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July 27, 2007
Live From London
Greetings from the capital of the world!
I can't remember how to get in to my email from a remote location, so I will use my blog as a means of communication. If anyone from the office reads this please leave a comment with the address. Also, if anyone from music team reads this, please copy and send this in an email to the rest of the team.
We've had a challenging trip so far. Mostly from the constant traveling around the city we've been doing. We are all suffering from an almost constant state of motion sickness. This week we have already visited a Hindu temple, a Sikh gudwara, and a Muslim mosque. We spent an afternoon hanging out at the Hatch's house, eating kebab and jumping on their trampoline. We spent a few hours going door-to-door, inviting people to the church and taking a survey about the spiritual and physical needs in the community. We went on a prayer walk around a mall that was in the center of one of the neighborhoods. The worship has been very energetic and enthusiastic. We are working on a Punjabi style arrangement of "David's Dance".
Today is our day off. Sarah and I are visiting with her parents and are going to spend the day doing something fun with Joanna. The rest of our team is going in to Central London to see the sites.
Joanna is having a blast this week. She has been a little hard at times to take care of, but overall she has not caused too much distraction thanks to the Hatches and Sarah's parents. Yesterday, Sarah's mom took Joanna in the morning, and then Joanna (who was only just recently weened) stayed over night with her "Gigi". What a blessing for Sarah and I!
Please pray for Sarah who has felt sick for the entire trip. Please pray for our team as we continue to go in to the community with book tables and door-to-door surveys for a few more days.
Praise God:
1. Our team has a great sense of unity and we love hanging out and laughing together.
2. We are all excited about what we are learning and experiencing and we have all expressed a desire to apply what we've learned to our context at home.
3. The worship has been very free and easy with great joy.
Cheers!
Posted by Kirk Ward at 9:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 18, 2007
How Jesus' Love Captured My Selfish Heart
As a child, my parents and my community taught me many things about who God is and about His holy scriptures. They gave me strong morals and raised me to respect others, to honor and obey, and to live my life as a demonstration of worship to God. They also taught me about Jesus Christ and about his death and resurrection. I believed that this was true, and I accepted that this story was my salvation from spiritual death.
When I became a young man, I started to realize that even though I had all of these moral values I had a very poor record of living those morals out. I usually cared more about myself than others, and I lived a lifestyle of self-love and self-worship instead of a lifestyle of love and worship for God. I began to read the Bible and pray every day, but I was still unable to live the way I wanted to. I seemed to be unable to control myself. I began to wonder why it mattered that I live a moral life, what the meaning of my existence was, and why a holy creator God would care about whether I was moral. I began to create intellectual justifications for violating God’s law even though I claimed to be his worshiper.
During those years, some men who were leaders in my church began to give me training in God’s word combined with spiritual and emotional counseling. They opened my eyes to see how much of my life was filled with inconsistency about what I claimed to believe and how I chose to live. This made me very depressed and filled me with fear about what God might think about me. However, they also began to show me how Jesus death and resurrection had accomplished more than protection from spiritual death. It had also given me an eternal citizenship in the kingdom of God, a kingdom that was not a just future hope, but a present reality. His death represented a divine act of love done on my behalf, planned from the beginning of time, for the purpose of restoring my heart to the true worship of God. I began to see how the purpose of my existence was to worship God and the reason for living a moral life was to be restored to the true glory for which I was created. Jesus life, death and resurrection were God’s plan for fulfilling His own legal requirements by perfectly obeying His laws, by dying the death of a evil man to be substitute for me, and by returning from death, defeating the power of death over me. I stopped trying to just live a moral life, and I began to focus on the love that Jesus had already demonstrated to me.
Today, I understand that even though I still fail to love God with my whole life Jesus Christ has given me the gift of his perfect record, the gift of his resurrected life, the gift of his receiving the judgment of God in my place. Jesus loves me! Jesus is so much more than a moral teacher, prophet, or religious guru. He is the physical manifestation of the love God has for me. His love is for you also, if you will stop creating your own justifications for your self-worship and humbly cry out to God for help.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 1:08 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 12, 2007
Courage
Yesterday, I witnessed a uncomfortable situation. I was riding my bike and I saw a man yelling and cursing at a woman out on the front lawn of a house that I ride past. He had her arms in a tight grip and I could see that she was crying. I knew that this man was in a rage and that he was getting violent. I circled around. I knew that I had to pass by to get home, but I was afraid to step in and do something. I knew that she was in danger of his rage, and I knew that she needed someone to help her.
I am not a violent man, but I have been assaulted before and it's not something I would want to repeat. I know that I am not much good in a fight because I am not very strong or fast or smart about fighting. So when I was trying to decide what to do I knew I could either ride away ignoring them, or I could approach the man and get beat-up. I could hear him in my head already, "Why don't you keep on riding and mind your own business or do you want me to beat your ass, too?"
In the heat of the moment, I decided to ride back around the corner where there was a police officer and ask him to check it out. After speaking with the police officer, I rode back around the corner and they were gone. Maybe they saw me staring and took their domestic dispute inside.
It made me think about my Lord Jesus. He didn't run from the fight. He didn't think about his own safety first. He placed his body in the path of the just wrath of the Father. I didn't deserve to rescued, but Jesus laid down his life for me.
Last night, I felt pretty cowardly. Why can't I be like Bruce Willis or John Wayne? I felt emasculated and weak. Hanging out with the team that is going to London with me helped me to refocus my heart. This verse from "Before the Throne Of God Above" says it all:
When Satan temps me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
who made an end of all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me
What would you have done?
Posted by Kirk Ward at 2:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 6, 2007
This Is NOT Spinal Tap, but pretty close
I'm not familiar with Iron Maiden's work, but in this clip they sound a little too much like Spinal Tap.
In case you never saw the movie:
Posted by Kirk Ward at 1:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 5, 2007
Stuff Going On
What's going on these days?
Reading:
The Gospel of John- What a refreshing read! "I am the way, the truth, the life, the living water, the bread of life, the resurrection..."
A Wrinkle In Time- my first time reading this children's classic.
With One Voice- Reggie Kidd's book about Psalm 22. I'm going to hang out with him a week from this Saturday at a STL Worship Reformed Network BBQ, so I figured I should read his book first.
Listening:
Freddie Hubbard- Here To Stay
Los Lonely Boys
John Mayer- Continuum
Movies:
Miss Potter- cute, but why did they take Ewan's mustache off of the cover?
The Shooter- ah, the old faithful action flick
Music and Lyrics- I just bought it for Sarah to add to our growing Romantic comedy collection.
New toy:
M-Audio Black Box- it's a digital amp modeler/effects processor, drum machine, and digital recording USB interface. wicked!
On my mind:
London Evangelism and Prayer Conference- t minus 17 days till departure
iPods- so cool, but would I actually use it?
Joanna's heart- she can form simple sentences, but is she ready to learn about God who is invisible and omniscient?
Posted by Kirk Ward at 12:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack