Funny

I posted a link to this a week or so ago, but thanks to Kevin DeYoung I found the You Tube video. My kids keep asking to watch it and I don't mind the repetition; it's funny every time. Trust me, watch!

Martyn Lloyd-Jones Follow-Up

A while back I posted a collection of links to free Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermons (here). That post solicited over 600 visitors in the first two days, and some e-mails and comments added a few more links (which I later added to that post). But today I noticed a new comment that was so helpful, I thought I'd copy/paste it here. Thanks to "Calvinistic" for his wisdom:

The best way to get free sermons from Dr. Lloyd-Jones is through OnePlace, which will give you the url for the podcast. Then just manually add that to itunes for automatic updates.

The main reason that most of MLJ's sermons are not free is that the Recordings Trust was set up before the internet era to make the sermons available through cassette tapes. There was a great deal of audio conversion (reel-to-reel to cassette) to be done to make this happen. The internet era has added another step to this conversion process. If it were not for the Recordings Trust, we would have nothing today.

Also, someone still has to administer the work and pay for things like bandwidth, time, resources, etc. Many of the preachers who give away their sermons already have that built in, because they have a staff and budget to take care of that. The people who make the Lloyd-Jones sermons available don't have that.

Guest Post: Caleb Vaillancourt (My 5 year old's first ever blog post)

Today We Play In The Back Yard.

How John Piper Writes Biographical Messages

. . .and an announcement of his 2011 topic (hint: I've been hoping he'd do a bio of this man for years!!)



HT: Clint. . . who should e-mail Piper his excellent paper!

An Interview with Lecrae Moore and Trip Lee

In the video that follows, Justin Taylor sits down with Christian hip hop artists Lecrae Moore and Trip Lee to discuss life, music, and ministry. My wife and I really enjoyed watching, split over a couple of evenings.

We were reinforced in our appreciation for the theological depth, the gospel-centeredness, and the holy lives of these two Reach Records artists.

We also learned:
- that Trip Lee is only 22 and is about to take a 5 month break from music to do an internship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church under Pastor Mark Dever
- that they view themselves as indigenous missionaries to the inner city
- that hip-hop as an 'in your face' art form most resembles preaching and most lends itself to challenging people with gospel truth
- that these men are both intentionally humble, seeking to give all glory to God
- that, in the words of Justin Taylor, a 2-3 hour concert provides a 'thick gospel presentation'.
- that there is an enormously mixed audience at any given concert. Many, many unbelievers, and also believers, young, old (60's even), white, black, etc. People who don't even like hip hop come because of how rich the message is. People who love hip hop but not Jesus come because these guys are talented.

My wife and I have also been enjoying Lecrae's Pre-Christmas release: "Rehab", and his most recent release (yesterday, in fact): "Rehab: The Overdose". The links are for the Canadian version of iTunes. Americans will have to do their own searching (sorry!).

Take a look at the video. It's great!

Justin Taylor Interview: Lecrae Moore and Trip Lee from Crossway on Vimeo.

Saskatchewan won't appeal court ruling on gay-marriage law

From The Globe and Mail:

The Saskatchewan government says it will not appeal a court ruling that says marriage commissioners cannot refuse to wed same-sex couples on religious grounds.

The province had asked the Appeal Court to rule on proposed legislation that would have allow commissioners to cite their religion in saying “no” to gays and lesbians.

The court said the law would be unconstitutional and would amount to discrimination against same-sex couples.

Read the rest here.

Goodbye, With Tears!

"And much weeping came from all, and falling on the neck of Paul, they were kissing him" (Acts 20:37, author's own translation).

Such was the response of the Ephesian elders to the Apostle Paul as the moment of goodbye finally came. Extreme affection, extreme emotion, even as they all went about doing God's will with joy. Saying goodbye for the sake of the kingdom is often hard!

'Why these tears, Grace Fellowship Church?' That was the question Pastor Paul Martin asked this past Sunday as he sent away 30 beloved members of his church family. Paul had mentored Pastor Julian Freeman for 11+ years. When they began Julian was a high school kid, and now he is a mature pastor who I'd love to have ministering to my family. The other 29 people included Julian's wife and three kids, and 15 other members of Grace Fellowship Church, with their kids. They were being sent away, hived off actually, to plant a daughter church in the East end of Toronto.

Sunday was a day full of joy in God and full of weeping at relational loss. Paul's sermon was a Biblical theology of weeping, tracing 10 Biblical reasons why people appropriately weep. It was excellent, and it can be found here.

Sunday was exciting. My family and I are becoming a part of a kingdom-minded church, a church that cares more about the great commission than personal comfort. My family and I are becoming a part of a healthy church, a church whose leaders we want to follow because they are worthy of following, and a church whose members we are excited to serve and be served by. But my family and I are not becoming a part of a safe church, where we can settle into comfortable ministries for the decades to come. And we love every minute of it. I hope yesterday was not the only tearful goodbye for the sake of the kingdom that we witness at Grace Fellowship Church!