Easter Cantata

For those of you who missed the service on Sunday, let me tell you that you missed a wonderful day! The choir and orchestra led us in worshiping the risen Christ in music and in song. If you did miss it, you can hear it again on Sunday, March 30, on the local AFR radio station, WAOY 91.7FM. The radio station will air the cantata, entitled "The Risen Christ," in its entirety beginning at 1pm. Make sure to listen in.

If, for some reason, you will not be able to catch the radio replay, you may be able to listen to it as a podcast on our website. I hope we will be able to make the cantata available on-line (as a podcast). Check back in the coming days to see if we can make that work.

Many thanks go to Tammy Turnage, the Adult Chancel Choir, the orchestra (and, especially, our orchestra coordinator, Valerie Pitalo, and pianist Robin Young), the sound guys (Chris Carter, James Jordan, Mark Otto, Ethan Burnett, and James Wright), and the artistic design team (Heather Carter, Mary Beth Lanassa, Sandy Litzinger, and Mary Ruth Ruffin) for their sacrifices and labors in making the whole service possible.

Soli Deo gloria!

Downtown Property Sells

It's OFFICIAL! We officially sold our downtown property at the end of last week to a Canadian firm that looks to build an office/condo building on the spot. We are thrilled to have that behind us and the money in the bank to help us finance the construction of our new facility. We thank everyone for their prayers over the last few years. Without the proceeds from this sale, we would have been severely limited in what we could have built. This gives us the flexibility to build a facility with some room to grow into!

We are still hoping to break ground on the new facility sometime in early summer this year.

Please continue to pray for us, for the work of the gospel here on the Coast, and, especially, that the Lord will grant folks an appetite for His Word!

Response to comment below

I wanted to pick up on something that was said in response to my blog about the now former governor of NY Eliot Spitzer, something that I mentioned last Sunday night in our discussion of what it means that humans are created in the image of God (rather than evolving from pond scum over millions of years!). If you want to read the comment in full, click on the 'comment' link beneath the previous blog, dated Tuesday, March 11. The comment lamented the lack of absolutes in our culture and raised the question of whether or not we, as a nation, are heading for anarchy without any kind of belief in absolutes.

Well, I think one of the reasons we have been and are seeing a decline in the belief in absolutes is that we have been and are seeing a decline in the influence and impact of the Christian worldview (Judeo-Christian too). It is undeniable, regardless of what atheists like Richard Dawkins try to claim, that without religion (namely Christianity), there is no basis for absolute right and wrong.

In order to say that there is such a thing as "right" and such a thing as "wrong," we have to admit there is such a thing as standard of right and wrong that allows us to recognize those things that are "right" and those things that are "wrong" and then to differentiate the one from the other. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing that murder is "wrong" and giving to the needy is "right." There has to be a standard, a law if you will, that enables us to label things "right" or "wrong" and to differentiate the one from the other.

If there is a standard that allows us to distinguish "right" from "wrong," then there also must be a transcendent standard-giver (i.e., God), who is not one of us, who stands above and outside of us, and who gives us the standard. If there is no objective and transcendent standard-giver, then there is no transcendent and objective standard (only the subjective opinions of those who concocted the standards). And if there is no objective and universally binding standard, then there is no objective and universally binding "right" and "wrong."

And if there is no such thing as objective "right" and "wrong," then the decision to murder millions of Jews CANNOT be said to be "wrong." The most that we can say is that it is not what we would choose to do.

The only way that we can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what Hitler did was objectively, absolutely, make-no-bones-about-it "wrong" is to embrace the Christian worldview. And the only way that we can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what Eliot Spitzer did (and too many others) was objectively "wrong" is to embrace the Christian worldview.

Only when that happens will we not have to debate about the meaning of "is"!

Is adultery a "private matter"?

By now, I'm sure most of you will have heard or read about the New York Governor's recent extracurricular activities (or at least the recent exposure of them!). In his press conference, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said something that triggered memories of things that President Bill Clinton said years ago during his difficulties involving Monica Lewinsky and things that I remember Ross Perot saying even longer ago. Spitzer invoked an all-too-familiar sounding argument that politics is "not about the individual" but about ideas. And he initiated his press conference by referring to this ordeal as a "private matter."

Whether or not Spitzer resigns as governor is really beside the point. The thing that intrigues me is the stance that he took (and that President Clinton took, along with many others) that adultery or sexual immorality is a "private matter" and has no bearing on how an individual performs on the job.

Well, I say I'm "intrigued." I guess I'm actually disturbed. I believe that an individual's "private" life has a great deal of bearing upon how that individual performs on the job. To say that it doesn't is to say that personal character doesn't matter and that what really matters is results. As I've said before, I DO believe that personal character matters. I believe that it matters more than the results.

I remember, many years ago, hearing Ross Perot comment on the hiring practices of his business in Texas. He said that he always asked candidates for top management one question (a question that he would probably be sued for asking today): "Have you ever committed adultery?" He said if the candidate ever answered in the affirmative, he refused to hire them. His thinking was that if a person would cheat on the most important and intimate commitment of their lives, and compromise there, they would cheat on just about anything else and compromise in practically every other way.

I think Ross Perot had it right...not Eliot Spitzer. What do you think?

The small things in life

I was reminded today in reading a biographical sketch of James Hannington, the one time minister in England and missionary to Africa who died a martyr's death at the age of 38, that it is often the small and seemingly insignificant things that we do that God uses to bring people to a saving knowledge of Himself.

Look over the following account of Hannington's conversion:

"[Hannington's] old comrade and chum, the Rev. E.C. Dawson...was...greatly concerned on Hannington's behalf. 'I could not tell why,' he says, 'but the burden seemed to press upon me more heavily day by day [to write Hannington a letter].' At last he resolved to write. He knew Hannington's scorn of cant [i.e., hypocritical religious talk], and feared that such a letter would offend him. 'Still,' he says, 'I reasoned that, if friendship was to be lost, it should be at least well lost. So I wrote a simple, unvarnished account of my own spiritual experience. I tried to explain how it was that I was not now as formerly. I spoke of the power of the love of Christ to transform the life of a man and to draw out all its latent possibilities; and, finally, I urged him, as he loved his own soul, to make a definite surrender of himself to the Saviour of the world.' And the result? For the result we must return to [Hannington's] diary:

'July 15--Dawson, who is now a curate in Surrey, opened a correspondence with me to-day which I can only describe as delightful. It led to my conversion!' 'I was in bed at the time, reading,' he says, in a note written years afterwards. 'I sprang out of bed and leaped about the room rejoicing and praising God that Jesus died for me. From that day to this I have lived under the shadow of His wings in the assurance that I am His and He is mine!'

And, writing to Mr. Dawson, the author of the letter, he says: 'I have never seen so much light as during the past few days. I know now that Jesus died for me, and that He is mine and I am His. I ought daily to be more thankful to you as the instrument by whom I was brought to Christ. Unspeakable joy!'"

What a word to us today! Sometimes we minimize the impact that a short letter, a casual phone conversation, or a word spoken in person can have upon someone else in God's providence. It is no less true today than it was when Mr. Dawson wrote his letter to James Hannington. God uses us, our conversations, our actions, and our words--the small things we do--to bring people to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ!