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Pastors are gathering – please pray!

Posted in News on February 1, 2010| 1 Comment »

Desiring God Conference for Pastors

More than 1300 pastors are gathering for the 2010 Desiring God Conference for Pastors starting this afternoon.  I love this gathering of men!  I think I can summarize why in two statements:

  1. The pastors with the greatest impact on me and my family are men who know the word and apply it appropriately, carefully, and confidently.  I know from past experience that the pastors attending the conference will receive good teaching and encouragement in this area.
  2. The pastors with the greatest impact on me and my family love Jesus with a passion and long to develop those affections in others.  I know those affections will be encouraged at this conference!

The result: when families like mine show up at church, we are met by leaders who know and trust the promises and character of God and anticipate that God will provide for all our needs. I would love to see hundreds of additional churches be ready for families like mine!

I also know they are all still men, tempted greatly to sin and surrounded by a sea of discouragement, sadness and difficulty in their churches.  The enemy of their faith will target every weakness they have because he hates faithful pastors who trust in God alone and not in themselves.

So, please pray for all those gathering these next three days.  David Clifford, Manager for Events and Customer Service at Desiring God emailed us last week with these prayer requests:

PRAY
  • Please pray for the men who will be coming and the multitude of needs that will be represented.
  • Pray for God to strengthen marriages, for the churches that are experiencing difficultly, and for men under spiritual depression and afflictions.
  • Pray for revival within those churches that are represented and a clear proclamation of the gospel to go forth from these pulpits.
  • Pray that we serve them well and in the full strength of the Lord.
There is a battle raging and “in all these things we are more than conquers through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37)
Amen, David.
Thank you for praying.

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Jesus’ miracles are even more amazing than we realize

Posted in commentary, News on January 2, 2010| 5 Comments »

Embedded in an article in the New York Times Magazine on blind people, braille, technology and literacy were these statements about how our brains function:

In the 1990s, a series of brain-imaging studies revealed that the visual cortices of the blind are not rendered useless, (emphasis mine) as previously assumed. When test subjects swept their fingers over a line of Braille, they showed intense activation in the parts of the brain that typically process visual input.

The architecture of the brain is not fixed, and without images to process, the visual cortex can reorganize for new functions (emphasis mine). A 2003 study in Nature Neuroscience found that blind subjects consistently surpassed sighted ones on tests of verbal memory, and their superior performance was caused, the authors suggested, by the extra processing that took place in the visual regions of their brains.

This concurs with other studies I have read that portions of the brain dedicated to processing information taken in by our sense of sight are, for people who are born blind, programmed to do other things.

In other words, what Jesus did for the man born blind in John 9 was far more significant than just making his eyes work.

This man’s brain, over decades, would have no ability to process visual images.  That portion of his brain would have been reorganized to do something else.

So when Jesus gave him sight, he re-wired his brain.  Jesus is amazing!

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Why Bethlehem College and Seminary is Important to Disability Ministry

Posted in commentary, News on December 30, 2009| 7 Comments »

Pastor John wrote his thanks to God for Bethlehem College and Seminary this morning.  I join him in praising God for this initiative at Bethlehem!

Disability ministries need pastors who have been prepared like Pastor John hopes they will be through BCS:

At the heart of this vision is the invincible God, the infallible Bible, and the indispensible Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want future pastors to be stunned by the greatness of God. And stay stunned by living in the Bible. And spread this amazement to sinners, who qualify through faith alone because of the Gospel.

We want them to love the church. The real live, blemished, blood-bought bride of Christ. So we sink them into ministry while they are here.

Why is that so important for a disability ministry?

Because disability is hard.  We need to know that God is sovereign over all things and good at all times in the midst of hard things.

We NEED pastors who are stunned by the greatness of God.

We need our pastors to be rock-solid in their understanding of who God is, able to articulate the truth of the Bible, and able to personally demonstrate how glad they are to be dependent on him.  Then they can love people in the midst of deepest pain and struggle – because God will provide for them and through them what their hurting people need.

So I am excited about BCS and invite you to join me in praying for them, for the sake of churches that may not yet even exist and children with disabilities not yet born and adults who have not yet experienced disability.

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Wave Four: The Disability Community Fills In the Grave

Posted in commentary, News on December 21, 2009| 9 Comments »

Last week Pastor John tweeted this:

Wave 1: Catholics say No to abortion. Wave 2: Evangelicals flood the land with CPC’s.  Wave 3: Blacks and Latino’s bring it down.

Which prompted this excellent post by Jon Ensor: The Third Wave of the Pregnancy Help Movement. That post will help make sense of Pastor John’s tweet.

Mr. Ensor references the good that came through an ultrasound, and I agree that is a good thing in the evidence of thousands and thousands of unborn children who have been spared destruction because of ultrasounds.

But I will continue to raise this caution: when disability is found through ultrasound, babies die, including when the parents are Christians.  We must bring the clear message of God’s sovereignty over all things into the ultrasound room when hard things are discovered.  Parents deserve to know who God is in the midst of what many people believe are hopeless futures, for their children and for themselves.

That is why I pray there will be a fourth wave that buries the abortion industry for good.  And I can see it possibly coming through the community of people with disabilities, their families and their churches that God uses to demonstrate his sovereignty and goodness and care in all things, including disability and disease, for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.

Lord, please make it so!

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Pastor Matt Chandler is battling cancer

Posted in News on December 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I first became aware of Matt Chandler when he spoke at the 2009 Desiring God Conference for Pastors.  I have come to deeply appreciate his church and his preaching.  When he first experienced a seizure a couple of weeks ago, his response in the face of uncertainty was God-centered and God honoring.

As I write this on Wednesday afternoon, I just read the post from the Village Church that Pastor Matt Chandler’s seizures were due to a malignant brain tumor.  You can read the Village Church’s statement here.

God is doing an amazing thing in this.  Because Matt Chandler is a ‘rising star’ amongst preachers, people are paying attention to what he is saying about what he is experiencing.  A great deal is already passing around the internet and even some media about how Pastor Chandler is responding: with confidence in his savior and a future hope that is secure.

That tends to be the case – people pay more attention to a person’s faith when things are hard than when things are going well.

It is a good response, and one we should pray God would continue to hold up as we also pray for Pastor Chandler’s health and for his family.

And it reminds me of how Pastor John helpfully wrote about hoping in God in his book, Future Grace:

The grace and kindness of the Lord comes to us in accord with our hope in him: “Let thy lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in Thee” (Psalm 33:22). We are told, “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord” (Psalm 31:24). The reason those who hope in the Lord can take courage is that they are the beneficiaries of the promise of future grace: “The eye of the Lord is on. . . those who hope for his lovingkindness” (Psalm 33:18). The radical lifestyle of strength and courage in the cause of righteousness flows from hope in God’s lovingkindness, that is, from faith in future grace.  John Piper, Future Grace, p. 245.

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Want to really include people with disabilities at your church? Send your pastor to this!

Posted in News on December 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

No, the 2010 Desiring God Conference for Pastors is not specifically on disability or starting a disability ministry.  It is actually entitled, The Pastor, the People, and the Pursuit of Joy: The Apostolic Aim of Pastoral Ministry.  But the implications of pastors being workers for their peoples’ joy are huge on this issue of disability, suffering, and the church. 

And Sam Storms is worth the price of admission by himself (by the way, admission is cheaper if you register by Dec. 31 or if you bring five or more people with you).

So, encourage your pastor(s) to attend.

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We Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Posted in News on December 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Thank you to pastor, author and blogger Kevin DeYoung for pointing to this amazing presentation on the human cell.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:13-16

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Secular Journal Praising ‘A Theological Understanding of Disability’

Posted in News on December 13, 2009| 1 Comment »

I found an article in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Disability, spiritual beliefs and the church: the experiences of adults with disabilities and family members (December 2002, Vol. 40 Issue 5, pp. 594-603) which sounds promising:

Findings. Trial or difficulty contributed to spiritual challenge, the breaking of self, reliance on God, and strengthened faith in God. The participants chose to live with thankfulness and joy despite difficulties common to experience with disability. The participants’ spiritual beliefs stabilized their lives, providing meaning for the experience of disability, assistance with coping and other benefits. The participants’ recommendations include increased assistance by the church in promoting theological understanding of disability, and religious support using a continuing model of caring.

Recommendations include promoting theological understanding of disability?  From the Journal of Advanced Nursing?  I’ll definitely read this one and report back.

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The Abortion Distortion – New York Magazine

Posted in commentary, News on December 9, 2009| 1 Comment »

I missed this article, “The Abortion Distortion – Just How Pro-choice is America, Really?,” in the New York Magazine, but fortunately Al Mohler didn’t.  He wrote this commentary, An Amazing Article on Abortion in New York Magazine, in response.

Both articles are worth reading. That is no endorsement of the views of the New York Magazine article, but I did learn some things from it.

But please also consider this.  Dr. Mohler rightly points out that technology like ultrasounds has saved babies who otherwise might have been aborted.  Both articles point out that such technologies have turned the argument decidedly in favor of the pro-life movement.  We can see, clearly see, human life is developing in the womb.  That creates a real problem for abortion supporters.

Except, that is, when the baby has a disability.  Then the technologies seem to make the case for abortion.  How else are we to understand abortion rates of 60% to 90% for certain disabilities?

The technologies are not at fault.  We are not as pro-life as we think.

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He Is Good in All Things – Matt Chandler

Posted in News on December 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Most of you have heard that Matt Chandler of the Village Church had a seizure last week which prompted surgery to remove a tumor last Friday.  Results are still pending as I write this.

He taped this video a few days before surgery, but after his seizure.

At times I’m hard on men because, well, they don’t behave like men as God intended.

Matt Chandler, however, is a man, and one who loves God and all God’s promises.  Please watch this man trust his Lord in the midst of great uncertainty.

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