For your encouragement

Sorry for the recent lack of a ‘blog update’.  With the busyness of the holiday and our being on vacation, I haven’t had the chance to write anything profound or earth shattering lately!  So instead,  I wanted to provide you with a great song of encouragement that I just came across.  Enjoy and be encouraged.

K-LOVE – JJ Heller “Your Hands” LIVE from K-LOVE Radio on Vimeo.

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soli deo gloria

Missions in France

This update is for all to read but my truest intentions of writing this is that it be read by the members and friends of Center Hill.  God has recently impressed on my heart the need for our church to continually be evaluating our emphasis on making disciples, both here in Jefferson County, Pa. and throughout the world.  We pray for and support financially several different missionaries or boards.  For that we rejoice.

However, it is our intentions not to simply have ‘missions’ as an occasional afterthought or guest speaker every so often but truly to have a missions mindset in our ministry.  Taking the truth of God’s word, thereby pointing people to Christ, to all who we come in contact with.  Whether that be daily in vocation or leisure, family and friends, specific ministry outreach or support agencies.  Mission mindedness should be something that we are at our very core, something we can’t help but display because we are so immersed in it.  We need to show the love of Christ and share the ‘good news’ of His death and resurrection to all who will listen.  We need to become excited about God’s working in His ministry and our presence.

For that reason, I encourage you to read our most recent update letter from one of our missionaries, Steve Voke of Esbly, France.  You will find it on Our Announcement page.  It is exciting to see the completion of the Carpenter’s Workshop and the overwhelming response of those who attended their open celebration weekend.

Esbly church celebration

God is at work, He is always at work.  Let’s be faithful in supporting that work both here at home and abroad.  I will be featuring here on the website and in our services, God’s hand at work through supported ministries in the next couple of months.  Pray that God burdens us for a deeper love for and commitment to missions.

soli deo gloria

Mission or Maintenance Minded?

In preaching through the book of Acts, I have been reminded and convicted of the fact that it is an admonition to our churches to be in an ongoing process of taking the Good News to people who are being prepared by God to hear it and many times to people who really don’t want to hear it.  As I have written before, it is when we are truly making disciples and not simply converts of Christ that evangelism becomes a natural outgrowth of this transformation, i.e. people not being able to help but speak of the things they have seen and heard.  But there is also an inherent danger within that process if we do not find ourselves actively modeling the first century church in their zeal to see Christ and Him crucified preached to the ends of the earth. 

So many of our churches, especially in the modernized west, have become maintenance minded instead of mission minded.  We must guard against this tendency or we will find ourselves falling prey to the attitude that our Sunday gatherings, weekly Bible studies and even our ministry opportunities are simply a means to strengthen our personal walk, as important as that is, and miss that Christ’s last earthly admonition was to make disciples.   The church at Antioch, in Acts 13 and 14, was sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading and responsive to that prompting to assist in sending Paul and Barnabas on their first ‘mission’ trip.  It seems that they did not even consider that their corporate gathering together for worship and teaching was simply for their own edification and growth but was a launching ground for growth of the church global.

I recently read some startling facts about the growth of the global church.

Out of the global increase of 77,000 affiliated Christians every day, 70,000 (or 91%) can be found in Africa, Asia, or Latin America.  The country with the fastest Christian expansion ever is China, now at 16,500 new converts (including births) every day.  This in a country which would know very little about simple maintenance but is persecuted for their evangelism regularly.

Compare that with this statistic, that 91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism does not target non-Christians but targets other Christians, many in wealthy countries and cities.  When we do ‘take it to the street’ we take it to the comfortable confines of the least resistance.

One last observation from the report, and this is so sad, Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($970 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.  We are more concerned with our daily administration of the organization than we are of the lost soul who has never heard the Gospel.

Do not let it be said of our churches that our faith is a matter of convenience and it costs little but may we offer our worship and service as King David did when he said “I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”  1 Ch 21:24.    May we find ourselves moving from a maintenance mentality of an organization to a constant expanding organism known as the body of Christ, reaching dieing people with the life saving news of His finished work of salvation.

soli deo gloria

Stats taken from the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January 2008.

Suffering for His glory!

Take time to watch the following video.

God has burdened me recently as Pastor at Center Hill to preach on and prepare our folks for the inevitable suffering that each of us face. I have become more and more convinced that we live our lives in peaks and valleys and the older I get I believe that we spend most of our time on the down hill side of those hills. Life is filled with suffering, not to the degree sometimes of others and never to the degree of our Lord on the cruel cross of Calvary, but life is marked by suffering. At Center Hill, we have preached through several scriptural sections of suffering and even had our Easter series on our Lord’s preparation of His disciples for their coming suffering.

I have recently followed the journey of Pastor Matt Chandler through his video blogs and church updates while he battles brain cancer. A young Pastor full of zeal for the Gospel, a love for Christ and great potential for the kingdom, stricken with a brain tumor. A loving father and devoted husband, seemingly kept from the joys of those duties. It’s easy to ask why and focus on the suffering but that’s not God’s intention. ‘He has set apart the godly for Himself’ (Psalm 4) and wants to receive glory, even in the midst of our suffering. What a testimony Matt has been to the glory of God. May the Lord allow each of us the same grace, both to display and to personally experience as Matt, when we find ourselves in the midst of suffering.

T4G 2010 — Special Session — Matt Chandler from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

soli deo gloria

Shepherding a Child’s Heart

To further our commitment to strengthening the family and to disciple each other here at Center Hill, we will begin a new study on Wednesday nights entitled, Shepherding a Child’s Heart.  This is a DVD driven study based upon the book by Tedd Tripp. 

“Shepherding a Child’s Heart is about how to speak to the heart of your child. The things your child does and says flow from the heart. Luke 6:45 puts it this way, “…out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (NIV) Intended for parents with children of any age, this insightful series provides perspectives and procedures for shepherding your child’s heart into the paths of life.”

We will be meeting each Wednesday night at 7:00 pm beginning May 12 and continuing through August 18.  Child care will be provided.

Please join us for this most important subject whether you are a parent, grandparent or simply find yourself in a position to influence children.  Nothing is more important than passing on a biblical legacy and this book and study will show each of us how to most effectively do just that.

We are committed to biblical families at Center Hill and this is just another tool we are placing in the hands of parents to assist them in becoming parents due the honor of their children.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

soli deo gloria

Our reason to rejoice

This past Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, our message was entitled ‘Rejoice!’ It culminated a month long series of messages from Luke 23-24 showing Jesus’ preparation of His disciples to suffer.  They and we Rejoice! because He arose.  Jesus’ resurrection is the assurance of our eternal joy. What an comfort we have as Christians, that even in the midst of sorrow and suffering, JOY comes in the morning.  Joy is ours because the penalty and power of sin (death) is broken and someday we will be delivered from the presence of sin.  What a wonderful confidence we have.

In my message, I referred to a summation of verses from scripture, that gave us a glimpse of the importance that God places on His children to experience joy in it’s fullest.  This list is not my own but one that John Piper compiled for a sermon (what better source for a biblical perspective on joy than the Christian Hedonist himself).   I have been asked for that list of proof texts by several of our folks and for that reason I have listed them in the rest of this post.

Read them with great enthusiasm and let them transform your view of God’s desire, nay His command, for you and your joy.

soli deo gloria

What the Bible Says About Joy

Jesus’ aim in all he taught was the joy of his people.

John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Joy is what God fills us with when we trust in Christ.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

The kingdom of God is joy.

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Joy is the fruit of God’s Spirit within us.

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.

Joy is the aim of everything the apostles did and wrote.

2 Corinthians 1:24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy.

Becoming a Christian is finding a joy that makes you willing to forsake everything.

Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

Joy is nourished and sustained by the word of God in the Bible

Psalm 19:8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

Joy will overtake all sorrow for those who trust Christ.

Psalm 126:5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!

Psalm 30:5b Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

God himself is our joy.

Psalm 43:4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Joy in God outstrips all earthly joy.

Psalm 4:7 You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.

If your joy is in God, no one can take your joy from you.

John 16:22 You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

God calls all nations and peoples to join in the joy he offers to all who believe. No racism. No ethnocentrism.

Psalm 67:4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

Psalm 66:1 Shout for joy to God, all the earth.

The whole Christian message from beginning to end is good news of great joy.

Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.”

Isaiah 51:11 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

When we meet Christ at his second coming we will enter into his indestructible joy.

Matthew 25:23 His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master.”

This joy in God is commanded!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 33:1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.

Psalm 32:11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Do you love me?

Peter, do you love me? This was the question posed by our Lord to the Apostle after Peter’s denial of Him the night of His crucifixion. Notice that Jesus didn’t ask him if he believed in Him, or if he had professed or confessed Him, or obeyed Him or even if he had placed his trust in Him. No Jesus asked Peter if he LOVED Him.   

Our Lord knew that on the very night he denied Jesus, Peter had professed that he would never fall away. That night, he had participated with Jesus in the most intimate of times, the first communion service and sat under Jesus’ most passionate and personal teachings. And only hours before his denial, Peter had come to the defense of His Lord by drawing a sword. If anyone expressed evidence of devotion for Jesus, it was Peter. If ever their was one who should not have denied Jesus, it was Peter. But he did.

In asking the question, ‘Peter do you love me’, Jesus was probing the very heart of one who had not known the weakness and depravity of his own soul until that night. It was only after being confronted with his great falling away, that Peter truly understood the depth of the mercy of our Lord and the freedom of forgiveness. As Peter ran from the courtyard and wept bitterly, he demonstrated his repentance of his great sin. And having just seen in the ‘look’ of Jesus (Luke 22:61), the immeasurable grace and offer of forgiveness, he could not help but love the One who would forgive so great a sinner. For love is the natural response of forgiveness shown.

What if we were asked today if we loved Jesus? As a Christian, we might find ourselves confused when asked if we belong to the elect, if we have truly professed Christ, or if we are a disciple of the Savior. But there should be no confusion or doubt when asked, if we love Jesus. If we have wrestled with our sin, turned from it’s appeal and experienced the liberating forgiveness of Jesus Christ, then we cannot help but say with some confidence that we love Him.

How is it with you today? Do you love Jesus? If the answer is no then evaluate if you truly are of the faith. If you answered, yes, then celebrate this Easter week with renewed assurance of Jesus’ love for you and His unending mercy and grace in granting forgiveness to His repentant children.

soli deo gloria

Happy Children or Holy Children?

Is it our responsibility to make sure that our kids are happy?  Me thinks not.  Read this blog I came across, not sure of the author’s views on all issues but she sure makes sense on this one.                                                                                              I don’t want my kids to be happy!

soli deo gloria

Truth Seeking

During the past couple of weeks in our expository overview of the book of Acts, we have been examining the accounts of three ‘conversions’; Simon the magician (not a true conversion by the way), the Ethiopian eunuch, and Saul of Tarsus.  A point which was not lost in the passage of the conversion of the eunuch, was that he ‘went to Jerusalem to worship’.  The question raised during our study was ‘what did he find when he arrived in Jerusalem’.  Did he find worship or did he find  pomp and circumstance, ritual, and traditions of men?  As one on a journey to truly worship, a ‘truth seeker’, he could not have been satisfied.

The point made was this, may we at Center Hill, always find ourselves committed to the proclamation of the entire truth of God’s word.  May we always preach and teach good doctrine, so that those who hunger for the truth of God’s word find it in the ministries of CHCC.

I read with great encouragement, the blog of Tim Challies entitled Ruined for Anything Else would invite you to read his blog by simply clicking on the title.  He states the issue much better than I.  The good news, there is a resurgence back to teaching and preaching of sound doctrine in many churches.  Truth seekers, take heart.

soli deo gloria

Child Advocacy Center presentation

In a continued effort to provide information, encouragement and protection  to our church families and the families of Jefferson County, Center Hill will be hosting a presentation of Jefferson County’s Child Advocacy Center, on February 23 at 7:00 PM.  The presentation will be conducted by our own Pat Berger who is Jefferson County’s Victim/Witness Coordinator and a Child Forensic Interviewer.  She has worked with crime victims for 17 years and the past 8 of those years in Jefferson County as part of District Attorney Jeff Burkett’s office.   She has seen the heart breaking devastation physical & sexual abuse has on children, their families and the community.  Pat is committed to reaching out to child and adult victim’s of abuse with any and all support at her disposal.  Come and hear her heart and the commitment of the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office  to victims and to justice.  

The entire community is invited to attend this meeting to learn first hand about Jefferson County’s Child Advocacy Center and it’s benefits to the children of this and surrounding counties.

We as Christ’s church in this community have a repsonsiblity not only to the spiritual welfare of those in our midst but also to meet the physical and emotional issues when they are evident to us.  Let it be said that Center Hill is a place of hope for all hurting people.  Remember Jesus’ own words in Matthew 25:40 “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

soli deo gloria