What We're Reading this Summer

Pastor Eric Channing is reading . . .
Indwelling Sin in Believers by John Owen
The Pastor and Counseling by Jeremy Pierre & Deepak Reju
The Effective Executive by Peter Druker
Grit by Angela Duckworth

Pastoral Resident John Supica is reading . . .
Here I Stand by Roland Bainton (biography of Martin Luther)
How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament by Jason DeRouchie
How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andy Naselli
12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You by Tony Reinke
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Pastor Tommy Johnston lists these books . . .
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Bowler
Fallen: A Theology of Sin by Christopher W. Morgan, Robert A. Peterson
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson
Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick

And Pastor Zach Fallon is reading . . .
The Case for Psalms by N.T. Wright
The Pastor and Counseling by Jeremy Pierre and Deep Reju
Pursuing Peace by Robert D. Jones
Trained in the Fear of God by Randy Stinson and Timothy Paul Jones
Family Ministry Field Guide by Timothy Paul Jones
The Vine Project by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne (reading with the HYACKs leadership team)
Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (along with HYACKs ministry associates)
Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (with his five-year-old son)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (says Zach, "my wife and I are slowly working through the series")

How Can You Sing a New Song? by Lorraine Triggs

After reading about William Cowper, I wrote this poem.

How can you sing a new song

when the old one is stuck in your head?

When lyrics of disappointment mark your soul like grooves on an old LP. 

How can you sing a new song

when you have no idea of how to mute the old one

that replays fears and insecurities?

How can you sing a new song

when your heart is off key?

How can you sing a new song?

When you join with angels and saints and creatures

and sing

Worthy is the One

Worthy is the Lamb

That's how you sing a new song.

In The Beginning by Alyssa Carlburg

In song, Aslan bade the Land of Narnia give birth

To creatures and wonders beyond the mind's girth.

Each person and beast was given place in the realm

To fight against Evil with the Lion at the helm.

And after giving their lives to achieve victory,

They found true Life in Aslan's own Country.

Middle Earth, too, was crafted in melody and song

By Eru Ilúvatar and his angelic throng. 

And though Melkor sought to subdue it with his dark trill,

Eru only used these notes to realize his own mighty will.

Great wisdom and power were given to the Elves,

But to Men, Eru gave the gift of eternity with himself.

Our own Earth was called into being by God's voice,

And whether or not to listen is our greatest choice.

Aslan and Eru are mere shadows of our King,

Who will neither withhold or deny us any good thing.

His love and everlasting Kingdom will meet every desire

As we worship our Triune Lord in the Heavenly choir.

With their myths, Lewis and Tolkien show us the way

To see God's majesty and beauty in our lives each day.

For in their worlds, our minds are inspired by joy and calamity,

But these are mere stories, and how much greater is our reality!

Like Aslan and Eru, Christ's voice leads us along,

And it is our joy to respond in worship, and in song.

Digging by Cheryce Berg

Cheryce first posted this on her blog, Hope and Be:Longing, which she describes as "stories of hope, belonging and longing."

I’m out back behind the shed, sitting on a pile of dirt. I did a snake check before I sat, not that there ever are snakes but there was one, once, in my garage, and if I were him this back corner of the yard is where I’d take a morning nap. And I don’t want to be the one to wake him up.

I’m between a tipped over wheelbarrow, two lime green kayaks, a log pile half un-covered, a pale garden hose, an empty trailer, and a cracked black tarp. I’m feeling out of sorts back here, thinking I might organize it differently, or at all. If you even can organize that place behind the shed, maybe freshen it up a bit.

I’m not a gardener and I don’t pretend to be, which is obvious if you take a peek at what I’m doing. Repotting sideways pale plants from my kitchen windowsill who are dying a slow death because they were trying to survive while tipped over in their too-big pots with barely enough dirt covering their roots to be modest. And if they weren’t cacti to start with they’d be long gone.

But I’m not mired by the dirt and disorder and dying cacti because the morning June sun shines brightly on my face as I dig with my spade, and I pause to look up and pray.

I’m thirsty for prayer, to focus the eyes of my heart away from the dirt and up to the light. My heart carries the news of more than one friend who is facing her own pile of dirt behind the shed, filled with scraps and weeds and things tipped over. Messy, broken, lonely pain in so many lives—it all gets poured out before the Lord Jesus as I sit here in the dirt.

I pray for the mamas whose hearts are breaking, whose children are aching and chasing after the wind. I pray for the wives whose tears go unseen, whose weariness runs deep. I pray for the lonely who wish they were wives or mamas and aren’t.

I pray for these friends who may have lost sight of hope, that the sun would break through and shine on them, too, out back on their own piles of dirt. That they, too, would feel the morning breeze, the breath of their Creator, on their cheeks and look up instead of down at the mess and mire underneath them.

I trudge back inside, carrying my newly repotted cacti who gaze up at me, hopeful. And I dig some more, this time at my kitchen table and into the Psalms, to find words of hope now to revive my friends.

I read Psalm 18:19, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.” And in the same Psalm, verse 28, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.”

And I dig out this hope and repot it in my words, that I might use it to encourage my friends when I have the chance. I glance out the window again at the shed and the sun, and notice I can’t see the pile of dirt from here at my kitchen table while digging up hope in the Psalms.

Follow Cheryce's blog.

Thanks for the Memories by Pat Cirrincione

The Cubs won the World Series last fall, and I cried tears of joy, exhilaration and sadness. Yes, sadness. My dad and I were huge Cub fans, and although I was really happy to see them win, I was sad that he was no longer here to share the excitement with me.

My dad was my hero. He was a World War ll veteran, an ex-medic in the Army. He had the gentlest touch in the world. If I fell, cut or accidentally burned myself while baking, the only one who I allowed to take care of me was Dad. He could clean a wound, bandage a cut or place salve on a burn with a feather's touch.

Dad was the one who taught me how to throw a baseball (hard ball, not soft), hit a ball, catch a ball and field a ball. He taught me how to roller skate, ice skate, go sledding and throw a mean snowball. I’m afraid as the oldest child, and the only girl with all boy cousins, he taught me that if a boy could do those things, so could his daughter.

I loved wearing blue jeans and gym shoes, not frilly dresses my mom longed to see me wear. One year at Christmas my mom and grandmother decided to buy me a walking, talking doll. One look at it on Christmas morning and I burst into tears. Where was the bat, ball and catcher's mitt I had requested of Santa. Santa was obviously not listening, and that poor doll never came out of its box until my younger sister was born.

Dad taught me to ice skate in a pair of his old racing skates, and my joy in the winter was running home from school, grabbing those skates and cajoling my younger brother into going to the flooded park that freezing weather had turned into a great skating rink.

Dad also taught me how to fish. I had my own wooden pole. I never could put a worm on the hook, much to his dismay. As I got older, and femininity took over, my love for sports never waned. He and I never missed an opening day at Wrigley Field. Those were the days. You could go down to the front row and even talk to the players while they were practicing. And tradition dictated that you never left the ball park without eating at least one hot dog, a box of Cracker Jacks, an ice cream bar and peanuts.

Dad and I not only went to Cubs games; we even went to see the White Sox, the Black Hawks and the Bears. We watched the Bulls on TV. He had the patience to teach me the intricacies of each sport—from RBIs, to hat tricks, to first downs, to the zone. Those were the best of times.

And if you think it was only about sports, it wasn’t. My dad loved musical theater and fancied himself a crooner like Bing Crosby. He taught me ballroom dancing and to love old and new musicals and all the music from his and Mom’s time. I especially fell in love with Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman (to name a few) and many others of that wonderful big band music era.

Our favorite movie to watch together was “An Affair to Remember,” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Cary Grant could say a million words without speaking . . . the story and feelings all in his eyes. And how we cried each time Cary discovered that Deborah Kerr had been crippled in a terrible accident the night they were to meet at the top of the Empire State Building.

Above all, Dad taught me that God was the one to turn to when times were tough—and there were many of those growing up in a family where hand-me-downs were the norm and sometimes not enough money for the groceries we needed. But there was always plenty of love of family. His most-quoted saying was: “Always treat others the way you would want to be treated, even if that other person is not very nice to you.” He practiced this each day of his life.

Such are the memories. My dad, my hero. My confidant, my mentor. The love of my mother’s life, and he hers. I miss them both every day, but am blessed that the Lord chose to place me in their lives, and I in theirs. Thanks for the memories, Dad!

Sojourners Song by Wil Triggs

Left the Faith by Lorraine Triggs

Through a series of emails and Facebook posts, my oldest sister connected with a second cousin from my mother's side of the family.

"I grew up hearing stories of how your mother left the faith," cousin Rebecca emailed. What? My mother left the faith? Not so fast, newly found cousin. My mother loved and followed Jesus from the first day she trusted him at age 40 till the day she entered his presence at age 92.

My cousin had a different take on my mother. Raised an Orthodox Jew, my mother left her faith when she married my father who was a Gentile; becoming an authentic Christian ten years later made little or no difference to my mother's family.

It was strange to hear my mother described as someone who had left the faith and that got me thinking about that phrase—left the faith.

From a global perspective, we rightly use that term to describe Muslims who choose to follow Jesus. The downside to leaving one's faith is alienation, persecution and death as these believers know so well.

From a personal perspective, our faces become somber, our voices hushed as we announce the sentence of death when we say that someone has, "left the faith." We wag our heads, ready to write off the person—all hope is gone; there's nothing we can do to bring them back to the fold. Is this the way my mother's family thought of her? Discouraged and weary, we close the door and walk away from the person who walked away from the faith.

First things first. God has already announced the death sentence on all we like sheep who have gone astray (sounds a lot like leaving the faith to me). Then, in an amazing display of grace, he goes after the lost sheep to bring it back to the fold. He is that straying sheep's only hope of rescue.

That ought to give us hope for straying sons (mine among them), daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, spouses, cousins and friends. Their salvation doesn't depend on us or what we did or didn't do. If we couldn't save ourselves, we surely can't save anyone else. The sheep walks away from the shepherd, but the shepherd follows, ever seeking to rescue the sheep.

As much as we would like to close the door and walk away from our beloved stray sheep, we might not have that option. God's kindness compels us to keep the door open, his grace nudges us to pull the sheep from the thicket (again and again) and his loving providence reminds us that salvation belongs to him alone.

For all those people we know and love who have left the faith, let's constantly and gently remind them that the door remains open and the path home is a straight line to Jesus.