Death

In the past two days I have learned of two strong, New Jersey Christians who have gone to be with the Lord. In the coming days their lives and service to Christ will be celebrated. Their families and friends will grieve, and rightly so. But the families and friends of these men will also rejoice in knowing that these men are now receiving the reward for their labors done for Christ in this life.

When C.H. Spurgeon died one of the hymns that was sung at a funeral service contained this line: "By death I shall escape from death." That blessed truth gives assurance to believers in Jesus Christ. We are living for more than this life. We are living for eternity. Death out of this life leads us into an eternal life which has no end. This escape from the second death is only provided to followers of Jesus.

Have you made sure that your death from this life will provide you with your escape from eternal death?

Building Update- June 2010

Your Building Committee at Cottrell Corners Community Church has met again and remain active. The current state of our progress is that we are waiting on the engineer to be ready to apply for permits. The engineer had some delays with NJDEP, but we have hopes that he will have everything prepared very soon. Once he presents us with the plans, we can either make changes or proceed by submitting the plans to Old Bridge Township for approval.

We continue to discuss ways to make the new building environmentally friendly. We have gathered information about solar panels and more is on the way.

We will continue to to more research regarding financing. The people of the church have given and are continuing to give. But of course the amount of money that is needed is still quite large. The more money we have available, the better shape we will be in when it comes time to get a loan.

One thing that will help the building project is if more people are part of the church. Ironically, one thing that will help the church gain people is the new building. We all need to do more in order to introduce our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family to our congregation. Please don't feel that you have to wait until we have a new building to invite people to church. I encourage each of us to invite as many people as we can to come join us as we seek to know God together.

The Next Best Thing to Grace

In reading through Spurgeon's "Lectures to My Students" I came across the following quote. The context of this quote is related to making sure people are able to pay attention to a sermon. In this section of the lecture Spurgeon is talking about the physical room in which people meet. He says:

"The next best thing to the grace of God for a preacher is oxygen. Pray that the windows of heaven may be opened, but begin by opening the windows of your meeting-house."

Later in the same paragraph he lamented that many church buildings were not well designed for ventilation. How do you like his proposed solution to that problem?

"Provided all such chapels were properly insured, I could not pray for their
preservation from fire."

I don't know if churches in England in the 1800 made a lot of insurance claims after that. I trust Spurgeon never had a class action suit filed against him by the insurance companies.

Spurgeon then went on to explain how he had solved the ventilation problem in his congregation.

"In my former chapel in Park Street I mentioned to my deacons several times my
opinion that the upper panes of the iron-framed windows had better be taken
out, as the windows were not made to open. I mentioned this several
times, and nothing came of it; but it providentially happened one Monday that
somebody removed most of those panes in a masterly manner, almost as well as if
they had been taken out by a glazier. There was considerable consternation, and much conjecture as to who had committed the crime, and I proposed that a reward of five pounds should be offered for the discovery of the offender, who when found should receive the amount as a present. The reward was not forthcoming, and therefore I have not felt it to be my duty to inform against the individual. I trust none of you will suspect me, for if you do I shall have to confess that I have walked with the stick which let the oxygen into that stifling structure."

Follow up about Meetings

In the previous post I reviewed a book about how to participate in effective elders meetings. Just for fun, here's a look at what happens when meetings go too far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wac3aGn5twc&feature=player_embedded

Good Things- Small Packages

The book Meetings That Work by Alexander Strauch is not large. In fact, you could probably read it in under an hour. But don't be fooled by the size. This book contains a big message. It was written by the man who wrote what I consider to be the definitive work on church elders. That book is called: Biblical Eldership. This much smaller book only addresses one area of eldership- the area of meetings.

Elders do spend significant time in meetings, so it stands to reason that we want to make the most of that time. Strauch's tips for effective meetings begin with some brief thoughts about why elders' meetings are so important. Some reasons include: caring for the spiritual health of the congregation, building character on the part of the elders, developing leadership skills, enhancing morale and accountability, and training future elders.

Once the importance of meetings has been established, Strauch takes the major portion of this book to provide tips on how to make meetings better. Interestingly, the major part of that section is concerned with the character and participation of the elders themselves. If the elders are acting with Christ-like character toward each other, the meeting will be more effective.

Next, Strauch provides some priorities for meetings. These priorities are people, prayer, and the Word of God. If there is a weakness in this book it is that Strauch doesn't provide much guidance regarding that final priority- growth in our knowledge of God that can be accomplished during the meeting of the elders.

As the end of the book approaches, the highly practical tips for participating in meetings are provided. One piece of counsel that I appreciated had to do with the agenda. Strauch highlights the importance of the agenda with these words: "Adequate time spent in preparing an agenda, talking it over with others, thinking it through carefully, prioritizing items, and eliminating needless items guarantees a more productive meeting." One tip for the agenda is to send it out to all participants in advance and let people edit it. Another useful hint was to differentiate between major discussion time and quick items of business. One other piece of advice that stuck with me was that the agenda can list "future business" at the bottom so that the current meetings does not become too overloaded.

We have all heard the maxim that "good things come in small packages." This book is an illustration of that saying. Though it is small, it provides some very good and useful advice.

Power Tools

Perhaps you remember an old sit-com with Tim Allen called "Home Improvement." The father in this show (played by Tim Allen) was the host of a show that taught about repairs to the house. He was always trying to "super-charge" any tool to make it more powerful. His antics lead to lots of laughs.

Once you begin to use power tools you start to see the appeal that they had over Tim. Something about driving a nail with the touch of a button or sawing a board with a power saw really does make a man want to grunt with glee (a far less manly show from what I can tell) over the power that he holds in his hands.

I spent some time working with my power tools last week. I was moving my study to a different room. [As an aside, please notice that a pastor has a "study," not an "office," because his primary task is to study the word of God.] In the process of moving I needed to cut the top shelf off of each of my bookshelves because the new room had lower ceilings. I then had to re-assemble all of those shelves into a new book-shelf. Then I had to build one more bookshelf in a size that would fit the new room. It felt good to use the nail-gun, the mitre saw, the circular saw, a drill, and an impact driver. There is a real sense of satisfaction tearing things up and building new things out of them. In the words of an even older TV show that I rarely saw (The A-Team), "I love it when a plan come together."

This move made me notice something I had not previously considered. I enjoyed using my power tools. But the entire reason I was using them was so that I will hopefully do a better job in using the ultimate power tool. The Bible is the word of God. It is the basis for my ministry. The books in my study are there to help me understand, obey, and communicate the Bible in a better way. While regular power tools are helpful for putting up bookshelves, God's book is essential for life. From the Bible we learn about successful life, not only now, but for all of eternity. I'll continue to use my power tools. But I hope that I never drift away from the one power tool that has the power to "give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15).

Building Update

The Building Committee at Cottrell Corners Community Church continues to work toward a new building for the church. Though not much has happened this past month, the committee is still pushing forward. We are still raising money. We are also still waiting on the engineer so that we can submit our plans for permits.

One thing that will help make the new building a reality is if we were to have more people to help pay for it. The committee has many ideas for telling people about the church. The most effective way of seeing more people become a part of our congregation is if each of us who are already a part invite our friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors to join us.

Please pray for the advancement of the permit process and the raising of money. Please pray that God would bring more people to be a part of our congregation. And please give action to your prayer by inviting other people to join us at church. Thanks.