Dealing with Disappointment

You ever put a lot of time and effort building something only to see it fall flat on its face when put into action? Ever prayed, and prayed, and prayed for a deep desire to come true, only to have that moment pass without any movement, at least in the way you were hoping? Put a lot of work into a relationship only to get nothing back? I know you have, because we all have. […]

We can learn quite a bit about who we are and, more importantly, about our God and His grace in those moments. What is our hope, our peace, our comfort? Why do these kinds of events leave us in such melancholy?

Read more as Rev. Ben Glaser dissects the disappointed heart in, “Why Do We Seek to Serve the Lord?”

Delighting in the Lord’s Day

The Jews of Jesus day made a similar mistake regarding the Sabbath. They’d taken one of God’s choicest gifts, divinely designed for man’s deepest blessing, and wrapped it in the barbed-wire of their legalism. They’d twisted the day of rest into the day of running a gauntlet of manmade rules. We’re prone to do the same. Do you see the Sabbath as a day of precious privileges or painful prohibitions? Do you delight in the Sabbath or dread it?John 5:9-17 presents a stark contrast between a pharisaical and faithful view of the Lord’s Day and shows that the Lord’s Day is a gift.

Read on as Jim McCarthy encourages us to “call the Sabbath a delight.”

Head and Heart: What God Has Joined, Let No Man Separate

In the Bible, the heart is not just where people have emotions. It’s also where they think. In a good translation of Scripture, you will often hear about the thoughts of the heart. It’s a holistic way of talking: it unites thoughts and feelings in a single whole by putting them together in the same place, rather than cutting them apart and locating them in different compartments—thoughts in the head, feelings in the heart. The Bible evidently wants us to realize that our thinking and feeling always go together.

[…]

One consequence of this biblical habit of speech is that Scripture never tries to find a way to bring head and heart together. There would be no point to it. We already think, feel, desire, and understand in one and the same place. Call it the heart—though you can also call it the spirit or soul or indeed mind or kidneys if you wish.

[…]

What I am suggesting is that we never have to make the effort to bring our thoughts and feelings together because they were never separate in the first place. The problems we have about head and heart today, both in education and Christian discipleship, arise mainly from bad habits of speech. We talk as if our thinking originates in a place different from our feelings, and that makes it hard to notice what’s really going on in our hearts. We overlook the way our thinking is always affected by our feelings—sometimes driven by them—and also the way our feelings are stirred up by our thoughts. If we adopted more biblical habits of speech, we would have a better understanding of ourselves, our hearts and minds, and our moral lives.

More on this at Modern Reformation: The Thoughts of the Heart

I'm in a good church. So why am I lonely and what can I do?

The need for intimate relationships is not new, nor are the challenges for gaining them. To form, sustain, and grow close friendships, it has always required lots of tenacity over lots of time. Now add to that technology-driven culture shifts (example) that have made community building difficult, along with the loss of role models and helpful cultural norms, and making close friends is even harder today.

Combining the results of both studies, [professor Jeffery Hall] estimated it takes between 40 and 60 hours to form a casual friendship, 80-100 hours to transition to being a friend and more than 200 hours together to become good friends.

If you use your time wisely, that’s about 1,280 church coffee breaks, on the low end.

But despite the challenges, having close friends is still important. People with healthy, close friendships live longer, are wealthier, get sick less, and have better mental health. As Augustine taught, friendship is essential for life and many others would testify to this: David and Jonathan, Basil and Gregory, Chrysostom and Olympias, John Cassian and Germanus, John Calvin and William Farel, Olympia Fulvia Morata and Lavinia della Rovere, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein. Here’s what Ambrose has to say...

Read the full article, includes helpful tips.

Should We Read the Bible Literally?

And can Pastor Chelpka answer this question without mentioning about postmodernism or literary theory? Let's find out.

I think the answer to this question is found in another question:

Do you want people to take you literally?

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The key here is intentions. We want to be heard in the way we intend to be heard. The same is true for God. When God is telling us history in the Bible, we should take it as history. When God is telling us a parable, we should take it as a parable.

Read the full blog post for more.

Tackle Temptation: 8 Tips

What are some effective ways to fight temptation? How can you stay strong against sin, even when you feel weak? Here's a list of things you can do. Learn these and put them into practice!

1. Start praying fervently.

In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. (Ps. 18:6)

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Ps. 34:17)

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. (Ps. 145:18)

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt. 26:41)

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Rom. 8:26)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Phil. 4:6)

Read the full blog post on BCL for all eight scripture-based strategies.

In the last newsletter, I invited you to read a couple books before the Autumn update, which is coming out in a couple weeks. The books were A Little Book on the Christian Life by John Calvin and Holy Helps for a Godly Life by Richard Rogers.

If you participated, would you be willing to share something you're learning, possibly to include in the next edition of the newsletter?

If so, tell me about something that made an impression on you or changed you in some way. What do you want to keep carrying with you into the future?

Perhaps God will use what he's teaching you to help someone else.

Dear Covenant Family and Friends,

As our dry summer turns into our wet summer, let's take a moment to review the last six months. Here are just a few highlights from Covenant.

• Improved Communication: To strengthen our relationships and service together, the elders met with all five fellowship groups and nineteen mission teams before the quarantine; the church adopted a new internal communication system; and with this email, we have relaunched Covenant Chronicle.

• Morning Prayer: Covenant introduced Morning Prayer, an online gathering in which we pray, meditate on the Bible, and then pray again. So far we have prayed through 1 & 2 Thessalonians, half of 1 Samuel, and almost all of 2 Samuel.

• New Members: Through ongoing discipling, we were able to rejoice in the reception of five new communicant members.

• Covenant Helps Team: Under the guidance of the session, the CHT was formed to provide practical training for future ordained leaders and help meet the material needs of Covenant. Please pray that God will grow the seed of the Helps Team into the tree of an ordained diaconate.

A note on finances