Here’s a great opportunity for some summer fun and learning too! Calling all youth (ages 12 to 18 years)!!! Sign up now for the very first youth worship arts camp called “Reveal,” June 14-16, 2012, here at Blue Ridge. Reveal is designed to help youth learn more about different areas of the arts in which God may have already gifted them and “reveal” ways to learn more and use these talents to worship Him. It’s two and a half days of worshiping God together with professional musicians, artists and other youth, learning more in the areas of dance, music, art or video. Participants also will have opportunities to meet like-minded people and share talents together. Go to revealworshipcamp.com for more information and to register today!! (more…)

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This month the Community Builder (CB) highlights are on using the calendars and online giving, and accessing CB through your smart phone or other wireless devices. (more…)

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Have you checked out our church’s “team effort” known as Blue Ridge Community Builder? Just go to brbible.ccbchurch.com and get going. (more…)

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I’d like to post links from time to time that are interesting or thought provoking … at least for me! Hopefully they will be helpful in some way to you. I’ll put in the title, author, and a short comment. Please don’t assume I fully endorse everything that I link to here. Got a suggested link? Funny or serious? Send it to me at [email protected]

Confronting the Influence of Darwin – Hank Hanegraaff — Can the twentieth century be understood fully outside of an understanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution?

Self-Control in a Wired World – Joshua Harris — Best line: “A little web surfing, a little Facebook, a little folding of the hands around the smart phone and spiritual poverty will come upon you like a robber.”

Five Ways to Feel Scripture – Jared Wilson — Number one is “Interpret before you apply”! That is huge. Too often we start with, “What does this passage mean to you?”

The Gospel, Anger, and Romans 13 – Jay Younts — This is a very challenging article for me personally. What are we most concerned about? What is our priority? Public policy activism is good but are we seeking to love ourselves through it or love God and love our neighbor through it?

Weighty Words [from C.S. Lewis] on the Meaning of a Husband’s Headship – John Piper — Best line: “No relationship is more clearly commanded to model the death of Christ. No relationship is more costly—in both senses of that word (painful and precious).”

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BibleMap.org looks like a great free resource! Sometimes it makes it a lot easier to follow along with a narritive part of scripture if you have a map as a reference. You can’t get a good personal application from scripture if you haven’t rightly interpretted it and you can’t effectively interpret it if you haven’t made observations first. So we start by observing what the text says, then we interpret what it means, and finally we apply it to life today. Bible maps are a good resource for helping us at the observation stage of Bible study.

With BibleMaps.org you can pull up books and chapters of the Bible from either the ESV or KJV versions and the map will show you the location of places mentioned in the text. Pretty slick. Check out BibleMap.org and add it to your bookmarks!

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One of my daily-read blogs linked to this helpful Christian article on movies: Motion Picture Messages. It explains five ways movies communicate a message.

1. Imagery
2. Story
3. Dialogue
4. Identification of Heroes
5. Overall Composition

Very helpful to read as the summer blockbuster season starts. Not that we can’t go to the movies, but we should be aware of the messages being preached rather than blindly absorbing it. We should also be able to answer some basic questions of the films we watch:

1. What is the overal message of the film?
2. Is that message consistent with God’s Word? Why or why not?
3. Does it correctly identify (maybe even just partially) the condition of man and his need for saving? If so, what is the savior it provides?

Read the article and think about it with the next movie you watch.

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