How Not to Study
With a wife going to grad school now and myself having already been through that particular wringer, often our evening discussions held in our study (which I endearingly call “the war room”) eventually revolve around the subject of studying. What to study. When to study. Where to study. How to study. Why study? Often these questions revisit us like an unwelcome teenage pop song on the radio. Rarely do I have any useful advice. By God’s good grace to you, however, U.S. News and World Reports kindly asked two profs on their tips to effective studying. Glean what you can. Enjoy. And a happy fall break to those of you on vaca!
For many students, the biggest difference between college and high school is studying: In college, you’re really supposed to be doing it. But many beginning college students have habits and strategies that not only don’t help their studying but actually thwart it. For them, we offer our best ideas for what not to do if you’re going to ace your college studying.
U.M. Retreat |Recovering Our Pursuit of God| Oct. 16-18th
There are certain milestones in each of our lives that have the ability to re-direct the course of our futures. A deep encounter with the living God is the ultimate milestone which not only directs our future but also has the ability to redeem and restore our past.
Join us for a weekend in Middleton, Rhode Island as we explore the idea of “Recovering our Pursuit of God.” For 2.5 days we’ll journey together, both corporately and in times of personal reflection, seeking a God who promises He can be found!
We hope that a full weekend with other students from Citylife will provide you with new friends, a respite from campus, and an opportunity to spiritually re-charge. We’ll spend Saturday afternoon in historic Newport, RI, even enjoying their famous “Seafood Festival” over lunch!
When: October 16-18 (Friday night thru Sunday morning)
Where: Middleton, RI
Cost: $60 (all checks can be written to “Citylife Church”)
Departure Date/Place/Time: Fri, 10/16, Radisson Hotel, 6:30PM.
Return Date/Place/Time: Sun, 10/18, Radisson Hotel, for Crossroads at 2PM.
Accommodations are provided by the Middleton Courtyard Marriott. Breakfasts Saturday and Sunday are provided. Lunch and dinner on Saturday are “on your own.”
Depth: The Platform For Growth
The glory of God is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. It is his life which sets the pattern for humble obedience, it is his death which guarantees sins are forgiven, and it is his resurrection which secures our eternal position within the fold and family of God.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) While the glory of God is that which man cannot look upon and live, we have seen the glory of Jesus, the only Son, equal in weight and substance with the Father, and we’re still breathing! The life and work of Jesus confirms that God has not revealed himself to destroy us. Rather He’s revealed himself to redeem us. Grace has been offered, and it is this grace which becomes the starting point for a dynamic pursuit of God, a God who promises He will be found.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Mt. 7:7-8)
True discipleship is never easy. When Jesus gave his invitation to the 12, he did not attempt to mask the cost: “Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” (Luke 9:23) Jesus could have lied…he could have said discipleship is easy, it’s comfortable, that it affords you the luxuries of life. Instead he warned his men of the weight of total commitment. He asked them to consider the cost, for what discipleship demanded was every dream, every goal, every aspiration, the very life of the person whom would answer the call to “carry a cross.”
Jesus’ call echoes to us. It is no less clear, no less radical, and no less dangerous than it was 2000 years ago. But what echoes along with the “summons unto death” is the promise of help. In John 14 Jesus addresses the 12 again. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Discipleship is not your commitment to seek God, though it is at least that. Discipleship is not your personal battle against sin and idolatry, though it is at least that. Discipleship is not even a resolved will to die unto self and to live unto Christ, though it is at least that. Discipleship is first and foremost an encounter with Christ through his Holy Spirit, the Helper, a Spirit who makes his dwelling in the hearts and minds of those who receive him by faith. It is this Helper who makes discipleship even a possibility! Without this gift and grace, our hearts would remain unmoved and lodged in sin.
Discipleship is first and foremost a personal, vital, and intimate relationship with the living God- which prompts you to commitment, which prompts you to battle, which prompts you toward holy resolve. Discipleship is about cultivating and strengthening a personal relationship with God through Christ, a relationship which guides, directs, and influences everything else you touch.
More celebration!
For more info contact: college@citylifeboston.org
For more info
July 4th Picnic
Photos are up! Check out the whole album: Annual Citylife July 4th Picnic Photos.
The Commitment to a Contextualized Gospel
What is the greatest, most crying need in the American church today?
“I believe the greatest need for today’s American church is for its individual members to make a radical commitment to the centrality of the Gospel as Christ’s finished work for every aspect of their life and mission. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened (Eph 1.18) in order to savor the supremacy of Christ in all things and to move away from anything that chokes or blinds our ability to value his worth and glory. Jesus perfectly lived the life that we should have lived by transferring his righteousness to his people so that our religious piety or social morality would be exposed for what it is, a form of self-salvation. The church needs to be aware of her tendency to focus on secondary, peripheral issues, that is addressing behavioristic symptoms, rather than on central issues of historic confessional Christianity, namely justification by faith alone on Jesus perfect record which gives us a vital relationship with a Holy God. The crying need in our churches is for prophetic voices to expose the limitations of all other cultural worldviews (e.g. traditional, modern, or postmodern) while offering an ultimate satisfaction and substitutionary redemption which frees us from all kinds of enslavement. The confidence and humility which Christ’s righteousness provides will enable us to embrace this incarnational responsibility to be secure with ourselves while loving God and others. This commitment to a contextualized gospel will cause the church to be missional and counter cultural, and therefore more relevant and theologically sensitive in deconstructing other philosophical paradigms while illuminating both religious and secular people to engage in an organic relationship with the person of Jesus.”
- The Reverend Doctor Stephen Um
Themelios on TGC: A lesson from Peter the Barber
A Lesson About The Redemptive Value of Tending to the ‘Little ‘ Things in Life
by Carl Trueman
No doubt my two children would cringe at the title of this short piece. Indeed, I can hear their cries now, ‘Dad, barbers are soooo yesterday. Nobody has one of those anymore. It’s a hair stylist or personal grooming consultant you need today!’ Well, that’s a moot point. Age has certainly reduced my need for anybody other than my wife and a set of electric clippers to address my cranial thatch; and as somebody the wrong side of forty, I quite like to think of myself as ‘sooo yesterday,’ particularly in terms of tastes in rock music, movies, and worship styles. It is, after all, what I am: a yesterday’s man.
The Peter the Barber in the title is, however, even more ‘sooo yesterday’ than I am myself. He was none other than the hairdresser—or personal grooming consultant—of the most famous man in sixteenth-century Europe: Martin Luther. No doubt, there were those who would have paid Master Peter a hefty sum to have been a little more casual with the razor than he was. In fact, had Peter been less competent in his profession, he could certainly have altered the path of European history with the proverbial flick of the wrist.
But Peter’s significance lies not so much in his ability to style hair (contemporary portraits of Luther indicate a better cut than that sported by Donald Trump but nothing as suave as, say, a Clive Owen). No, his significance lay in the fact that he struggled to pray, and one day he shared his problem with his most famous customer. Despite the mountain of work which he typically faced, his most famous customer still found time to go home and write him a treatise on the same.
The incident is instructive for a whole host of reasons. Now I am not of the school that sees the need as constituting the call. Just because somebody approaches me with a problem does not mean that I am called upon to help them solve the problem. In some cases this might actually be a mercy to the one in difficulty: if anyone comes to me with a problem with their computer, car engine, or anything involving mechanical or technological skill, then I need to resist the temptation to help them as their condition at the end of my assistance will be guaranteed to be worse than it was at the start. No, the need does not necessarily constitute the call: that is crucial wisdom for anyone in any kind of leadership position, especially in the church, if they wish to retain their sanity and limit the damage which they do.
Yet the Peter incident reminds us that one key element of Christian leadership is caring about people, even those who might be considered ‘little people’ in the eyes of the world. Peter was a humble barber; he was not even a model citizen; but he was one of Luther’s parishioners, for whose soul Luther was supposed to care. Luther’s response—to write him a special treatise on prayer—speaks volumes of the true heart of a man who really cared for his people. Luther was without doubt one of the busiest and most hard-pressed men in Electoral Saxony at the time, if not in the whole of Europe, and he had a million and one more important duties pressing in on him from all sides; but he found time to write a letter of spiritual counsel to this individual. All of Luther’s learning, all of the things he had done, all of the adulation he received, all of the great and the good who called on him for advice—none of this distracted him from caring for the people in his congregation. Indeed, this is exactly what one would expect from a leader who tried (and on occasion spectacularly failed) to work in accordance with Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 1 and 2.
To continue, visit http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-1/minority-report-a-lesson-from-peter-the-barber/
College Summer CG
Around for the summer?
If you find yourself in Boston over the summer months, please let us know! Email college@citylifeboston.org to be added to the summer email list. The summer college group will be meeting weekly for Bible study and monthly events.
Summer Kick-off: Monday May 25 you are invited for an evening of good food, good conversation, and a lot of fun. Where: Home of Jonathan Kerhoulas || 20 Spring Garden St., Apt 1., Dorchester, 02125 || Directions by T: Take the Redline South toward Braintree/Ashmont. Get off at the JFK/Umass station. Follow signs toward the exit for Sydney Street. When you hit Sydney, take a left, but then an almost immediate right onto Crescent Ave. Walk about 30 yards, taking the next left on Spring Garden St. Look for #20 on the left.
Email college@citylifeboston.org for more info.
