This weekend, August 15-16, ICC is having our annual retreat. The theme this year is Together For The Gospel as we desire to become a community founded on the Gospel and working for the Gospel. Our guest speaker will be Pastor Nathan Carter from Immanuel Baptist Church in the city.
Here’s a brief promo video : done
For the past two years, I’ve been part of a prayer group consisting of pastors from four different churches in the Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates area. We gather monthly to pray for one another’s ministries as well as to intercede on behalf of our community. It has been a great experience of partnership in the Gospel that we are hoping would spread to our whole congregations as well. This past July 12th, we brought all of our congregations together for a combined Sunday service and picnic. It was a great time of worship as we focused on the Kingdom of God. The picnic was also a lot of fun as people had an opportunity to interact over food and sports. As pastors, we are praying that we could continue to encourage one another and partner in greater ways to serve our cities in Jesus’ name.
Here is a video we showed as part of the worship service : done
Filed under: Uncategorized
This is how Sunday Service presiders should be calling people to worship…and interestingly it’s by comedian Steve Harvey. It reminds me that if we really put our minds to it and considered the greatness and grandeur of who God is and what He has done, there would be a greater sense of awe and amazement in the midst of our worship. Or maybe to put it another way, we would truly worship and not just sing.
done
Filed under: music
I found this YouTube video on someone’s Facebook post, and I’m really glad I clicked on it. Not only is the music excellent, but I appreciate the passion with which these two guys play. It is really inspiring.
Filed under: events
If you weren’t aware, there is going to be a One In Love (OIL) Conference down south at Covenant College in Georgia in just a couple of weeks (May 13-16). I’ll be serving on the worship team as well as giving a seminar. Please pray for the conference and/or go!
To find out more info, go to http://www.oneinlove.org
After the Gospel Coalition Conference, John Piper and D.A. Carson spoke together on the topic of The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor at Park Community Church in the city. I wasn’t able to attend, but here are the links to the messages.
John Piper on The Pastor as Scholar
D.A. Carson on The Scholar as Pastor
Owen Strachan, John Piper, and D.A. Carson Discussion
By now, everyone has seen the surprising Susan Boyle perform on Britain’s Got Talent. She made headlines and was all over the internet a couple of weeks ago. Well, just one week after she appeared on the show, an amazing 12-yr-old boy named Shaheen Jafargholi sang and stole the limelight from Susan Boyle :
doneWell, I don’t know if you’ve kept following it, but here’s the latest phenom who came on the show a week after Jafargholi. Her name is Hollie Steel and she’s only 10 yrs old.
doneMy theory is that it’s staged so that ratings and publicity go up for the show. But that being said, you just can’t deny the impressive God-given talent that these three people have. Wow!
This past week I was able to attend the Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago. The theme was Entrusted With The Gospel : Living The Vision of 2 Timothy. It was a time of great encouragement as the main speakers spoke straight through the book of 2 Timothy. I know I’m going to be chewing on these messages for a while, so I won’t blog about what I gleaned from it just yet. However, if you’d like access to some of the main messages, you can find them here :
Main Sessions :
Tim Keller on The Grand Demythologizer : The Gospel and Idolatry
John Piper on Feed the Flame of God’s Gift : Unashamed Courage in the Gospel
Phil Ryken on The Pattern of Sound Words
Mark Driscoll on Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
K. Edward Copeland on Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry
Bryan Chapell on Preach The Word
Ajith Fernando on Gospel Faithfulness in the New Christendom
Crawford Loritts, Tim Keller, John Piper, Ligon Duncan – Panel Discussion
Ligon Duncan on Finishing Well
DA Carson on Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Proclamation
Workshops :
C.J. Mahaney on The Pastor’s Charge
Joshua Harris on Ministering In a Church-Hopping Society
Crawford Loritts on Staying Faithful, Staying Relevant
From Xanga to MySpace to Facebook to Twitter to…Flutter?
I thought this was pretty funny and points to the potential of getting even further away from genuine community…
