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Archive for the ‘Special Events’ Category

Think as if everything depends on it

Posted in commentary, Special Events on October 1, 2010| 1 Comment »

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 1 Corinthians 14:20

The Desiring God National Conference, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, begins today (Friday).  Other than the conference on suffering in 2005, this may be the conference I have been most anticipating.

This is an incredibly important topic for those of us dealing with disability:

  • In our daily lives we have more people and processes than most of us can count involved in the medical, educational and legal lives of our children.  Right now I have paperwork to deal with for Paul’s schooling.  There’s another pile that deals with his medical care.  The decisions we make for our children are frequently difficult and potentially life-changing or even life-threatening.
  • In our universities and colleges, professors are making arguments to packed lecture halls against the very survival of our children with disabilities.
  • Liberal theologians in seminaries do not take the Bible seriously, stripping God of his rightful place as sovereign over the universe, and removing any hope of the future grace God has promised.
  • Our pleasure-loving culture wants nothing to do with the sacrifices and suffering inherent with disability.  Removing the problem, whether an unborn child with Down syndrome or an elderly person with dementia, is preferable than serving in love to the end.

  • There are those who want to trap us parents in a box of sentimentality, as if the love we have for our children disqualifies us from objective engagement with the world.
  • We are ‘heros’ and our children are ‘angels’ – and the real hardships we face are minimized or ignored.

Yes, it can feel as though we are surrounded by experts and educators and specialists and colleagues and even extended family members who ‘know’ what our experience is or will be when disability enters our lives.  They are more than happy to do our thinking for us.

We cannot let them.  They are not God.

And we have two significant advantages:

First, we can live in the knowledge that we have been given sure promises, secured by the very life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our perceptions, or anybody else’s, about disability pale in comparison to the reality and certainty of the promises of God.

Second, even if we do not have the credentials or the giftings to counter evil arguments, especially those against our children with disabilities, God will hold people accountable and will judge rightly:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20

So, we can live free to engage this world with our hearts and our minds, knowing God will help us even as he reigns perfectly over it.  We can be unafraid to call evil what it is, no matter the pretty package or academic language that is attached to it.

And that freedom we have in God includes the opportunity, unlike those trapped without a savior in Jesus or a helper in the Holy Spirit, for God to help us think clearly and joyfully, full of hope even in the middle of the extraordinary circumstances of this evil age.

And I want to learn how to do that better.  Which is why I’m excited about what I might experience at the conference this weekend.

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Please pray for people to see disability in a new way

Posted in Special Events on September 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

Wednesday afternoon I was reminded that in some parts of the world children with disabilities are immediately hidden away or given up to orphanages.  The shame is too great for families to bear.  The churches in those areas are too ill equipped to intervene or even prepare their people for the situations they find themselves in.

It was a good reminder that we are not ashamed of those God has created for his  glory to live with disability.  And even if we started out or continue to struggle with being ashamed or angry or bitter, God can turn cold, hard hearts into ones passionate for his name’s sake, completely in love with those entrusted to us by the creator himself.

On Friday the Desiring God National Conference begins.  We are expecting more than 3,500 people to attend.

This year, attendees will have three different opportunities to be introduced to disability:

  • Krista Horning will be signing Just the Way I Am at 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and the book will be sold in the bookstore at the conference
  • The Elisha Foundation will have a booth
  • Wrestling with an Angel will be available for sale for the first time, Lord willing.

Will you pray with us?

  • That those who have never even thought about disability will be gripped by God’s sovereignty and goodness over disability, and will be given a new, God-given imagination for welcoming those with disabilities into their churches
  • That those who are coming with hard, deep questions about the suffering they or their children with disabilities are experiencing will be overwhelmed by how short this life is, by how long eternity is, and by how massively strong and purposeful God is in what he is doing, for his glory and for their good
  • That these resources would ignite passionate spreaders of the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.  Where the world sees weakness, expense and inconvenience, may thousands see the most vulnerable among us as God created them: indispensable (1 Corinthians 12:22).

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“It all falls apart if there is no intimacy with Jesus” – Dr. Joni Eareckson Tada

Posted in Special Events on August 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Earlier this year, Joni received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Biola University earlier this year and then gave their commencement address.

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The Elisha Foundation is Coming to Desiring God’s National Conference

Posted in Special Events on August 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

Another reason I am so excited about this year’s national conference is the opportunity to meet some long-distance friends who love God and live with disability.

Some of those friends represent Oregon-based The Elisha Foundation:

Our ultimate goal is to equip these special families for a more intimate faith in Christ, passionately lived out with love.

Justin Reimer, Executive Director, will be staffing a booth along with his son, Eli.  Matt Perman, who serves as a director at Desiring God, is a member of Justin’s board.

If you are attending the conference, I encourage you to seek them out!

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An old Father’s Day word from Pastor John

Posted in commentary, Special Events on June 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

A good word from Pastor John for dads – from 1982!  You can read the entire article here.

Please also note: while the suggestions remain as relevant today as they did 28 years ago, some of the details have changed.  The Christian Action Council is now known as Care Net.  And I’m hoping that baby in number five is 28 years old!

Dad’s let’s do something! Here are five modest suggestions:

  1. Trust so fully in the all-sufficiency of Christ that you never have or encourage the attitudes of fear or self-indulgence that cause abortions. Faith casts out fear and fosters love for the helpless.
  2. Don’t even entertain the possibility of an abortion for your wife. Many women are pressured into abortions by husbands who did not want another child. Don’t ever do that!
  3. Teach your children that the pride which kills helpless life is an abomination in the eyes of God. Show them that a human being is the one creature on earth with the potential of consciously glorifying God through faith, and therefore unwarranted killing is an assault on the glory of God.
  4. Keep informed about legislation that will provide protection under law for the unborn children who cannot protect themselves. Write for the Christian Action Council Newsletter at 422 C Street N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002. Or: Twin Cities Christian Action Council, 14810 Lloyds Drive, Minnetonka, 55343.
  5. Support ministries to young women who make the decision to keep an unexpected pregnancy. For example, GMAE has both a Crisis Pregnancy Line & New Life Homes/Family Services. Or call Faith Jaeger, Bethlehem member. She works with young, unwed mothers. Right now she has a need for a home for 3 weeks for a young mother and new baby.

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Old truths carry us through new suffering

Posted in Scripture, Special Events on June 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In the course of my work I communicate with many people.  And because I work for Desiring God, frequently those communications get very serious, very quickly.

Yesterday was such a day.  A brother Christian living far away told me of suffering in his life.  The suffering was significant, immediate, and intense.

And his joy was real as well.  He knows what it is to be free in Jesus, and to live with future hope.

That served as a reminder to me to cling to real things, like the Bible, and not to temporary things, like circumstances.

And that also brought to mind one of Pastor John’s best presentations on suffering and the sovereignty of God, from the 2005 Desiring God National Conference.  Here is just one excerpt among many I could have chosen:

The approach I am going to take tonight is not to solve any problem directly, but to celebrate the sovereignty of God over Satan and all the evils that Satan has a hand in. My conviction is that letting God speak his word will awaken worship—like Job’s—and worship will shape our hearts to understand whatever measure of God’s mystery he wills for us to know. What follows is a celebration of “Ten Aspects of God’s Sovereignty Over Suffering and Satan’s Hand in It.” And what I mean in this message when I say that God is sovereign is not merely that God has the power and right to govern all things, but that he does govern all things, for his own wise and holy purposes.

Then in each of his ten points, Pastor John uses the Bible to illuminate what he means:

This is why Christ’s healings are a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God and its final victory over all disease and all the works of Satan. It is right and good to pray for healing. Christ has purchased it in the death of his Son, with all the other blessings of grace, for all his children (Isaiah 53:5). But he has not promised that we get the whole inheritance in this life. And he decides how much. We pray and we trust his answer. If you ask your Father for bread, he will not give you a stone. If you ask him for a fish, he will not give you a serpent (see Matthew 7:9-10). It may not be bread. And it may not be a fish. But it will be good for you. That is what he promises (Romans 8:28).

You can listen to the entire conference message here:  Ten Aspects of God’s Sovereignty Over Suffering and Satan’s Hand In It by John Piper

Or go to the link for the video here.

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Pointing to the Source of Joy

Posted in Book Commentary, Special Events on May 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

We celebrated God’s goodness in giving us Just the Way I Am last Saturday at Bethlehem and Krista was kind enough to provide some remarks which you can hear on this clip:

I was grateful then and now to hear Krista point all of us to God and to his word – a good reminder in where our hope should be!

And I appreciated then and now that all of our children were welcome at this celebration.  You can hear a couple of them in the background while Krista speaks.

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“Let your requests be made known to God. . .”

Posted in Special Events on May 11, 2010| 2 Comments »

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:4-7

We had a wonderful gathering on Saturday at Bethlehem to praise God for his kindness in giving us Just the Way I Am by Krista Horning.

At the request of the Hornings, the gathering was largely dedicated to prayer – so pray we did!  Pastor David Michael opened our session in prayer.

I was particularly encouraged by the number of people who came to the microphones to pray.

Pastor Kempton closed our time of prayer.

We then enjoyed more time together.

And Krista kindly signed books to very end.

God was very kind to give us this book.  But it is just the beginning.

There is much opportunity to make much of God on this issue of disability and his sovereignty.  May God be pleased to use us to magnify his name!

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Jesus is risen from the dead! (Paul Knight version)

Posted in Special Events on April 5, 2010| 16 Comments »

Sometimes I wonder what Paul gets out of church.  Then God gives me a little taste of what Paul is experiencing – and I am reminded all God’s children belong in God’s church!

During Easter services yesterday we sat as a family through the first part of the worship service, until Paul started to interrupt Pastor John.  He and I enjoyed (and enjoyed is the right word) the rest of the service from the back.

And then at home Paul (and Jesus) gave me this Easter present:

Here is the entire version of Resurrection Chant by Dan Adler and performed by Heart of the City:

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What would you tell them?

Posted in Special Events on March 20, 2010| 6 Comments »

On Monday I’ll be speaking to a group of Bethlehem volunteers who serve our children as small group leaders in the Sunday School program.  In many ways, they are the ‘front-line’ in our disability ministry, as the children with disabilities are also included, as much as possible, in the small groups in the Sunday School classes.

The disability aides make the classes accessible for the individual children with disabilities.  But it is the small group leaders, by their words, actions, and attitudes, who lead the other children in how to think about, welcome, include and love the children with disabilities.

I have some preparations remaining, but am mostly ready to speak to them.  I usually organize it around the story of God’s goodness to my family and the great truth of God’s sovereignty as expressed in the following:

Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Exodus 4:11

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

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  John 9:1-3

If you were to talk to such a group, what would you tell them?

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