and new children’s programs being planned for September.
· Praise the Lord for new births and signs of spiritual growth at Boatswain Bay
· Presbyterian Church! Pray that we will grow in our love and commitment to Christ and our love and service to one another.
· Pray for our church leaders as we plan a seminar on “The Christian, The Bible, Sex and Sexuality.” No longer may the subject remain unaddressed!
· Pray for Ron as he ministers to pastors and churches in other Caribbean islands.

Every Man Connected

2010-07-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

For about a year now a small team of men have been meeting together to pray, dream, and plan about how to get more of our men at V7 connected to each other and the church. We believe that God calls us as men to be sacrificial leaders, and that when that happens our church and city could be very different.

Towards that end, we hope to launch some new small groups in the Fall that are connected to our communities, though men don't have to be a part of a community to come. The small groups will center on either fathering, work, or growing as a Christian. You'll be hearing more soon about an event we have planned at the end of August to help launch these.

Our first step is a vision dinner on Sunday, July 18 at 6:00 p.m. in Leonard Hall. Any man that wants to be a part of this is invited to come. Please rsvp to gwesterlund@v7pc.org so we know how much food to get.

Why should you be involved? We’re not interested in another activity to only make you busier, or something that any organization with catchy slogans could accomplish. We want men to be changed from the inside out. We want men to see not only that they need Jesus more than they ever thought, but that he gives more than they ever thought. It’s not until men see that they don’t have to pay God back or earn his favor, and that they taste of God’s grace, that we’re changed in every part of our life. We want men to get that so not just their lives work better, but that their families, jobs, and cities are changed. So if you want to be a part of this, come on Sunday, July 18 at 6:00 p.m. in Leonard Hall, eat some good food, and hear about what God might do.

Bryan

Beneath the Wrapper

2010-07-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

I used to love getting chocolate covered golden coins at festive occasions. For a child, this delicious candy has two major draws. First, it resembles golden coins, which means it is "lost treasure" that promises adventures galore. More importantly, it has tasty chocolate just below the surface. In some ways, people are like these chocolate coins. We have a shiny exterior we want everyone to see. This is shallow and functions as a way to fool people into thinking we are something that we are not. Below the surface is our true nature, and like those chocolate coins, peeling back the outer later can be extremely difficult.

Communities at Village Seven are one vehicle God is using to slowly reveal the inner layer of our people. As we read God's word, worship, pray and fellowship together, walls that have been built to keep others out begin to come down. This is certainly no easy process. Our communities have endured conflict, heartache, and pain over the years. In spite of this, God has been faithful, and as the Gospel penetrates us, we are able to be real with one another. As a result, people begin to truly love one another in a deep, personal way.

Catalyst, our newest community, has begun this slow process. Less than a year old, it has been a privilege for me to watch this group of singles in their twenties share live life together and be refreshed by the word. At times, things seem to be moving at a snail's pace and relationships shallow. But I am encouraged as I hear them share about their experiences, needs, and how the Gospel has been impacting them. My prayer is that God will continue to grow this community and all of the others at Village Seven into places where the Gospel has stripped away those outer layers and God's people act as the salt and light of the world.

Doug

Northern Churches Care Health Fair Coming Up! Please Help

2010-07-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Village Seven is Partnered with Northern Churches Care for their 2010

Health Fair

July 31 from 10:00-2:00 at Pulpit Rock Church – 301 Austin Bluffs Parkway

Our 8^th Annual Health Fair is only 4 weeks away!

FREE for uninsured and underinsured families – School supplies, school physicals (ages 3-18), immunizations for qualified children, children’s haircuts and much more!

We need YOUR Help!

NEWS FLASH: We urgently need hair cutters and stylists

Door prizes and bottled water!

1,500 backpacks full of school supplies needed…attached is a tangible way for your congregation to help! This double sided bulletin insert explains everything; all you need to do is print and stuff.

If interested or have questions, please email Marcia at admin@northernchurchescare.org

Adults need immunizations, too!

Do you need a tetanus booster, Hepatitis A, or Hepatitis B immunization?

Adults who are without insurance, or who may have insurance that does not cover immunizations can receive these free of charge at the Health Fair. No appointment needed. If you need these immunizations but can't come that day, please call 211 for additional clinic times and dates.

Teaching Music

2010-06-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Some have expressed concern that by singing to text on screens rather than to hymnals, we are failing to teach our children the joy of reading music and the joy of singing in four-part harmony. In considering this, we must remember a few things:

1) Neither Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Peter, nor the early church ever sang in harmony. Singing in harmony was not developed until about the 10th century. In fact, when harmony (or, polyphonic music) first was introduced in the church, it was quite controversial. Here is a quote from Wikipedia on the controversy surrounding the use of harmony in church music:
It was not merely polyphony [harmony] that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the papal court. It gave church music more of a jocular performance quality removing the solemn worship they were accustomed to. . . Harmony was not only considered frivolous, impious, and lascivious, but an obstruction to the audibility of the words. Instruments, as well as certain modes, were actually forbidden in the church because of their association with secular music and pagan rites. Dissonant clashes of notes give a creepy feeling that was labeled as evil, fueling their argument against polyphony as being the devil’s music. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony)

Interestingly, nearly all of the arguments that were used against singing harmony in church are now being offered against the use of modern music in worship. So, we must remember that harmony and what we might consider traditional musical styles were not part of the church’s worship for more than the first 1000 years.

2) Like most people my age and older who grew up in the church, I learned to read music in church. Certainly, the church has been the largest force for music education in our country. This is true both for traditional music and for contemporary music (e. g. consider how many American Idol contestants got their start in leading worship in their churches). Yet, the mission of the church is not music education. The goal of worship is not music education. The goal of worship is worship. The church is interested in music education only so far as it aids in its worship and mission. If the church elevates preservation of its cultural heritage above its mission, it will cease to glorify God by being an effective witness in her community.

3) While the church cannot be beholden to a particular culture or era, there is value in maintaining continuity with our past. Of course, most of what we consider “traditional” music is, at most 400 years old, while the church goes back 2000 years (even older, if we consider Old Testament worship). Still, there is value in remembering our traditions. That is why at Village Seven, we strive to incorporate some of the best of our past with the best elements of the present. The rich hymnody of the past continues to bless us today. So, we will continue to use our hymnals as well as sing new songs. Sometimes, we will sing the old hymns to new tunes and arrangements. At other times, we will sing them to their traditional tunes (Side note: if you glance through our hymnal, you will discover that the words and music most of our “traditional” hymns were not written at the same time, which means that, for most of our hymns, there are no truly “original” tunes associated with them).

The Church's Use of Technology

2010-06-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

There are some that are concerned about the use of technology in the church. Of course, the church has been using modern technology since the advent of technology. We use the printing press to print Bibles and hymnals, computers and copiers to print bulletins, sophisticated sound systems to amplify voices and instruments. Even the organ—which some consider the most traditional instrument in the church is electronic. It is essentially an electronic keyboard (called a console) connected to speakers. (Side note: The organ was an instrument of great controversy during the Reformation and was not generally accepted by the Protestants until about 100 years after the Reformation).

In addressing these concerns about technology, we must remember that technology is amoral. Yet, it can be used either to promote good or evil. Technology is a beautiful, yet dangerous thing. We see this at every turn. Nuclear energy can be used to make millions of lives better. It also can be used to wipe out millions of lives in an instant. Computers can be used for remarkable learning and discovery. They also can be used for gossip, slander, and pornography.

We have seen this before. The printing press changed the world in the 15th century, and even fueled the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Without the printing press, it is doubtful that Luther and Calvin would have been any more successful than the Reformers who came before them. Before the printing press, common people did not have Bibles in their homes nor did congregants use hymnals in worship. The advancement of technology—the printing press—made a significant change in the worship life of the church. At the same time, the printing press has brought much evil with it. Just as truth, learning, science, and the gospel have been able to advance with the help of the printing press, so have lies, distortions, heresies, and immorality. Yet, just because there are some inherent dangers in the use of the printed word, that does not mean the church should turn its back on it. The same is true for more modern technologies.

The Web, email, video projection, Facebook, Twitter, and the variety of other technologies available to us, give us tremendous opportunities to enhance communication and foster community when they are used properly. By communicating via email with the congregation, we are able to save money on printing, postage, and the labor of stuffing envelopes. Through use of the web, we are able to provide sermons to people without the expense of purchasing CDs. Through Facebook and Twitter, we are able to make sure that people know about upcoming events. These tools help us stay connected. They are not a substitute for real community (which only can happen face-to-face) but are enhancements to it.

In a recent article in Tabletalk Magazine, Tim Challies writes, “The world is changing, and it is senseless for us to wish that the old world could return. It will not; it is gone forever. What remains for us is to carefully examine new technologies, seeking to understand both the risks and opportunities they bring. What remains for us is to be diligent, to be discerning, to be wise, to examine how we will use the new technologies we encounter, and how they may just use us” (http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/who-using-whom/).

Why Use Video Screens In Worship?

2010-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

I [Mark Bates] mentioned in a recent congregational letter that we plan to install video screens in the sanctuary in August. We have wanted to do this for some time, but thought it was cost prohibitive. However, recently a solution was presented that is both cost effective and will be aesthetically pleasing. Part of the plan calls for rearranging the organ speakers to improve their sound as well.

There are a number of advantages to using screens tastefully in worship. First, by presenting words to songs on the screen, we are able to lift our heads up as we sing. When missionaries visit, screens will allow us to see the work that they are doing rather than just hearing about it. We will be able to have visual testimonies about what God is doing in various ministries of the church like VBS and our Refugee Ministry. In preaching, I will now be able to show maps of areas, charts, and verse structures, that can help communicate God’s Word more effectively (something I often longed to do when preaching through Genesis). For those who are visual learners, this can be a wonderful tool in learning Scripture.

As one who has used video in the past in worship, I am aware of both the dangers and delights this technology affords us. I believe it will be a tremendous tool to increase learning, enhance worship, and communicate more effectively, particularly to the younger generations.

Missionary of the Week

2010-06-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

Becky White
Mission to the World
Christ’s College
Taipei, Taiwan

Becky serves as the English Department Chairperson at Christ’s College. Christ’s College is a bilingual institution of higher learning, based on biblical truth and dedicated to:
Evangelizing students to a saving faith in Jesus Christ and discipling them in the Christian faith in a loving and nurturing environment.

· Providing quality education that integrates faith and learning in order to equip students in Christian character and competent professional abilities, as life-long learners.

· Training students to apply a Christian world and life view in order to become servants of Christ and competent Christian leaders in church and society

Please Keep Praying!
1. Recruitment and Fundraising are high on CC’s priority list! Many contacts are being made.
2. Senioritis / Spring Fever! Pray for over 100 seniors who are trying to complete all required courses and plan their next steps. Pray that God will deepen their trust in Him through this.
3. Transition Pains at CC -- personnel changes, layoffs, added responsibilities, programs.
4. Student Leaders – Student Council, Department Associations, Class leaders, Room leaders
5. Plans to visit churches, friends and family this summer.

Prayer for the Week - June 28 - July4

2010-06-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for our pastors and elders who will be attending the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Pray that God would continue to bless our denomination as we seek to be faithful to the Scriptures, true to the Reformed Faith, and obedient to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. Pray particularly that God would grant us unity as we seek to work together more effectively as a national church.

Tuesday – Pray for our Architectural Team as they work with our architect to enhance our ministry by making improvements to our campus.

Wednesday – Pray for Rev. Drew Lints, along with his wife, Jenny, and their son, Logan, as they prepare to move to Colorado Springs to lead our youth ministry. Pray that God will bless Drew as he seeks to point students to Christ.

Thursday - Pray for our Children’s Ministry as they make preparations for Vacation Bible School (July 10-16). Pray that God would work in the hearts of the children.

Friday – Pray for Pastor Don Roberts as he prepares to bring us God’s Word this Sunday.

Saturday – Pray that God will increase our passion to give life to Colorado Springs, the West, and the World. Pray specifically that we will be willing to pour ourselves out for His mission.

Sunday – Pray for our worship services this morning, that we will worship in Spirit and in truth. Also, thank God this Independence Day for the many blessings He has given us as a nation. Pray for our government leaders. Also, pray that God would grant revival to our country.

Body Builders

2010-06-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Philippians 1:21-26 (NAS): "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. And convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again."

I had to make a very difficult phone call this week. My grandmother is dying of cancer and as she nears the end of her journey, she is struggling with understanding how our earthly journey ends and our eternal one begins. After praying about what I should say and reading through some of my books on grief, I turned to the only thing I know as the solution: the Bible. One of the verses I read to her before praying with her over the phone was Philippians 1:21-26. I explained that Paul, while desiring to remain to be with the church he loved and was called to build up, also desired to be with Christ in eternity. For someone facing death, it is important to remember that this life is temporary and that we should be ready and even eager to "depart and be with Christ."

Conversely, for those of us who are called to remain on this earth for a while, we should also be eager to continue on building up the body of believers we have been called to live with. This means that at Village Seven, we have each been called to use the gifts God has given us and use them for the sake of others. We do this not to be puffed up with pride in a job well done, but so their confidence may abound "in Christ Jesus" as they continue in their "progress and joy in the faith." By understanding this double-sided coin, we see that being "body-builders" shapes us into people who are eager for eternity but also eager to prepare others for this eternity!

Being in a community at Village Seven has built me up in this way. Whether it is through corporate praise and worship, growing in knowledge and depth of insight, praying with others, or enjoying fellowship by breaking bread together or hiking the incline, God has strengthened my faith and joy. I want to encourage you to join a community if you have not found one; to be built up with others and do building yourself. If you have a community already, I pray you would think about those you know that are not plugged-in and are missing out on this body-building. Encourage them to join a community or pass on their information to a staff member. My prayer is that Village Seven and her communities continue to be a place where God is glorified and his people are built up daily.

Doug

Week 4 - The Blessing of Adoption

2010-06-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

Read Ephesians 1:3-6.

Note: In the original Greek, 1:3-14 is one very long, complicated sentence. In order for it to make sense in English, translators have broken it down into several sentences. However, it is important to remember that 1:3-14 form a single thought.

This week, we will focus on what it means to be adopted.
1. In the ancient world, slaves were considered members of the household (oikos). What would be some differences between the rights and privileges of being a son as opposed to being a slave?

2. Read 1 John 3:1-2, 10. What are the blessings of being a child of God?

3. Read 1 Peter 1:14-16. What are some of the responsibilities that come with being adopted into God’s family?

4. Read Hebrews 12:5-13. Why is it important that we know about the discipline of God? What is the difference between punishment and discipline?

5. Paul speaks of believes as being adopted as “sons,” not merely children. This is important because, in ancient cultures, daughters did not have the same rights as sons. Yet, in addressing both men and women, Paul says that they are sons. If God has adopted us as sons (both men and women), and God is the Father of Jesus, what does that say about our status in the family of God?

6. As a Christian, you are a son of God, a son in whom God delights. How does this understanding affect your sense of security? Your commitment to ministry? Your ability to handle rejection by others?

Missionary of the Week

2010-06-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

John and Janel Breitenstein
FamilyLife Ministries
Little Rock, Arkansas

You won't have to look far to see that families and lives are unraveling at an unbelievable rate, and that it costs us--as individuals, as families, as a society, as the church--dearly.

Janel and I believe we're not alone in our struggle for the things that matter: seeking answers for the questions at the core of who we are, looking for tools to take our relationships from survival to thriving and life-giving, and longing for a legacy that changes the world on an eternal level. We're in this for our family, for your family, for generations to come, and most importantly, for the name of Christ. We long for His kingship to be more complete in each heart, knowing that this is where we'll each find ourselves the most satisfied.

We crave God's honor and our enjoyment of Him in everything. We are passionate for truth and reconciliation; for helping people to find genuine connections with one another and we work out these passions in the mission of making every home a godly home.

As we considered our stories, passions, and the cause before us, they seemed to converge on ministry to families. Our attraction to FamilyLife laid in its integrity of leadership and its effectiveness. In September of 2003, we were accepted as staff members with FamilyLife and Campus Crusade for Christ. This was a first step in the long journey of raising our initial financial support, which covers our salary, benefits, taxes...you get the idea (this is a journey we continue as our financial support wanes and as our family grows). We reported to Little Rock from Colorado Springs in June of 2005, right around Baden's first birthday. We're enjoying our current roles and responsibilities in the fight for the family.

John's Role with FamilyLife
I work in the Human Resources Department as the Manager of Staff Relations. My role is to build into our staff and help them to be as effective as possible. This means that I get to love on people, esteem them, build staff morale and help staff resolve conflicts that may arise. I do a lot of listening to individuals and to the organization as a whole. I enjoy being a resource for our staff when they are facing difficult issues in ministry as well as personally. Additionally, I work on strategies that aim to enhance our ability to reach the vision of every home a godly home. The great benefit of my role in the ministry is that I get to minister to and serve fellow laborers of the Gospel and try to help provide an environment that fosters ministry and builds one another up in love.
John's responsibilities...
-Planning All Staff Day Of Prayer Events
-Planning All Staff Meetings
-Organizational Communications Plan
-Lead Staff Relations Team
-Conflict Resolution
-Staff Morale
-Staff Exit Interviews

Janel's Role with FamilyLife
I have chosen to focus the bulk of my attention on raising our young children. It’s a position that bears great responsibility and that I'm honored to have. We see the discipleship and training of our children in the instruction of the Lord as a primary role in our lives, and we covet your prayers.

Six to ten hours of my week are dedicated to FamilyLife Publishing. My tasks are diverse, ranging from product creation, editing, and writing, and reviewing manuscripts. It's an exciting privilege for me to have this "outside" ministry that's so visibly effective even during this season of life. My latest completed projects have included creation and authorship of a small-groups resource and a book for families focused around a certain piece of church history (I am being intentionally vague...these projects are still "classified"). May God continue to establish the works of our hands (Psalm 90:17)!

Additional Responsibilities
Janel and I are privileged to be sent into this work by our family and friends, our church and other partnering churches, and by fellow followers of Jesus Christ. As missionaries we have the prayer support, emotional support, and financial support of a small army of people who believe in what God is doing through this ministry and through us. A portion of our time is devoted to the development and care of this team that God has given to undergird our work.

Prayer for the Week - June 21-27, 2010

2010-06-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for our Children’s Ministry as they make preparations for Vacation Bible School (July 10-16). Pray that God would work in the hearts of the children.

Tuesday – Pray for Richard Hunt, the choir, and other musicians who will lead us in worship this Sunday. Pray that they will be strengthened by the Spirit to assist us in worshipping our great God.

Wednesday - Pray for our Architectural Team as they work with our architect to enhance our ministry by making improvements to our campus.

Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares to bring God’s Word to us this Sunday.

Friday – Pray for Rev. Drew Lints, along with his wife, Jenny, and their son, Logan, as they prepare to move to Colorado Springs to lead our youth ministry. Pray that God will bless Drew as he seeks to point students to Christ.

Saturday – Pray that God would increase our passion to see His glory spread throughout Colorado Springs, the West, and the world. Pray that we become more passionate about His mission than we are about our comfort.

Sunday – Pray that God would receive the glory due His name in our worship services today. Pray also that His people would be edified by meeting with Him and that those who do not yet know Him would see His holiness and grace.

Christianity: Living the "supersaturated" life

2010-06-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Supersaturation: "To cause (a chemical solution) to be more highly concentrated than is normally possible under given conditions of temperature and pressure."

In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Willy tells the children: "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple." Mrs. Teevee, a teacher, replies: "That's 105 percent!"While Willy Wonka is a fictional character and may be certifiably crazy, we too defy the impossible when we tell others we expect 110% from them or that they should go above and beyond their potential. These expressions seem to be mathematically impossible, but we use them because we understand they are really saying: "You can do better." "Your schedule may be crazy, but you can fit more into it." "You may have missed the last two pitches, but you can hit this one." "You have studied for an hour and feel like your brain is full, but you can do another 15 minutes."

I believe we put these concepts into practice when it comes to ministry at Village Seven Presbyterian Church. In young adult ministry, I tend to work with adults who have extremely hectic schedules. One of my leaders has a military career, a long distance relationship, friendships, leadership responsibilities, graduate school, and outdoor activities to pack into his schedule. Another leader stayed up three days for a political rally as a volunteer and then came to Sunday school because he had made a commitment to do so. I do not even want to think about the schedules our pastors have every week, because I know each of them has more to do than can be humanly done.

This is where life in the body of believers is different from life outside of the body. At Village Seven, we have something that allows us to keep going, to push our boundaries, and to keep giving and serving even when our limits are reached: the Gospel. We live for something greater. While we were sinners Jesus Christ died for us, has brought us into relationship with God, and empowers us with the Holy Spirit to do the work the Father has planned for our lives. It may seem impossible to fulfill the calling we have been given, but with God, we are able.

This is one of the reasons I love working at Village Seven. I get to see God using his weak and limited people to do incredible things. He empowers, sustains, and grows us through difficult times to accomplish his will. When I see the "supersaturation" of the leaders in my communities, I cannot help but praise God for the great work he is doing. Therefore, we must take heart and trust that God is in control and that regardless of the problems we face in life, he will enable us. Praise Him!

Doug Tharp

Week 3 - The Holy Sons of God (Part 2)

2010-06-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

Read Ephesians 1:3-6.

Note: In the original Greek, 1:3-14 is one very long, complicated sentence. In order for it to make sense in English, translators have broken it down into several sentences. However, it is important to remember that 1:3-14 form a single thought.

We started looking at these verses two weeks ago, but mainly focused on verse 3. This Sunday (June 20), we will focus on 1:4-6. Because of this, some of the study questions from two weeks ago are again presented here.

1. What is the difference between being holy and being blameless?

2. How can God see us as holy and blameless if we still sin?

3. In the Old Testament, if a person touched anything that was “unclean” he became unclean. However, in the gospels, we see that when Jesus touches anything that is unclean, it becomes clean. How does this understanding of being holy “in Christ?”

4. How does this recognition that we are holy and blameless in Christ motivate us to godly living?

5. Paul speaks of believes as being adopted as “sons,” not merely children. This is important because, in ancient cultures, daughters did not have the same rights as sons. Yet, in addressing both men and women, Paul says that they are sons. If God has adopted us as sons (both men and women), and God is the Father of Jesus, what does that say about our status in the family of God?

6. How would it shape your view of yourself to see yourself the way God sees you (holy, blameless, chosen, sons)? How would it shape the way you live if you understood your true identity as holy, blameless, chosen sons?

Missionaries of the Week

2010-06-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Steve and Kendra Kammer
Campus Crusade for Christ
Colorado Springs, Colorado

After spending four years in Barcelona, Spain with Campus Crusade for Christ, we found that God was directing our hearts to work with American college students. In Spain we saw God’s blessing on our work with American STINTers (short term interns with CCC) and 5-week American summer projects to Spain. The American students’ heart for the lost and their desire to seek God was an incredible encouragement to us. After prayer and consideration, we decided to return to Colorado Springs to work with students from all over Southern Colorado, including the college group at V7PC.

Currently we are involved in evangelism and discipleship with college students from UCCS, Pikes Peak Community College, CSU Pueblo, and others, but our focus is primarily on Colorado College. We plan evangelistic outreaches for college students, Bible studies, weekly meetings, and service projects as a way to show the love of God to the community. Our mission is that every student in southern Colorado would know someone who truly follows Jesus and have an opportunity to respond to His good news.

Prayer for the Week of June 14-20, 2010

2010-06-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for our high school students this week as they attend the Reformed Youth Ministries (RYM) summer conference in Estes Park, Colorado. Pray that God would work in their hearts to draw them closer to Him.

Tuesday – Pray for the Steve Long’s Samba Soccer Camp, sponsored by our Children’s Ministries. Pray for Steve, not only as he teaches soccer, but as he seeks to teach the children about walking with Jesus.

Wednesday -- Pray for our Architectural Team as they work with our architect to enhance our ministry by making improvements to our campus.

Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares to bring God’s Word to us this Sunday.

Friday – Pray that Village Seven and her members would be a lighthouse of the gospel in Colorado Springs.

Saturday – Pray for our worship services tomorrow. Pray that God would be glorified and that His people would be edified.

Sunday – Pray for our sister churches in Colorado Springs, that God would cause all of us to grow as we seek to proclaim the good news of Christ in Colorado Springs, the West and the world.

Should I join a community or a small group?

2010-06-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

The quick answer is yes. We are passionate at V7 about our members growing to maturity in Christ, and we believe for that to happen our folks need both.

Sometimes I hear feedback from people that they don't want a small group because they prefer to grow by hearing great teaching in their community. Sometimes I hear other feedback from people that they don't want a community on Sunday mornings because they prefer their small group where they can be more honest, vulnerable, and deep than they can on a Sunday morning in a community. But the truth is that what is meant to happen in each is different, and we need both.

We need communities because we need places where people new to the church can begin to try things out. We need communities so we can hear the gospel applied to life and shown throughout the Bible. We need communities because several dozen people can support each other and share the load in ways a small group can't. We need communities so elders can connect with the people under their spiritual care. We need communities so that there's place of service for all. I've seen communities care for the sick, hurting, and those under trial over a long term period in ways that a small group just couldn't.

We need small groups because we all need a place where we can share the burdens of others, pray for them, demonstrate the gospel of grace in relationships of love, and learn together. I met recently with two ladies who have found a place of safety in their small group. They have been able to pray for and love others in a profound way that they all needed. It's just what we want small groups to do.

So should you commit to a community or to a small group? The answer is we don't have to pick, and if we do pick one over the other, we'll be missing out.

Missionaries of the Week

2010-06-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

Don and Mary Jo McCurry
Ministry to Muslims Colorado Springs, CO

I am actively engaged in training Christian folks for ministries with Muslim peoples. I do this through a few programs in the US and several more overseas.

In the US, I teach all over the place in the “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” program, and in the “Encountering the World of Islam Program.” I also teach “Introduction to Missions” at New Geneva Theological Seminary in Colorado Springs and speak at mission conferences and speak on mission Sundays.

Overseas: This year (2010), I have already taught in Southern Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama. The Lord willing, I will be teaching in Bolivia and at the Ibero-American Institute of Transcultural Studies in Spain. These ministries are all about training Latin American and Spanish and Portuguese workers who are taking “tentmaking” jobs in the Muslim world for the sake of winning Muslims to Christ.

In the non-Latin world: This year I will be teaching workshops and speaking at the Frontiers Conference in Thailand for all of their Asian workers – a couple of hundred.

Later, I will be working with the leaders of Pioneers in Indonesia, and the leaders of Pueblos Musulmanes Internacional in Indonesia. Toward the end of the year, I will be training MBB Kyrgyz evangelists in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and training seminary students in Pakistan on missions in general and to Muslims in particular with additional training in how to answer Muslim attacks on the Scriptures and on Christian doctrine, plus how to use the Quran as a “Stepping Stone” to bring Muslims into the Bible and to Christ.

Prayers for the Week of June 7

2010-06-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

Monday - Pray for Steve Kammer and our College Ministry. Many of our college students have returned home from school for the summer. Others have been here throughout the school year. Pray that God will bless this group, causing them to grow closer to Him and to one another.

Tuesday - Pray for Elder Alan Bruns as he leads a team that is planning our facility improvements. Pray that God would grant him and his team wisdom as they plan how to improve our ministry.

Wednesday - Pray for Pastor Kevin Allen as he leads our Outreach Ministry. Pray for him as he seeks to lead us to become more of an outward facing church.

Thursday -Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he spends most of today working on his sermon for Sunday. Pray that he will preach God's Word faithfully and in in the power of God's Spirit.

Friday - Pray that God would give us as a church a greater hunger for His Word. Pray that He would use this, not merely to increase our knowledge, but also to increase our passion for Him and His mission.

Saturday - Pray for our sister PCA churches in Colorado Springs--Grace Presbyterian, Forestgate Presbyterian, Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian, and Westminster Presbyterian. Pray that God will bless them as they gather tomorrow for worship.

Sunday - Pray for our congregation as we gather for worship this morning. Pray that God would send His Spirit to revive our hearts and awaken us to His glory.

Week 2 - The Holy Sons of God

2010-06-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Read Ephesians 1:3-6.
Note: In the original Greek, 1:3-14 is one very long, complicated sentence. In order for it to make sense in English, translators have broken it down into several sentences. However, it is important to remember that these verses - Ephesians 1:3-14 - form a single thought.

1. Paul begins by praising (literally “bless”) God. The rest of this sentence (1:3-14) gives the reason for this praise. What do you think he means by “every spiritual blessing?”

2. Why is it important to know that we were chosen before the creation of the world?

3. What is the difference between being holy and being blameless? How can God see us as holy and blameless if we still sin?

4. Paul speaks of believes as being adopted as “sons,” not merely children. This is important because, in ancient cultures, daughters did not have the same rights as sons. Yet, in addressing both men and women, Paul says that they are sons. If God has adopted us as sons (both men and women), and God is the Father of Jesus, what does that say about our status in the family of God?

5. Why did God predestine us to adoption?

6. How would it shape your view of yourself to see yourself the way God sees you (holy, blameless, chosen, sons)? How would it shape the way you live if you understood your true identity as holy, blameless, chosen sons?

Tools to Help You Study Ephesians

One of the best ways to benefit from the sermons on Sunday morning is to study along with the sermons. Each week, we will post some study questions on the upcoming sermon.
Also, here are a few resources that might help you as you study Ephesians:

* The ESV Study Bible – This is the “gold-standard” in study Bibles and is available at most Christian bookstores as well as Amazon. Even better, it is free on line. Just click on the link.

* Ephesians, by Bryan Chapell in the Reformed Expository Commentary series (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2009). This is a cross between a commentary and a devotional guide. Very readable.

* Ephesians, by John Stott in The Bible Speaks Today series. This commentary has several advantages: 1) it is easy to read, 2) It is cheap, and 3) Dr. Stott is a world class scholar and preacher.

For those still looking for more, I would suggest John Calvin (free on the internet at CCEL.org, or just click this link. Also, see commentaries on Ephesians by Klyne Snodgrass, Simon Kistemaker, F. F. Bruce, and Peter T. O’Brien.

Related Resources

Union with Christ
One of the themes in the book of Ephesians is our union with Christ. This can be a difficult concept to understand. Most good systematic theologies have sections on this. Also, I would recommend Union with Christ by Michael Scott Horton.

The Church
The doctrine of the church is an ignored doctrine today. Yet, the New Testament has much to say about it. To help you get a biblical view of the church, I recommend Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. This is a very accessible, short book that will help you see the church from a less cynical perspective.

If you want to dig even deeper, I would suggest John Murray’s articles on the church in his Collected Writings, These can be found both in volumes 1 and 2. Another good resource, but a bit weightier, is The Church by Edmund Clowney.

I will recommend other resources as the study moves along.

Urgent Needs for Northern Churches Care

2010-05-27T15:27:00.001-07:00

We have partnered with Northern Churches care in reaching over 700 families a month with crisis care, prayer, and the gospel right in our part of Colorado Springs.

You might not know that we have a collection box next to the mission's counter in the narthex for helping with their immediate needs.

Well Northern Churches contacted us with an Urgent Need! for Bar Soap
Always in need of: Tuna, Pasta, Spaghetti Sauce, Toilet Paper, canned veggies (all varieties), Jell-O, personal items (i.e. deodorant, bar soap, toothpaste etc.), canned soup-10 ¾ oz. size (chicken noodle, cream of…), peanut butter & jelly, ramen noodles, crackers, pudding, canned fruit, feminine hygiene products, and laundry detergent (powder).

Would you consider bringing an item or two with you on Sunday?

New Sermon Series on Ephesians

2010-05-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

God’s New Community: A Study of Ephesians
Note: Pastor Mark Bates will begin a new series on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians this Sunday (May 30, 2010). The following long post is an introduction to this series.

Introduction
The world is strong and the church is weak. That is a sentiment of many today. In today’s world, Bible-believing Christians are viewed as ignorant, uninformed and unsophisticated at best, and dangerous, narrow-minded extremists at worst. George Barna conducted a study of unchurched people to determine their impressions of eleven different groups. Military officers received the most favorable rating, followed by ministers. However, evangelical Christians were next to last, right after lesbians and just before prostitutes.(1) It is obvious that the world doesn’t think much of Christians.

Twenty-first century America is a post-Christian world. In the 1950’s, most people in America, even if they were not Christians, at least had a Christian heritage. For the most part, they accepted the authority of the Bible, they believed in moral absolutes and absolute truth, they believed in God and in the concept of sin. Furthermore, the cultural gap between those inside the church and outside the church was not that great. Most Americans—even if they were not religious—shared certain core values that were essentially Judeo-Christian.

That is no longer the case. Christians differ radically from the dominant culture on issues like sexual ethics, divorce, and other issues of morality. Christians also insist that there are moral absolutes. However, in today’s culture, where everyone is free to determine his or her own “truth,” it is considered immoral to insist on moral absolutes.

To make matters worse, our culture no longer has a framework for discussing these issues. As Os Guinness notes, “Modern western society is the very first to have no agreed upon answer to the purpose of life. We have much to live with and little to live for.” Without this basic philosophical framework, it is as if Christians and the dominant culture no longer even speak the same language.

As if all of this were not gloomy enough, the influence of the church in the west is decreasing with each passing generation. In 1958, 50% of all people Americans attended church regularly. By 1996, that number had dropped to 37%. If you break it down by ages, the picture gets even darker. As the following chart shows, the younger a person is, the less likely he is to attend church. Another study shows that over 70% of people between the ages of 11 and 28 do not attend church. When one considers that most people who become Christians do so before the age of 18, it seems apparent that Christianity’s influence in America is moving even further to the margins of society.

Percentage Who Attend Church

When one looks at the decadence of culture, the rejection of absolute truth, the power of the secular media, and the waning of the influence of the church, it is easy to conclude that the world is strong and the church is weak.

Ephesus—Not So Different from Our World
The Ephesian Christians faced the same issues confronting us. They were living in a world where the culture was even more hostile to their faith than our own. The church at the time was small and appeared to be weak. The forces against them were strong.

The opening sentence of Ephesians says that the letter was written by the Apostle Paul to the saints in Ephesus.(2) Ephesus was located in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and was originally a Greek colony. By Paul’s day, it was the fourth largest city in the world and the capital of the Roman province of Asia and home to large seaport. Its large seaport made it a significant city of commerce for all of Asia Minor. It was also home to the temple of the goddess Artemis (Diana). The temple was destroyed in the fourth century BC, but had been rebuilt and became one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Bryan Chapell notes that the historical record shows that the economy and culture of Ephesus and the surrounding area was “as mired in materialism, sensuality, and idolatrous diversions as any modern city.” To make matters worse, because of the paganism of the day, all of this immorality was viewed as being religiously good.(3)

Chapell goes on to say that “Ephesus would overwhelm not merely because of numbers but because of contrary belief. As you walk into the city ruins today, remnants of a great statue to the Roman emperor Trajan can still be seen. Trajan ruled after Paul’s time, but the statue still demonstrates the attitude of the Roman rulers Paul faced. It shows the foot of the emperor upon the globe of the world, demonstrating two things: the ancients were not ignorant of the shape of the world, and Roman rule so dominated the ancient world that the emperor portrayed himself as having the authority of a god.”

It is easy to imagine this young church (less than ten years old) trying to function in such a large, powerful, decadent city and starting to think that the world is strong and the church is weak.

Paul’s simple answer to this thought is: Don’t believe it!

Ephesians is a clarion call for the church to be the church. The same Christ who is “above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” is also the “head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:21-23). Christ is triumphant. Therefore His church will be triumphant.

The church, far from being a weak and beggarly institution of no importance, is the body of Christ (1:23; 3:6; 4:12, 16, 25; 5:23, 30), the new humanity (2:15), members of God’s household (2:19), a holy temple (2:21). Those in the church have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world (1:4). Furthermore, they have been fully equipped by God for the task (6:11ff), and are empowered by the very Spirit of God (1:13, 17; 2:18, 22; 3:16; 4:3-4, 30; 5:18; 6:17-18).

Some may claim that the world is strong and the church is weak. The truth is, Jesus is Lord over heaven and earth and the church is His body, His temple, His household, and His bride. Therefore, the church is anything but powerless against the world. The world is powerless against the church because the world is powerless against Christ.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul calls on the church (and the Christians who comprise her), to remember who she is and to live accordingly. Through his prayers, songs of worship, words of exultation and exhortation, Paul reminds Christians that their residency in Christ is every bit as real as their residency in the world. As such, they are to live together in unity, as one body, and also in holiness, as Christ’s body.

Some Major Themes in Ephesians

Union With Christ
Ephesians is a celebration of the Christian’s union with Christ. Twelve times in the opening verses (1:1-14), Paul refers to the Christian’s spiritual union with Christ by using such phrases as “in Christ Jesus,” “in Him,” “in whom,” and “in Christ.” He continues this theme throughout the letter. Because the Christian is united to Christ, all that belongs to Christ belongs to the believer. The union of the Christian with Christ is such a great mystery that no human analogy can explain it fully. However, marriage is a picture of it (as Paul explains in 5:28-33). When a man and woman get married, the two become “one flesh.” All that belongs to one now also belongs to the other. Each one retains his or her individual identity, but they are also one in a very real sense. In the same way, but only greater, the Christian is united to Christ and therefore is now “blessed with every spiritual blessing” (1:3), chosen by God (1:4), holy and blameless (1:4), redeemed and forgiven (1:7), raised with Christ (2:6), and even seated (presently) in the heavenly realm.

Unity of the Church
Since all Christians are united to Christ, then all Christians are united to each other (4:25, 5:30) and members of one body, household, and temple (2:14-22). Because of his emphasis on the Christians union with Christ, it makes sense that Paul puts a great deal of emphasis on the unity and peace of the church. It is clear from this letter that the call to Christ is a call to the church. One cannot have Christ without also sharing in His body.

Practical Instructions
Ephesians is full of practical instructions on how to live. Paul covers everything from integrity, diligence , anger, marriage, parenting, work relationships, sexual ethics, and even the tongue. Yet, Ephesians is not a book of legalistic rules. Instead, it describes the identity of those who are united to Christ and the conduct that flows from this new identity. Paul’s instructions guide the Christian in understanding who is positionally in Christ and therefore how he should live in light of this position. From his study of Paul, Herman Ridderbos commented that “The indicative [the statements about one’s identity] precedes the imperative [the commands about how one ought to live] and the role is not reversible.” That is, a person does not behave (obey the commands) in order to be accepted by God. Instead, the Christian obeys because he is accepted by God.

Prayer and Praise
Paul does give some instructions on prayer in Ephesians, but that is not what makes prayer and worship a theme of the letter. Instead, much of the book is prayer and praise. As one commentator notes, more than any other New Testament letter, Ephesians “has the character and form of prayer.”(4) Even though Paul is writing Ephesians while in chains, throughout the book, he sounds as if He is singing God’s praises at the top of his lungs. The whole letter is a celebration of God’s glory and Paul is constantly breaking out in worship and inviting his readers to join him.
John Stott sums up Ephesians well when he writes, “The whole letter is thus a magnificent combination of Christian doctrine and Christian duty, Christian faith and Christian life, what God has done through Christ and what we must be and do in consequence. And its central theme is ‘God’s new society’—what it is, how it came into being through Christ, how its origins and nature were revealed to Paul, how it grows through proclamation, how we are to live lives worthy of it, and how one day it will be consummated when Christ presents his bride the church to himself in splendour, ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. . . holy and without blemish’ (5:27).”(5)

Footnotes:
1 The Barna Update, December 3, 2002
2 Even among Evangelical scholars, there is some debate over this issue. Beza, who was John Calvin’s successor in Geneva in 16th century suggested that the letter was meant for all of the churches of Asia Minor and that the name was possibly left blank so that each church could fill in its own name. Since Ephesus was the largest and most prominent city in the region, it eventually bore its name. Archbishop Ussher in the 17th century adopted Beza’s proposal. The 19th century Presbyterian scholar, Charles Hodge, suggested that the letter was addressed to the Ephesians, but was intended for a wider Gentile audience. Of course, all of this is speculation. We do not know if “in Ephesus” was accidently left out of our oldest existing copies, or if it was added to the more recent and more numerous manuscripts. Still, it seems odd that Paul never addresses any one personally in Ephesians, as he does in his other letters. After all, he spent three years in Ephesus. Yet, he mentions no one by name. In contrast, he names 26 different people in the closing chapter of Romans. Because the letter seems impersonal and because the oldest manuscripts do not have “in Ephesus,” there is a reasonable debate on this subject. I am working on the assumption that “in Ephesus” was in the original and that the letter was addressed primarily to the Gentiles in Ephesians and the surrounding cities.
3 Chapell, Bryan, Ephesians.
4 Barth, Markus
5 Stott, John R. W. The Message of Ephesians. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979, pp. 25-26.

2010-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Luke and Sarah Abraham
Bridges International (Campus Crusade for Christ's ministry to internationals)
Dallas, Texas

Luke and Sarah began serving with Bridges International together after being married about four months ago. Sarah previously served in Dallas and East Asia, and Luke recently graduated with a Masters of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. Both of them desire to serve as long-term missionaries in either a Muslim or Chinese context, and hope to serve overseas at some point.

There are currently more than 750,000 international students in the United States. These students are coming from places like Saudi Arabia, Central Asia, China, India, Nepal, North Africa… In fact, they come from the hardest places for American missionaries to serve legally due to political conflict and hostility to Christianity. Upon returning to their home countries, most of them will hold positions of influence in their governments, businesses, and academic institutions. During their 4 to 6 years in the states, we have a significant opportunity to introduce these students to Jesus, help them grow in Christ, and equip them to be ambassadors for Jesus to their own people.

Some prayer requests for our ministry are that the Lord would provide the remainder of our monthly financial support so that we can begin ministering to international students full time. Please also pray for a male director for the team we will be serving on in Dallas. Finally, pray for the students we will be ministering to, that they will be receptive to us and to the gospel. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

Prayers for the Week of May 24

2010-05-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

How to Split a Church in Three Weeks

2010-05-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

How to Split a Church in Three Weeks

The following is a post from Ray Ortlund's blog (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund) from a while back. God has blessed us at V7 with peace from many years, and we shouldn't take it for granted. We should all watch our own hearts lest we unintentionally become the source of conflict that would distract us from giving life to Colorado Springs, the West, and the World.

Week One: Walk into church today and think about how long you’ve been a member, how much you’ve sacrificed, how under-appreciated you are. Take note of every way you’re dissatisfied with your church now. Take note of every person who displeases you.

Meet for coffee this week with another member and “share your heart.” Discuss how your church is changing, how you are being left out. Ask your friend who else in the church has “concerns.” Agree together that you must “pray about it.”

Week Two: Send an email to a few other “concerned” members. Inform them that a groundswell of grievance is surfacing in your church. Problems have gone unaddressed for too long. Ask them to keep the matter to themselves “for the sake of the body.”

As complaints come in, form them into a petition to demand an accounting from the leaders of the church. Circulate the petition quietly. Gathering support will be easy. Even happy members can be used if you appeal to their sense of fairness – that your side deserves a hearing. Be sure to proceed in a way that conforms to your church constitution, so that your petition is procedurally correct.

Week Three: When the growing moral fervor, ill-defined but powerful, reaches critical mass, confront the elders with your demands. Inform them of all the woundedness in the church, which leaves you with no choice but to put your petition forward. Inform them that, for the sake of reconciliation, the concerns of the body must be satisfied.

Whatever happens from this point on, you have won. You have changed the subject in your church from gospel advance to your own grievances. To some degree, you will get your way. Your church will need three or four years for recovery. But at any future time, you can do it all again. It only takes three weeks.

Just one question. Even if you are being wronged, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Corinthians 6:7).

Northern Churches Care

2010-05-20T06:28:00.001-07:00

Northern Churches Care

A couple weeks ago, thirty folks from Village Seven attended the Crisis to Hope banquet for Northern Churches Care. NCC is a partnership ministry of around 50 churches in our part of town who reach out with the hand and heart of Christ to those in a crisis. I appreciate the fact that NCC is strongly evangelical, passionatley merciful, and connecting to the local church. Please visit http://northernchurchescare.org/

A note of appreciation from a neighbor in need.
“I am very thankful for all the help and support you gave me. I am single with no dependents but found myself in a dire financial situation. I was able to get help and was not made to feel as though I didn’t belong.”

Thoughts on the Church as a Mission

2010-05-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

The church is both a home and a mission.[1] It is a home to its people and a mission to its community. As a home, the church provides care for its people, nurtures them, and equips them to live out the Great Commandment and Great Commission in their daily lives. As a mission, the church is an embassy of the Kingdom of God, announcing the arrival of King Jesus, calling people to allegiance to Him, seeking to bring everything under His reign, and seeking to bring the blessings of His kingdom to a world in need.

In this role of the church as a mission, we are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities in our day. If the church is going to overcome these challenges and seize the opportunities before it, then some of our models of ministry must change.

Much has been written over the past thirty years on the spiritual and social changes in American culture. While most Christian leaders are very familiar with these changes, I am not convinced we have taken them seriously enough. The church continues to minister as if it were the 1950’s, except in some cases we have replaced the organ with guitars and hymnals with PowerPoint. While there is nothing wrong with these changes, these changes are, for the most part, cosmetic and do not address the real challenges ahead.

In one of his books, Jim Peterson outlines the problem well. While churches and Christian ministries may say that they are trying to reach the whole population, they really are simply competing for an ever shrinking piece of the pie. Most churches are only capable of reaching people who have a particular background. Truly secular people have worldviews and assumptions that are so radically different from Christians that the average church member (and leader) is no more equipped to reach out to them than they are to the tribal people of New Guinea. They no longer speak the same language. The gap is widening.

In the 1950’s, most non-Christians in America at least had a Christian heritage. They were not truly secular. For the most part, they accepted the authority of the Bible, they believed in God. They believed in the concept of sin. Furthermore, the cultural gap between those inside the church and outside the church was not that great. Most Americans shared certain core values that were essentially Judeo-Christian.

That is not the case today. America has become increasingly secular. The church and most evangelism techniques still work well with the segment of the population that conforms to the old values. However, neither the church nor most evangelism programs have any idea of how to reach those who are further away. Yet, the church continues to minister as if we live in the world of Ozzie and Harriett. Ozzie and Harriett are still out there, but their numbers are shrinking greatly. We are ministering as if we are in a Christian society instead of ministering as if we are in a secular society. The result is, we are relevant to ever decreasing percentage of the population and are quickly moving (if we are not already there) to being a ghetto of mainstream society.

In The Celtic Way of Evangelism, George Hunter notes that “The Church, in the Western World, faces populations who are increasingly “secular”—people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly “urban”—and out touch with God’s “natural revelation.” These populations are increasingly “postmodern”: they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling driven, and “right-brained” than their forebearers. These populations are increasingly “neo-barbarian”; they lack “refinement” or “class,” and their lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive—exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen—and are often looking “in all the wrong places” to make sense of their lives and find their soul’s true home. ”

Hunter goes on to tell the story of St. Patrick. Patrick was born in Britain in the year 387. When he was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by the wild people of Ireland and forced to live as a slave. However, six years later, he escaped and returned to Britain. Upon his return, he entered the priesthood. However, after a few years, he petitioned the church to be sent back to Ireland as a missionary. However, the church was reluctant to do so because the church at that time did not believe the Irish could ever become Christians. Why? Because the Irish were barbarians. The assumption was that a population had to be civilized in order to be Christianized. Secondly, if they ever were Christianized, they were expected to adopt the “Roman way” of doing things”. Since the Irish clearly were not civilized, they could not be Christianized.

That mentality (either intentionally or unintentionally) is pervasive in the church. For example, if you see one kid wearing all black, who has black eyeliner all around the eyes, and a series of tattoos, and you see another kid in khakis and wearing a polo type shirt, which one is most likely to become a Christian? Who is most likely to become a Christian, the president of the PTA or the president of Hell’s Angels?

In the way we talk, the way we do ministry, our churches are designed to minister to “civilized” people. If a person is conservative, moral, and preferably Republican, our church is a warm environment. However, one who does not fit our standards of civilization is often excluded based on his behavior and cultural values before we even have the opportunity to talk about Jesus.

We think you have to behave then believe, and once you do those two things, you belong. However, Jesus reverses all of this. By eating with sinners, Jesus does not condone sinful lifestyles but attests that these persons and their lifestyles can be transformed.

The problem is, as Christians, we see the moral failure of our culture and we want to address this. So, we take a strong stand for moral behavior. We accept those who behave properly and reject those who do not because we do not ever want to send the message that we condone immorality. However, in doing this, we reverse the biblical order.

The gap between the Church and the culture, though, extends far beyond behavior. Our worldviews are so different that we do not know how to talk to one another. Living in our own communities has become so cross-cultural that there is a natural tendency for Christians to gather together with people who think like we do. The problem is, we are gathering together, maintaining our culture, but becoming a ghetto of the dominant culture. We are quickly becoming the Amish, only we are more fashionably dressed.

A while back, I attended a wedding in a Greek Orthodox Church. It was beautiful. I had never been to anything like it. However, it was also completely foreign to me. I did not understand the rituals. It seemed to me to be extremely culturally bound. It was as if when I got out of my car and entered the church, I was transported to a different country. I was a foreigner there. That experience caused me to wonder if that is how secular people feel when they attend our church.

The answer is not to compromise. That is what the liberal church has done. We are not called to blend into the culture, but to transform it by living out the gospel. The answer then, is neither to compromise or retreat to our ghetto, but to be missionaries. We are to live and act as resident aliens in our culture. Instead of trying to maintain our culture and protect it, our calling is to engage the culture, incarnate the gospel in the culture, and then be agents of transformation in the culture.

Even in seeking to be missionaries to our culture, we must be careful that we do not merely focus on doing that which is attractive to the culture rather than that which is transformational. For those of us who value cultural relevance, we have been driven by a desire to reach lost people. As a result, we have worked hard to grab their attention and speak with relevance. Much of the results of this have been good. We have seen many people come to church and eventually to Christ that never would have gone to church before. The truth of the Bible has not been veiled behind unintelligible liturgies. Lives truly have been changed by the gospel.

However, churches have not just grown by attracting non-Christians, but by attracting Christians. People now crave relevance more and more. In reality, they want a church that entertains them and puts on a good show. We have created a church that values entertainment over doctrine. I heard a pastor of one of the largest churches in my denomination say, "If we changed our theology, a few people might leave. If we changed our music, half the church would be gone by next Sunday".

I agree that church should not be boring. God isn’t boring. It is the equivalent of a modern miracle how we preachers can talk about our amazing God in such a way that puts people to sleep. However, the danger is, when you build your church on having a good “show”, you now have created an appetite for entertainment that constantly needs to be fed.

While the contemporary church has been far more successful in reaching lost people than the traditional church (look at the PCA’s statistics on those joining by profession of faith and this is obvious), it also has grown by attracting people who are bored with their old church. If people come to you because you are more exciting than their old church, then they will leave when they find another church that is more exciting than yours.

This has created a consumer mindset in church members. The members of the church no longer see themselves as owners/ministers, but as consumers. Just as they will leave their old grocery store to shop at Wal Mart, they will leave one church for another if it provides a better show or better services for their family.

We are seeing this all over the country. I can cite a number of examples in my own denomination where a church was once the hot church in its community, but now is experiencing decline because some other church has come that puts on a better production. The drive for cultural relevance has resulted in consumerism. Consumerism will eventually bite the church. It is a beast that cannot be contained.

So, the church must recognize that it is ministering in a secular society. It also must approach ministry with a missionary mindset—seeking to reach the people of its culture in a way that makes sense to them. At the same time, the church must guard against compromise and consumerism. Instead, it must function as a missionary society that loves the people of its community and desires to see them transformed by God’s grace.

Missionary of the Week

2010-05-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Dave Hawes
The navigators
Tampa, Florida

Dave serves as Regional Staff Trainer and National Staff Training Coach with The Navigators. His role as National Staff Training Coach includes responsibilities in Florida, Texas and Singapore, as well as serving the International Navigators where needed most, such as Bulgaria in April.

Pray that as Dave ministers to trainees that he will have clarity of thought and speech so the trainees can grasp and implement the material they learn.

Pray for Dave as he is in Bulgaria this month, that God will provide many opportunities for him to encourage and strengthen the Navigator staff. Ask the Lord to help Dave to know how to best serve the staff and to be able to communicate clearly, especially when he has to use an interpreter.

Prayer Requests for week of May 17

2010-05-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Monday - Please pray for Pastor Mark Bates this week. Mark is taking a study week in preparation for his next sermon series.

Tuesday - Please pray for Pastor Drew Lints and his family. Drew has been called by the Session to be our new Youth Pastor, starting in July. Pray for Drew, his wife, Jen, their son, Logan, and for Jen's pregnancy. Pray for them as they say goodbye to friends in Miami and prepare to move to Colorado.

Wednesday - Please pray for Dr. Richard Hunt and the music ministry. The choir and musicians rehearse on Wednesday evenings. Pray that their rehearsal goes well so that they will be able to lead us in worship this Sunday.

Thursday - Please pray for our Children's Ministry Staff. Our Children's Ministry Director, Robin Gorab, is on a well-deserved sabbatical this month. Pray that God would refresh her. Pray for her staff as they make preparations for a very active summer.

Friday - Pray for our elders as they shepherd the flock. Pray that God will give them the energy and the wisdom necessary for the many tasks before them.

Saturday - Pray for the finances of the church. Praise God that He has continued to meet our needs. Pray that God will allow us to expand our ministry to serve our congregation and our city more effectively. Pray also for our staff and leaders that they will be good stewards with the resources God has given to us.

Sunday - Pray for our congregation as we gather for worship this morning, particularly as we come to the Lord's Table. Pray that God's Spirit would move in our hearts so that we will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Pray for Pastor Bryan Counts as he preaches the Word this Morning.

Why We Still Need the Sabbath

2010-05-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

By Mark Bates

The school year has is nearing its end. Frankly, it cannot come too soon. With all of the busyness of life combined with the dozens of end of the school year activities, most families are living in overdrive. Unfortunately, this frenetic pace of life is more and more becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Thanks to all the modern conveniences of life and the myriad of opportunities before us, we know longer simply live life, we engage in what futurist David Zach calls it “Hyperliving—skimming along the surface of life.” With all of the hyperliving, with the resultant hyper-meeting, and hyperdriving, I am about ready for hypernapping.

In this world of busyness, God not only has given us permission to slow down, He has commanded it. Like the toddler who resists his mother’s command to nap, we, too often find this command of God confining and restraining. After all, God is restricting our freedom. He is telling us that we cannot do something. Yet, in truth, it is a gift. This gift is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. It reads,

Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

Just as God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God has delivered us from slavery to sin. Every Sunday when we gather together, we are reminded that we are no longer slaves. It is like a weekly anniversary celebration. We celebrate the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection every Sunday when we get together.

This weekly celebration gives us a proper perspective on all of life. In the 24/7 world, we live at such a rapid pace that we forget what life is all about. We run so fast that we forget why we are running to begin with.

A number of years ago, I decided to make Tricia a cake for her birthday. Tricia said, “No, Mark. You don’t have to do that.” But I insisted. The cake was beautiful coming out of the oven, but as I took it out of the pan, it fell apart. I was totally frustrated. So, I dumped it into the sink, and started over.

Tricia is now saying, “Mark, please. You don’t have to bake me a cake.” Still, I insisted, “Honey, I love you. I want to bake you a cake. You deserve it.”

The second cake came out of the oven. The same thing happened. I am now so frustrated that I take the cake pan and throw it across the room.

Tricia is now saying, “Mark, I don’t want a cake.” My response was, “I don’t care if you want a cake or not. I am going to conquer this thing.”

I don’t remember if I ever succeeded. However, it was clear that in the process, I forgot why I was baking the cake. I was supposed to be making it to honor my wife. Yet, in the process, I dishonored her.

The same is true with life. We are supposed to be living to honor God. Yet, some times, we get so wrapped up in the details of life, that we forget our purpose. We forget why we are doing what we are doing and we get off course. The Sabbath celebration is when we take a deep breath and reorient ourselves to the purpose of life.

I can think of few things suburban Christians need to recover more than the Sabbath. It isn’t just one of the Ten Suggestions, but the Ten Commandments. Though it may seem restrictive and confining at first, you will soon discover that it is one of the great gifts God gives to His people.

Here are some suggestions for how you can incorporate the Sabbath into your life:

* Worship – It is not a true Sabbath unless you gather with God’s people for worship.

* Determine not to do any work.

* Boycott children’s sporting events - One of the major contributors to busyness in suburbia is children’s activities. If Sunday is treated as an ordinary day, it will be impossible for it to be a day of rest.

* Plan and Prepare - Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available. Put the Sabbath in your Palm Pilot or Dayrunner and do not double book that time. Begin preparations on Saturday

* Feast with others

* Enjoy leisure activities - Take a stroll, a leisurely bike ride, a Sunday drive, read a good book, play games with your children

Bringing Sabbath rest into your life will not be easy. Like developing any good habit, it will take time and effort. Yet, God promises that it will be richly rewarding.

Missionary of the Week

2010-05-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

Chery Flores
Mission to the World
Madrid, Spain

I arrived in Madrid in June 2008 to begin my first term of service as a member of a church planting team that believes the Gospel is powerful and can bring spiritual hope and life to the people of Spain. Our ministry primarily focuses on forming relationships with Spaniards, knowing and caring for them and sharing our lives and faith with them. It is our desire and prayer that the Lord would use our team to see many Spaniards come to know Christ and to serve as their partners in establishing a nationally led church-planting movement.

Spain, like so many other Western European nations, is one of the most difficult nations to reach with the Gospel. Roman Catholicism, Spain’s national religion, claims membership between 92 and 96% of the Spanish population. While 50% of Catholics possess some meaningful link with the Church, less than 25% of Catholics actually practice their faith. Catholicism is increasingly only one aspect of a Spaniard’s cultural identity. Sadly, the majority of people 40 years and younger have turned to secularism and religious indifference.

Evangelical Christians comprise less than 1% of the Spanish population. Today, people have more opportunity to hear the Gospel in Latin America or in Africa than in Europe. Spain is a country where evangelism and church planting are desperately needed. My prayer is to see Spain renewed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His transforming grace.

Give Up Already!

2010-05-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

Who needs God more? The spiritually mature or the spiritually immature? Many of us would quickly assume that the spiritually immature need God more, right? Well, it's not quite that easy.

If the mature depend on God less, then they would be increasingly independent of God. But seeking independence from God is not maturity, it's actually the heart of sin. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit they were seeking to be independent. They didn't want to need God. You see, sin isn't just wrong behavior. It's worse than that. Sin is seeking to be independent of God, or to put it another way, to take his place. So too often we seek our misguided view of maturity not to please our Father, but to actually run from him

So to be mature, we must give up. Give up our striving to prove ourselves to God and to others, and instead approach God and others as if God means what he says, as if we've been made new for real, as if we're counted as righeous as Jesus, and as if he is alive in us. For the believer, all of those are true. So pray that Village Seven would be a place where people are becoming mature not by becoming stronger, but by becoming weaker, by realizing their sin, weakness, and brokenness, and then resting in Jesus as the answer for all those things.

V7PC Orphan Ministry

2010-05-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

Last week, Kevin Allen, our Outreach Pastor, and I attended the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit VI in Minneapolis, MN. Since we are establishing an Orphan Ministry at Village Seven this year, we went with a mission to learn from those who have already traveled this path.

Many excellent sessions were offered; we focused on those specific to our purpose. The sessions we found most helpful were those that dealt with the specifics of setting up a ministry. One session covered the area of partnering with existing agencies that can take care of logistical matters like managing matching grants and such. Other insights we gathered from this conference had to do with high-level vision setting, planning and establishing a strategy for our ministry.

The general sessions were all impacting. All of the speakers were compelling but I need to especially highlight the talks given by Al Mohler and John Piper. Both gave solid, convicting and encouraging messages stirring God’s people into action to deal with this monumental need. John Piper is truly a man of God who preaches prophetically with the power of Christ. As we listened to him, it was as if we could “feel” his sermon. We were blessed with the heart-felt and powerful testimonies from Mary Beth Chapman and Stephanie Fast. Mary Beth bravely shared her story of the dark journey following the loss of their youngest adopted child, Maria. As we listened intently, I think all experienced just a bit of the pain she felt, but also the sweet, sweet comfort of our Savior, Jesus as she underscored God’s faithfulness through it all. Steven Curtis Chapman ended the evening with several deeply meaningful songs. We heard Stephanie Fast’s amazing and powerful testimony of God’s sovereign grace and unending love. Her story was both deeply moving and life-changing. Kevin and I had lunch with a brother who shared with us how Stephanie’s story compelled him be the hand that touches the orphans face through adoption or foster care. It was not what he expected – he came simply to network. We have acquired these sessions on DVD and will be showing them during our Adoption Fellowship Events which we’ll be doing as part of our ministry.

Perhaps the most value gained from this conference was in witnessing how God is “infecting” His passion for the fatherless into the hearts of His people around the world. There were some key themes expressed at the Summit that we felt matches our vision at Village Seven to engage Colorado Springs, the West and the World with the Gospel.

Currently, we are putting together our leadership and planning team and determining how we at V7 can take part in this effort. If you are interested in getting involved with this ministry, please contact Pastor Allen or me and we will get you on our mailing list and let you know of upcoming events.

There is much to discuss so I will follow up with future posts about what we learned in regards to this great work to which we have been called. In closing, I will just say that the summit was most edifying.

Xavier Pacheco - xmanpacheco@gmail.com
Village Seven Orphan Ministry – Defending the Fatherless

Is There Such a Thing as "Sacred" Music?

2010-05-05T12:05:00.001-07:00

This may seem like a strange question to ask. After all, clearly, there is music that has as its design and purpose the worship of God. Some music is appropriate for church and some music is not. Included in the list of music that is not appropriate for church would be any music that is profane or delights in evil. However, there are many songs that, while not evil, and even very good, are not suitable for worship. “Sweet Home Alabama” is a great song, but we do not gather in worship to praise a state. We gather in worship to praise God. So, while I might like it, “Sweet Home Alabama” does not fit a worship context. For a song to be suitable for worship, it must expressly give glory to God.

However, the real question is not about words, but about musical style. Is there such a thing as a sacred musical style? Would it be possible to take a God-centered, theologically rich poem and set it to the tune of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain?” Could a song such as that be sung in church or, would it be wrong to sing godly lyrics to “worldly” music?

Taking godly lyrics and poems and setting them to popular music is actually a very traditional thing to do. Many of our old hymns were set to traditional, simple melodies. Let Us With a Gladsome Mind (#33 in the Trinity Hymnal) is set to a 13th century French melody. How Great Thou Art (#44) is set to a Swedish folk melody. How Firm a Foundation is set to a traditional American melody. In fact, our hymnal is full of hymns set to traditional melodies from a variety of ethnicities. Even the most beloved hymn of all, Amazing Grace, is set to the tune of a traditional American folk melody.

The reason folk/popular music has made up so much of our worship music throughout the centuries is because worship takes place in a particular cultural setting. Worship does not exist outside of a people’s culture, but happens in it. Since the Reformation, the church has intentionally written music that could be sung by the common man in the pew rather than music that could be sung by professionals. That is one reason why folk and popular music has been such a rich part of our hymnody.

In his book, Leading in Prayer, Hughes Oliphant Old, who serves as Professor of Reformed Theology and Worship at Erskine Seminary, puts it this way: “Hymnody needs to be popular. It is more closely related to folk song than to art song because hymnody is in its very essence a kind of folk song. . . What is important is that we give each generation its turn at expressing its devotion in the idiom of its day. Christian hymnody is like a great art museum. It has treasures from a great variety of ages and cultures. But it always seems to have room to show the best of contemporary works as well.”

Note: Some of the information above was taken from Dr. Mark Dalby’s lectures on Worship Covenant Theological Seminary.

Missionaries of the Week

2010-05-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

Larry and Rita Sherbondy
The Navigators
Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Larry and Rita have served with The Navigators since 1980. Larry currently serves as Director of Staff Care for the Greater Northeast (US) Region and as the Navigator Representative at the US Army War College. Rita meets with the wives and leads Bible studies for them.

Their goal is to advance the gospel of Jesus and His kingdom into the nations, through spiritual generations of military laborers for Christ, living and discipling among those who do not yet know Him.

They ask that we continue to pray for:
Depth in intimacy with Christ.
Love for Christ which manifests itself in obedience to Him.
Faithfulness in teaching the scriptures accurately and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Fruitfulness in terms of military men and women saved, discipled and trained to labor for Christ wherever He places them in his harvest.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the men and women of the US Military.
Protection from the wiles of the evil one and his followers.

Prayers for the Week of May 3, 2010

2010-05-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

·Monday – Pray for our Youth Search Committee as they seek a godly man to lead our youth ministry.

·Tuesday – Pray for Club 180, our ministry to Sabin Middle School. Many of the students do not know Christ. Pray for Anna Counts and our youth ministry as they share the love of Christ.

·Wednesday – Pray for our Children’s Ministry Team, staff, and volunteers as they prepare for a busy summer. Pray that God will use programs like Vacation Bible School, Basketball Camp, and Soccer Camp to bring children and families to himself.

·Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares this Sunday’s sermon. Pray that God will give him a good understanding of Genesis 48. Ask God to fill him with his Spirit, both as he prepares and as he preaches.

·Friday – Pray for our families involved in homeschooling their children. Pray that God would strengthen them as they seek to build disciples to serve in a needy world.

·Saturday – Pray for the finances of Village Seven. Pray that God would increase generosity among his people in response to the gospel. Ask God to use this to increase the ministry at Village Seven for the sake of the gospel.

·Sunday – As you pray for worship at Village Seven, also pray for the ministry of Forestgate Presbyterian Church. Pray that God will bless them to be a witness in northern Colorado Springs.

Christian Alliance for Orphans

2010-04-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Xavier Pacheco and I (Kevin) are in Minneapolis today learning how we can best establish our new ministry to Orphans. As you may know, several families at V7 have adopted orphans from across the world and we want to encourage this ministry of outreach.

So, in the last year, Village Seven has joined the Christian Alliance for Orphans.

We will hear today and tomorrow from people like Stephen Curtis Chapman and John Piper.

You can follow this conference at Christian Alliance for Orphans

Courtside Ministries

2010-04-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

With this being tax month,I thought it would be good to focus on how V7 can focus on the civil sphere in which we live. This past year Village Seven has adopted Courtside Ministries as one of our five priority ministries in reaching Colorado Springs. Read the note below from a local attorney, who is calling believers to pray for Courtside ministries.

COURtSIDE MINISTRIES
“Bringing the Aroma of Christ to the Courthouse”
102 South Tejon Street, Ste. 105
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903

My name is Gerry Mc Daniel. I have practiced law for 30 years, with a significant interlude during that time to complete a Youth With A Mission training course, mission outreach to the former Soviet Union and several years of related mission work in numerous other countries. My experiences in YWAM plunged me deeply into spiritual warfare and intercessory prayer.

As one of the charter advisory committee members for Courtside Ministries, the Lord led me to pray outside of the Courthouse on Fridays. During that time I was able to reach out to and pray for hurting people, seek the Lord’s direction for Courtside and do my part in preparing the way for the ministry He wants to unleash.

God has shown us, primarily through the work and heart of Tyler Makepeace, and others, including Christian attorneys, that His heart is to press into the domain of man’s justice, bring the aroma of Christ into that arena, pull down the strongholds of the enemy and watch the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing reconciliation, restoration, and salvation to the lives of many.

It is now time to build an intercession team of prayer warriors who know God intimately and understand the role and power of the Holy Spirit in these times. That will require listening to Him and preparing the way through prayer. We will encounter spiritual battles as we pray for God’s provision and establishment of the work near the courthouse in Colorado Springs and all across this nation.

We are looking for devout intercessors to join with me in prayer at least twice a month, and on call, whenever circumstances require. This letter is being sent to friends who receive our prayer guide. I would like to see about ten people sincerely commit to this prayer ministry from a clear leading of the Lord. We will meet in various homes or possibly in the Ministry Center occasionally. A list of around ten should suffice to insure several in attendance each time. Once I have a team of committed prayer warriors we will communicate on the best evening for regular meetings and begin as soon as possible.

Please prayerfully consider your role, and should the Lord direct you to join with me and others, contact me initially by phone (719-260-9304) or e-mail (gmcdaniellaw@aol.com) and we can make arrangements to begin. I look forward to the fruits of our efforts in prayer as our loving Father directs.

Warmest regards,
Gerry McDaniel

Living Out of Brokenness

2010-04-21T10:50:00.001-07:00

Below is a powerful video by one of our elders, Bill Tell. Bill Tell, Chief of Staff for The Navigators, once suffered from burnout and clinical depression so severe that he could do little more than get out of bed in the morning. Here's the story of how God changed Bill's life and helped him find his true identity in Christ.

At Village Seven, we have three distinctives: Gospel Community, Authentic Community, and Missional Community. Bill’s testimony is a prime example of what it means to live out of these distinctives.

Bill Tell's Testimony

Missionaries of the Week

2010-04-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

Gary and Kay Whiting
Mission to the World
BEAMM: Border Evangelism and Mercy Ministries
Colorado Springs, Colorado

In 1986 the Whitings moved to Colorado Springs where Gary went to work for a large construction company managing projects until retirement. Kay remained a stay at home mom until the four children were raised.

Kay came from a charismatic background where she accepted Christ at an early age but became a Presbyterian during her college years. It wasn’t until they moved to Colorado Springs and God led her to Village Seven Presbyterian, that she learned of the biblical grounding of the PCA reformed doctrine. Gary grew up in a strong Catholic family, but over the years their dogma became questionable to him, as the Holy Spirit was working to change his life. Initially there was some resistance to the reformed teaching but through God’s mercy and grace, Gary turned his life over to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

In the spring of 2006 Gary and Kay went on a short-term mission trip to Juarez, Mexico. God began working in their hearts and they answered the call to become missionaries serving with BEAMM on the US/Mexico border. Over the past three years, Gary has assisted with various BEAMM construction projects, such as the Promesa de Vida church building in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the Peña and Rodriguez houses in El Paso, TX, and the sanctuary of La Vid Church in Laredo, TX. With Gary's thirty years of commercial construction experience, he helps BEAMM short-term teams to provide quality construction to the project's recipients, as well as ministers to those who come as part of these teams.

·Praise God for the growth at Las Tierras in East El Paso. Pray for leadership to emerge from the congregation.

·Praise God for the outreach opportunity with the Pena and Rodriguez families in Montana Vista. Pray that the Holy Spirit continues to work in their hearts.

·Praise God for the growth of His kingdom through the BEAMM ministry along the US/Mexico border.

·Pray that God continues to bless the church plant in Nogales.

·Pray that God will insure a smooth closure on the Community Center land in Mexicali and that funding will be available for the construction start-up.

·Pray for Pastor Manuel and Kim Padilla as they lead the ministry in Montana Vista and pastor Las Tierras.

·Pray God will provide the funds and teams for completion of Iglesia La Vid in Laredo.

·Pray God will continue providing our monthly support as well as the one-time expenses.

Prayers of the Week – April 19, 2010

2010-04-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

·Monday – Pray for Pioneer Clubs as they have their last meeting of the year this week. Pray that the truth that these children have learned will sink into their hearts and shape their lives.

·Tuesday – Pray for our Youth Search Committee as they seek a godly man to lead our youth ministry.

·Wednesday – Pray for the men in the Leadership Training Class. Ask God to grant them discernment as several of them are considering God’s call to the offices of elder or deacon.

·Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares this Sunday’s sermon. Pray that God will give him a good understanding of Genesis 45. Ask God to fill him with his Spirit, both as he prepares and as he preaches.

·Friday – Pray for the ministry of Evangelical Christian Academy. Pray that God will work in the hearts and minds of the students to serve God in all that they do.

·Saturday – Pray that God would give us a burden for the lost and hurting in our community. Ask God to give us opportunities to share the love of Christ.

·Sunday – As you pray for worship at Village Seven, also pray for the ministry of Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church. Pray that God will continue to strengthen this congregation in south Colorado Springs.

Test Drive Paul Tripp Tonight

2010-04-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

Almost 400 folks from Village Seven have signed up for A Quest for More. Perhaps you haven't yet signed up. It starts tomorrow evening but you might be saying, "Will I really benefit from this?" Well we believe so. So besides our money back guarantee (no questions asked), we are going to let you test drive Paul Tripp tonight. He's preaching at our Rocky Mountain Presbytery worship service right here in the Village Seven Sanctuary at 7pm. For Free! So before you invest your $10 (or less!) feel free to check him out tonight right here at Village Seven. Everyone's invited - we'd love to share this evening with you.

Missionaries of the Week

2010-04-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ewan and Jodi McFadden
Campus Crusade for Christ
Russia

Ewan and Jodi serve on the campuses of St Petersburg. Ewan also serves as the team leader.

From their latest prayer letter:

Thanks for your prayers for our team meetings last week. God blessed them and we had a good, productive time as a ministry team. We decided to begin a Thursday evening Bible Study where all our staff and students would gather together. This is exciting because up 'till now we have only had separate Bible discussion groups. It will be great to all be in the same room.

Please pray that God would really bless these meetings on Thursday and bring many students to spend time with us there!

A Surprise From Dennis

Each Friday, we get together with about 15 students and play basketball. We play for about two hours, then at the end one of us will lead a short discussion on something from the Bible, or some other topic relating to these guys' lives.

One Friday in December, I was talking with Dennis, a nice guy but probably the least moral of any of the guys who comes to that meeting. Before New Year's, he was guessing that he would wake up New Year's day somewhere way outside the city after partying all night...and that's just what happened.

As we were getting dressed and ready to leave, Dennis asked me, "What led you to start living for God?" The question surprised me because I didn't think he really cared about this part of my life at all! I shared some of my faith story and we began to have a pretty deep conversation about the Lord.

Marriage and God

I told him about how God offers complete forgiveness of your sins. He was skeptical. "That basically means you can ask for forgiveness and then go and do whatever you want," he said. I explained to him that a relationship with God is in some ways like a marriage. What kind of a marriage would you have if the husband said he loved his wife and appreciated her acceptance of him but constantly did things that were painful and hurtful to her?

Dennis later surprised me by saying that he obeys God's commandments. I was astounded- I couldn't believe that he claimed to be a good person when at other times he was so openly rebellious to God. I told him that he was at least missing the Great Commandment: loving God with all your heart. I also shared with him that God is not just seeking followers, but children. He wants to adopt us into His family.

We left on good terms. Please pray for Dennis to have a desire to love God with all his heart, and that God will convict him of his rebellious lifestyle.

Thanks for your prayers and interest in God's work here in the Russian Federation!

An American King

2010-04-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

"You will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations....do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit." Mark 13 ESV

A couple of weeks ago, I had one of those experiences. I was called on the phone to visit a man who went to Presbyterian College back in South Carolina. He is now 90 years old and has lived out here since World War II. He wanted to speak to a Presbyterian Pastor because he was concerned that his grandson was living with woman and they had a baby girl. He knew this was wrong, but wanted someone to show him where the Bible said so.

So, I visited him in a stately home near downtown. He is a very wealthy man who has been very, very successful in the business field. (An American King) He shared with me about his rich heritage, forefathers who had fought valiantly for our nation, great grandfathers who helped establish the church back in South Carolina. Then he asked where the Bible condemned his grandson. I asked him if he could first tell me about his relationship with Jesus. He replied that he didn't necessarily consider himself a Christian. I asked him why he wanted to hold his grandson to a standard he didn't believe in himself. He said he hadn't thought of that. Next I read Romans 2:1 to him, "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." (ESV)
He asked me where it was from, I answered, "the Bible." I have some of those he answered. "Have you read them?," I asked. No. He asked for the reference and said he would read them. But he wanted to hand me a sheet of all the volunteer organizations he has helped over the years. It was impressive, but I told him that that didn't help with our sin problem.

Yesterday, I visited this man again. He was in the hospital. He told me that he had read Romans 1-3. While he continues to rest his confidence and security on his past good works, his career, and his heritage, he wanted to hear more and asked me to visit again. Pray that God's Spirit will break through much pride and self-confidence. It is easier, Jesus said, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the wealthy to enter the Kindgom of Heaven.

It made me think: Where do I condemn others of things I myself am guilty? How am I resting on my own sheet of accomplishments to stand before God or compare myself to others? How do we trust in our heritage and not in Christ? - Kevin Allen

Missionary of the Week

2010-04-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

Matthew Bostrom
Reformed University Fellowship
University of Florida

Matt had the privilege of participating in the RUF chapter at Colorado State University. RUF was instrumental in helping Matt make the faith he grew up in his own, grounding him in solid Biblical truth, bringing friends into his life with whom he could share his joys and struggles, and teaching him that the Christian life is not about outward performance but an active resting on the finished work of Christ.

As an intern at UF Matt leads small group Bible studies, disciples and meets with students on an individual basis, and assists with the local and statewide RUF conferences.

· Pray that Matt will continue to grow in his walk with the Lord and that his ministry will flow out of his relationship with Christ.

· Pray that as Matt has opportunity to share his faith that he would be winsome and that the love of Christ would be seen in him.

· Pray for the students involved in the small groups that they will grow in love and knowledge and that they would serve others.

Prayers for the Week April 5 - 11

2010-04-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for the many people who came to church this Easter Sunday who normally do not go to church. Pray that God will use what they heard to open their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to the gospel and to claim them for Himself.

Tuesday – Pray for our Youth Search Committee as they seek a godly man to lead our youth ministry. A candidate is visiting this week. Pray that God's will would be very apparent to the Search Committee.

Wednesday – Pray for those in our welcoming ministry—the ushers, greeters, those serving at the Welcome Counter and Guest Reception—that God will use them to show the love of Christ to guests who come. Pray that we would be a welcoming and friendly congregation.

Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares this Sunday’s sermon. Ask God to fill him with his Spirit, both as he prepares and as he preaches.

Friday – Pray for our church officers--our elders and deacons--as well as those who fill other leadership positions in the church. Pray that God would keep them faithfully walking with Him and that God would give them the added strength and perseverence to serve God's people well.

Saturday – Pray for the Quest for More conference coming next weekend. Pray for Paul Tripp as he prepares to be with us and present God's Word. Pray for our hearts here at V7 as we prepare to hear God's Word.

Sunday – Pray for Richard Hunt, the choir, and the many musicians who will be using their gifts this Sunday. Ask God to empower them by His Spirit as they lead us in worship. Also ask God to open our hearts (both believers and unbelievers) to see His majesty and glory.

April Fools Day

2010-04-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

Today is April Fools Day. Interestingly, the Bible (particularily the book of Proverbs) talks a lot about fools. The Psalmist repeatedly says, "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Romans, explains why people fail to see, or acknowledge God, explaining we live in a world where the truth of God should be clearly plain, "because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him but their foolish hearts were darkened." Romans 1:19-20 NIV

Fools in the Bible are often referred to as blind, deaf, or darkened, or even dead. This is something only God and do something about. He needs to open the eyes of the blind, give hearing to the deaf and give new life to man who is dead in his sin. Please pray for this coming Sunday - Easter Sunday! Pray that through Mark's sermon, the testimonies, and the music God will touch all the lives present.

We thought you would want to know that our Outreach team is going to make available these tracts for those leaving the service on Easter Sunday to take home the free offer of the Gospel. If you would like to help let me know by emailing me at kallen@v7pc.org

Thanks,

Kevin

Fascinating Videos Tell the Truth about Good Friday and Easter

2010-04-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

While going through my files this week, I came across two videos that were produced by a Church in England to tie Good Friday and Easter in with their Christianity Explored programs. They are well done, so feel free to share with your friends. And remember our Good Friday Communion Service is at 7pm tonight. ~ Kevin

First- Good Friday - From Life to Death

Now Get Ready for Easter with some solid proofs of the Ressurection

Missionaries of the Week

2010-03-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

Stephen and Marion Spencer
African Bible College
Malawi

Both Steve and Marion were raised in Christian homes, but come from very different customs, cultures and even continents. While Steve grew up in the concrete jungles of Southern California, Marion grew up in the real jungles of West Africa living in a bamboo house with pet chimpanzees. Steve and Marion met at Biola University. Called to Africa in 1988, Steve and Marion, along with their 4 month old son David, moved to Liberia and later to Malawi. This year marks the Spencer’s 19th year on the mission field in Africa.

Why missions and why Africa? Steve says, “I never set out to be a missionary. In fact, when I was growing up, whenever the missionaries came to our church, we snuck out the back door.” For Marion it was much easier. From the time she was eight years old she wanted to be a missionary working with orphans in Bangladesh.” Steve responds, “so we compromised and became missionaries to Africa! Actually, our calling to missions was a total and complete God initiated blessing. We have just gone along for the ride.”

The Spencer’s work for an organization called African Bible Colleges. African Bible College is a four year, liberal arts, degree granting educational institution. The purpose of ABC is to train, nurture and develop Africa’s next generation of Christian leaders. Steve teaches Bible and education courses as well as serving as Academic Dean. Marion serves as hospitality and social coordinator for staff and students.

The real success behind African Bible Colleges is the graduates whom God is using to further the Gospel and His Kingdom through avenues of government, radio, education, business, parachurch, missions and church ministries.

Along with the college, ABC Malawi offers other ministry opportunities. The ABC Christian Academy enrolls over 250 students from 28 nationalities. The school presently operates from Pre-K to 10th grade. The organization also includes one of the nicest medical clinics in the country specializing in HIV treatment and education, and a crisis nursery center. In addition, the mission hosts several short term teams throughout the year. For more information visit http://www.africanbiblecolleges.org/.

You can specifically pray for the Spencer’s and ABC in the following ways:

• The health and safety of the Spencer family (David 18, Jonathan 16, Nell 13, Caleb 11, Samuel 8, Charlotte 5 and Stephen 1 ½ years).

• David will be staying in the States for college (and playing golf!). This is a unique situation for our family and we would appreciate your prayers.

• The ABC Academy is looking for teachers for Fall 2007and a second full time doctor is needed for the clinic as it will be expanding it’s crisis nursery ward.

• Please pray for the effectiveness of our ministry and for strength as we battle spiritual warfare.

Prayers for the Week - March 29, 2010

2010-03-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Monday – Pray for the many people who will come to church this Easter Sunday who normally do not go to church. Pray that God will open their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to the gospel.

Tuesday – Pray for our Youth Search Committee as they seek a godly man to lead our youth ministry.

Wednesday – Pray for those in our welcoming ministry—the ushers, greeters, those serving at the Welcome Counter and Guest Reception—that God will use them to show the love of Christ to the many guests who will come.

Thursday – Pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he prepares this Sunday’s sermon. Ask God to fill him with his Spirit, both as he prepares and as he preaches.

Friday – Ask God to bless our Good Friday Service, as we remember the love and sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Particularly ask God to grant us the grace of repentance so that we may delight in His grace.

Saturday – Pray for Journey to Jerusalem, our Children’s Ministry event that is happening this day. Families will get to experience what it might have been like in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday. Pray that the gospel message will be clear to all who come.

Sunday – Pray for Richard Hunt, the choir, and the many musicians who will be using their gifts this Sunday. Ask God to empower them by His Spirit as they lead us in worship. Also ask God to open our hearts (both believers and unbelievers) to see His majesty and glory.

Easter & ESL

2010-03-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

Our ESL (English as a Second Language) ministry is going gangbusters! We have nearly 80 folks participating and Don Morgan does a great job leading teachers and organizing this powerful relational ministry. Thanks Don!

This coming Sunday (Palm Sunday) we are giving each of our participants a book about the meaning behind Christmas and Easter. It is written in "EasyEnglish" (developed by Wycliffe Bible Translators). With most of our participants coming from foreign countries, Easter is a foreign concept. This is a great way to share the gospel by sharing our culture and inviting these folks to church on Easter Sunday.

Please be in prayer today and through Easter for our ESL particpants as many will be reading the purpose of Easter for themselves for the first time.

By the way, I'm still working on English as a first language,
Kevin

P.S. We want to hear your stories about how God is working at Village Seven. Tell us how God is working through you or through V7 ministries. Send your stores to stories@v7pc.org

Why Do We Sing Old Hymns to New Tunes?

2010-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

I was at a worship service at a denominational meeting a few years ago where we sang Charles Wesley’s classic hymn, And Can It Be to a new and different tune. While most in the Assembly were appreciative of the new tune, there were some who did not like and expressed their thoughts rather vocally. One gentleman stood up and said, “I think Charles Wesley would be rolling over in his grave today to see what we did with his tune tonight.”

After this man spoke, Larry Roff, who is the organist for the assembly every year, and the author of the book Let Us Sing, stood up to speak. Because Rev. Roff is known for his love for traditional music, most of us assumed that he would speak in agreement with the complaint. Instead, he said, “I want to correct the previous speaker. Charles Wesley did not write any tunes to any of his hymns. And the tune we most sing to And Can it Be was an Appalachian folk tune of its day.”[1]

Most of us assume that all of our favorite old hymns have “original tunes.” Some even believe that it is improper to sing them to any tune other than “the original.” However, there are very few hymns where the music and the words were written by the same person. Many of the tunes attached to hymns were written in different time periods than the words themselves.

Also, most hymnals include a metrical index. This is an index of all the hymns by the meter in which they are written. Hymnals include this metical index so that hymns can be sung to new and fresh tunes. In our Trinity Hymnal, the metrical index is in the back on page 896. In some sense, one might say that it is “traditional” to sing old hymns to new tunes. The church has been doing this for nearly as long as hymnals have been around.

Of course, hymnals themselves were once quite controversial, but that is the subject of a later post.

[1] I was reminded of this event listening to a series of lectures on worship by Dr. Mark Dalbey of Covenant Theological Seminary.

Meet our Missionaries

2010-03-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

Nabeel and Barbara Jabbour

The Navigators
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Nabeel and Barbara have served many years with The Navigators in the Middle East and in the United States. Their main focus is ministering to those working with Ms. Nabeel has written books on the subject, teaches courses in three seminaries on it, and presents seminars in churches as well. Barbara is a dedicated prayer warrior and provides prayer support for Nabeel’s ministry. For more information visit http://www.nabeeljabbour.com/.

· Praise God for the good response to the book “The crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross” and ask him to use it to better prepare readers for ministry.
· Pray that God would take Nabeel’s “two little fish and five loaves” and multiply it as he teaches.
· Pray that God would burden more people to stand in the gap in prayer in behalf of the 1.6 billion Ms in the world (Ezek. 22:30).
· Pray that as Nabeel teaches he would have clarity of thought and speech and will be able to communicate well with his students.

Prayers of the Week – March 22, 2010

2010-03-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Monday - Pray for our elders and deacons, as they lead us to be a church that gives life to Colorado Springs, the West, and the World.

Tuesday - Pray for your community and its leaders, that it would be a caring place for God’s people.

Wednesday - Pray that God would be "adding to our number," just as He did in the book of Acts.

Thursday - Pray for those who are preparing for this Sunday's worship services. It is Palm Sunday and we will celebrate the triumph of King Jesus. Pray also for Pastor Mark Bates, as he continues to preach on Genesis 42, God's Severe Mercy.

Friday – Pray that God would give us both the wisdom and the willingness to adapt our ministry to the needs of our city in a way that honors Him.

Saturday – Pray for our Sunday School teachers, nursery workers, and children’s ministry staff and volunteers. Ask God to bless them as they teach and disciple our children.

Sunday – Pray for those who will be joining us in worship today. Pray that God will open the eyes of the lost to Christ. Pray that the hearts of God’s people will be refreshed by the gospel.

Catalyst Defies Statistics!

2010-03-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

The statistics are against churchgoing young adults in America. These "twenty-somethings" who are seeking to build community with each other and the church at large are having a difficult time.

Churches are struggling to provide ministries that meet the felt and real needs of these men and women; as a result, many of them have built their own communities outside of the church. The church must make an effort to reclaim this generation with and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This means providing opportunities to build real community for believers in the church, believers who have left the church to seek their own community, and those who are unsaved and need Christ.

At Village Seven, Catalyst was launched to provide a place for twenty-somethings to gather and fellowship, study God's word, and build real community together. As the staff member who oversees this growing community, I have been impressed with the dedication and passion of this group. The first study had 18 attending, and the numbers have stayed consistent in the last two months. I am excited to see how God will continue to draw His people together. Please pray for this young community and feel free to encourage twenty-singles you may know that are unconnected to give Catalyst a try.

Catalyst is currently studying Philippians. My prayer for this group echoes the Apostle Paul's in 1:6: "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."

I can be contacted at dtharp@v7pc.org

The Village Exchange

2010-03-18T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, hundreds lined up to take part in our twice a year Village Exchange. Each time between 400 and 500 individuals show up for our half-day "give it away".

Over 80% are from outside our congregation and many are very, very poor. Some are refugees from other countries that we minister to through our Rock of Refuge Ministry and ESL ministries. Some come because they want "stuff" but some come because they know they need something more. (By the way, we do get rid of literally tons and tons of stuff! What a great thing to give to and free yourself from the bondage of some of your "stuff".)

This year at the Exchange, the one "next step" we wanted to accomplish was to invite folks to Easter Sunday services. It's only a couple of weeks off. Pray that many will return to Village Seven to fill their real need with Jesus Christ!

Also, a huge thanks to Noelle Moritz and Julie Neddo who work tirelessly for weeks leading up to the Exchange. Send them a note of thanks at village7exchange@gmail.com Thanks to all of our many volunteers who helped pull this off.

Please also mark your calendars for our next Exchange - on Saturday, September 11th.

Kevin

A Life-Giving Community

2010-03-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

At Village Seven, we believe God has called us to be a life-giving church. In order to achieve this vision, we believe that our church must be defined by three important distinctives: A Gospel Community, an Authentic Community, and a Missional Community. As people understand the gospel, they will become more authentic in their relationships, and more missional in their living. At the same time, as people live in community and live with a sense of mission, it will drive them back to the gospel. Therefore, in order to achieve one, we must aim at all three.

Gospel-Driven Community

We desire to be a community of God's people that are living in line with the gospel. This means that we want to live based on the understanding that we are fully loved and accepted by God based on the finished work of Jesus Christ (Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone). We always want to grow in our understanding of the gospel that reminds us that we are more sinful than we ever dared to imagine and in Christ, we are more loved than we ever dared to hope.

As a result of this understanding, we are completely secure because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We can be honest about our sin in full repentance because we know God’s love for us is not based on our performance. We can embrace fellow sinners because we know that we, too, are broken and sinful. This understanding of the gospel enables us to be bold, yet humble, secure, yet vulnerable; repenting, yet joyful.

Authentic Community
Being a gospel-based community frees us up to be an authentic community. Instead of maintaining a façade of righteousness, we are free to be honest about our sin because our security is found in Christ’s righteousness, not our own. As an authentic community, we are learning to let down our masks. We want to be passionate in our pursuit of holiness, but honest about our sin. We want to be a community that lets other people in our lives, to see the dirt, hurt, and ugliness of sin so that we can minister to one other out of the gospel. So, we desire to be transparent with one another, to love one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to forgive one another—all because that is what Christ has done for us.

Missional Community
As a gospel-based community, we are passionate about continuing Jesus’ ministry of redemption. Therefore, we want to love our city and our world even as God so loved the world. Just as Christ gave Himself up for us, we desire to give ourselves up for the world, to join in His suffering to take his ministry of reconciliation to those in need. Therefore, we want to follow Christ’s pattern of ministering to the world in both word and deed. As the body of Christ, we desire to bring healing where sin has brought hurting. In the words of a great hymn, we want to join with Christ in making his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

Missionary of the Week

2010-03-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Amy Beth Barlow
The Third Story
Denver, CO

Amy Beth directs The Third Story (T3S), a ministry to inner-city children in Denver. T3S has been working in one of Denver’s poor inner-city neighborhoods for over 15 years. They work in the midst of extreme apathy, cycles of violence, poverty and despair.

The children often come to the church because they are hungry—both physically and on a more intimate level, hungry for a place where they can be safe. By God’s grace alone they do their best to provide a refuge for children and their families. This can be as simple as going over a little boy’s homework with him or as complex as protecting a 13-year-old girl from violence in her home. Their hope is to build relationships that bridge hearts towards Jesus Christ.

T3S provides children with after school activities (Street Church, an afternoon Bible club), hot meals (Hot Meals for Hope), tutoring (Whiz Kids Tutoring), Bible stories and camps. Through staff and volunteers, T3S works to share the love of Jesus in word and in deed. For more information visit http://www.thethirdstory.org/.

· Praise God for the opportunity to reach many of the children in the neighborhood.
· Praise God for all of the volunteers who help out cooking, tutoring, teaching and loving on the children.
· Pray for more volunteers to minister to the children.
· Pray for sufficient support to continue to provide meals and craft materials.
· Pray for Amy Beth to have the wisdom, courage, and endurance she need to lead this wonderful ministry.

2010-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Prayers of the Week – March 15, 2010

Psalm 127:1-2 Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. 2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-- for he grants sleep to those he loves.

The Psalmist reminds us of two great truths: 1) Apart from God, we can do nothing, and 2) With God, we do not need to worry about anything. That is why we pray. We pray because we recognize we are completely dependent on our heavenly Father, who loves us far more than we can imagine. With this in mind, seek the Father’s favor for Village Seven Presbyterian Church this week with these requests:

1) Pray for our worship this Sunday. Pray that God would send His Spirit among us to revive our hearts. Also pray for Pastor Mark Bates as he preaches on Genesis 41, “God’s Mighty Hand.”

2) Pray for our Youth Pastor Search Team, as they search for God’s man to lead our youth ministry. Also pray for Anna Counts, our Female Discipleship Coordinator, as she directs our youth ministry during the interim.

3) Pray that God would enable each of us as the people of God to be salt and light in our community. Ask specifically that God would enable us to build life-giving relationships with those in our community who do not yet know Christ.

4) Pray for the upcoming Easter services (April 4), that God would use this special season to awaken hearts to His beauty and grace.

Welcome to our new V7 Blog

2010-03-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about blogs is you can keep all your subscriptions together in a reader. You'll want to add the new V7 Blog to your subscriptions because we are committed to keeping it fresh with new content each weekday. Here's our proposed schedule:

Monday – Pray for the church - Mark Bates - some specific things to be praying for Village Seven.

Tuesday – Missionaries of the week – Don Roberts

Wednesday – Worship and philosophy of ministry post - Mark Bates

Thursday –Outreach – Kevin Allen – Read a story or report each week from our various outreach ministries

Friday – Adult Ministries – Bryan Counts – Reports from particular communities, the need for community, the need for learning together, occasionally will focus on children and student ministries.

Remember to send your friends to http://village7life.blogspot.com/

Also, we desire your stories, be sure to let us know of what God is doing through you or through V7 ministries by emailing us at stories@v7pc.org