new horizons

The Great Discovery

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:27:00 +0000

The following prayer is from a book titled, The Valley of Vision. It is a collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. I find it a wonderful resource for me at times when words in my faith journey fail me. The full collection can be found at the Banner of Truth website under devotions.

Glorious God,

I bless thee that I know thee.

I once lived in the world, but was ignorant

of its Creator,

was partaker of thy providences, but knew not

the Provider,

was blind while enjoying the sunlight,

was deaf to all things spiritual, with voices

all around me,

understood many things, but had no knowledge

of thy ways,

saw the world, but did not see Jesus only.

O happy day, when in thy love’s sovereignty

thou didst look on me, and call me by grace.

Then did the dead heart begin to beat,

the darkened eye glimmer with light,

the dull ear catch thy echo,

and I turned to thee and found thee,

a God ready to hear, willing to save.

Then did I find my heart at enmity to thee,

vexing thy Spirit;

Then did I fall at thy feet and hear thee thunder,

‘The soul that sinneth, it must die’,

But when grace made me to know thee,

and admire a God who hated sin,

thy terrible justice held my will submissive.

My thoughts were then as knives cutting my head.

Then didst thou come to me in silken robes of love,

and I saw thy Son dying that I might live,

and in that death I found my all.

My soul doth sing at the remembrance of

that peace;

The gospel cornet brought a sound unknown

to me before that reached my heart – and I lived –

never to lose my hold on Christ or his hold on me.

Grant that I may always weep to the praise of

mercy found,

and tell to others as long as I live,

that thou art a sin-pardoning God,

taking up the blasphemer and the ungodly,

and washing them from their deepest stain.

Deacon Video

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:13:00 +0000

Muslims and Christ

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Please join FBC McKinney as we welcome Jamal Lidawi to share about engaging Muslims with the gospel of Christ this Wednesday (10/7) at 7:30pm in the Fireside room after Ignite.

Jamal and his wife Merna have a heart to work with Muslims since their conversion. Born in the middle east, they both speak Arabic as their mother tongue. For many years they lived in London ministering to Arab Muslims. They are now working with various churches to disciple and to encourage leaders. They work full time with OC International, One Challenge, to equip Muslim Background Believers (MBBS) to multiply the Lords church throughout the Arab world.

Come Wednesday to hear how God is opening doors around the world for Christ. Jamal will share how a government legalized its first Muslim background believers church and gave her it's blessing to gather and function with a Christian foundation.

We look forward to seeing you this Wednesday.

Scare Away Hunger

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:35:00 +0000

Scare Away Hunger from Scare Away Hunger on Vimeo.

Ain't No Reason - Brett Dennen

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:08:00 +0000

Heard this song for the first time tonight on my run. Been a while since I have heard lyrics this good:

There aint no reason things are this way
Its how they always been and it tends to stay
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday
Preachers on the podeum speaking of saints
Prophets on the sidewalk begging for change
old ladies laughing from the fire escape cursing my name
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing
You can spend you whole life working for something,
Just to have it taken away
People walk aroun pushing back their debts
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and braceltes
Talking bout nothing, not thinking bout' death
Every little hearbeat, every little breath
People walk a tight rope
On a razors edge
Carrying their hurt and hatrid and weapons
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence

There Ain't no reason
Things are this way
It's how they've always been
and its tends to stay
I dont know why I say
The things that I say
But I say them anyway
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free yes.

Prison walls still standing tall
Some things never change at all
Keep on building prisons, gonna fill them all
Keep building bombs, gonna drop them all
Working young fingers bear to the bone
Breaking your back make you sell your soul
Like a lung its filled with cold, sufficating slow
The wind blows wild and I may move
The politions lie and i am not fooled
you don't need no reason or a three piece suit
To argue the truth
The air on my skin and the world under my toes
Labor is stiched into the fabric of my clothes
Chaos and comotion wherever I go
Love I try to follow

Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free yes.

There ain't no reason things are this way
Its how its always been and it tends to stay
I can't explain why we live this way,
We do it everyday.

Great Video from Ed Stezer

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:55:00 +0000

Not the greatest quality but the content is priceless!

Dallas Mission Trip 08.09

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Dallas Mission Trip

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Don't forget that the Dallas Mission Trip training is this Sunday, 8/9, at 12:30PM in the Fireside Room. For more information, click here.

To Be Known

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:01:00 +0000

There is a well circulated quote by Tozer which states, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Ones understanding of God determines everything about our orientation toward the world and more importantly those who we share this world with. Men and women who have been reflecting on God and His story as told through the Bible have focused on many different aspects of His character and nature.

Western Christianity has always struggled with reductionist tendencies. It became part of our worldview as a people during the industrial revolution. We began to understand how to use machines to help us produce things at a higher rate of return. The idea of efficiency and refinement for increased speed, precision, and production has become an integral part of our culture as a society and naturally the fabric of our churches. Discipleship principles, ideas, and systems where cultivated in this crucible.

With this focus, the way we have thought about God has encountered a change. God became an object to be examined and explained with His story as told in the Bible and church history providing the data from which we make our deductions. It flowed from a natural desire to understand the world in which we live and out of a cultural background of the scientific methods as a means to that knowledge.

The study of God, theology, was then systematized in light of the observations that where developed. This also led to developing hypotheses for the areas where data could not be substantiated or was unavailable. Over time these hypotheses were developed into systems and structures that often defined and explained the subject of God. In the midst of this, God became an object to be understood rather than someone to know in relationship.

I am becoming convinced that God is not meant to be known as an object or concept but in relationship. It is in the relational framework which He wants to be known and understood. It is in relational connection with God where we will find the deepest contentment with and understanding of Him.

As I think about the story of scripture, God did not give us cold data to understand but stories of Him developing His own relationship with people. He defines sin and it’s damage in relational terms. He moves toward people in relationship so that they in turn will mirror that relational pattern with others.

Then there is Christ. When it came time for the pinnacle of His relational interaction with man, He put on flesh and bone. He did not do this to give us more data to analyze but to give us a supreme understanding of who He is and how He wants to engage with us. This is then built on through the Holy Spirit’s role and presence with us.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we think He is just data, processes, or systems to be understood, wrestled with, or argued over, He becomes just knowledge to posses and conquer. But when we think of God as someone to be known and introduced to others, we have a treasured person in our lives.

Are you ready for some basketball?

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Join us for an exciting day of basketball, free inflatable games, some giveaways, and much more!

August 29th 2009 from 8am-5pm

Family FunZone 10am-2pm

Location: FBC Mckinney Children’s parking Lot

Hot Shot Competition
5 Registered Players will have a chance to Win $10,000 (18 or older)

From more information/volunteer or to register for the tournament, please visit our website at www.connect3on3.com\mckinney.

Evangelicals Engaging Emergent

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:37:00 +0000

I enjoy reading books that are from a collection of authors on the same topic. There is a freshness that is brought to every chapter as you seek to understand their perspective on the topic. With the topic of the emergent church movement, this technique is extremely helpful.

This book provided a balanced critique of the emergent church movement. The authors highlighted the frustrations that lead to the emergent movement. They then interact with their methodology and conclusions. The authors group the leaders of the emergent church movement, according to their own words and writings, into three groups:

* Relevants - updated methods with conservative theology
* Reconstructionists -stronger changes to church structures and methodology in regard to outreach and missions with a less stringent perspective on theology
* Revisionist - both methodology and theology are re-envisioned.

The authors are forthcoming with the realities that lead to the emergent movements creation. They also agree that these ligament concerns need to be addressed in order for us to fulfill God’s role for us as His people. They also highlight how the revisionists provide the least helpful response for a long term solution to the problems the current church is experiencing.

There are two weak chapters in the book. The first is the critique of morality in the emergent church movement in the chapter titled, “The Corinthian Matrix.” While a critique of this nature is important, Akin’s choice for a sample case leaves room for some criticism.

The other weak chapter was on the role of expository lectures as the primary means of spiritual development in the chapter, “To Preach or Not to Preach.” The role of interaction of God’s truth as we have in the Bible is crucial to spiritual development. But to say that preaching is the best way to create a culture of spiritual development falls short. It is just one aspect to an overall environment in which spiritual growth takes place.

I would encourage church leaders and congregants to invest in reading Evangelicals Engaging Emergent for the valued interaction that can occur as one wrestles with how God may be leading His church.

Glocal Mission Project (Global + Local)

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:08:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to go to a global mission project but can’t afford the cost financially or time? On August 15, from 8:00am to 5:00pm there will be a one day mission project to Bhutanese refugees. Most have lived in refugee camps for 18 years and have little knowledge about how to take care of their apartments. We are going to supply them with cleaning supplies and help clean their apartments as we show them how to keep their surroundings clean. This is a great trip for ages 12 and up. There will be an orientation and training time on August 9, at 12:30pm in the Fireside Room. Register online to attend. For more information contact John Shapiro at john.shapiro@fbcmckinney.com.

Register

Living by the Book Correlation

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:58:00 +0000

Here is the last set of power point slides from the Living by the Book class. There is no audio for this class.

Living bythe Book Correlation

View more documents from John Shapiro.

The Unlikely Disciple

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:46:00 +0000

The story that Kevin Roose unpacks in The Unlikely Disciple is a challenging exploration in the subculture of fundamental Christian education. In his brutally honest and grace filled narrative, he tells the story of his semester long involvement at Liberty University. He completely jumps into the experience including prayer groups, joining the choir, meeting for discipleship, and even sharing his “faith” on a beach evangelism trip. Through it all he gives thoughtful critic of this new lifestyle.

It was extremely convicting to read Roose’s account. I was forced to asked questions about the way I look at following Christ, discipleship, and how we communicate and interact with the world around us. I am grateful for the gift of this book to both the evangelical community and to those who disagree with us. This should be required reading for all church and ministry leaders.

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:11:00 +0000

This is a great video I got from http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com/2009/06/questions-letter-to-god.html. Think well...

Matthew Paul Turner-On Questions from Cross Point Church on Vimeo.

Living by the Book Application

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Here are the class notes and audio from Living by the Book Study on Application:

Living bythe Book Application

View more documents from John Shapiro.

Creativity in Caring

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:02:00 +0000

This video came from the Good Will Hinton Website. It is about how a desire to care for others combined with creative thinking lead to a new way of caring for those in need.

What does this tell us?

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:36:00 +0000

This is the lead sentence from the Orlando Sentential On-line. What do you think this can tell us about the way people search and process infromation?

"An estimated 2 million people a day look for God on Google."

'Religion Surfers' look for God on the Web

Living by the Book Interpretation

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:08:00 +0000

Here are the notes and audio from the third lesson on interpretation:

Living bythe Book Interpretation

View more OpenOffice presentations from John Shapiro.

The de-churched issue

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:21:00 +0000

This is one of the best descriptions I have heard for the reason people leave the church:

Big Wins

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:10:00 +0000

But it just doesn’t work that way. What we’ve learned is that the big wins come from a long series of small wins, accumulated over time. And small wins come from experienced insight and hard work. And it has to be the type of hard work that a company is willing and able to perform. Not pie-in-the-sky goals without any mechanism for implementing.

Bagging the Conversion Elephant

Response to Faith Undone by Roger Oakland

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:46:00 +0000

In Faith Undone, Roger Oakland seeks to build a case that a group of leaders seeking to change the church in order to minister the grace of Christ to a younger generation are actually leading the church into apostate. He identifies key leaders in the movement known as the emerging church and then builds a case of their desires not coming from the Word of God but from other influences such as New Age, Far Eastern belief systems, and Catholicism. He quotes directly from the individuals of the emerging movment and seeks to link them together in a spiritual coup of end time proportions.

One of the central problems Oakland sees in the emerging movement is a drift from the Word of God. He laments the worship services these leaders create that do not have a central time in their gathering for an expositional lecture directly from the text. He rightly lifts up the gift we have through the Reformation of God’s Word in our language. As a secondary, but equally disconcerting concern to Oakland, is the movement away from identifying sin and a calling for confrontational repentance. There is also a concern for the inclusive position of some of those who have written for the emergent perspective.

As Oakland identifies, the emergent movement is too broad to list all the people involved. However, he does try to state the underlying belief system to the movement. I would have to disagree with this perspective. Each one of the writers do so from a variety of theological perspectives and training. They do agree on the necessity to reevaluate the form and style of the church. However they are far from unified in a statement of faith or core of what it means to practice an emergent faith. This has left some to comment that the emergent movement may already be a mute point because there was never a consensus of what they believed or how to accomplish it.

God, through the Bible, has given us a wonderful collection of writings containing the record and revelation of God’s interaction with man. In that collection, we begin to understand the unchangeable God has always dealt with man in a wonderful montage of ways. The central theme of man’s interaction with God has been faith based on what God has revealed. This is a dividing line of faith. But the question remains, is there a constant belief system in the emerging camp that places them outside this faith community or is it a group of people seeking to follow Christ and call His Bride to better reflect Her beloved.

It is my understanding as a community of those who are trusting in Christ that we are to reflect Him to the world around us. Christ did not come in a cultural removed expression but came as a Middle Eastern Jewish man. He was fully integrated in the faith practices of the Jewish community. He worshiped at the temple and in the synagogues. He did however lead gathering outside those Jewish environments. The New Testament record makes it clear that these were many times interactive and even multi-sensory.

Even though He did participate in traditional worship experiences for the community of faith at that time, He did not do so without criticism of the establishment. He would rebuke the Pharisees for their neglecting God’s law because of their man made rules (for one example see Matthew 15:1-14). He also ministered to those who were outside this community of faith and even held them up as the example for us to follow (for one example see Matthew 8:10).

The early church wrestled with the reality of a timeless and changeless God working in new and different ways. As the reality of Christ and His message began to spread through the first century world, men and women began to put their faith in Christ and the question about how would they integrate into the current community of faith became a pressing issue. Acts 15 is one of the lynch pin moments for this question. The community of faith needed to answer the question if Gentiles had to become Jewish before they could be considered true believers in “the Way.” The answer was “No!” There were guidelines for how they could help their Jewish brethren to not stumble in their following of Christ but they did not have to take on the traditions and practices of the Jewish community to follow Christ.

Paul, as he spread the good news of the wonder and work of Christ, went to both Jewish communities as well as Gentile environments to communicate the work of God. He did not ask the Gentile’s to come to the Jewish communities but would go to both (many times after the Jews had rejected him). When he went to the Gentiles, he would begin his interactions about Christ by finding a cultural bridge (Acts 17:16-34 is a classic example) and from that point of connection call them to Christ.

We understand that God is timeless and changeless from His revelation of His character. But from Adam to Abraham, from David to Daniel, from Jesus to today, He has been working at drawing godless men and women into a relationship with Himself and then conforming their lives to follow Him in different ways. That is a messy process and we are all incomplete in this process. It is important that we listen well to those inside and outside the community of faith who might help us see the error in our ways and help us better follow Christ.

For a well done descriptions of the different emergent leaders, click here.

Living by the Book Observation

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:53:00 +0000

Here are the slides and recording from week 2 of Living by the Book:

Living by the Book Observation

View more OpenOffice presentations from John Shapiro.

Quote of the Day for 6.15.09

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:37:00 +0000

Karl Marx famously spoke of religion as the opium of the people. He supposed that oppressive rulers would use the promise of a joyful future life to try to stop the masses from rising in revolt. That has indeed often been the case. But my impression is that religion is an 'opium' when the religion in question includes the Platonic downgrading of bodies and of "the created order in general, regarding them as the "vain shadows" of earth, which we happily leave behind at death. Why try to improve the present prison if release is at hand? Why oil the wheels of a machine that will soon plunge over a cliff?

That is precisely the effect created to this day by some devout Christians who genuinely believe that "salvation" has nothing to do with the way the present world is ordered. By contrast, it has often been observed that the robust Jewish and Christian doctrine of the resurrection, as part of God's new creation, gives more value, not less, to the present world and to our present bodies. What these doctrines give, both in classic Judaism and in classic Christianity, is a sense of continuity as well as discontinuity between the present world (and the present state), and the future, whatever it shall be, with the result that what we do in the present matters enormously. Paul speaks of the future resurrection as a major motive for treating our bodies properly in the present time (I Corinthians 6:14), and as the reason not for sitting back and waiting for it all to happen but for working hard in the present, knowing that nothing done in the Lord, in the power of the Spirit, in the present time will be wasted in God's future (I Corinthians
15:58)….

Resurrection, by contrast, has always gone with a strong view of God's justice and of God as the good creator. Those twin beliefs give rise not to a meek acquiescence to injustice in the world but to a robust determination to oppose it. English evangelicals gave up believing in the urgent imperative to improve society (such as we find with Wilberforce in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries) about the same time that they gave up believing robustly in resurrection and settled for a disembodied heaven instead. It would take a longer study than this one to see whether the same shift happened at the same time in the United States and elsewhere, but I would not be surprised to find that it did. We shall come back to this crucial theme toward the end of the book.

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright

VBS Help Needed

JohnTShapiro@gmail.com (John Shapiro) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Melissa let me know that they need about 10 more volunteers for VBS. I was wondering if you might be willing to help. Here are the needs. Please contact Children's Ministry for more information.

We need the following:
2 volunteers in 4 year olds
2 volunteers in Pre-K
2 volunteers in Kindergarten
2 volunteers in 1st grade
2 volunteers in 2nd grade