J.C. Ryle on Why the Reformers Died

Pastor Mark gives out free books to the congregation on Sunday evening and at Wednesday night bible study. He recently gave me the great little book Five English Reformers by J.C. Ryle. Ryle gives a biographical sketch of five English Protestant Reformers burned at stake under Queen Mary’s reign. In addition to the biographies, he offers quite a bit of history. The chief reason why so many reformers were burned is that they refused to accept the Catholic doctrine of the presence in communion. Here Ryle explains what that was of such great importance then and now:

“Whatever men please to think or say, the Romish doctrine of the real presence, if pursued to its legitimate consequences, obscures every leading doctrine of the Gospel, and damages and interferes with the whole system of Christ’s truth. Grant for a moment that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice, and not a sacrament – grant that every time the words of consecration are used the natural body and blood of Christ are present on the Communion Table under the forms of bread and wine- grant that every one who eats that consecrated bread and drinks does really eat the natural body and blood of Christ – grant for a moment these things, and then see what momentous consequences result from these premises. You spoil the blessed doctrine of Christ’s finished work when He died on the cross. A sacrifice that needs to be repeated is not a perfect and complete thing. You spoil the priestly office of Christ. If there are priests that can offer an acceptable sacrifice of God besides Him, the great High Priest is robbed of His glory. You spoil the Scriptural doctrine of the Christian ministry. You exalt sinful men into the position of mediators between God and man. You give to the sacramental elements of bread and wine an honour and veneration they were never meant to receive, and produce an idolatry to be abhorred of faithful Christians. Last, but not least, you overthrow the true doctrine of Christ’s human nature. If the body born of the Virgin Mary can be in more places than one at the same time, it is not a body like our own, and Jesus was not “the second Adam” in the truth of our nature. I cannot doubt for a moment that our martyred Reformers saw and felt these things even more clearly than we do, and, seeing and feeling them, chose to die rather than admit the doctrine of the real presence. Feeling them, they would not give way by subjection for a moment, and cheerfully laid down their lives. Let this fact be deeply graven in our minds. Wherever the English language is spoken on the face of the globe this fact ought to be clearly understood by every Englishman who reads history. Rather than admit the doctrine of the real presence of Christ’s natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the Reformers of the Church of England were content to be burned.”

Amen.

Community Supported Agriculture! I Love Thee!

The basic idea behind CSAs is to buy locally-grown, typically organic food, and support the farmers producing such good stuff.


I have wanted to join a CSA for over a year but have never done the right research to actually sign up. However, my much more proactive friend Lindsay signed up for a couple, was put on a waiting list for one and started receiving fresh veggies from another. When her waiting list spot opened up at South Mountain Veggies, she gave it to me. South Mountain is family-run delivery business, and they work with over 50 local farmers to bring people in the DC metro area local, sustainably grown produce. Woo-hoo! Even in our very urban neighborhood I can support the local farmers. As much as I love my homestate, I dislike buying everything 'grown in California' at the supermarket. This week I was the recipient of the following LOCAL food: two heads of Boston Green Lettuce, a pound and a half of fresh peas, four onions, one pound of new potatoes, five green zucchinis, one pound of broccoli, one bunch of kale, 2 yellow squash, and one pint of strawberries. It costs thirty-five dollars for all of that, including delivery. Sweet! I was just on the phone with my Dad and he asked if we'll be able to eat all of it...I think so. Lots of veggie sides!

If you're interested in learning more about where food comes from, I'd recommend the following books. They are the most helpful. As the "local-sustainable-foodie" culture grows, more and more people have stuff to say about it - these are the best, in my opinion.


Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemna and In Defense of Food
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Vegetable Miracle

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation
Steve Striffler, Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food

Natstown

I love baseball, and I love cheering on my adopted team, the Nationals - though they're the worst team in MLB. Games are still fun, though! Bobby and I went to a game yesterday. Nats lost to the Pirates, but we went with staff families from the church and 9Marks, so friends, baseball, and 'Five Guys' burgers made for a great night.

Wildwood

I had my first Jersey shore experience last weekend.

We loved spending time with our small group leaders, Scott and Rachel. They drove us up and back and we had really edifying conversation with them. Our small group had a great time

Our small group: Scott, William, Rachel, Sunshine, Dan, Me, Bobby, Lindsay, Josh, Katie (Bob, her husband, was writing his last paper for his Master's!), Stephanie and Geoff.

eating together, going to the beach, riding bikes, and playing skee-ball on the crazy boardwalk.

Being from CA, I've never really experienced something like this - it was like a summer fair and an amusement park. The beach was huge and the sand was...gray. A friend here called it 'cement sand', which I would say is an accurate description. Definitely an East Coast cultural experience and lots of fun. : )

In the words of Shai Linne, "This ain't controversy for the sake of controversy, or theological nit-picking..."

9Marks new ejournal is out. They spend the issue discussing multi-site churches: a couple definitional articles ("What is multi-site?"), two pro multi-site articles, and the rest of the journal raises scriptural and theological concerns with the trend.

Bobby has two book reviews and a short article in it - I encourage you to read his work, and all the rest as well (particularly Jonathon Leeman's long article).

Spring is here! Hibernation is over!

Hey everyone (or anyone who still checks this...)

I think we're going to be making a blog come-back. I also realize this corresponds with the full bloom of spring, so I will say that I was hibernating through my first Real Winter. Now, some (say, those who live in Minnesota or upstate New York or something) would say DC doesn't have a real winter. I disagree: in February it was 9 degrees with a negative 3 degree wind-chill - and I dog walked! I used to go to the beach in Southern California in January. This "real weather" was unheard of. Bobby and I persevered, though, and now we are happy to see DC in the spring. It really is like a different city - big, leafy trees and beautiful flowers and gorgeous blue skies. We're loving it. Today it was 90 degrees with no humidity (yet). I love hot weather!

Now - brief update? Hmmm. Let's see.

Bobby's job: is going so well. He loves what he is doing. He started off working for 9Marks just as an interim job: six months until he came on the church as a Pastoral Assistant. However, within a couple weeks the crew at 9M realized Bobby could help Jonathon, the director of communications and main editor, more than they realized. Jonathon writes a lot of 9M material (books included) as well as edits their bi-monthly eJournal. Having Bobby on hand means that he can take over a lot of Jonathon's work and free him up to continue writing and traveling for 9M conferences, while still getting lots of work done. They offered him a job through next summer ('10), and the church will possibly have him for a year after that for the PA position. Bobby's big project right now is writing multiple question and answers (basically small essays) for each of the 9 Marks (find them here) that pastor's can look through. I think he's written around 170 or so so far. They are still all being edited and worked on but we pray that the Lord will use them to encourage pastors and help spread biblical truth about the Church!

My job(s): Right now I am doing a bunch of industrious things that help us save money and allow me free time to pursue relationships, taking care of our home and hobbies. I work less than full-time doing a couple different things: house-cleaning for this lady on the Hill every other week, being a mother's helper for five hours each week for the Lawrence family (Michael Lawrence is an Associate Pastor at CHBC), dog-walking, and working at CHLG on Fridays. I was offered a job at CHLG (Capitol Hill Learning Group) for the Fall - four days a week, 8:30-1:30, teaching the 3.5 - 5 year olds. This group is called the "Grasshoppers." Right now I teach the Fireflies. I love this age group and since being a kindergarten teacher was one of the things I was pursuing before marriage, I was grateful to accept the position! I will most likely be done dog-walking mid-July.

We are so grateful for the kind ways the Lord has provided for us. We have a great place to live (our studio is the size of a one-bedroom, very open and spacious, with a great kitchen), we both have jobs, our marriage is a delight and a joy, and our church home is a place of rich blessing.

We love that we are going to get to stay at CHBC for at least another year and a half. It is such a privilege to be in fellowship with all our brothers and sisters at the church - young and old, married, single, kids. I learn so much daily from watching everyone around me. In my free time, I am discipled by Moriah Gilbert, an elder's wife and a wise woman of God. When I work at the Lawrence's I get to hear and see the gracious, kind and wise ways Adriennce Lawrence shepherd's her five children. I meet with my dear friend Ashley regularly - iron sharpening iron. I also get the blessing to disciple and meet with two college students: Juline at Georgetown and Kaia at George Washington. Bobby and I have been getting more involved with college ministry (he recently preached at Georgetown IVF), and I have been continuing in my weekly study of Biblical Counseling with a small group. Most importantly, we get to gather with our fellow members of CHBC to hear the Word preached faithfully to us every week. Such blessings our God has bestowed on us!



Upcoming events:

Women's Retreat this weekend!

Three-day weekend to Wildwood, New Jersey. Geoff and Stephanie, a couple in our married small group, have family with a beach house there and they are letting us use it! Yay!

California! Jon and Jeanette are (finally!) getting married in Ventura on May 24. We will be flying in to LAX, staying through the wedding, and then borrowing B's parent's car (thanks!) to have a romantical road trip up PCH, stopping at Big Sur and then spending three days at a cottage in Santa Cruz before hitting up San Francisco and the East Bay. We cannot wait!

Hopefully I'll be able to do an OC trip near mid-summer...not sure, but a possibilty (I miss my ninos!)

Anyways, that is all! Hope you are well friends. Take care!

Hebrews 13:20-21

New Year

It has been a hectic yet fun last couple weeks.

Stephen, Jess, and Mengning were here for a great week/end, and my parents as well, right before Christmas.

We had to have all our stuff in the church house we lived in in the basement by the morning of the 23rd. By God's kind providence (lucky for us, lots of work for Stephen) Stephen was here AGAIN to help us move. : ) We got the house packed and cleaned and left for vacation to South Carolina to visit Bobby's grandparents and dad's side of the family the next day. Due to a broken train on the way to the airport, we missed our flight...but ended up taking the Carolinian Amtrak instead (DC to Charlotte in eleven hours).

We had a great time celebrating Christmas and Bobby's g-parents 50th anniversary. Praise God for such kindness in preserving them and their marriage this far! It was good and exciting for me to hang out with the entire family and get grafted in a bit more. I also got to spend some time with the dear Emily Heath. She stopped on her way from Murrells Inlet to Asheville and we got to spend the morning together.

For the last ten days we have been houseguests at the Devers - very kind and gracious hosts! We've been eating dinner with them a lot and watching good classic movies (like The Saboteur and Christmas in Conneticut).

Yesterday and today we moved all our stuff from the basement at our old house to our new apartment. It is basically a very large studio with a separate little kitchen area. Bobby and I were talking about how amazing Christian community is - one woman at our church is allowing us to use her Suburu Forester yesterday, today and tomorrow to move and run errands. Our friend Brian made two big trips with his truck in the rain. Three other folks came with their cars. Our friends the Dunlaps brought dinner to us (and it was delicious at 8:00 PM after moving in the rain). Such generous, kind folks here at CHBC.

For a slightly more detailed housing situation update: We moved here and stayed in church housing while Bobby was completing the internship. There is a new intern class and another family just moved into our old house. Bobby has been hired to work in the church starting July, so we will be living in our new place through July/August, at which point we will move back to church housing. This situation is made easier by the fact that we live in the basement of a church member's house. They are gracious landlords.

Bobby started his new job yesterday and is loving it so far. At this point he is using a huge master spreadsheet to work through every article and piece of information on the 9Marks website, making comments and brainstorming about which heading it should go under and what other articles it should link to. Once he and the 9Marks crew know what there is, they will know what else needs to be written to round out the information.

I am still dog-walking but adding on to that a job as a teaching assistant at Capitol Hill Learning Group (imagine an informal pre-school and a more structured play-group and you have it!). They run the CHLG out of the top floor of a church on the Hill and work with kids 2-5. They learn Spanish, do arts and crafts, stories, play-time, etc. I'll for now only be working Friday mornings, but it is a great provision for us financially and it will be super fun. I start this Friday and can't wait to meet the little ones in my group.

Some of our prayer requests:

1) Discipline and the fight against laziness. We're trying to get to bed earlier/wake up earlier so we can each have quiet time (Bible reading and prayer) with the Lord before we start our days. We're also trying to become more consistent in our evening family devotions. Pray that our hearts would desire to seek the Lord in these very important ways.
2) Contentment. We've loved living half-way down the block from the church and now we're a mile and a half away. We now live very close to a Metro stop which takes us near the church, so the commute isn't long but...it is a commute. May we be grateful for the kind way God has taken care of us in giving us such a good living situation, albeit further from the church.
3) In light of the new year, all of Psalm 90! It is good for developing an eternal perspective and meditating on God's love. "So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom (vs. 12)."

Take care and much love, friends.