Hope you are all having a fantastic week and staying warm today!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
Trey Nelson has walking pneumonia, pray for a quick recovery
Mary Stegall, mother of Sarah Squires--prayer for guidance and wisdom of her doctors, healing for her recent surgery and related pain
Trent Ellison, father in law of Greg Hicks--prayer for his recent diagnosis of cancer, prayer for his family and doctors.
Foundations--general prayers for the unity of our class and the church officers in our class.
Collins Clegg--general prayers for guidance for her doctors and her treatment
Trey Clegg--praise for his successful back surgery and healing.
SOCIAL:
1. GIRLS NIGHT
Foundations Girls Night Out "Mix it Up" Dinner is Thursday, January 19
Meet at Cary Murray's at 6:30 p.m. and we will each randomly "draw" a number to coincide with one of five particular restaurants in the area, then head to that restaurant at 7 p.m., giving us each a "random" opportunity to have a great dinner with other ladies in the class in a smaller group.
If you would like to attend, please let one of the following know by that day:
Kelli Threadcraft: thethreadcrafts@aol.com; 305-4914
Bethany Henry: bethanyhh@charter.net; 213-4213
Cary Murray:cmurray1228@gmail.com; 213-8413
*Cary's house
1735 Kensington Road
Homewood 35209
213-8413
Directions from Highway 31 coming into Homewood from Vestavia:
Turn left onto Mayfair Drive, first left onto Wellington Road, first right onto Kensington Rd.
Our house is on the left, directly across from the park.
2. COFFEE AND LUNCH DAY:
The fourth Tuesday of each month will provide a time for the ladies of the class to fellowship through either coffee at 9:15 a.m. at Panera Bread Vestavia or lunch at 11:30 (place TBD each week). Nursery will be provided for both time slots by making a childcare reservation for this time by emailing Mary T at millermaryt@gmail.com. So, mark your calendars for the first one to be Tuesday, January 24. Be on the lookout for further announcements in class and via class emails about this new opportunity.
3. Wednesday Night Connection resumes next week and like we did in the Fall, our class (and our kids!) will have the opportunity to sit together during the dinner hour. Depending on weather - outside or in room E206. Check for class emails on this each Wednesday.
LOGISTICS:
If you haven't sent in a family photo for our class wall, please send one to Kerry at kerryleasure@gmail.com
From: Danny Giffen [mailto:dgiffen@covpres.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 2:40 PM
To: AC Frese; Peggy Frese; Lucy Anderson; Michael Latta; Paul Loyless; Daniel Murray; Ted Pewitt; Eva Shank; Bill Bennett; Barbara Finch; Dave Traylor; Jim Marlar; Brian Beckett; Fred Blackmon; Chris Butler; Bryan Balogh; Lee Baker; Dory Baker; Grace Padgett; Julie Tapscott; Terri Yates; Tom Marvin; Carol Cartus; Bill Cartus Yahoo; Finch Barbara; Brian Oaks; Ted Pewitt; Martin, Russell; Mark Midyette; Cary Murray; Stephen Fitts; Rebekah Fitts; Lauren Hayes; paula Midyette
Cc: Bill Bennett; AC Frese; Michael Latta; Robert Luttrell; Bruce McLeod; Bob Schaffeld; Richard Thompson; Steve Ankenbrandt; William Dow; Jones W; Charlie Logan; John Oliver; Sam Tortorici; John Wood; Will Brooke; Mark Lee; Russell Martin; Warren and Susan Norville; William A. Ratliff; Lex Williamson; Sandy Stradtman; George Jones; Trey Clegg; John James; David Malone; stephen and ashley mince; Todd Sitton; Alan Spooner; Ward Bailey; Dave Condon; Charles Crabbe; Jeff Hicks; Jason Peevy; Charlie Regan; Mark Taylor; Eddy Alonso; Chris Butler; Dedmon, Ty E.; Jonathan Gidley; heath.henderson@ubs.com; Rich Laws; Lee Sheppard; Dave Traylor; Joe Welsh; Molly Stone; Casey, Steven; Martha Boyd; Victoria Williams; Rhonda Kimbrough
Subject: Covenant Chronicles
Well, I guess just to get it out of the way, congrats to the Crimson Tide…you all left no doubt who the best team was Monday night. Please know that we have set up additional receptacles for tithing this week knowing that in the giddiness of your euphoria sometimes needless purchases are made or donations liberally given. Even our very own Marty Crawford was spotted at Hibbett's at midnight adding to his wardrobe…yes, Marty! On a school night! Buying t-shirts! When has anyone even seen Marty in a shirt without buttons?!?!! :)
What's Happening
1. Wednesday Night Interactive – Beginning next Wednesday Night, we launch our new mid-week worship services. You will not want to miss this time of worship and teaching. Bill Boyd will kick off our series with TJ and Danny sprinkled in for some flavor every now and then. 5:30 is dinner and 6:30 begins all the adult/youth/children activities. (Music Clubs do begin at 5 pm)
2. New Member's Class – We are expecting our largest class ever for the February 3-4 New Member's Class. Contact Victoria vwilliams@covpres.com to register. Room TBD based on growing too big for normal classrooms.
3. Luncheon to Honor Bill & Cyndie – Fixed Point Foundation is hosting a lunch after the 2nd service on Jan. 22 at the Latimer House. Reservations are required and tickets can be purchased at Covenant in the foyer the next two Sundays. Cost is $25/person.
4. Pastor's Lunch Study – Beginning Feb. 1 we will launch our Pastor's lunch study. We will meet in E201/03 on Wednesdays at noon. This quarter we will walk through Chuck DeGroat's book, Leaving Egypt. Books can be purchased at the church office immediately for $11/ea.
5. Short Term Missions – Almost 50 people showed up last Sunday to hear more about our 2012 mission trips. If you are interested in more info, please contact Chris Freeman chrisfreemanca@gmail.com The Honduras trip over Spring Break has a mandatory meeting on 2/5 with a deposit deadline of 2/1. Other trips include: Maine/New Hampshire (July), Turkey (April), Odessa, TX…errr Ukraine (May), Ivory Coast (July), Zambia (July/Aug) and Sydney, AU (Sept/Oct). Please pray for the team in Haiti this week.
6. Missions Conference is coming up Feb. 25-29. Best week of the year at Covenant. Ed Hartman from Romania is the keynote. See Phyllis Hamm phamm@covpres.com for ways you can serve.
7. Shameless plug for our Library…parents, youth and children alike, please take advantage of the resources we have available in the Covenant Library. They are open Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings to check out books.
Theology 101
This comes form my much smarter college roommate from Texas , Patrick Lafferty, who serves as a pastor at PCPC in Dallas…Enjoy
Improvisational Liturgy
"Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."
John 18:37
Sunday we spoke of cynicism. In an age of half-truths and unrealistic promises, the effort to unmask insincerity and lower our expectations has become fashionable, if increasingly justifiable. Yet cynicism can have such a corrosive effect in those who treat it like a virtue, as it creeps, in an almost sinister fashion, into many of our daily decisions.
We also considered how Jesus confronts our drift toward cynicism. His authority as a king challenges our tendency to deny there is any authority. His integrity as one who exerted His rule—and died—for the sake of truth repudiates our cynical assumption that acting on pure motives is but a fantasy. And His offer of intimacy—of communion with Him—takes issue with our incredulity that His truth can ever penetrate or transform us.
So we asked how Jesus' confrontation with cynicism might reach from heaven to earth, how hope in what is not of this world might make its way into our world. And we suggested that though the Lord God Almighty often does profound work in the unexpected, unscripted—and often unsolicited—providences of life, there is something to be said for a more plodding approach to spirituality—a liturgy of life. By that we meant adopting a patterned existence in which we cultivate new habits of attention that frame our days and reinforce those ultimate truths that, among other things, displace cynicism with hope.
Time didn't permit a lengthy exploration about what a new liturgy of life might look like, or how it might be cultivated, though we mentioned two sources—drops in a sea of writing on the subject—that introduce both the rationale for such a liturgy and detail into the practice of it (James K. A. Smith's Desiring the Kingdom, and Eric Metaxas' eponymous biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
So what of this new liturgy? What would it include? None of its elements would be unfamiliar to you, for you practice them each Sunday you gather for worship, but let's camp on at least two aspects: study and confession.
The liturgy would of course entail a study of God's truth, but one that only begins with asking questions of the text. In fact it would not be a true study until the questions were turned around upon you the student, until the text, as others have put it, begins to ask questions of you. Now, the time required to even formulate those questions and then reflect upon the answers to those text-sourced questions means you don't get as far in a book as fast. A slower, plodding pursuit of the text's meaning and significance honors the Spirit of God's interest in confronting us at our core. But the quantitative reduction in biblical ground you cover may mean qualitatively greater depth to the effect such study has. This is no indictment of those who wish to cover the Bible in a year (or less!), but as it allows for more patient reflection upon a given text it also militates against the satisfaction some of us take (mea culpa) in just having run our eyes upon the pages of the text. A liturgy of life might let His Word frame our days in how we make them our first and last consideration of each day, and how we ask God to investigate us. "Search me, O God. Know thou my heart. . . ."(Psalm 139:23)
Confession in a liturgy of life might become a more frequent occurrence, in turn enabling us to feel more deeply the depth of both sin and grace. Rather than wait for sin to reach such a boiling point that only confession can keep us from its scalding, rather than unwittingly think of sin as so banal that we can wait until Sunday to think of confession, a liturgy of life would make confession a daily occurrence and to someone whom you know understands sin's scathe and the balm of grace. As Bonhoeffer wrote elsewhere in his famous work, Life Together, "In confession we break through to true fellowship in the Cross of Jesus Christ, in confession we affirm and accept our cross. In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother—which means, before God—we experience the Cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation." Confession acknowledges the existence of what ought not, while also expressing the desire for what must be. Confession before a brother or sister, a spouse or friend, forces us to make a searing recognition of our folly while at the same time affords us a proper word, fitly spoken about the truth of grace. How can we wait until Sunday for the grace to be found through confession? A liturgy of life takes hold of grace more readily through a life of repentance beginning with confession.
Study and confession are but two aspects of a liturgical life. Likely you see how even our prayers change in this liturgy as our meditations and confessions elicit far more than requests. Fortunately, there's nothing constricting about such a liturgy. Far from adopting a script, composing this liturgy is more like a jazz improvisation. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington—they knew the basics of chord progression and then simply filled the melodic space with innumerable musical possibilities. As long as you're mindful of the basics of communion with God—praise, prayer, confession, meditation (and don't forget lament)—there is no limit to how you might fill the liturgical space.
Every day is different, each with its own demands and difficulties. But we nonetheless adopt some patterns of which we might be mostly unaware. What patterns for living have you adopted, consciously or unconsciously? How might these patterns be reconfigured so that grace sinks into your recesses and rises to the surface of your being?
