We just had another baptism in our church last Sunday. It’s been a while. I hope to see more adult baptisms here as well: someone new coming to the faith and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and the concomitant community. That’s a great thing as well.

I have to confess that infant baptism is not that weird to me. I grew up Presbyterian, so that’s what we did. When I became old enough to really question the matter, all I had to do was to see some biblical support. I understand that for those who didn’t grow up with such a practice, or even the theological framework behind the practice, that this is quite a step. And I TOTALLY respect folks who believe that baptism seals the believer (Baptistic folks) as opposed to sealing the promise (Presby-types).

In seminary, I remember an evangelism professor say, “I prayed that my child would never know a day when she could remember not knowing Jesus.” I thought that weird, since most of my college ministry experience taught me the necessity of knowing THAT MOMENT. That was where assurance could be found. Now of course there is a moment when the Holy Spirit regenerates the heart and that person is “born again” (John 3). But for many folks, the date isn’t an option. And that’s good. Because all they have to hold on to is Jesus. Not a date/time/place.

Now a covenant child can obviously have such a date/time/place. Plenty do. But it’s certainly not bad when they don’t. In fact its normal. That’s what we pray for when we place the covenant sign/seal upon the child and claim God’s promise.

BTW-if you didn’t get it by now, the picture is of the musical artist presently known simply as “Seal” (not the first thing I think of when I see him though).

Well yesterday was the supposed to be the B-Day. Unfortunately “Little T” wasn’t moving out. Not yet. We stayed for some surprise tests and an ultrasound for several hours. Next on the agenda is a trip back on Saturday for another NST (non stress test) to see how “Little T’s” heart rate is doing. Then back on Tuesday, and if no action before then, Amy will be induced on Wed or Thursday. Impatient? No of course not. Never. I’m such a patient person.

When we got home from the hospital yesterday, our neighbors with their newborn in hand, came out and greeted us with a gift. It was some sort of “hooter hider” (yes, there is a such a thing) or nursing blanket. I’m not real well read on that kind of stuff.

This was very encouraging to see our neighbors loving us back. Perhaps even better than we’ve loved them-although giving gifts is not my love language (but I have given them snook and redfish filets before!). A sense of community has definitely developed as people are beginning to creatively think of ways to bless others. And that’s a good thing.

And then we were able to have someone over for dinner. A nice ending to a long afternoon.

Lately I’ve been supplementing my daily bible reading with a book called The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard. It has been quite helpful in reminding me that each Christian ought to daily do battle with sin. If there is no battle, then we’ve become complacent and are not pressing, “on toward the prize which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil 3).”

The chapter I read today reminded me of one way that the flesh operates. Here’s an excerpt:

You must understand this: the flesh weakens conviction against sin by separating the remedy of grace from the design of grace. The scriptures teach nothing more clearly than that God’s design in showing mercy is to make us holy people: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no ungodliness and worldly passions and to live upright and godly lives in this present age.” pg 64

In other words, the remedy of grace stirs within us a restful assurance that Jesus died once for all sins (I Peter 3:18). Yet we cannot separate, as we so often want to, the remedy from the design of grace: to make us look more like Jesus. Of course we aspire to this holiness not by sheer effort, but by repenting of the idols of our hearts (comfort, respect, money, power, sex, pleasure, etc….) and seeing Jesus as the ONE worthy of our highest affections.

But we must not forget that the design of grace calls us into a war zone, where competing affections regularly do battle against us. Ludgaard’s reminder is not only “catchy,” but biblical and powerful: we need to be more “cross-eyed.” Jesus cross displays God’s wrath and white hot hatred of sin. And we need to hate sin more. But it also reminds us of his Fatherly love towards his children. He forsook his own son, which became the irrevocable price of our adoption. What love! Let us be more “cross-eyed.”

Last night Amy was cool with me fishing. So I took off wading, not kayak fishing, which would allow me a quicker getaway if I got “The Call.”

So I called up one of my new fishing buddies (a guy visiting the church AND starting up a new lure company-I’m supposed to be getting some inventory soon!) and we headed out about 6:15 pm.

I got one decent snook, and two “snooklets” before the bite slowed. Then I got a monster snook, about 30 inches in length. The fight was awesome. But even greater was the fact that someone else was there to share it with me. And of course take the picture. As a side note, I’ve held many more fish than babies in my life. So I do need to be careful I don’t have one hand in “Little T’s” mouth and try to hold him far away from my body to make him look bigger (as I do with snook and redfish).

Sometimes I like fishing by myself. There’s some freedom in it. I can go this way or that, and chase after fish. Yet if I look back on my fishing, I’ve realized that I have a far greater time when I’m fishing with someone else. Someone else can share my joy.

Now this picture is up on the kayak website, and many folks are posting stuff like “Nice snook” and other really deep things of that nature. But the more posts, the more joy for me, and for them (provided they’re not jealous like I am sometimes).

A joy that is not shared doesn’t last very long. It really doesn’t. Just another of my gazillion encouragements to be active in sharing this joy in some sort of relationship. Our joy will really run dry if we shut ourselves off from others, or if we shut our mouths and refuse to speak of the joy we have in Christ. The more it’s shared, whether it be through fellowship or relational evangelism, the more evident and consuming our joy shall become.

Last night was our last official youth group meeting of the summer. Some of the youth requested we do a 3 hour night, and use the extra time to have an Awards Ceremony, similar to The Dundie’s of the hit show “The Office.” I obviously obliged, if for no other reason than 3 youth took their leadership initiative seriously. But I also was excited to do some sort of awards ceremony.

I’ve done this in previous years as an RA, youth director, and college intern. No season is officially complete without an awards ceremony.

One of our more creative youth came up with most of the awards, passed them on to me, and I passed them on to another youth who put them on paper plates. High end operation for sure.

Of course they were hilarious as expected. But the question was whether or not they would be well received. After all, my awards ceremonies tend to highlight and emphasize the more embarrassing aspects, events, or personalities of the recipient. For instance one of the kids whom we often forget is even in the room, received the most outgoing/center of attention award. One who never comes got “most committed” (someone had to accept on his behalf). My personal favorite was the “I love Florida football, but who the heck is Tim Tebow” award given to someone who wears University of Florida gear but knows next to nothing about the team.

We all laughed with one another. And that’s a direct result of the gospel. We love and accept one another, in spite of all our idiosyncrasies, shortcomings, annoyances, etc….We should be able to laugh with one another because there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, then we really are missing something of the gospel. If we can stand faultless before the throne of grace, then who cares if we receive the “I’m thirsty, but not thirsty enough to drink the full 12 oz can” (for the youth who always leaves the can half full/empty) or the “Loudest talker (yours truly).”

Recently, I’ve been thinking of the necessity of lay leadership in the church. For starters, I began listening to a talk on “Mentoring Lay Leaders.” The 2nd speaker, John Yates rector of The Falls Church, began by publicly repenting of his low view of lay leadership at the beginning of his ministry. He thought that really strong Christians go into ministry and the rest kind of “serve Jesus on the side.” This is really just a pagan gnostic/Platonic picture of life, where the sacred and secular are divided into separate spheres, with ministry being spiritual and of greater importance, and any other work being secular and of lesser importance. Sorry for the run-on sentence.

To serve Jesus, you have to do it ‘on the side’ instead of actually serving him wherever you are. Fortunately our Reformed tradition has done everything it can to eliminate this faulty distinction, but sometimes people still think this way. This isn’t the point of my post, however, so I shan’t be touching on it further. Just FYI.

He challenged everyone on the importance of lay leadership. Then someone involved in church planting came to our session meeting on Wed with the intent of getting our elders on board with a presbytery wide vision of planting churches. One of the reasons why he found it so important for elders to become involved is that every great renewal movement of God has been the result of the Spirit moving in God’s people. Not specifically clergy.

Getting back to the talk, Yates mentioned that most of the ministries in his church actually began by lay folks seeing a need and rising to leadership to address it. Couple that with someone more capable than I agreeing to lead our summer mission project, and two ladies bible studies starting up-not by pastor recommendations but by folks seeing a need and rising to it-I’m really jazzed up now.

Well of course the Rays couldn’t take my praise and lost last night to the Yankees 2-1. That’s what happens when little guys like me put enormous pressure on them.

Anyhow, one of the points of my last sermon was to know that the joy Christ offers is grounded in objective reality. It’s not true joy because it makes us happy (there are plenty of happy folks that don’t know Jesus), but true joy because Christ has legitimate, objective worth. It is of the utmost importance that we continue to delve into deeper knowledge of Him (why we should have this joy) and how/where He will build His Kingdom through us if we are to maintain that joy in the face of either hardship or skeptics.

We obviously do this-though it has to be intentional and with faith-through fellowship, the word, prayer, sacraments. But another way is reading, or listening to sermons, talks, lectures, discussions. It probably sounds boring to some, but especially for those who don’t like to read or have time to read, these aforementioned resources though the internet/Ipod can be of great help. You can kill two birds with one stone: I’ll drive, work in the yard, or clean the bathroom with these talks/sermons. Many of the speakers are quite engaging, particularly if the audio comes from a conference: conferences tend to not get boring folks to speak!

Here is a link of talks/lectures (I hesitate to use the word “lecture,” because lecture seems so academic and these are not) from the Gospel Coalition Conference of 2007 that I have begun to listen to. I definitely commend to you the talk on “Mentoring Lay Leaders” by Harry Reeder and John Yates.

I generally see baseball in very pragmatic terms. It serves the sole purpose of ‘getting me though’ the tough times before football season starts once again. Then I drop it like a slippery trout, and it’s off my hands until next season. However lately, its been exciting to follow the Tampa Bay Rays (remember they are no longer Devil Rays, since that was a stupid name to begin with and there actually ARE NO Devil Rays on the west coast).

Whether its the name change, the new “uni’s,” the starting pitching, bullpen, defense, or all of the above, the Rays are now in first place. Yes, over the Yankees and over the Red Sox. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but it feels good when teams with nearly 200 million dollar pay rolls lose to less funded teams (cheaper owners is really what it all boils down to). Regardless, it is a blast to see a perennial loser beat up on some of the bullies in the neighborhood.

Our team reigns, for now. And I want people to know about it-Sports Center has yet to show much love. But I want more people to know. For the Christian, as evidenced in Jesus’ resurrection, and start of His Kingdom moving forward (His will in heaven being done more on Earth, restoring all aspects of fallen creation), our God reigns. We should have much more confidence (the Rays reigning is only temporary, and maybe REALLY temporary) and far more joy in the fact that our God reigns. As a result, we go forth into the world motivated by our joy, to express this to others via the gospel and our gospel acts of mercy, reconciliation, love, hospitality, renewal, etc…

Sometimes folks who spew forth 95 % garbage, can say very true things. Theologians call this Common Grace, and is part of being made in the image of God. Even people who hate Jesus can say true things. Take Bubba the Love Sponge for instance. Not a fan of Jesus.

I was traveling back home from the church to get my Ipod before heading to presbytery in S. Sarasota (there’s no way I was going to drive 35 minutes there and back and not listen to a good lecture). Well, there were commercials on both of my normal sports talk programs, so I flipped to my 4th (after my CD that I was tired of listening to) option: Bubba the Love Sponge. Every so often I’m curious as to what he’s talking about. He is quite a repulsive individual, yet today I found myself agreeing with him.

Today he was angry with the prosecutor for the Sean Taylor murder case. The prosecutor will not seek the death penalty for the two young men in the case. Apparently one of the dudes who shot Taylor was under 18 years of age when he committed the crime. So the real question that Bubba raised was, “Why do you have to be 18 to be held FULLY accountable?” He reasoned that his kids who are 6 and 7 know right from wrong. “To not know right from wrong, you have to be retarded.”

While I might word that last sentence a little differently, Bubba makes a good point. People know right from wrong at a very young age and yet choose that which is wrong. Whether they are 16 or 18, they know shooting people is wrong.

So on this rare occasion, Bubba, I salute you. It might not happen again for a long time, so savor the flavor.

Amy had her last day of school today. Its been an amazing year for her. God has been so good to her, as He gave her a class of All Stars. The odds of such a truly unique, smart, well behaved, and loving bunch of kids coming together is like 1 in 75 years; kind of like Haley’s Comet.

Anyhow I was formally and cordially invited to come in for a pizza party and take pictures. The party was intended to help the kids could get a little more closure that she would not be coming back. I’m glad I came, because I got to take home the left-over Domino’s Pizza.

One of the girls named Jasmine drew a picture for me. I guess it had me and her in it. BTW-If you ever have the need to feel like a celebrity, walk into an inner city kindergarten class. They treat you like royalty, without acting like Paparrazzi. Upper-Middle class Kindgerteners may do the same, but I wouldn’t know since Amy has only taught in title one schools.

Every time I go there, someone draws a picture for me. No Picaso’s in the making, but their pictures are done with love and do put a smile on my face. Not because of the quality of their work, but because of the desire of their hearts: to bless me.

I think there is some similarity with our praise before God. Our offerings before Him probably look like little kid art. We often think we’re offering Picaso worthy stuff to him, but its probably more like stick figures. Yet God delights in the praise of His children. They make Him smile. Its not the worthiness of the art He’s after, but the desire simply to honor and bless His name.

She’s planning on tutoring some next year, so I may not have seen the last of little kid art. I may just have to share the spotlight with “little T.”