“ReadMor” – at the beach!

I was going to wait to post this item until Friday, but I simply can’t wait! Last Saturday evening my wife and I took a ride to Holland State Park to sit along the channel and relax with our books and camera (and Fricano’s Pizza!).

It was a beautiful summer night and we enjoyed all the peaceful action – reading, watching people, observing the incoming and outgoing boats, walking the pier and talking to fisherman, and yes, snapping a few pics. Nothing like the sight of sailboats passing by “Big Red” – including this one with billowing sails!

But the highlight of the night was when we were walking back to our car after getting ice cream cones at the state park beach store. Two cars from ours was this one with a “vanity” plate that read… – well, you will see. How I wanted to meet this owner and find out what was behind this plate – a fellow librarian?! a teacher?! a bookstore owner?!

In any case, the sight of this made my night. And I immediately sensed that I had to share it with you. I hope you “get the message”! 🙂

The Ordinary – Yet Radically Different – Christian Life – August “Tabletalk”

Radically Ordinary by Burk Parsons | Reformed Theology Articles at Ligonier.org.

The August issue of Tabletalk is out, and with it we switch to a new theme – that of the Christian life. Only the exact title for this theme is hardly startling and attention-grabbing. Instead, it is rather ordinary. Intentionally so, since this is what the editors want to communicate in this issue: “The Ordinary Christian Life.” 

The main articles all have this theme as well: the ordinary Christian life,  ordinary Christian work, the ordinary Christian family, and the ordinary Christian church.

Lest we think that this Christian life is unexciting and unemotional, editor Burk Parsons introduces it with the above-linked article. This is what he has to say about this important subject:

The ordinary Christian life is not the opposite of the radical Christian life. The ordinary Christian life is a radical life. The ordinary Christian life is a life of daily trusting Christ; daily repenting of our sins; daily abiding in Christ; daily loving Christ; daily dying to self; daily taking up our crosses and following Christ; daily loving God and neighbor; and daily proclaiming the gospel to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our communities. Every Christian is an ordinary Christian, and every ordinary Christian is a radical Christian. The ordinary Christian is not a complacent, passionless, nominal, or casual Christian. On the contrary, every ordinary Christian person—child, teenager, college student, father, mother, husband, wife, single man, single woman, retired man, and retired woman—every Christian is radical because every Christian is united to Christ by faith and will bear radical, life-giving fruit.

Yesterday I also read the opening article on this theme by Dr.Michael Horton of Westminster Theological Seminary (west). His article, titled “The Ordinary Christian Life”, contains many good thoughts on what this life is not as well as what it truly is. I submit to you a short excerpt from this too, encouraging you as always to follow up and read the rest at the link provided.

If gradual growth in Christ is exchanged for a radical experience, it is not surprising that many begin looking for the Next Big Thing as the latest crisis experience wears off. Even in my own lifetime, I’ve witnessed—and participated in—a parade of radical movements. And now, according to Timemagazine, the “new Calvinism” is one of the top trends changing the world. This movement has also been identified as “Young, Restless, Reformed.” But as long as it is defined by youthful restlessness, it may tend to warp what it means to be Reformed.

…To be young is to be restless. We’re lost in impatient wonder and selfish impulses. But we are called repeatedly in the New Testament to grow up, to mature, to put away our childish ways. We are called to submit to our elders, to appreciate the wisdom that spans not only years but generations, and to realize that we do not have all the answers. We are not the stars in our own movie. If the whole apparatus of church life is designed by and for a youth culture, then we never grow up.