Kent Presbyterian Church

This Sunday: “As Christains, How Should We Manage Our Wealth?”

aaron — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:19:53 +0000

The first question in our New Series: You Asked For It! is “As Christians, How Should We Manage Our Wealth?” This Sunday we begin to ponder this question by taking a look at how Scripture describes our relative ownership of material goods. To appropriately deal with the question we must begin by recognizing who really owns our material goods.

December 11th: “Bill Maher’s Virgins”

aaron — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:40:23 +0000

As we continue to look at the story of Jesus and the celebration of his birth, we will look at the curious claims made by Bill Maher in his documentary “Religulous.” He presents some of the best of religious scholarship. Unfortunately, it happens to be the best of scholarship from over 100 years ago. His perspective is sorely outdated, and his claims that Jesus’ virgin birth is borrow from stories of Horus, Mithra, and Krishna (among others) are deeply misguided.

This Sunday: “The Search for Jesus of Nazareth”

aaron — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:26:43 +0000

We continue our series looking at the birth of Jesus and our belief that he was the God of the universe arriving in the fulness of time. This week we will spend some moments tracing some high-points in the search for the historical Jesus, while noticing that scholarship has come full circle – the 4 canonical gospels are our earliest historical sources for Jesus. Historically, we can’t get behind them. We can’t pull back the veil. If their picture of Jesus is unreliable, then there simply isn’t a reliable reconstruction of him available.

This Sunday: “The Freedom of a Versatile Faith”

aaron — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:06:44 +0000

This Sunday we examine the versatility of the Christian Faith. The Christian Faith has taken root in many cultures as well as metaphysical frameworks. There is a continuity in belief and practice from context to context, but we must always work to never allow the context to be confused with the Faith. As a movement that is world-wide we will hear prayers for the world this Sunday given by speakers in 7 different languages.

A Versatile, Contextual Faith

aaron — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:50:35 +0000

Contextual challenges seem constantly in front of our call to share the faith with the human family throughout the world. The early church handled these challenges quite well. The gospel of John is a fine example of sharing a biography of Jesus within both a Jewish and Greco-Roman context. The book of Hebrews spoke into a Jewish Christian context that was influenced by Jewish philosopher Philo and his incorporation of Plato’s thought into the Jewish faith in Alexandria. We have very good examples of brothers and sisters in Christ creatively and effectively sharing the Christian faith in numerous contexts – Chinese, Malaysian, Bantu, Filipino, and Ethiopic to name a few.

Contextualizing the Christian faith isn’t easy, and, for some, it’s a little scary. The notion of getting creative with the Christian faith can be alarming. There is real concern about losing the historic and literary grounds of the faith while creatively engaging a new context. Such concern is appropriate as we should desire to remain within the parameters of the historic Christian faith. Attempts to deny the divinity of Jesus, his incarnation, his death for humanity, and his resurrection seem to surface century after century, and are in conflict with our earliest sources about Jesus. Contextualizing doesn’t require ignoring any of these truths we affirm, but real evangelism is rarely easy. Sharing the Christian faith with those who have never stepped into a church and/or have grown up in another faith takes time, authentic relationship, and understanding that grows over months and years.

This Sunday: “The Gospel in the 21st Century”

aaron — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:26:37 +0000

Last week we began to digest Paul’s speech at Mars Hill in Acts 17. We saw how his address to his Stoic and Epicurean hearers is vastly different than the open-air evangelism that often happens today – with weak results at best, and terrible results at times. This week we begin a new series looking at the Gospel in the 21st Century. There are many different contextual challenges that we face when trying to faithfully articulate the Gospel in our diverse cultural settings: religious, philosophical, literary, and scientific. How do we begin to think about relating the Gospel in a personal way to different people with different backgrounds? We will explore these issues over the next few weeks. Wearing thick-rimmed, rectangular glasses while speaking in free verse is not required. :)

Summer Worship @ 10am

aaron — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:02:31 +0000

We are now in our summer schedule with one single Worship Service at 10:00am, and Sunday School at 11:15am.

An Unlikely Conspiracy

aaron — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:54:15 +0000

This Sunday we will continue walking through the Speeches in the Book of Acts. Luke in his writing moves us through the witness of Stephen as he is stoned to death for sharing about Jesus death and resurrection. While Luke is using this speech to introduce the character of Saul (Paul), he is also further showing the “witness” (read martyr) that the Apostles give after having experienced the resurrection of Jesus. If the story of the Resurrection was simply a made up story by the apostles, it’s incredibly “unlikey” that Stephen would die for something he knew was false.

Osama is Dead!

aaron — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:18:43 +0000

As I sit and watch the rain fall to the ground, and the brilliant green colors emerging all around, I feel a sense of joy as nature’s potency returns in full force. My emotions are mixed, however. I experience sadness over the loss of life in Japan and Alabama that is fresh on my mind. Throw in nationalistic exuberance all around me, over the death of one man, and life is a swirl of emotion.

The reactions in our culture are typically intense, short lived, and can take on major swings in a matter of days. We have been enraged over a federal budget debate and organized labor legislation in two states, heartbroken over losses in Japan, and now jubilant at the death of Osama Bin Laden. Just days before excitement over Bin Laden’s death people were rallying to help those in Alabama. I’m sure we’ll return to that theme when our media tells us to, but I would like to talk about the Bin Laden situation for a moment.

I never realized how much power Osama held over our hearts in the last ten years. Tremendous celebration is not the only reaction to his death, many people are lashing out with incredible anger. This is quite understandable from those who lost a friend or family member, but how many of us have been in bondage to anger and hatred of this man for almost a decade? Below is an illustration of this anger that I copied from one of my friends’ status updates on Facebook:

“It warms my heart knowing the SEALS shot and killed one of Osama’s wives and one of his sons.”

I was stunned when I read these words. Sometimes our intense anger can take us to unhealthy places. As followers of Christ, we recognize that forgiveness of others (even those we consider horrible) is healthy. It allows us to release anger and hatred that can do unknown damage to us. We are called to not only forgive those close to us, but to forgive someone like Osama if he had offended us. Thinking through this situation has caused me to wonder about my own life.

Who else do I need to forgive? I think this is a great opportunity for each of us to consider this question. Who needs forgiveness in your life today?

This Sunday: ‘A Dragon and Two Beasts’ or ‘Leaving LaHaye and Jenkins Behind’

aaron — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:27:36 +0000

As we continue our look at the Building Blocks of the Christian Life through our series, “How Do I Read The Bible,” we take a look at the first of two weeks dealing with apocalyptic literature in the Bible. We are in chapters 12 and 13 of the Book of Revelation this week. A not-so-nice Dragon and 2 Beasts occupy the visions, and show us just how seriously Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ series entitled Left Behind not only misuses Scripture, but abuses the hearts and minds of Christians in the process. We will take notice that the primary purpose of these passages is to encourage followers of Jesus who may die for the sake of their faithfulness to Jesus – the message that is consistent throughout the Book of Revelation as indicated by the repeated use of the phrase, “patient endurance.”