This coming weekend we will celebrate two significant holidays, the first one on the Lord’s Day. We will remember, we will celebrate, as we do each week, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It never ceases to amaze me that after knowing the Lord all of these years, for decades at this point, and coming together for the Word, worship, remembrance, and celebration on a weekly basis, that it remains increasingly relevant, powerful, effective, and real.

The second holiday is Memorial Day, celebrated this coming Monday. We are challenged to intentionally stop and remember the real and ultimate sacrifice made by men and women in the purchase and protection of our political freedom. We are reminded that freedom isn’t free. Most of us possess it freely, but no freedom was obtained without price. Somebody paid. Somebody gave. Somebody sacrificed. Each somebody has a name, a face, a family, and a story. One of the best ways for us to remember the all is to remember the specific individuals within our own life stories that gave their lives.

People have forever been great forgetters and not-so-great rememberers. Scripture is filled with commands and encouragements to God’s people to remember. God commands us to pass on the great truths of His Word and His gracious works in this world to succeeding generations. Let’s intentionally look for ways to do that his week.

Psalm 78:1-7 “O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying, for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past–stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders. For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them– even the children not yet born– and they in turn will teach their own children. So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.”

See you this weekend, the Lord willing!

In Him,

P. Tim

As you know from time to time “we” your pastors include a blog post into my normal “from me” blog post. So, here is one from “us” on the theme of Disciple: Be One, Make One.

A Culture of Discipleship

Most dictionaries define a culture as “the shared values, goals and practices that

characterize a group.” That’s what we have in mind when we talk about wanting to encourage and develop a “culture of discipleship” at Calvary Baptist Church.

We want to see discipling one another as an obvious characteristic of our church—not

merely as a program or activity—but as a basic part of the fabric of our church community.

While formal programs have their place, in this case we think that would fall short of the

Biblical ideal. We want to encourage a culture where it is simply normal for members, out

of love for Christ and one another, to take the
initiative to build relationships with other

members with the deliberate goal of mutual spiritual growth. One of the main

concerns of the New Testament writers is that all the Christians in the various

churches would be active in encouraging one another in the faith (Hebrews 3:13; Romans

12:10; 1 Thess. 5:11). We want to encourage a culture where members don’t have to sign

up for anything or get any special permission before they can begin to love one another in

this Biblical way. We hope and pray for a culture where member initiative, not a pastor-

sustained effort, keeps these deliberate, loving relationships going.

So, if there is not a set program, how do we go about developing a discipleship relationship

and in turn, building a discipleship culture within our church? Here are a few practical

suggestions:

    1. Pray for the Lord to direct you to a brother (if you are a man) or sister (if

you are a lady) in our church family with whom you could develop a mutually edifying

discipleship relationship.

    2. Take a step of faith to initiate that relationship. See if that brother or sister would

     commit to a regular meeting time.

    3. When you meet, consider doing one of the following: (1) discuss how God

worked in your heart through the prior Sunday’s sermon; (2) read a book that

addresses some subject of spiritual growth and discuss a chapter each time; (3) read

through or outline your way through a book of the Bible and meet to compare and

share your study; (4) pray together about specific areas of needed growth; (5) take

the current ABF series and talk about its specific application to your own lives. (This

list is not exhaustive, but suggestive of the types of things you could do to encourage

one another spiritually.)

It’s not so important exactly what you do but that you simply decide to relate to another

member of Calvary Baptist Church with the intentional aim of encouraging them with truth

from God’s Word. Discipleship relationships are to be the norm (part of the culture) of a

spiritually healthy church, and they develop as each member commits to being part of

this kind of relationship and takes the personal initiative to engage in one.

Will you take this step of faith and get involved in a discipleship relationship within our

church family?

A call to prayer…having posted a blog earlier today on the theme of discipleship, I wanted to post again with some specific urgent prayer requests for our church family.

Obviously, we all need to be praying for the many victims of yesterday’s terrorist violence in Boston. We should pray for all the victims in general, but I’m sure that many lives of fellow believers were directly touched by it all. So, in fact we have true brothers and sisters in Christ being affected by the violence. We don’t know their names, but God does, so let’s pray for them. Certainly we should pray for those in positions of leadership, asking God to give them great wisdom and particular skill and success in investigating and bringing the responsible people to justice.

Please continue to pray for Edy and Walt Haman as Edy continues to endure very rigorous treatment for her cancer. Remember Dolly Groff who is facing very sobering medical decisions with her cancer. We should rejoice with Jon and Lucia Vervoort as they rejoice in a clear scan for Jon, making that 5 yrs. now, praise the Lord! We should fervently pray for Kevin and Becky Day. Kevin’s recent scan showed additional cancer that will demand more treatment. Their long hard road in dealing with Kevin’s illness is getting longer and harder, so let’s renew our prayers for them.

Please continue to pray for Donna Berger. The funeral for Scott, her husband is Thursday morning, so let’s pray for Donna and the opportunity for the gospel. Continue to pray for all of the changes, challenges, and questions that Donna is facing with this dramatic change in her life. Life is hard. God is great and gracious.

Oh, and don’t forget to pray for the people on your list!

See you Sunday, the Lord willing.

In Him,

P. Tim

So, what does it mean to make disciples?

Well, since this is a clear command to all true followers of Christ, a command that God is expecting us to obey, we really should give some real and practical thought to it. So, what is it? What does disciple making look like? Paul’s instructions to the church at Corinth provide us with both a definition and a “visual” illustration.

1 Corinthians 3:6-8
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.”

Disciple making is a practical, yet supernatural collaboration with God, a real, effective, and necessary partnership with God. We “show and tell” the good news of Christ to the people we live, work, and play with within our present daily life schedule and activities. It’s not just a “me” and God collaboration, it’s a “we” and God effort. God then takes His Word, the gospel, and uses it to produce faith in the hearts of the hearers and draws them to Himself.

Disciple making “looks” like farming or gardening. We prepare the soil with prayer and kindness. We plant the seed, God’s Word, in the hearts and minds of the people we live and work with. We “water” that seed with prayer, with ongoing discussion, by answering their questions, by loving our “neighbor” at home and work with practical kindness, and by planting even more seed at appropriate times. We invite them to eat with us, play with us, work with us (let us work with them), to our home, to join us in recreational activities, to our Bible study group, to Sunday worship, and ultimately to trust Christ with their eternal soul.

No, we can’t “make disciples” in our own strength or strategies, John 15:5
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Yes, we can and must “collaborate” with God is making disciples, Philippians 4:13 “
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

So, we Pray. We Invest. We Invite. By the way, who’s on your list?

In Him,

Your Co laborers, Your Pastors.

I’m still kind of “basking in the joy” of our fellowship during the Easter holiday. What a wonderful time to share in the gospel and glorious Christ centered music. It was fantastic. Since then, that joy has been added to with many significant answers to prayer. Just last Sunday we prayed that Donna Berger’s husband, Scott, would trust Christ before he passed into eternity and that he would be able to share that with Donna. Well, that in fact is what happened this past week. A number of people have been sharing the gospel with Scott, but ultimately an old friend who had come to Christ was able to share Christ with Scott for one last time and Scott made it clear that he had come to trust Christ. What a glorious answer to many prayers, to Donna’s years of prayer! Then early yesterday morning Scott saw the Lord, face to face. Wow…what an amazing answer to prayer. Please continue to pray for Donna as she continues to follow her Savior with many new questions and challenges.

I’m praising God for the wonderful testimonies we heard this past Sunday from those getting baptized and joining with our church. We have been blessed with many new guests, many people considering joining our church family, and improved giving. Bob Statuti was back in church for the first time in months, as he has been battling chronic pain and health problems, praise the Lord. I’m really excited about this coming Sunday as we continue in our 2 part series on Disciple: Be One, Make One…Next Steps. There’s been a really healthy “buzz” this past week of thought and discussion of our study last week. I pray God will advance our serious consideration of being and making disciples again this Sunday morning. Please continue to pray for Edy Haman as she endures rigorous treatment of her cancer, for Kevin Day as he continues to recuperate from his cancer treatment, and Dolly Groff as she has serious medical decisions to make. Please don’t forget to pray for Nate Bergey who has just left for active duty on his way to a deployment in Afghanistan.

Well, there is a lot to pray for and a lot to praise God for! Isn’t that great that we can! Hope to see you Sunday, the Lord willing.

In Him,

P. Tim

So, do you remember that verse we just studied in James, “…yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring…”? Well, it was Wednesday at 1 pm and I had just finished a meeting and started to check my email. I noticed an email from an old friend/preacher buddy, Dave Doran. He was on vacation with his family and was now emailing me on an unplanned flight home, because he had gotten a call that his youngest son, (at home waiting to go on his senior trip), had been in a very serious car crash and was in surgery in critical condition…definitely a “game changer.” Certainly I was deeply affected by the message and began and continued to pray for my friend, his son and the family. God put it in my heart to drive out there to visit him and the family, so I got up early the next morning and drove to Detroit, found the hospital, and then found them.

Miraculously, Dave’s son was alive, with many cuts, bruises, fractures, and some internal injuries. He was really beaten up, but alive! Then I found out what his parents had found out when they got to the hospital. He wasn’t in a car crash. He had stopped to help a woman with car trouble on the interstate. When he went around her car to the driver side window to speak to her, he was hit by a tractor trailer! A car crash is one thing…being hit by a truck is quite another…even more miraculous that he was alive! Unspeakably amazing! So, after spending some time together, I began the drive home, praising God for His goodness, still quite overwhelmed with it all.

This unplanned trip to Detroit also blessed me with some extended “alone time” in the car, thinking, praying, listening to Christian music (and a little country/blue grass), and since it is Good Friday, hearing many different preachers speaking on the cross and the resurrection…most of them were OK…a couple were excellent. Anyway, it was a wonderful time for me to reflect on God’s grace, the cross, and the empty tomb. I’m still somewhat in wonder of it all. What a couple of days! SO, I’m looking forward to our Good Friday service tonight and Easter services on Sunday. I do hope to see you there.

In Him,

P. Tim

He would be dead by tomorrow—and he knew it. As he concludes his final instructions to his closest friends, Jesus eyes drift upward in prayer:

John 17:1-3

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

This beautiful prayer is recorded in John 17. Hours from his own torture and death, he prays for his disciples. He prays for them to understand the Gospel—to know His Father. His death would heal the broken relationship between God and his people. But Jesus knows that his death would bring many more to his Father.

John 17:20-21

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Discipleship is about the Gospel working through Jesus’ followers. As Peter and John came to fully understand Jesus’ sacrificial death, they would be compelled to declare Jesus’ love to the masses. And, as they fearlessly preached this good news, others would come to believe in Jesus. Because of the sacrifice Jesus was about to offer, the knowledge of his Father would spread to others.

It is important for us to see the end goal of this discipleship. This was not a church growth program. Discipleship is not a ploy to convert others to a new idea. Discipleship is about relationship. Jesus did not die to simply forgive our sins. Jesus did not sacrifice himself only to absolve our guilt. Jesus died in our place to restore our fellowship with the Father, and unite us with his body—the church. The Lamb of God spilled his blood to unite his disciples with him and in him (Ephesians 2:11-22).

Tomorrow night we will remember his sacrifice around his table. We must remember that he died to make us one. Following him means being united in the Gospel.

So today, during a time of intentional quiet reflection, it dawned on me (then I checked my records from 2003 to be sure) that today…actually tonight it is exactly 10 years since we started a bible study in the home of the Santangelo family. This bible study quickly became known as the “Italian Band”, a reference to Acts 10:1, because of the predominately Italian “flavor” to the group. We began to meet regularly for at least 3 hrs. each week, studying the Bible primarily by opening it to find answers to the seemingly never ending fountain of real life questions. God used this fellowship in many wonderful ways over the years, building up young believers, restoring damaged relationships, and seeing many people come to Christ.

So, 10 years later, we still meet weekly…although we’ve shortened the evening a bit. We talk, eat, laugh, study and pray. I am deeply grateful for the way God has used this bible study in my personal life, the life of my family, and the life of our church. So, we’ll meet tonight at the home of a family in our church that has come to know Christ through this fellowship. We will talk, eat, laugh, pray, and study, then go home edified, encouraged, and better prepared to serve Him. I certainly hope and pray that each of you will consider connecting in a home bible study during the week. It may not be convenient, but for me it has been transformational.

See you Sunday, the Lord willing.

In Him,

P. Tim

One clear and powerful way to articulate our purpose, His purpose, for our lives and His church is the phrase you have been hearing and seeing around church lately, Disciple: Be One, Make One. The real priority and the real life implications to this truth are seen in Jesus’ own words.

Luke 14:26-33 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Jesus addressed the crowd that was following Him with the true heart, the true essence of being followers of Jesus. Some were “curious” followers, some were “hungry”, some were sincere, but few were true. Few understood what it really meant and what it really would cost. Clearly being a true follower of Jesus is not an additional wholesome activity that we add to our schedule or resume’. It must define our schedule, define the whole of our lives. This real, intentional, Bible based, personal relationship to Jesus Christ must drive and discipline the whole of our lives, our work life, home life, community life, and church life. He must be the reason we do what we do and are what we are.

There were and are “believers” and then there are BELIEVERS! We know this, since we all started out as the first and all true believers became the latter at some point. In the same way there were and are “disciples”, the curious, the hungry, the go with the flow, the occasional followers of Jesus, but then there are true followers of Jesus as described in His own words. There are “disciples” and then there are DISCIPLES! The truth is that we probably have all been “all the above” at various times in our lives. Jesus calls us to choose to be, to continue to grow into being DISCIPLES! Will you listen to Him? Will you follow Him?

Following Him Together,

Your Pastors

So, today is Valentine’s Day…big deal? or big deal! For my wife and me it is and has been a big deal. February 14, 1972, 41 years ago today, we had our first date. It was after Bible Institute on a Monday night. After class that night we went to the Astor Diner, which was the new restaurant in town, for a “let’s go out to eat” kind of date. The “let’s go out to eat” date was one of the very few things on the respectable Christian dates list! It was nice, then nice and awkward, then profoundly awkward after I got my words all tangled up. I was extremely embarrassed, really! I took her home, then went home all shook up…really shook up. The only thing I thought I could do to “fix” things, besides going into the witness protection program, was ask her on another date. I did ask. She said yes. So, the short story is we date, got engaged, and married on June 15, 1974. Now 38+ years later, 5 kids, 5 marriages, and 13 (and praying for more) grand kids later…it’s today, Valentine’s Day.

God certainly has used my wife and the other gifts He gave me through her, such as our children, their spouses, and the grandkids, to challenge, change, and bless my life more than I could ever say. He has been unspeakably gracious and patient in growing me, changing me, and giving me the undeserved opportunity to serve Him. God is great. Life is hard…and good. He is coming soon. It all ends well for His children.

In order to prepare for worship this Sunday, I encourage you to pray for my heart and yours. I encourage you to carefully read our text, James 4:1-12. It would also help to read Isaiah 1:11-20. Please consider taking the challenge “Disciple: Be One, Make One” more personally and seriously. Please sign up for and commit to attending one of the 6 different Discipleship Training classes that begin this Sunday evening. You need to be here if possible. Your church family needs you to be here. Your community needs you to be here. See you here!

In Him,

P. Tim