A Great Bible Reading Day Today

If you follow the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan like I do then you will note that today's reading is a wonderful selection of chapters. Today is highlighted by Romans 3 and Psalm 51. I don't know of two chapters in the Bible that have made a bigger difference in my life than these two.

Romans 3 Summary: We are all sinners, Jews and Greeks alike. There is none righteous, no one. No one can be justified by works, because God is perfect and we cannot meet his expectation for holiness (perfection). But, through our faith we have been justified (made just as if I'd never sinned) through Jesus Christ because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Christ's saving grace is a gift from God and not something we can earn on our own.

Psalm 51 Summary: This Psalm was written after David had taken Bathsheba and had relations with her. She became pregnant and David had her husband Uriah murdered on the battlefield. Psalm 51 says, Be gracious to me, O God. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know what I have done and it has separated me from my relationship with You. I am a sinner from birth and will continue to be one until the day I go to be with You. But, You desire what is in a person's heart and now what a person does. Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew my spirit. Please give me more of Your Holy Spirit and restore to me the joy of my salvation. Then I can be more effective in my ability to lead others to You. What You really want is a broken spirit and a repentant heart.

These two chapters tell us that we are not alone. We are all sinners, but for some reason that I don't fully understand, God sent Christ to earth to restore our relationship with Him. Jesus was that sacrifice that God took on our behalf. It all comes back to God's wrath being taken out on Christ instead of us. If you have seen The Passion of the Christ, If you are a believer in Christ, you probably have some idea what God's wrath looks like. But as graphic and brutal as some of the scenes in the movie are it can never depict the incredible pain and agony that Christ suffered for both you and I. It wasn't a movie. It wasn't some actor portraying pain, it was the wrath of the Creator of the Universe being poured out on His Son, all for us. It was so bad that before Christ was taken he was sweating blood (Luke 22:44)and have received Him as your personal Lord and Savior then God sees you as justified (pure, innocent, and clean) and can let you enter his presence any time.

Anyhow, it was a great Bible reading day today. Good luck and God be with you.

Band Solo Competitions

Matthew had a band solo competition last Saturday. He was awarded a 1st! He did a great job. He has been playing the French Horn for about 2 years now and continues to get better and better. He is turning into a wonderful musician. After Easter he wants to start playing at the church orchestra, which I think is a great idea.

Bethany has a band solo competition on this coming Saturday. She will be playing the flute. She has only been playing for around 8 months and is doing wonderfully also. My kids are so much more talented than I am. Praise God!

Monday Night Outreach

We had a great outreach night last night. I had an opportunity to pray along with 3 other men for those people who might be visiting our church in the near future. We also prayed for those who had recently visited. We are not doing a very good job of taking advantage of the opportunities that God places before us in witnessing, sharing with others, and simply being good hosts and hostesses for the Lord. When someone visits FBC O'Fallon or the College Church we need to follow up and make contact with that person. Not because we are concerned about the growth of our church, but because the Lord has provided us with this opportunity to talk about Him to someone we have only lknown for a short while. This might be the only opportunity that person will have to hear about Jesus, and our only opportunity to share Christ with that person, and for us not to share is pure selfishness.

The other thing we prayed for was that the Lord will raise up teachers in the church who will pasionately serve Him. We need to have committed leaders who intimately know the Lord who are willing to share their faith with others.

Lord help me to do a better job of presenting you to others.

Dissertation Proposal at Saint Louis University: Done!!!

Well, yesterday was one of those days I don't care to relive. At 10:00 I had to present my Dissertation Proposal to the students and faculty of the Saint Louis University Department of American Studies. I knew my Dissertation Topic was too broad. I called my topic A Consuming View: The Northern California Cultural Landscape As Viewed Through Literature 1845-2000. I knew that it was too broad, but I had hoped that by limiting my research to how literature describes the landscape would focus the topic more. I guess I didn't fool anyone. The faculty caught right on and wants me to focus on a smaller time period. The periods I think that are the most interesting are the Gold Rush (1849-1860), the turn of the century (1900-1910), the Dustbowl years (1930-1940), the turbulent 1960s, or the Dotcom Boom of the (1990-2000). I will probably decide between a focus on the 1930s and analyze Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle, which is probably an overdone time period, or concentrate on the turn of the century and analyze Frank Norris' The Octopus. The turn of the century hasn't been researched nearly as much and is probably a little bit more of an open field, but doesn't have quite as much color and glamour as the 1930s. Either way I have my work cut out for me over the next year.

The SLU faculty, unbelievably, approved my Dissertation Proposal with some modifications (narrowing the focus) and thinks my subject is worthwhile and will bring new knowledge to light. One of the questions that puzzled me a little though is the one that went like this, "When most people study landscape they study physical landscape, why do you want to study landscapes created in an author's mind?" Well, research is supposed to be original! No one is doing research on mentally created landscapes (what I call cognitive landscape). Maybe it is because it is too hard, but it is sure a wide open field.

Anyhow, we'll see how this all pans out. I still have to complete the language requirement (I'll be taking a Spanish translation test next month) and finish the Dissertation. Then it will be Doc Rick!

It was a really cold and windy, but beautiful day at SLU, so I took some pictures of campus and put them in our family fotopage here.

After presenting my Dissertation Proposal I hopped back to work to finish out the day. Last night we had two events going on at The College Church at the Gate. The David Crowder Band (David Crowder is an awesome praise and worship leader from Waco, Texas) was playing in Lincoln, Illinois and most of our church went up there for the concert. I stayed behind incase anyone showed up that didn't go to the concert. No one came, so I went home and turned in early. It was a long, but productive day! Thank you Lord.

Great Impact Worship Last Sunday Night

Bob and Liz Ridlon came and shared with us last Sunday evening and did a wonderful job explaining the basic concepts of intelligent design. They used mathematical formulae to show us how macro-evolution (evolution between species) was statistically impossible, shared how there is absolutely no scientific evidence for macro-evolution, and shared how the evidences that evolutionists use to prove their theories are actually better suited to prove creation than evolution.

This has been an amazing week with collegiate evangelist and apologist Phil Nelson coming last Wednesday and the Ridlons sharing their creation research last Sunday. I will try to schedule them again for the fall, right after the start of the school year to follow up and help provide us a firm foundation for evangelism and apologetics. They go hand in hand. If we can know how to back up what we believe I feel we will can more effectively share Christ with others.

Take care and God bless you all.

Great Bible Study Last Night

Good Morning Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

Wow! Phil Nelson really laid it on us last night. The only reason we were created was to worship the Lord and to tell the good news of the gospel. I saw a lot of light bulbs going on while Phil was talking. He is absolutely right. The Lord provides us with so many opportunities each day to plant seeds and begin talking about Him. And, if we don't have a strategy we will miss most of them. Our responsibility is to have our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts open, on, and ready to respond to the opportunities that God leads our way. I waste so many opportunities each day that I am embarrassed to think about it. The Holy Spirit, through Phil, convicted me last night to be consciously seeking out those opportunities that God provides to share the good news of Jesus.

Here is the web link to Phil's Collegiate Conversations Yahoo Group. It is a growing group and is dedicated to collegiate evangelism and Christian aplogetics (being able to back up what you believe through scripture). I have also placed a link to Phil's Yahoo Group off on the column to the right. We have a Yahoo group for the College Church. The link is here and also off to the right. In order to use a Yahoo group you will have to join the group. It is free, and you can join even if you don't have a Yahoo E-Mail account. It is a siimple process to join and well worth the effort.

Thanks for another awesome night. The Holy Spirit was ministering to many of us. I appreciate each and every one of you coming and being a part of our group.

Your brother in Christ,

Rick

Phil Nelson and Collegiate Evangelism Strategy

Tonight at our Wednesday Night Bible Study at the College Church at the Gate (225 N. Monroe, Lebanon) we have the opportunity to have Phil Nelson visit with us. Phil is the Illinois Baptist State Association's Collegiate Evangelist. He will be speaking to us about evangelism strategies on our college campuses. Phil is a dynamic speaker and should help us understand how to better share our relationship with Jesus with unbelievers on campus. I'm excited to have Phil come and join us for the evening. I hjope to see you there.

Your brother in the Lord,

Rick

An Awesome Night of Worship Last Night!

We had an awesome night of worship last night. Noah hit the mark on how we each have those times in our lives where we are like Elijah after his battle with the prophets of Baal and asks the Lord to take his life in 1 Kings 18 and David when he fled to the cave and acted insane in 1 Samuel 21. We each have times when we are depressed and don't know what to do. Sometimes moments of tremendous victory are followed by the depths of our deepest depression. God is always there for us and will guide us through those times. If we keep our sights on Him and don't lose faith, He will deliver.

Andy capped a great message by leading us through some incredible music. The Holy Spirit was ministering to us last night and it left me speachless.

We have a great week coming up with Phil Nelson, the IBSA's collegiate evangelist sharing with us on Wednesday Night and bob and Liz Ridlon presenting their Creation Research next Sunday evening. Hope to see you there.

Take a chance and live for the Lord every day.

Rick

Bible Study Tonight

Tonight is the Wednesday Night College Church Bible Study at 8:00 at the Gate (225 N Monroe, Lebanon, Illinois). We will be studying another week of The Heart of David. Andy will lead us in music and Noah will lead the Bible Study. We look forward to seeing all of you. Please bring a friend and an appetite for the Lord.

Is Our Preaching Out Of Touch?

Here's a great article by Tom Allen on some different preaching styles in the emerging church. I think it says a lot about how people want to become more involved in the spiritual direction of their house of worship. It seems to be asking that we give a little more room for both interaction and the moving of the Holy Spirit.