Thursday, June 28, 2007

Beautiful Living: Old Men

When I was growing up, my parents had two pictures hanging up in the kitchen. To me, these are great examples of, as my last post described, beautiful living. In one picture, there is an old man with a gray beard praying over a table of food. In the other, an older woman who is apparently the wife of the man, praying over her meal. A brief glimpse into the lives of these two individuals... In my own mind I imagine their lives. I can see both joy and pain, hope and sorrow, laughter and tears. The gnarled hands of the old man show the work he has done his entire life. At this meal you see their priorities and their love. In prayer they show their thankfulness to the Creator for the blessings He has provided. There is love, gentleness and hope in their lives. Truly, beautiful lives.

In the next posts I will discuss what Paul commanded Titus to tell the people of Crete, specifically the older men and women.

For those who interested in reading ahead, read Titus 2:1-10.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Thoughts, Ponderings, and Ideas... (almost sounds deep, huh?)

I wanted to give an update on what we've been doing in church for the past few weeks. As I've posted previously, we're studying through the book of Titus. As I was studying for a sermon on the first part of chapter 2, I came across something at the end of verse 10 that really stuck in my mind. Up to this point Paul is telling Titus about how the people of Crete should be living. Then at the end of verse 10, right after talking about the lives of servants and slaves he says, "so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive."

This phrase really got me to thinking about one of the reasons we should be living out the commands given to us in the Bible. Our lives are testimony to the world about Christ. The way we live should make the teaching about God our Savior attractive to the world.

Can we say this about our own lives? Do our lives cause unbelievers to say, "I want a life like that. What makes them different?" My father-in-law recently had an experience like this while stationed in Kyrgyzstan. Some soldiers noticed the difference between his life and the life of another person who does not live a Christian life. These soldiers have now been asking my father-in-law about Christ and His grace.

The question we should be asking ourselves then, is this, "Am I living an attractive life?" The way I have posed this question at church the past two sermons has been, "Is your life beautiful?" So... is it?

More to come on this topic later.
God bless,
Parson Larson

Friday, June 01, 2007

Long time, no writing...

Sorry about not updating this blog more often! Things are going really well here in KS and as an excuse about why I haven't written read this: http://mistyandtyler.blogspot.com/2007/05/our-son.html

We've been a little busy with the adoption, with Ellie and Evan, with weddings (1 down, 2 to go), and just life. However, I should update more. We'll see if I can stick with it. :-)

As far as church is going, we've had ups and downs. We recently had a couple resign from their positions on the board. We kind of saw this one coming, but were doing what we could to avoid that. However, all things are in God's hands, we just may not like them.

For ups, well... we have started a new sermon series in the book of Titus which is a really interesting study. I'm getting a lot out of it. The frustrating thing is that only about 75% of what I end up studying gets into my sermon. I'd be preaching 2+ hour sermons if I put it all in there.

We also are starting an AWANA program. Village Missions and AWANA are starting a pilot program to get rural churches active in youth ministries and Misty and I will be heading to Chicago in August for a conference on this. I must admit that I'm excited about the flight more than the conference at this point, but that's mainly because Misty and I haven't had the chance to fly together yet. She also has relatives near Chicago, so we might try and get together with them for supper some night if we have the time.

Please continue to pray for us and for the church as we continue in our ministry here. There have been several health problems among people in the church (all of them are doing fine now), for the couple that has resigned their positions, and for the AWANA program. We need to have enough leaders for all of the kids in the area that are likely to come!

God bless,
Tyler