Monica and I have recently returned from a trip down the East Coast. We drove to Philly where we stayed with our friend Paul and then drove the next day to Richmond for a few bridal showers and a wedding of one of Monica’s friends. After that we made our way further south to my parents house in South Carolina where Monica had yet another bridal shower and my parents graciously gave us a whole bunch of furniture for our new apartment. We also had a chance to share what we are doing in Boston with 22 of my parents’ friends.
Whenever Monica and I share about what is happening in Boston we always emphasize the fact that we cannot do this alone. While it may be true that it is Monica and I who are on the ground in Boston, we couldn’t be doing this work without the prayer, encouragement and financial support of others. So if you are someone who has prayed for, encouraged or given financially to us, then you should consider yourself a church planter. When your friends ask you what you are doing these days reply with, “I’m helping to plant a church in Boston”.
But don’t just take my word for it, Paul commends the Philippian church for this in Philippians 4.14-17 as they helped plant a church in Thessalonica. He goes on to brag about the Philippian church to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11.8-9 because the Philippian church also helped plant the new church in Corinth. In the same way, Monica and I are able to brag about you and what you’re doing in Boston.
So thanks!
Oh and that new website….check it out: www.betweenthetrees.org.
In 38 days I will be a husband. I will make a covenant with God and Monica and I will declare that nothing will separate us until death do us part. It won’t be the romance that sustains our marriage over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years or more. Rather, it will be the institution of marriage and our covenant to one another that will sustain our romance. In 38 days I will not only be a husband, but a church planter, brother, son, friend and pastor as well. Yet, I am not simply adding on a wife. My whole life is to be re-imagined by what it means to be married. I will be a different church planter, brother, son, friend and pastor because I am a husband. The way I look at the entire world is and will change. Everything I think, say or do will be affected by my union with Monica.
So in these days leading up to our marriage, I am learning how to re-imagine my life. How to reorient it with Monica and our relationship. How to center my life on God in the midst of this great and noble task. And as I do, I am left reflecting on these words to God, for this reorientation and re-imagination ought to only be done with and through a reliance upon Him:
I need words
As wide as sky
I need language large as
This longing inside
And I need a voice
Bigger than mine
And I need a song to sing You
That I’ve yet to find
I need You,
Oh, I need You
To be here now
To hear me now
“I Need Words” by David Crowder Band off of “Can You Hear Us” 2002. All rights reserved.
Panelists Derek Webb, Jena Lee Nardella, Os Guinness, Sara Groves, Dan Cho and Gordon Hugenberger.
Last night Monica and I joined 400 other Bostonians for a conversation on the impact of Christians upon our culture. The evening was called 12 Cities 12 Conversations and is part of…you guessed it….12 conversations happening all over the US in 12 cities as a build up to the 2010 Lausanne Conference in South Africa. I want to share one thing I was encouraged about and one criticism I had.
I was greatly encouraged by the desire to listen to non-western theologians and the particular awareness that the individualism of America has negatively impacted Christianity and culture. At the first Lausanne conference, evangelical mission was redefined by Latin American voices like Rene Padilla. This was the first time the evangelical movement sought to combine both biblical justice and proclamation. We are still reeling from that first meeting. American Christians need to humble ourselves and listen to the prophetic voice of the church in the global south.
One criticism I had was that modernity was proclaimed to be the cause of all the problems in the American Church. My good friend and future New Testament scholar Chris Stroup wrote me after the evening and said that the modern world is what has even allowed this conversation to happen – flying to South African, communicating with Chinese pastors, social justice in developing countries, etc. I would suggest that maybe the problem is closer tied to global consumerism than modernism. Of course I need to unpack that…but those are my beginning thoughts.
“The Latin hybrida, literally translated, is just that, a mongrel, the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar. When the wild bull of American ambition is bred with a tame Christianity with no cross, the result is mongrel spirituality – a “Christian” with both the image of God and the crucified Savior lost in the cross-breeding. The distinctive element in the human is lost. The distinctive element in Jesus is lost. An antichrist?”
-Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection, page 93.
Do you practice a hybrid of Christianity?
“Everything in Paul’s letter [to the Ephesians] is designed to keep God’s calling (chapters 1-3) and our walking (chapters 4-6) in equilibrium. We cannot measure ourselves by examining ourselves in terms of ourselves, by evaluating ourselves against a non-relational abstraction such as ‘human potential’. Now can we abstract God into an impersonal ‘truth’ set apart from our hearing and responding to the words he uses to call us into life, into holiness, into relationship. We can understand neither God nor ourselves in any living, adequate, and mature way that is an impersonal, non-relational way. When God’s calling and our walking fit, we are growing up in Christ.
Peterson, Practice Resurrection, 32.
“One of the common dismissals of worship is that it is, well, so common. It is boring, nothing happens – ‘I don’t get anything out of it.’ And so well-meaning people decide to put adrenaline in it.”
-Peterson, Practice Resurrection, page 37.
Mark and I are reading Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson right now and I am LOVING IT. Peterson is not only extremely insightful, but he is so quotable. So what follows over the next few weeks will be quotes from his book as I am reading it. Enjoy!
Just the typical Ben & Monica banter in the Boston Public Gardens. Topics covered: Wheaton College, Boston, Virginia and my two loves…
My beautiful bride-to-be (Monica) has started a wedding blog. We hope this is a place where she can capture some of the beautiful moments of our journey. So often we focus on moving from one milestone to the next (i.e. the engagement moment to the wedding day) that we forget about the journey. She just wrote a great post about how we have been able to plan a wedding on the cheap (the for real cheap…not the “its trendy to say cheap, but I really mean at least $8,000″ cheap) with the help of our community. We have again and again realized the important of community and the wedding planning is no exception! Anyway….here is the link: www.benandmonica.org/blog
Oh and a shout out to Chennergy who is giving us a great deal on their work. And trust me…their work is awesome (photography and video). Here are two great examples.
