Chapel at Covenant College

It’s another foggy, misty morning on the mountain. It seems appropriate to finish out the year with a typical Lookout Mountain day. Tomorrow is Covenant’s Commencement, with speaker Kay Coles James. I had the privilege of hearing Kay James speak twice last weekend at a conference in Orlando, and am looking forward very much to hearing her again.

Chaplain Messner and I are traveling Monday with 14 of our first-year students to Brussels, Belgium to spent ten days learning and working alongside several churches there. Please pray for smooth travel, open hearts to kingdom realities, opportunities for conversations with those we meet, servant attitudes and good fellowship with each other and our hosts. The Chaplain will leave from Belgium for Uganda, where he’ll join Dr. Henry Krabbendam and a group of pastors and Covenant students in various gospel outreaches there. I’m remaining in Belgium for the summer to work with several college interns (two from Covenant this year) in a summer mentoring program.

I came across Justin Taylor’s recent interview with Os Guinness about Francis Schaeffer, which reminded me to mention our Neal Conference on True Spirituality next September 14-18. Last year, we were privileged to have Rev. John Smed and the previous year, Archibishop Henry Luke Orombi. Our keynote speaker this fall is Rev. Stafford Carson, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Portadown, Northern Ireland. We’ll have a special musical guest that week as well.

Last week, Student Development put on a “Senior Meets World” event, where seniors could gather information about some of the transitions they’ll be facing in coming months. I wrote a brief handout on Finding a Local Church, and am sharing it here for those who missed the event.

One of the best ways to get connected in your new home is through finding and joining a local church. Seek to put yourself quickly under the authority of godly elders and in fellowship with a local body of believers so that you can grow in grace and use your gifts for the kingdom.

Because of great resources online, you can do some research in advance. Check out websites, listen to a few sermons, make some calls, talk to friends, others whose wisdom you value. But, there is no substitute for visiting, talking with congregation members, meeting with a pastor, asking questions in person.

Some considerations for choosing a faithful local church:

The main thing: Is God’s word faithfully read and taught each Sunday in a way that consistently proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ? If this is so, you can adjust to anything else.

Proximity: Consider the church’s location in relation to your house or apartment. It’s wonderful if you can invite new friends and neighbors to a church that is close by and get involved in ministry that reaches out right in your neighborhood. Perhaps this may mean choosing a smaller, less well-known church that happens to be close by.

Ministry: Is the church active in local outreach and global ministry? Can you get involved? Look for opportunities to serve.

Growth opportunities: Are there small groups or home groups that you can join? This is a great way to get connected into deeper fellowship with your congregation.

Helpful online resources:

PCA Churches lists all PCA churches
9Marks Church Search (also, www.9marks.org has many great articles on church, church membership, church involvement)
Founders Churches Baptist and reformed churches
Acts29 Network
http://www.sermonaudio.com listen to online sermons from wide range of denominations; many churches have podcasts as well.
http://www.churchseek.net/ Many denominations, searchable by state, city, zip code

Helpful books: Stop Dating the Church. Joshua Harris
What is a Healthy Church? Mark Dever (copies available in the chapel office)

This note is not particularly Covenant-oriented, but I wanted to make sure people know that they can watch all the plenary sessions of the Gospel Coalition’s Conference online live. At 2pm CST today, Tim Keller is speaking, followed by John Piper, Phil Ryken and Marc Driscoll. It’s a wonderful lineup of speakers–check it out if you have a chance today, tomorrow and Friday!

On Wednesday and Friday of this week, we’ll hear from four seniors about their experiences at Covenant, what God has taught them, what they have learned over the past four years. In general this year, we’ve heard more from our students during chapel, as during almost every student-led chapel, a student has shared something God is teaching them.

This week, Lydia Jones, Will Kendall, Hoi Yuk Pang, and Nick Thornton will speak to our community, and all of their testimonies should be online shortly thereafter.

The mountain is in bloom, even after a few days of snow flurries earlier this week! Spring semester always seems to fly by so quickly, with Spring Break and now Easter break. I know students are feeling the pressures of the end of the semester, as they seek to be faithful to their calling as students and figure out summer jobs and opportunities, as senior complete major projects for graduation and consider their next steps.

We still have some excellent chapels coming up to finish out the year. We’ll hear from seniors in a few weeks as four of them will share what they’ve learned during their years at Covenant with the whole student body. Chaplain Messner will finish up his series on Mark, and Dr. Nielson will end the year on April 27.

However, the first speaker after Easter break is Dr. Anthony Bradley, Assistant Professor of Apologetics and Christian Ethics at Covenant Seminary.

We’re looking forward to having Dr. Bradley speak on campus, and share a time of discussion over lunch with a small group of students. These lunch gatherings with outside speakers provide wonderful opportunities for our students to learn through questions and conversation on a variety of topics.

We are all back from Spring Break and getting back into the the swing of the final weeks of the semester. The Break on Impact trips around the world were times of great learning and encouragement, reminding us that we are part of a much larger, global church. From the reports I’ve heard, each team served and learned well together. The teams will share about their experiences next Wednesday in chapel.

Today, we are hearing from Dr. Herb Ward, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Covenant. Dr. Ward has been teaching at Covenant since 2005, and last month he received his D. Th. from University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Dr. Ward has a wide range of experience as a lawyer, an MTW missionary in Africa, a professor, but when students speak of him, they most often cite his kindness and personal interest in them. We’re all looking forward to hearing him preach.

Yesterday Rev. Dobbs spoke in chapel from 2 Timothy about the reality of suffering when we live a godly life. He shared stories of those “a plane flight away” who suffer for their faith in Jesus regularly. Rev. Dobbs has worked with the Barnabas Fund for several years, and although he has now transitioned to working with the Anglican Church in North America, he remains passionate about creating awareness in the church about our suffering brothers and sisters. His afternoon talk, dealing with the challenge of Islam should be up on iTunes after Spring Break.

For more information on the persecuted church, visit the Barnabas Fund’s website.

This week we have Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant Seminary, with us for our Marriage, Family, and Community Conference. He is joined by his wife Kathy, and we are so pleased that they are speaking today, tomorrow, and Friday in chapel. Evening sessions are tonight and Thursday at 7:00pm in Brock 120-22.

The Chapells are co-authors of Each for the Other: Marriage as It’s Meant to Be.

If you’d like to hear more of Dr. Chapell’s messages, I’d encourage you to check out this link.

Dr. Michael Oh, who was our chapel speaker last fall, recently spoke at the Desiring God pastors conference. You can view his sermon “Missions as Fasting”  here.

Because I’ve been far too lax in posting, I thought I would jump on board with the Facebook phenomenon of “25 Random Things” and catch up on chapels this semester. But I think fifteen should suffice!

1. The book that changed Dr. Cliff Foreman’s life is The Scarlet Letter.  I pulled it off my shelf for a re-read, after hearing him speak.

2. Rev. Ron Brown encouraged us to let our light shine for the world around us, and read from this piece: As an Atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.

3. Roger and Abi Lowther, who spoke in chapel last fall, returned to campus with their friend and colleague, Yoshimi Hirota to perform and speak to our music majors.

4. Chaplain Messner visited Philadelphia to teach and preach at a Simeon Trust Workshop on Biblical Exposition.

5. Mr. Robert Lawless, from McCormick & Co, shared some life lessons from his years in the business world for our annual Brock Lecture series.

6. We watched video of MLK’s I Have a Dream speech, as well as several other audio/video clips of his preaching and speaking.

7. Chaplain Messner reminded us of the need to have our eyes truly opened to who Jesus is. As he healed the blind man partially, then fully, Jesus showed his disciples their own lack of true sight. We continue to learn more of Jesus through our studies in Mark.

8. A student shared at a student-led chapel about his experiences fishing in Alaska last summer, where solitude and reflection took on new meaning. We are encouraging our students to take time away from noise and busy-ness as a regular discipline, particularly as we head towards the season of Lent next week.

9. Dr. Jay Green chose George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture as the book that changed his life. He spoke of his lifelong love of history and of Marsden’s role in shaping him as a Christian historian.

10. Dr. Mark Yarhouse, from Regent University, gave three lectures on sexual identity that were some of the most helpful I have heard. For some good resources for youth pastors, parents, check out this link.

11. 14 students joined several staff members for a retreat over Day of Prayer. We were graciously hosted by Grace Presbyterian in Dalton, GA, and put our cell phones, iPods, computers away for the time together. We all took several hours in the morning for a time of reflection and prayer. It was refreshing, and a great time to get to know people from different parts of campus. We included this article by Mark Driscoll for the students to read.

12. As our WIC lecturer this year, Dr. William Dyrness joined us from Fuller Theological Seminary, and spoke on Art and Worship, particularly in the reformed tradition.

13. Over 85 students, faculty and staff are meeting regularly to prepare for Break-on-Impact trips over Spring Break. Both the chaplain and I are traveling with teams–to Cherokee, NC and Brussels, Belgium. Other teams are heading to Madrid, Athens, and  Guanajuato, Mexico.

14. In tomorrow’s chapel, we’ll hear from Rev. Alfred Johnson and Rev. Joe Novenson as they share about their friendship and partnership between their churches, Lookout Mountain PCA and Church of the Firstborn.

15. Next week is our Marriage, Family, and Community Conference! Dr. Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant Seminary, is coming to campus to speak five times. All are welcome.