Author: fundyreformed

Last Call

~ fundyreformed ~ 1 Comment

Alright. I’m up to 8 teams in my fantasy football league now, so this is the last call. I’m going to set our league’s draft for Thursday 8am.

It’s still open for new players (see link below), but you have to join by then. We are going to keep it with an even number of teams. And I will cap the league at 12 players. So either 2 or 4 more can join.

Thursday 8am, the draft will automatically happen. The computer will randomly select who gets the first pick and go from there. You can edit your pre-draft player rankings if you’d like. Otherwise you’ll get the Yahoo defaults.

Thanks for all who are playing, may the best team win!

Click here to join.

Hope of My Heart by Ken Boer

~ fundyreformed ~ 1 Comment

Beautiful is the best description for this song. The melody is lovely and the words are hope filled. Ken Boer is serving as director of music for Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD, and works closely with Bob Kauflin. He has made the words and entire song (mp3) available for this song here.

Be blessed by the message of this song. And if you are, consider doing what you can to get songs like this sung by your church.

Hope of My Heart

by Ken Boer

Verse 1
Hope of my heart
Rock in my shaking world
Shelter through every storm
Tower of strength
Harbor in stormy seas
Light for my journey home

Chorus
You are the hope of my heart
You are the joy of my soul
You are my helper, my strength and delight
O how I love You, Lord
You are the hope of my heart

Verse 2
Saved by the blood
You spilled on Calvary
Giving your life for me
Held by Your power
Lavished with endless grace
Loved for eternity

Verse 3
In every path
You’re working all for good
Through joy or deepest pain
With every step
Your grace will carry me
Until my final day
 © 2004 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

I’m hoping that Sovereign Grace Music will include this song in their free chord charts and musical scores. Currently for $5.00 you can download mp3s of this song with 5 others along with sheet music here. It is not available for individual purchase.

We Believe (#2): The Trinity

~ fundyreformed

Part 2 in a series of Sunday posts celebrating the glorious Truth we believe as Christians. The readings are quoted from the Elder Affirmation of Faith, of my church, Bethlehem Baptist (Pastor John Piper). I’m doing this because every few weeks our congregational reading is an excerpt from this document, and every time we all read aloud the truths we confess, my soul rejoices. I pray these posts will aid you in worshiping our Lord on His day.

The Trinity, One God as Three Persons

We believe in one living, sovereign, and all-glorious God, eternally existing in three infinitely excellent and admirable Persons: God the Father, fountain of all being; God the Son, eternally begotten, not made, without beginning, being of one essence with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit, proceeding in the full, divine essence, as a Person, eternally from the Father and the Son. Thus each Person in the Godhead is fully and completely God.

We believe that God is supremely joyful in the fellowship of the Trinity, each Person beholding and expressing His eternal and unsurpassed delight in the all-satisfying perfections of the triune God.

*Taken from the Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith, paragraphs 2.1 – 2.2. You are free to download the entire affirmation [pdf] complete with Scriptural proofs for the above statements.

The Importance of Being Church

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

With all the talk of baptism and church membership around here of late, I think some are getting the wrong impression. I am for MORE “membership”. Involvement and fellowship with Christians, accountability and edification—all of these things are vitally important in the Christian life.

My posts on church membership have been focusing solely on the formal definition of “membership”. In no way do I want to disparage living as a member of Christ’s body in a local church.

With this in mind, I thought now would be a good time to talk about being church. It’s not enough to just attend church or even to be a member of a church. We are called to be the church. We are to church. Church should be understood as a verb.

I know this sounds a little odd but in the Bible we are called to a radical togetherness which I’ve previously called “one another ministry“. What follows are excerpts from an old post of mine which highlights the importance of the “one another” commands in Scripture.

Clergy over the laity mindset, excessive pastoral authority, a cultural lack of community, an emphasis on individualism, market-driven church ministry philosophies, a modern consumer mindset to Christianity–all of these and more contribute to what I believe is the greatest need in churches today: the “one another” ministry.

What is the “one another” ministry? It is the mutual encouraging and exhorting, indeed even admonishing, which is to be woven throughout the life of a church. It is the pattern we see over and over in the NT (Acts 2:44-47; 4:32; 18:27; Jn. 13:34-35; Rom. 1:12; 12:10, 16; 13:8; 15:1-7, 14; 1 Cor. 12:25; 14:26, 31; 2 Cor. 13:11; Gal. 5:13; 6:1-2, 6; Eph. 4:2-3, 32; 5:19; Phil. 1:27; 2:2; Col. 3:13, 16; 2 Thess. 1:3; Heb. 3:12-14; 10:24-25; James 5:16; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:8-11; 1 Jn. 1:7; 3:11). The above list is not exhaustive, either!

The post goes on to cover 7 points:

1) This “one another” ministry is a way God’s Word is intended to Work in us.

2) This “one another” ministry is needed lest our faith die.

3) We must depend upon God to energize this “one another” ministry in our personal lives.

4) We need to always abound in this regard and grow, doing “one another” ministry “more and more” .

5) This “one another” ministry has many facets.

6) This “one another” ministry is clearly a duty of every believer, not merely the church leaders, elders, deacons, or pastors.

7) This “one another” ministry is indispensable.

Read the whole post: “1 Thessalonians and Churches’ Greatest Need“.

FR United

~ fundyreformed

Okay people. It’s almost time. Next Thursday football season starts.

So far we have four teams in FR United, my fantasy football league. Getting desperate for more teams (at least 4), I’ve opened it up to any of my facebook friends too.

If you’d like to join the league, just click here. If that doesn’t work, leave a comment and I can send you the info.

The league is free, and due to the lateness in our getting started, we will have an automatic draft (but you can select your ranking order if you’d like). If enough teams lobby for a live draft I can change that.

And you guys who’ve already joined, could you leave your names with team name in the comments or email them to me (or use the league message board)? I like to get names and teams connected. Plus feel free to invite any of your friends to the league too.

A final and unrelated note: anyone want to join me and win with Blingo? It’s a free search engine powered by Google that offers free prizes just for your everyday searches. I’m not sure how that relates to football. Consider it a free tip.