COVENANT CHRONICLES FROM DANNY GIFFEN:
The advent season is quickly coming to a close as we approach Christmas. I pray that this week you will find a moment to pause and thank God for the work he is doing in the lives of Covenant through by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit. The staff has loved serving you, the congregation, during this exciting time at Covenant Presbyterian. We pray that God would bless you and your family. I also want to tell you how encouraged we are week in and week out by your prayers and attendance. An exciting aspect of this fall has been a 30% increase in worship attendance and Sunday School classes that are overflowing. We are continuing to study ways to further enhance our time in Sunday School communities as well as worship. May God be greatly praised among us.
I came across this prayer in my devotion and I thought I would encourage you all with it's profundity.
"Lord, may you now let us this year once more approach the light, celebration, and joy of Christmas Day that brings us face to face with greatest thing there is: your love, with which you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so that all of us may believe in him and therefore not be lost, but may have eternal life.
What could we possibly bring and give you? So much darkness in our human relationships and in our own hearts! So many confused thoughts, so much coldness and defiance, so much carelessness and hatred! So much over which you cannot rejoice, that separates us from one another and certainly cannot help us! So much that runs directly against the message of Christmas!
What should you possibly do with such gifts? And what are you to do with such people as we all are? But all of this is precisely what you want to receive from us and take from us at Christmas—the whole pile of rubbish and ourselves, just as we are—in order to give us in return Jesus, our Savior, and in him a new heaven and a new earth, new hearts and a new desire, new clarity and a new hope for us and for all people.
Be among us as we once again, on this final [week] before the celebration, together prepare to receive him as your gift! Make it so that may rightly speak, hear, and pray, in proper, thankful amazement about everything that you have in mind for all of us, that you have already decided regarding all of us, and that you have already done for all of us! Amen."
What's Ahead
1. Christmas Eve Services – 4:30 and 6 pm this Saturday for our traditional Candlelight service. Come early as we expect our typical standing room only crowd. Childcare is available for those 5 and under. Christmas Day and New Year's Day we will host one service each Sunday at 10 am. There will be no Sunday School on these days and childcare as well as children's church is again available for those 5 and under.
2. Birmingham Boys Choir – We were blessed by their singing a few weeks back and we wanted to pass along that you can actually see them on the Alabama Cable Network (channel 80 on Charter) on Wed. Dec. 21st at 8 p.m., Saturday, December 24th at 1 p.m and Christmas Day at 1 p.m.
3. Wed Worship – We will kick off our mid-week services again on Jan. 18th. Bill Boyd will be leading us on a series entitled, The Christian Life. I assure you, you won't want to miss this! 5:30 dinner by Ingram's café and 6:30 service.
4. Missions 2012 – on January 8th after the 2nd service you can come to an informational meeting to hear about many of the missions opportunities coming up this year thru Covenant:
Spring Break to Honduras (3/17-3/23), Turkey (4/9-4/16), Odessa, Ukraine (May), Maine/New Hampshire (7/7-7/14; 7/14-7/24),
Ivory Coast (July), Zambia (late July/early August) and Sydney Australia (Sept/Oct)
5. Sunday Night Classes – In January we will be offering two classes on Sunday Night. Clay & Kate Wheeler will be leading a 9 week study on Dynamic Marriage. Space is limited to 12 couples so please contact Clay if you are interested at claywheeler@bellsouth.net As of Wednesday, there was only space for FIVE more couples, so please pray about taking part in this study, Clay says you will not regret it! Please contact him directly if you would like to sign up. if Also Denny Ragland will be leading a Crown Financial class beginning late January.
6. Sunday Night of Prayer – Join the entire congregation on Jan. 8th at 6:30 pm in the Sanctuary for a time of prayer, praise and thanksgiving.
Theology 101
TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN
What Is True Spirituality?
“The evangelical orientation is inward and subjective. We are far better at looking inward than we are at looking outward.”
Sinclair Ferguson
The word spirituality conjures up all sorts of images and ideas. For non-Religious–or secular–people, spirituality is nothing more than “an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being…aspects of life and human experience which go beyond a purely materialist view of the world without necessarily accepting belief in a supernatural reality or divine being.” Of course, Christians reject this idea of spirituality. Whatever we Christians believe about spirituality, we assume that it has something to do with intimacy with a personal creator God who exists outside of us and has revealed himself to us.
There is, however, one area in which–it seems–both Christian and secular people agree when it comes to spirituality. Spirituality for both is purely subjective and private.
Whether it’s a secular or Christian version, a spiritual person (in the minds of most modern people) is a person who focuses on “the inside of life.” Most Christians I talk to think about spirituality exclusively in terms of personal piety, internal devotion, and spiritual formation. The focus is almost entirely on individual, inward renewal and private disciplines: praying, reading the Bible, meditation, spiritual retreat, contemplation, and so on. True spirituality, we conclude, is predominately quiet–focusing on the interior of life.
To be sure, personal disciplines are indispensable aspects of staying tethered to the truth of gospel (you’ll shrink without them), empowering and nurturing love for God and others. But it’s interesting that when James makes his strong point in 2:14-26 about faith without works being dead, what he describes are not works of subjective “spirituality” but selfless service:
If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? (James 2:15)
As Mike Horton wrote recently, “True spirituality may be personal, but it’s not private. It is wildly, unashamedly, thoroughly public.”
Similarly, in James 1:27 he writes (the only place in the Bible where the word “religion” is used positively):
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Even in that last phrase “keep oneself unstained from the world”, he’s not talking about monastic retreat, private meditation, or even personal piety. The contextual implication there involves the need to “wash our hands of worldliness” which, throughout the book of James, is defined as self-absorption-a “my life for me” approach to life in contrast from a “my life for you” approach to life. Worldliness, according to James, is me thinking always about me (see James 4:1-3).
Therefore, in both James 1:27 and 2:15, he’s making it clear that true spirituality actually take us away from ourselves and into the messy lives of other people–it’s “down to earth”, focusing primarily on the outside of life rather than on the inside of life. It is not simply introverted, but extroverted—it doesn’t take me deeper into me; it sends me away from me. Real spirituality is forgetting about yourself, washing your hands of you.
One serious consequence of concluding that true spirituality is exclusively introspective–that it’s all about internal betterment–is that we fail to see the needs of our neighbor and serve them, which is James’ definition of “good works.” After all, as Martin Luther said, “God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.”
As I mentioned in a post last week, the biggest difference between the practical effect of sin and the practical effect of the gospel is that sin turns us inward (homo incurvatus in se) and the gospel turns us upward and outward. We were designed to embrace God and others, but instead we are now consumed with ourselves. The gospel causes us to look up to Christ and what he did, out to our neighbor and what they need, not in to ourselves and how we’re doing.
The beautiful irony, of course, is that you and I are renewed inwardly to the degree that we focus not on inward renewal but upward worship and outward service.
Excerpt from Jesus + Nothing = Everything
FOUNDATIONS NEWS:
PRAYER REQUESTS:
Collins Clegg--prayer for good MRI results
Trey Clegg--prayer for successful back surgery
UPDATE FROM COLLINS on these two requests 12/21/11:
Hey Cary-
Just wanted to follow up on our prayer requests-Trey's surgery went very well. The doctor felt confident that Trey would feel immediate relief and he has. He is still sore, of course, and will need to take it easy for the next several weeks.
I finally heard back regarding my MRI. My doctor needed some time to figure out the best route of treatment before she contacted me. Good news is that my cranial lesions that had been active six months ago are inactive now, meaning the drugs and steroids have done their job. Disappointing news, however, is that I have new lesions in my brain stem. I will have one more infusion of steroids in January and then start another MS drug once I am approved.
Thanks for the prayers-I know this is part of God's plan for me-and He has me in his hands- Collins Clegg
Rachel Ammons--prayer for her Crohn's disease
Tait Stoddard's neighbor-Landon--prayer for understanding in wake of his father's death
Prayer for safe travel and good family dynamics over holidays
SOCIAL:
We have some great plans for 2012! Mark your calendars for January 19 for a girls night "mix it up" dinner out! Details to come soon. Also, the women of the class will start meeting for coffee once a month, details also to follow. GUYS: There are some good sports watching gatherings and monthly lunches in the works...anticipate!
HOSPITALITY:
Our class has the opportunity to help out the Ammons family. The plan is to have people prepare meals that can be frozen. They can be dropped off in the nursery Kitchen Freezer and each Friday someone will make a delivery to the Ammons. Please make sure that the thawing and reheating instructions are included. If anyone would like to make a donation for the Ammons we ask that you donate to the Deacon Fund and mark the money for the Ammons family. Please keep in mind that if you have or know of a hospitality need to contact Katherine and Zach Turnage at kwturnage@yahoo.com
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
