Archive for the 'Announcements' category
Why RYE?
September 5, 2007 4:51 pm
Over the weekend, I announced that RYE07 will be THIS Saturday, September 8 at Covenant Life Church. Some might wonder: Why RYE? We just got back from our annual five15 Retreat. Why not just get on with our BIG MEETINGS? Why take an entire youth meeting to do this?
RYE07 has been in the works for several years. Dave Brewer and I started by planning a way to get 10:31 and five15 together. As we talked, we realized that since we have stopped doing Celebration Conferences, we really don’t have much chance to do stuff with other Sovereign Grace Churches. And so the idea was born: instead of a joint youth event, how about a Regional Youth Event? Invite the youth ministries from the other area churches so that we can stand in an auditorium with 1000 or so other students and parents and see this important point:
We’re not alone.
What happens in our personal devotions each morning is part of something much bigger: we are in a church. And what happens in our church each Sunday morning and Saturday night is part of something much bigger: we are in Sovereign Grace Ministries. This is a really good thing: rather than trying to figure this stuff out on our own, we get to learn from each other. We can to encourage each other and pray for each other and labor alongside each other. five15 is better for it. And on Saturday afternoon, we’re going to have fun together, worship together, and hear God’s word preached together.
Here is a map that shows where the area churches are coming from:
RYE07
September 1, 2007 8:25 am
One week from today, RYE07 begins. What is RYE07? Glad you asked.
RYE07 is our first ever Regional Youth Event: basically a giant youth meeting with the youth ministries from:
- Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD
- Solid Rock Church in College Park, MD
- Sovereign Grace Church in Frederick, MD
- Chesapeake Community Church in Joppa, MD
- Grace Community Church in Kingsville, MD
- Grace Community Church in Ashburn
- and of course: five15!
This meeting is for the high school students (rising 9th-12th grade) and their parents from all five DC area Sovereign Grace churches. The fun begins at 3pm with a cookout and games on the back lawn of Covenant Life Church. We’ll be led in worship by the 10:31 band (that’s Covenant Life’s youth ministry), and then Bob Kauflin will be addressing us on the topic of worship.
We’ve got a lot of fun stuff planned, and some surprises, too. We’ll be done by about 9:30 so that you can get home at a reasonable time to be ready for church the next morning.
I’d recommend carpooling with some friends and splitting the gas money.
High school students, mark your calendars! Here are the details, in summary:
- WHO: Rising 9th-12th graders and their parents. (Parents are encouraged to come!)
- WHEN: September 8, 2007, 3:00pm—9:30pm.
- WHERE: Covenant Life Church. Directions.
- COST: $0.00, but you might want to bring a few bucks to buy a commemorative RYE07 shirt.
See you there.
2007-2008 Calendar Available
August 30, 2007 8:04 pmClick on ‘Calendar‘ in the row of links above to view the 2007-2008 five15 Calendar.
Thanks for your patience on this!
A New Look, A New Address
10:04 amYou may have noticed one small change and one big change in the last 24 hours.
First, the small change is that the five15 blog has moved very slightly to http://blogs.sovgracefairfax.org/five15. See the difference? You’ll want to replace the ‘www’ with ‘blogs’ in your bookmark or RSS feed.
The big change is that the Sovereign Grace Church website has received a significant facelift. This is a remarkable improvement. Check it out:
Sovereign Grace Ministries Audio — FREE!
August 25, 2007 10:23 pmWhile you’re waiting for the retreat audio to be uploaded to the website, you can max out your iPod like this: Sovereign Grace Ministries has just made every Sovereign Grace audio message (ever!) available for free! You can search by speaker, topic, or sets:
A New Logo Unveiled
August 23, 2007 2:31 pmFor those of you not at the retreat, one of the things most obviously different is the new logo: it’s on the shirts, banner, Moleskines, and slides.
If you like it, thank Peter Lewis:
Car Wash & Yard Sale Recap
August 19, 2007 3:16 pmHow cool are these stats:
- 5 hours
- More than 50 tables of yard sale stuff
- More than 400 guests
- More than 100 cars washed
- Dozens of bags of donated clothes given away
- Guests coming from as far as Prince William County, Loudon County, and Alexandria City
- Many repeat Yard Sale guests
- More than 200 of our church members faithfully serving! Well done!
Thanks to all of you who served, making possible this wonderful outreach!
Car Wash & Yard Sale Tomorrow!
August 17, 2007 1:42 pm
Don’t forget: the Car Wash and Yard Sale Outreach is tomorrow! (I keep wanting to say Car Sale and Yard Wash, but that’s not right.)We need your help. If you’re not selling stuff, please come help us wash cars, direct traffic, or serve in the hospitality tent. Last time, we had 400 visitors on our property. I bet we have even more this time.
It’s a great opportunity for Each One of us who has received grace to Reach One who needs grace. Plus, every one who serves gets to wear (but not keep) a cool “Event Staff” t-shirt. I’ll be there for the early shift, hope to see you there!
Like Water Through A Pipe?
August 8, 2007 2:11 pm
Don’t forget that we are hosting Mike Bullmore on Saturday for a seminar about Biblical meditation. Coffee at 8:30am, first session begins at 9am. It’s not too late to sign up! Call the church office; your $5 registration cost will cover materials and lunch! Mike Bullmore is the Senior Pastor of Crossway Community Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a regular instructor at the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College. He is one of my favorite teachers!
Not sure what biblical meditation is? No problem. It’s probably best to think of it as thinking slowly and carefully in God’s word, soaking in it, trying to see how it points to Christ and explains him. I’m sure Mike will share this quote, but it is classic. This long quote (though worth it!) by George Mueller (1805-1898) explains his approach to meditation:
While I was staying at Nailworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now…more than forty years have since passed away.
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.
Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.
The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer.
When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I have myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.
The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer…. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.
I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.
It often now astonished me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning-by-morning is to obtain food for his inner man.
As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man; not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts….
I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one!
