DRL Ministries - ISU

The portion of Scripture I’m encouraging the Life Groups to come around this week is Philippians 2:3-10.  Our goal for the Life Groups is that they will help us become better followers of Jesus in at least 5 specific areas - Personal Growth (Personal Spiritual Disciplines), Serving, Community, Giving, and Communicating. 

This week’s passage, as far as I can see, speaks to us mostly on 3 of these 5 - Serving, Community, and Giving.  Some simple questions:

1.  What do we learn about Jesus and the Father in this passage? 

2. What can we learn about serving, community, and giving from this passage?

3. In what ways can DRL reflect or embody this passage?

We’re planning to have our DRL fall retreat on Friday, Oct. 20.  Please keep that night open!!!

Have you read any good books lately?  I really enjoy reading, and love to “talk books” with people.  I am currently reading Quest for Godliness by JI Packer (for a seminary class), His Excellency - a biography on George Washington my dad gave me, and Black - a fiction book by Ted Dekker I just started this weekend while I was in South Carolina.  I truly do plan on finishing all three, but I like to “flip channels” a lot and read a little of one book, then check out some of another, and then go back to the first one, etc… I am an avid TV flipper, also. 

So, share with the rest of us a good book you’ve read lately! 

Well, my family and I just got back from Twin Lakes Camp in Indiana where we spent the last couple days with the High Schoolers from Calvary Baptist Academy.  The high school principle asked if I’d go along and speak a couple of times on the topic of “community”.  My goal the first time I spoke was to impress upon the kids how Christian community is more than just a bunch of Christian kids hanging out with one another….how it is more than parents protecting their kids’ good morals by making sure they hang out with other kids with good morals.  I wanted them to see the eternal significance of community.  My 4 points were -

1.  God has eternally existed as a community

2.  God created us to share in this community that has existed forever

3.  Jesus died to restore us into this community that we had sinfully and tragically disconnected ourselves from

4.  The community we have now with other Christians is meant to reflect who God is

Since we are beginning Life Groups now, I thought it might be good to host a conversation about what Biblical Community is here on our DRL blog.  Here’s how we’ll do this…

Search the Scriptures for any characteristics that will help us get a view of what a Biblical community is.  As you find the texts, post them here on the blog.  Please include some specific examples of how DRL can apply your text to help build a Biblical community.

Hebrews 3:13 says that we should encourage one another every day.  This is one way we can obey this command this week…so lets take advantage of it! 

I’d first of all like to thank all of you brave folks who have publicly affiliated yourselves with this site by commenting…Continue to be strong and courageous! 

Secondly, I’d like to give you music lovers out there something for free…  http://www.freederekwebb.com/pages/index.aspx .  Hit that link and you can download for free Derek Webb’s new album, “Mockingbird” in its entirety - extremely cool!  Here is a taste of Derek’s lyrics from his song, A King and a Kingdom: 

“my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it’s to a king & a kingdom
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him”

Derek came to Normal and played for us at Calvary Baptist Church back in June.  Being a huge fan, I got there early and stayed late, to soak in all that I could of one of my favorite singer/songwriters.  I have to be honest - chatting with him was anti-climactic in the best possible way.  Often times, when we think of meeting people we look up to, we think of them as being larger than life and feeling sort of awkward meeting them.  But talking to Derek, he immediately came across as someone who, although he takes Jesus and the Cross extremely seriously, he does not take himself all that seriously.  During the show, he even commented several times how shocked he was that so many people had come out!  Just a great example of humility.  After getting the opportunity to meet Derek, my appreciation for him and his music has only gone up.

So, Listen, Download, Enjoy, and Pass it on!

Jon

  I just thought I would start this whole new world of blogging off ( all new for me, anyways) kind of easy by pointing people to a BIG, IMPORTANT event coming up in January.  That’s right, it’s Passion ‘07 in Atlanta, GA! 

Now, I have never been to a Passion conference, so it’d be great to have some of you folks who made the trip to Nashville last January testify!  I’m hoping to go in ‘07, but I really hope a group from DRL will go regardless.  I know that the group that went last year was changed by their experience there. 

The cost is $129 if you are registered by 9/15…then the price will go up some.  We’ll try to begin passing on some info about Passion in the coming weeks.  Here is the website for the conference -  http://www.268generation.com/

Peace!