Women Helping Women: Revive ’13

Last week I had the distinct honor of attending a luncheon with other women’s ministry leaders at Moody Bible Institute. We were there for the Revive Tour and heard Nancy Leigh Demoss speak on pursuing Christ as our supreme treasure. My friend Rebecca and I spent the day together as we traveled down to the wet and Windy City  and enjoyed the company of these other ladies.

Hearing Nancy and having the opportunity to speak with her after lunch was helpful in getting to know her heart and what drives Revive Our Hearts. Their passion is my passion — to equip women leaders in the church to care for the women among them. So if you’re in the Chicago area, I hope you’ll join me in attending Revive ’13: Women Helping Women. Speakers for this conference are Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Paul David Tripp, Elyse Fitzpatrick and worship with Shannon Wexelberg — quite the pianist too! You can register online at ReviveOurhearts.com/Revive13. It will be held in Schaumburg on September 20-21st.

Promoting biblical womanhood or the Titus 2 mandate for women helping women isn’t all that popular these days, but the ministry among women is one that cannot be neglected. As natural influencers of one another, we have the opportunity to make disciples who are excited about conforming to the holiness of Christ and leaving behind the self-destructive, woman-centered ways of living.

What I have in common with the ministry of Revive Our Hearts is an understanding of the Creator-creation distinction. While God is entirely independent, we are fully dependent on him. What God is all-powerful, apart from him we are powerless. But with the Creator resides the truth that he has a special love for humanity because we’re been create in his image. So when women are coming alongside other women in life and ministry, we are demonstrating the love that Christ revealed on the Cross that is sacrificial and honoring of the Father’s will. Our ministry among women is to be Creator-centered, not creature-centered, and this will often impact the manner in which we serve.

So save the date to your calendar and let me know if you’ll be attending Revive Our Hearts ’13. Hopefully we’ll bump into each other!

 

 

Modesty on Display

We’ve all seen it at some point and someone is usually heard offering the tasteless bit of advice: “get a room.” (Sorry, only if you’re married.) Public displays of affection (PDA)–in all their variations and geographical locations–often yield a variety of responses from onlookers. But what about when it happens in church? Is PDA ever appropriate?

To be clear from the onset, I’m not writing this reflection based on anything I’ve seen in my own church, but it is something I’ve observed in churches I’ve both visited and attended. Yesterday afternoon, I had a great exchange with a couple of writers–and many other folks–on the issue of public displays of affection during corporate worship. I believe Lisa Robinson and Alexandra Armstrong will soon be reflecting on this subject as well, so be sure to check their blogs periodically.

The question that was raised had to do with the appropriateness of back rubs and massages while sitting among a sea of people during a worship service. I know what you’re thinking–is this really an issue worthy of blog space? I am absolutely not kidding–this is an issue that affects single (and the functionally single), and has the potential to shape the thinking and behavior of others in a congregation, especially teens and young adults. Continue reading →

The Apologetic Value of a Theology of Work

Continuing my studies in the thought of Dorothy Sayers, she never ceases to amaze me at her very common-sense approach to defending the faith. Though described as a reluctant prophet by her biographer, she was fearless in what she had to say about the state of the Church during her life. Her thinking on what it takes to have a Christian society involves not only an outspoken conviction on doctrinal truths, but a view of work that more closely aligns with the teachings of scripture. She wrote,

Nothing has so deeply discredited the Christian Church as her squalid submission to the economic theory of society…I believe, however, that there is a Christian doctrine of work, very closely related to the doctrines of creative energy of God and the divine image in man. The modern tendency seems to be to identify work with gainful employment; and this is, I maintain, the essential heresy at the back of the great economic fallacy which allows wheat and coffee to be burnt and fish to be used for manure while whole populations stand in need of food. The fallacy being that work is not an expression of man’s creative energy in the service of Society, but only something he does in order to obtain money and leisure…

If man’s fulfillment of his nature is to be found in the full expression of his divine creativeness, then we urgently need a Christian doctrine of work, which shall provide, not only for proper conditions of employment, but also that the work shall be such as a man may do with his whole heart, and that he shall do it for the very work’s sake.

This view of work, tied directly to the Imago Dei, is one which gives meaning to the mundane and taps directly into the creative passions of individuals. It also provides a moral framework for those who may not be creatively employed, but certainly gainfully employed in a position that doesn’t quite offer a sense of fulfillment. We all know what those jobs are like, and it’s Sayers’ goal to help us see how to work Christianly in those as well. Continue reading →