Those of you who were at Shiloh 2014 will appreciate the lyrics of this song by Steven Curtis Chapman, inviting us to 'lose ourselves in the Bigger Story' of what God is doing on earth
STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN
"Big Story"
(Steven Curtis Chapman)
[Psalm 19:1-4, 47:7-9 / Isaiah 40:21-26 / Colossians 1:16-22]
I hear the rumors of another world
Like distant voices in the wind
They say there is a story being told
Bigger than I can comprehend
And in the rumors I can hear an invitation calling
[Chorus:]
This is the big story
There is a God who's in control
Telling the big story
And He wants us to know
We will find ourselves
When we lose ourselves
In the bigger story
Come and take your place in the story
We all live in this place called the here and now
We see what's right before our eyes
But right here right now heaven's coming down
All around God's story is coming alive
And in this moment if we listen
We can hear Him calling
Captivating, fascinating, all consuming
Never concluding
One and only
Ever unfolding
Story of stories
The big, big story
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
When I Die.....
When I die, I would like this to be quoted at my funeral.
(HT:EMFI)
Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian;
it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
- Anonymous
Along with this other quote from "The Last Battle" by CS Lewis.
" The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."
"Now at last (he is) beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
(HT:EMFI)
Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian;
it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
- Anonymous
Along with this other quote from "The Last Battle" by CS Lewis.
" The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."
"Now at last (he is) beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
"The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins"
Read this review of Dawkins autobiogaphy, which contains this devastating critique:
"In comparison with Pascal, a man of restless intellectual energy, Dawkins is a monument to unthinking certitude."
As Challies observes, it seems like even atheists are increasingly embarassed by Richard Dawkins!
"In comparison with Pascal, a man of restless intellectual energy, Dawkins is a monument to unthinking certitude."
As Challies observes, it seems like even atheists are increasingly embarassed by Richard Dawkins!
How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of life?
What are the implications of this for the Christian doctor?
Dorothy Sayers writes in her classic article, "Why Work"
"How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of life?
The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays.
What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.
Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly — but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry?
No crooked table-legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could any one believe that they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth. No piety in the worker will compensate for work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to its own technique is a living lie.
Yet in her own buildings, in her own ecclesiastical art and music, in her hymns and prayers, in her sermons and in her little books of devotion, the church will tolerate, or permit a pious intention to excuse, work so ugly, so pretentious, so tawdry and twaddling, so insincere and insipid, so bad as to shock and horrify any decent craftsman.
And why? Simply because she has lost all sense of the fact that the living and eternal truth is expressed in work only so far as the work is true in itself, to itself, to the standards of its own technique. She has forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred."
(BTW, this entire article is freely available online)
(HT: What's Best Next)
Possible related posts from the past:
1. Developing a Christian work ethic
Dorothy Sayers writes in her classic article, "Why Work"
"How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of life?
The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays.
What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.
Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly — but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry?
No crooked table-legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could any one believe that they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth. No piety in the worker will compensate for work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to its own technique is a living lie.
Yet in her own buildings, in her own ecclesiastical art and music, in her hymns and prayers, in her sermons and in her little books of devotion, the church will tolerate, or permit a pious intention to excuse, work so ugly, so pretentious, so tawdry and twaddling, so insincere and insipid, so bad as to shock and horrify any decent craftsman.
And why? Simply because she has lost all sense of the fact that the living and eternal truth is expressed in work only so far as the work is true in itself, to itself, to the standards of its own technique. She has forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred."
(BTW, this entire article is freely available online)
(HT: What's Best Next)
Possible related posts from the past:
1. Developing a Christian work ethic
Monday, October 13, 2014
Those Impious Galileans
Missionary doctors are, once again, at the frontiers of compassionate medicine. Witness the way they care for patients suffering with Ebola. Going where nobody else will go. Caring for those nobody else is bothered about.
As this grudging science writer says, "Like it or not, though, we are deeply reliant on missionary doctors and nurses. The 2008 ARHAP report found that in some sub-Saharan African countries 30 percent of health care facilities are run by religious entities. That system is crumbling due to declining funding, possibly motivated in part by growing Western suspicion of missionary medicine. We have a choice: Swallow our objections and support these facilities, spend vast sums of money to build up Africa’s secular health care capacity immediately, or watch the continent drown in Ebola, HIV, and countless other disease outbreaks.
As an atheist, I try to make choices based on evidence and reason. So until we’re finally ready to invest heavily in secular medicine for Africa, I suggest we stand aside and let God do His work."
As Douthat points out in his commentary below, this sentiment runs in the long line of opponents of Christianity being forced to grudgingly appreciate what Christians do. "...there is still a parallel, at once amusing and illuminating, between his tone in the Slate piece and the tone of some of the surviving comments on Christianity from Roman authorities, which so often married incomprehension, hostility and (eventually) resentment at being, well, shown up by these strange cultists and their zeal. In particular, there’s a little bit of Pliny the younger in Palmer’s essay — the 2nd-century governor of Pontus writing in bureaucratic bafflement to his emperor (in a tone that W.H. Auden borrowed, I suspect, for his King Herod in “For The Time Being”) — and a whole lot of Julian the Apostate, the 4th century emperor who tried and failed to restore paganism, and whose letters include various complaints about how “all men see that our people lack aid” from pagan sources, even as “the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well.”
Possibly related posts from the past:
1. What is a Mission Hospital?
As this grudging science writer says, "Like it or not, though, we are deeply reliant on missionary doctors and nurses. The 2008 ARHAP report found that in some sub-Saharan African countries 30 percent of health care facilities are run by religious entities. That system is crumbling due to declining funding, possibly motivated in part by growing Western suspicion of missionary medicine. We have a choice: Swallow our objections and support these facilities, spend vast sums of money to build up Africa’s secular health care capacity immediately, or watch the continent drown in Ebola, HIV, and countless other disease outbreaks.
As an atheist, I try to make choices based on evidence and reason. So until we’re finally ready to invest heavily in secular medicine for Africa, I suggest we stand aside and let God do His work."
As Douthat points out in his commentary below, this sentiment runs in the long line of opponents of Christianity being forced to grudgingly appreciate what Christians do. "...there is still a parallel, at once amusing and illuminating, between his tone in the Slate piece and the tone of some of the surviving comments on Christianity from Roman authorities, which so often married incomprehension, hostility and (eventually) resentment at being, well, shown up by these strange cultists and their zeal. In particular, there’s a little bit of Pliny the younger in Palmer’s essay — the 2nd-century governor of Pontus writing in bureaucratic bafflement to his emperor (in a tone that W.H. Auden borrowed, I suspect, for his King Herod in “For The Time Being”) — and a whole lot of Julian the Apostate, the 4th century emperor who tried and failed to restore paganism, and whose letters include various complaints about how “all men see that our people lack aid” from pagan sources, even as “the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well.”
Possibly related posts from the past:
1. What is a Mission Hospital?
Red Hot Rage
Deft. Beautiful. Forceful.
From Djibouti Jones
"I once wrote an essay about what I learned from Muslim prayer rituals that enhanced my personal prayer life. I submitted it to a Christian magazine and received the response that, “There is nothing for Christians to learn from Muslims about prayer.”
I was furious. And really, really sad. I couldn’t have cared less about the article being rejected, I can handle rejection just fine. But the sentiment? The exclusivity and loss and inherent disrespect? I was shocked and then realized that this was essentially what I see all around the world. Division. Borders. Fences. Me versus you. Us versus them.
Today Marilyn Gardner of Communicating Across Boundaries and the author of Between Worlds deftly and beautifully and forcefully challenges us to knock down those dividing walls and to enter relationships."
Read the rest here.
From Djibouti Jones
"I once wrote an essay about what I learned from Muslim prayer rituals that enhanced my personal prayer life. I submitted it to a Christian magazine and received the response that, “There is nothing for Christians to learn from Muslims about prayer.”
I was furious. And really, really sad. I couldn’t have cared less about the article being rejected, I can handle rejection just fine. But the sentiment? The exclusivity and loss and inherent disrespect? I was shocked and then realized that this was essentially what I see all around the world. Division. Borders. Fences. Me versus you. Us versus them.
Today Marilyn Gardner of Communicating Across Boundaries and the author of Between Worlds deftly and beautifully and forcefully challenges us to knock down those dividing walls and to enter relationships."
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
A Tribute to Vathsalya Charitable Trust
 |
| The VCT Building in Kalyan Nagar, Bangalore |
This is the text of a Three-minute speech I gave at a function to honour Vathsalya Charitable Trust, on their Silver Jubilee (June 7th, 2014).
Friends,
Thank you very much for the opportunity to say a few words at this happy celebration of Vathsalya's 25th anniversary.
My wife, Arpita, and I have had the privilege of being able to adopt three beautiful children from Vathsalya between Feb 2008 and Dec 2011. In a sense therefore, I am aware, I speak today representing the hundreds of couples who have adopted from Vathsalya over the years. Mrs Mary Paul, Shirley and the team at Vathsalya have been friends to us, walking with us through the process of adoption, and giving us, as families, some of our happiest moments and memories. We often come across couples who have adopted from other agencies, and as we listen to their stories, and the distress and pain they have gone through in order to adopt, we feel almost embarassed to tell them how smoothly everything went for us, and how we look back over our own stories with so much joy and gratitude.
Vathsalya has also come to represent so much more!
Some of our children were relinquished by courageous women who spent the last few months of their pregnancies living with dignity and respect in the privacy of Vathsalya, choosing to deliver their (within quotes) 'unwanted' babies, breast feed them for a while, go through the process of grief and a type of bereavement, and then offer these children up for adoption. Vathsalya represented to these abused and helpless women, and to us who heard their stories, the dignity and value of every human being, and an option by which hopeless tragedies could be redeemed with kind and loving action, courage and respect, and result in so much joy to so many people.
Some of our children were abandoned by courageous families, who dared to hope that their babies could live better lives, if they could be placed through adoption in different families. We live in a culture which places precious little value on human life, and under some of the most liberal pro-abortion laws in the world. In our culture, babies are routinely aborted for the flimsiest reasons. The Lancet, in 2006, talked about 10 million missing girls in India, who had been aborted, paying the ultimate penalty for the extra X chromosome they carried.
Vathsalya, on the other hand, was a powerful reminder of a message which was profoundly counter-cultural. All life is precious, and every baby valuable. Adoption speaks so powerfully about the worth of the child. Each of these babies, placed in loving homes, is a source of so much life, joy and fulfilment.
Vathsalya also represented to us the inherent value and worth of people living with disability. As a paediatric surgeon, I was sometimes called to examine and opine on children with various mental and physical disabilities who had been given up for adoption. I was consistently struck by the love and kindness with which these children were served and cared for by the staff at Vathsalya, and the way in which every one of these children were also placed in loving families, where they found love, dignity and supportive relationships. In our culture only 'perfect' babies are valued, and the disabled are routinely aborted. For example, I recently came across a case where a baby was aborted because she was found to have a cleft lip....an eminently treatable condition! Vathsalya,on the other hand, was a powerful, counter-cultural advocate for the disabled.
And so, on this special day, on behalf of the hundreds of couples who have been blessed by your exemplary work, and the many children who have experienced your love and care, and who have been placed in loving families around the world, Thank you!
God bless you and continue to lead and guide you as you reflect on the years past, and think strategically about the future. We know that you will continue to represent all that is good and right at the frontiers where very few others venture. We know that you will continue to challenge us as a conscience keeper in our times, and continue to be an advocate for the weak and marginalised members of our human community. We wish you all the very best for the journey ahead.
Thank you.
(You could read more about Vathsalya at their website http://www.vctblr.org/home-page.html)
Possibly related posts from the past:
1. The Ridiculous Grace of Adoption
2. Hundreds of couples offer to adopt a child with Down's Syndrome to prevent an abortion
3. Image Bearers
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Servant Leadership
via Challies
"Derwin Gray, pastor of Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, wants his church to be a community of servant-leaders. After all, “servanthood is the essence of leadership and the heart of what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus.” He believes “leadership is embodying what you want others to become.” To have a church of servant-leaders, he and the other pastors must lead the way.
How does Gray display what he wants other people to become? Simple. He and all his staff members park farthest away from the church building. Instead of taking the best spots, they leave those for others, and take the worst spots. The walk from their cars to the church, and from the church to their cars, is a straightforward, tangible display of what they want their congregation to become.
And I guess there is a bonus: They get to meet more people than if they were hustled out the side door and into reserved parking spots.
Do you want to practice servant-heartedness and meet more people at the same time? Consider parking in the farthest spot."
See: Why I Park the Furthest from the Church at Ministry Grid
Possibly Related Posts from the Past
1. A Big brother models Servant-Leadership"Derwin Gray, pastor of Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, wants his church to be a community of servant-leaders. After all, “servanthood is the essence of leadership and the heart of what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus.” He believes “leadership is embodying what you want others to become.” To have a church of servant-leaders, he and the other pastors must lead the way.
How does Gray display what he wants other people to become? Simple. He and all his staff members park farthest away from the church building. Instead of taking the best spots, they leave those for others, and take the worst spots. The walk from their cars to the church, and from the church to their cars, is a straightforward, tangible display of what they want their congregation to become.
And I guess there is a bonus: They get to meet more people than if they were hustled out the side door and into reserved parking spots.
Do you want to practice servant-heartedness and meet more people at the same time? Consider parking in the farthest spot."
See: Why I Park the Furthest from the Church at Ministry Grid
Possibly Related Posts from the Past
2. Habemus papam!
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
The Caliphate: The New Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
There are no Christian's left in many parts of Iraq and Syria.
This is the land of Abraham "that ancient Sumerian", and Luke, the beloved Syrian physician. Saul became Paul riding on one of these roads to Damascus.
How did we get to this point? What can we do now?
Read: ISIS: A Living Nightmare for Iraqi Christians
Below. you could watch some footage from within the new Caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a 42-minute primer to the new agenda, and the methods used to enforce it. (Warning: This is not a child-friendly video. There are some Graphic scenes. That's life in the new Caliphate)
Weep for the indoctrination of nine-year-olds into a culture of violence, intolerance and death. Weep for the hundreds of thousands, including Christians, who are being killed by crucifixion or beheading, or hounded out of their homes, fleeing as refugees. Weep for 35000 square kilometres with hardly a Christian left. This is the land from where Christianity spread to the rest of the world. Even in India, we have thousands who call themselves 'Syrian Christians'
I am a member, together with these suffering Christians, of the same body. "If one member suffers, all suffer together (1Cor 12:26). Lord, show me what I can do to either help them, or 'share in their suffering'!
This is the land of Abraham "that ancient Sumerian", and Luke, the beloved Syrian physician. Saul became Paul riding on one of these roads to Damascus.
How did we get to this point? What can we do now?
Read: ISIS: A Living Nightmare for Iraqi Christians
Below. you could watch some footage from within the new Caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a 42-minute primer to the new agenda, and the methods used to enforce it. (Warning: This is not a child-friendly video. There are some Graphic scenes. That's life in the new Caliphate)
Weep for the indoctrination of nine-year-olds into a culture of violence, intolerance and death. Weep for the hundreds of thousands, including Christians, who are being killed by crucifixion or beheading, or hounded out of their homes, fleeing as refugees. Weep for 35000 square kilometres with hardly a Christian left. This is the land from where Christianity spread to the rest of the world. Even in India, we have thousands who call themselves 'Syrian Christians'
I am a member, together with these suffering Christians, of the same body. "If one member suffers, all suffer together (1Cor 12:26). Lord, show me what I can do to either help them, or 'share in their suffering'!
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Philip Yancey remembers and honors Paul Brand at CMC, Vellore.
For those who did not have the opportunity to attend the Ida Scudder Oration this year....
I found these talks by Pauline Brand and Philip Yancey (as they honored one of my heroes, Paul Brand) inspiring, and incredibly relevant to the practice of medicine even today. Do take the time to watch this.
I found these talks by Pauline Brand and Philip Yancey (as they honored one of my heroes, Paul Brand) inspiring, and incredibly relevant to the practice of medicine even today. Do take the time to watch this.
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