Entries from September 2005 ↓

Old hymns with new tunes (usually) make me happy.

I’ve been listening to this hymn from Red Mountain Church’s Gadsby Project record quite a bit lately. The lyrics are incredible and the new tune and arrangement are near-perfect. This is what I wish more of “modern worship” looked and sounded like (thankfully, it actually does look and sound quite a bit like this where we worship on Sundays) . . .

Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart
(or: To the Afflicted, Tossed With Tempests and Not Comforted)
words: John Newton

Pensive, doubting, fearful heart,
Hear what Christ the Saviour says;
Every word should joy impart,
Change thy mourning into praise:
Yes, he speaks, and speaks to thee,
May he help thee to believe!
Then thou presently will see,
Thou hast little cause to grieve.

Fear thou not, nor be ashamed,
All thy sorrows soon shall end
I who heav’n and earth have framed,
Am thy husband and thy friend
I the High and Holy One,
Israel’s God by all adored;
As thy Saviour will be known,
Thy Redeemer and thy Lord.

For a moment I withdrew,
And thy heart was filled with pain;
But my mercies I’ll renew,
Thou shalt soon rejoice again:
Though I seem to hide my face,
Very soon my wrath shall cease;
‘Tis but for a moment’s space,
Ending in eternal peace.

Though afflicted, tempest-tossed,
Comfortless awhile thou art,
Do not think thou canst be lost,
Thou art graven on my heart
All thy wastes I will repair,
Thou shalt be rebuilt anew;
And in thee it shall appear,
What the God of love can do.

To listen to a long clip (nearly half the song), click here.

“. . . And when some dude dropped a hymnal the Presbyterian baptized the whole town. My friend Owen said that he saw a Presbyterian totally baptize some kid just because the kid was born in a Christian home. That’s what I call REAL Ultimate Power !!!!!!!!!”

http://www.firstfloorflat.com/presbyterians/presbyterians.htm

A favorite rallying cry of those who love to denigrate biblical authority regarding sex is that “Jesus never said anything about sex”, implying that what the Apostles said about sex is null and void, since Jesus supposedly never said anything about it.

Not that such a claim would be deserving of any credence if it were actually correct, but I wonder if those folks have ever seen Matthew 15.

Federal Judge declares Pledge unconstitutional.

“The Eucharist is another way God gets His Gospel into us. If we won’t listen to the Gospel preached with our ears, that’s okay. He just crams it down our throats in the form of bread and wine.”

We have a winner (we think).

After lots of prayer and wrestling and such, we’re pretty sure that God wants us to be part of the work he’s doing at Grace Central Presbyterian Church. We just resonate with what’s going on there.

I’m glad that the search is pretty much over. It was a real struggle to even get up the gumption and desire to go through the process of trying to find a new church. The phone calls and e-mails to church offices to find out more . . . the website surfing . . . the actual church visits which were sometimes great and other times horrible . . . worst of all, the inevitable comparisons to our church “back home”. It’s been an arduous and annoying process.

Plusses and Minuses . . .

+ Solidly reformed (PCA)
+ Young, as in the church isn’t 90% 60-and-up
+ Young, as in this is a newly planted church
+ Retains traditional reformed liturgy (confessions, creeds, antiphony, etc), but progressive in their approach to it
+ Weekly communion
+ Hymns (mostly RUF arrangements!)
+ Excellent, expository preaching
+ Pastor has excellent taste in music and describes himself as an “aging hipster”, though he’s only 32 or so.
+ He preaches primarily from the ESV.
+ He also blogs.
+ Very arts-oriented (the pastor has a BFA degree, as a matter of fact).
+ Intentionally located in the Short North district of downtown Columbus . . . rich in culture, spiritually bankrupt.
+ Aims to serve the “religiously disenfranchised”.
+ Gives money to Christian aid, relief, and justice services and ministries.
+ Planning to establish an “indigenous mercy mission” to serve Columbus.
+ Zoë likes the kids.

- grape juice only
- exclusively sings hymns . . . so no more praise songs from Sovereign Grace.
- paedobaptism (but we obviously knew that was part of the Presbo package, so meh . . .)

+/- Meets at 6 PM
+/- We’re still adjusting from WillowContemporary-style worship to Reformed liturgy. We love it, but we sometimes miss the former as well.

We did promise Amy’s mom that we’d wait to hear the guy preach who’ll likely become her church’s pastor before we made a firm decision, but if God’s pushing us in Grace Central’s direction, then that’s it.

(BTW, speaking of paedobaptism . . . Greg actually mentioned and explained that a little bit in his sermon tonight. What he said really makes a lot of sense, though I still have my disagreements with it. We plan on being teachable, though, as long as we’re under this church’s authority . . . just as I’d expect any paedobaptist to be if they joined a credobaptist church.)

So anyway . . . yay!

1) My wife is gorgeous.
2) Despite the rough times, I’m glad we’re married.
3) My daughter is also gorgeous.

We went to the wedding of a childhood friend of Amy’s tonight. It was a beautiful Jewish wedding — solemn ceremony with a boisterous and celebratory reception afterward. This probably happens to a lot of couples upon going to a wedding, but it reminded me of how much I love Amy and how great our own wedding was a little over a year ago. It wasn’t anywhere near as ornate or expensive as tonight’s, but it was still perfect. Every element, from the vows to the encouragement from others to the Eucharist celebration was full of meaning and significance and blessing and God.

I digress. Fun facts about tonight:
- Someone’s cell phone went off during the wedding (during a prayer, even) and the genius waited at least twenty seconds to turn it off. Actually, the caller might’ve just hung up. People never cease to amaze me.
- I slow-danced with my wife for the first time.
- I ended up eating two of the catered meals, since Amy wouldn’t dream of touching any of hers. Grilled salmon w/ some sort of ginger sauce, white rice, and asparagus paired w/ a decent white wine. Delicious.

Some pics . . .

Amy in the car before leaving. Looks happy, doesn’t she?

Bethany (the bride, obviously), her son Noah, and Zoë.

Zoë and Amy. They have the same grin.

Zoë and me.