GroshLink

I came across John Piper's Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting through an on-line discussion group. The one who posted the article claimed it to be The best perspective on the election yet. ... Maybe this should be mandatory reading for every Christian during election times?. And I might very well agree. What do you think? Below you'll find the last several paragraphs, but I'd encourage you to read the whole article and pass it along to others with whom you are discussing the election. I'll bring some copies on my Election Day visit to Carnegie Mellon.

This world matters. But it is not ultimate. It is the stage for living in such a way to show that this world is not our God, but that Christ is our God. It is the stage for using the world to show that Christ is more precious than the world.

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Pray for Theresa and myself as we work out the details for two trips to Pittsburgh which will occur over the course of the next several days.  Pray for safe and peaceful travel, good nighttime sleep for the whole family, and significant conversations as we reconnect with friends and partners in ministry.

The first visit will be with the whole family and involve reconnecting with a number of friends, including those at Allegheny Center C&MA (our home congregation when we were in 'da Burgh and a continuing partner in ministry).  Note:  if you're from the 'da Burgh and would like to see us at ACAC, look for us after the 2nd service at the Welcome Center and then later in the Heritage Room. 

I'll travel with the family back to Central PA and then return to 'da Burgh to be part of an Election Day panel discussion on Human Authority at the IVCF-CMU's large group.  Pray for preparations for this gathering and strength/focus for Theresa while I'm traveling. 

BTW, post here or drop me an email if you have helpful ideas/articles on Thinking about religious and secular authority at election times: Their place in modern democratic society. ... without turning a gathering into a political argument ;-)

Based upon a desire expressed by several partners in ministry to regularly uplift our family and ministry in focused prayer, we're moving toward the re-instatement of our prayer calendar in November.  Please let us know if you desire to receive a PDF version of the below requests or the upcoming prayer calendar to use as a handout in fellowship groups, missions bulletin boards, prayer meetings, small groups, etc. 

• Monday: Praise God for last Monday’s preparations for the Mid-Atlantic Graduate Student Winter Retreat. Pray for Tom as he works out details for the February 13-15 event.  Note:  Check out a post from last year's retreat at http://groshlink.net/archives/2008/01/27/god-thing.

• Tuesday: Praise God for last week’s successful campus mission at Loyola College, MD. Pray for plans to come together for a November 17th meeting focused on envisioning Loyola faculty for campus mission.

• Wednesday: The weekly C. S. Lewis Seminar at PSU – Harrisburg. Faculty and staff participants will discuss and apply Screwtape Letters, Chapter 13, to their life and vocation.

• Thursday: Focused time to blog with Christian scholars at http://blog.emergingscholars.org 

• Weekend in Pittsburgh: Safe & peaceful travel, good nighttime sleep for the whole family, and significant conversations as we reconnect with friends and partners in ministry.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens & strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds & glorify God on the day he visits us. -- Peter 2:11-12

Thank-you to Arlene for passing along N.T. Wright's sermon Wisdom in a Troubled Time.  Join us in prayerfully considering and taking action on the closing paragraph, which Lord willing describes not only the warp and woof of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Graduate & Faculty Ministry, but also the Grosh household.

We need, once again, to relearn, and to teach the young, how to think. I often say in my diocese that I am passionate about the authority of scripture but equally passionate about the vital and necessary place of reason. We live in a world of unreason, where right and wrong have been reduced to personal preferences and ‘attitudes’, which can then be manipulated by smooth talk – like the verbal shift which says ‘credit’ when it means ‘debt’, and the equivalents of that in every sphere – and where people don’t need to think because they can drift along with the current mood. And you and I know that the next generation will need – boy, will they need! – to be able to think: to think hard, to think through where the world is going and what they need to do in it, to think not about how they can feather their own nests but how they can wisely serve their fellow human beings in God’s world. You, my friends, are among the few people who can make a real difference at a time like this; because you can model and teach, for those who will lead us in the days to come, the wisdom, the God-fearing wisdom, the Jesus-shaped wisdom, which alone will enable us to get our bearings and redesign a world in which all can live with new humility and new hope. You are in our prayers. God bless you in your calling.

PS.  I'm looking forward to the material which N.T. Wright shares on Human Flourishing at Following Christ 08 becoming a widely read and applied IVP book. 

As you know living in Christ before our Father and inviting others to become part of the Body of Christ through the Word, by the power of the Spirit, wakes me up in the morning, keeps me going through the day, and at times even keeps me up through the night.  After a recent InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Mid-Atlantic Graduate & Faculty Area Team Meeting in which we spent a significant amount of time discussing the importance of the Chronological Bible Study approach to outreach among international students,* I checked the shelves of Hearts and Minds Bookstore for Chronological Bible Resources for Children Devotionals.  Below are four excellent choices: 

1. The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones. Thank-you to Dwight for the recommendation! It's more for older elementary than younger kids.  So we'll be passing along a copy to the twins. Lily Joy will be receiving a copy when the pink version of the Tiny Bear's Bible comes out in the spring.

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I've really enjoyed the Following Christ 08's director videos. Even if you're not a student or faculty, you'll enjoy Jon Boyd's consideration of deadlines as he shares specifics of the conference while clowning around with Halloween in mind.  As for my friends from campus, beat the deadline ;-)

If you follow Groshlink, but not the Emerging Scholars Blog or Facebook, then you've missed two recent trains of thought which may be of interest.

1. An inquiry to academics: How do you find the time and the focus to write? In this piece I share some of my struggles in writing in the midst of my growing family.

2.  Some thoughts on a today's Closer to Truth which explored Why a Fine-Tuned Universe? and included Messiah College Philosophy Professor Robin Collins among the various interviewees. Be sure to read my comments to the original post regarding the show itself. For those with deeper interest, here's a link to a clip of the interview with Physicist Paul Davies, who follows Collins, and below is a brief video of Dr. Henry Schaeffer III on the Fine Tuning Argument.

As part of the InterVarsity Press (IVP) Staff Advisory Team, I have a little bit of an insider track on future material from IVP. Recently I found out that InterVarsity staff will soon receive copies of Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice.  Note: some of you will remember Rice's IVP classic More Than Equals, co-authored with Spencer Perkins.

Reconciling All Things begins a powerful series entitled Resources for Reconciliation. I hear that the second book in the series, Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier is AMAZING. As such, I'd encourage readers of the blog to consider taking a look at the material and if you read it before I do, let me know your thoughts. ...  Below is a section from the series introduction, a good word.  By God's grace, may the people of God rooted in the Word and Spirit journey in the direction of re-creation through greater Christ-likeness.  For more, go here.

The series seeks to offer a fresh and distinctive vision for reconciliation as God’s mission and a journey toward God’s new creation in Christ. Each book is authored by two leading voices, one in the field of practice or grassroots experience, the other from the academy. Each book is grounded in the biblical story, engages stories and places of pain and hope, and seeks to help readers to live faithfully — a rich mix of theology, context and practice. This book series was born out of the mission of the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation: Advancing God’s mission of reconciliation in a divided world by cultivating new leaders, communicating wisdom and hope, and connecting in outreach to strengthen leadership. A divided world needs people with the vision, spiritual maturity and daily skills integral to reconciliation. The church needs fresh resources — a mix of biblical vision, skills in social and historical analysis, and practical gifts of spirituality and social leadership — in order to pursue reconciliation in real places, from congregations to communities.

The ministry of reconciliation is not reserved for experts. It is the core of God’s mission and an everyday call of the Christian life. These books are written to equip and stimulate God’s people to be more faithful ambassadors of reconciliation in a fractured world.

For more information, email the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation at reconciliation@div.duke.edu, or visit our website.

• Monday: A profitable conversation with the Mid-Atlantic Graduate & Faculty Staff Team regarding the finalizing of details for the Graduate Student Winter Retreat, which Tom will be directing. The proposed theme is Hospitality with a significant focus upon international students. The retreat will be February 13-15 at Camp Donegal, Airville, PA.
• Tuesday: Clarity in next steps in developing a ministry among faculty at Loyola College in Maryland as Tom meets with faculty and local InterVarsity staff.
• Wednesday: The C. S. Lewis Seminar at Penn State University (PSU) – Harrisburg. Pray for the faculty and staff discussion of Screwtape Letters, Chapter 12, to give insight into following Christ on campus and beyond.
• Thursday: Focused time to blog with Christian scholars, Emerging Scholars Blog
• Friday: Follow-up to a list of pastors and members of the community who have interest in partnering in the call of speaking the Gospel in the halls of power.
• Saturday: The ability for Tom to set aside his many projects to be truly present with his family.

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. -- II Corinthians 5:14-15

Thank-you to Miller for passing along a link to Justyn Terry's lecture on Calvin’s Crucial Contribution to Anglicanism from Grove City's recent Evangelical Scholarship Conference (Note:  2008-2009 lecture schedule posted here). Justyn Terry is President of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry, where he also serves as Professor of Systematic Theology. By-the-way, the page demonstrates how much our alma mater has stepped into the technological age as it includes notes in Word, Powerpoint (w/a great plug for of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry at the end), and video.

With regard to the content, I really appreciated Terry's consideration of    

1. The three-legged stool with a priority to Scripture. 
2. The Church as ‘political society’ and ‘supernatural society’ – with divine purpose, i.e., the mystical church 
3. The things necessary/essential to salvation and accessories/indifferent
4. Stress on the faith of believer in the Lord's Supper and not how Christ is present/not present

May the Lord grant, that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of his heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion, to his glory and to our edification. Amen. -- John Calvin, used at the beginning of his lectures.

Yesterday I mentioned that John Cleese's The Scientists became a topic of conversation over dinner with Stephen Barr and several members of the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science.  We also had a good laugh regarding All About the Brain. 

Enjoy, but don't eat your brain (or anyone else's for that matter) while doing such ;-)  For those which know me well, I am going somewhere with this and it relates to Chapter 11 of Screwtape Letters and Retelling the Story of Science.  Anyone have a copy of Screwtape Letters on hand? 

Over dinner with Stephen Barr and several members of the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science, John Cleese's The Scientists became a topic of conversation.  Enjoy. 

Note:  More on Retelling the Story of Science coming later as the rest of the day is full starting with a conversation about the real world at Penn State Harrisburg, the basis of which will be Chapter 11 of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters.

As I've mentioned to some of you by phone and others in person, much which we have sown and watered as a family is bursting forth in abundance.  Praise God!  As friends, family, and ministry partners we ask you to pray for strength and discernment as we run on all 4 cylinders.  Updates coming ...

Note:  Below is the October update which we sent to our Partners in the Campus Mission.  If you are not on our list, but have interest in receiving a monthly email highlighting our work, please drop us a note.  With regard to support, several new sponsors have stepped forward.  God provides! And a few others are considering the call to take part in seeing 'Students and Faculty Transformed, Campus Renewed, and World Changers Developed.'  If you desire more specifics, let us know. 

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For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. -- II Corinthians 5:14-15

Dear Partners in the Campus Mission, 

We hope that you've been keeping up-to-date with regard to our ministry and our family via http://www.groshlink.net/, because much has been happening.  A few highlights are given below.

1.  Last Friday, Tom presented on Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" to a group at Penn comprised primarily of international graduate students.  In his presentation, he shared a significant amount of his own testimony with regard to facing illness, loss of our first child, cancer, and Eden's brain bleed leading to developmental delays.  For more see Praise God for His work at Penn on Friday night! and Randy’s Last Lecture. ...

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We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person for the Father, another for the Son, and yet another for the Holy Spirit. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one. … Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but there is one God. -- Athanasian Creed

For more on The Trinity visit:
Practicing a Christ Centered Christmas 2.0: The Character, Person, and Story of God, Week 1
Knowing God, the Trinity, Creeds, and Prayer

While researching on-line materials for Practicing a Christ Centered Christmas 2.0: The Character, Person, and Story of God, Week 1, I came across two helpful pieces from N.T. Wright which I had not previously read.  The first quote is at the end of a thought provoking Q&A which explores Jesus' self-understanding in relationship to the development of a credal statement regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. The second offers The Prayer of the Trinity.

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Below's another the daily asterisk underscoring the importance of the family, a topic which I recently discussed w/Pastor Steve from Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ in relationship to the transition from high school to young adulthood.  Looking forward to upgrading Next Steps material to re-contextualize and address these concerns in the spring.

Back to the quote, which comes from Andy Crouch's Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. You may remember I posted some material on the new book at the Emerging Scholars Network Blog. And I have even bigger news, Andy will be preaching at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ on Sunday, April 19. If you're in the area, mark your calendar as he'll give a sermon at the first and second service followed by a launch of InterVarsity's Christian Scholars in Central PA.  Praise God for the partnership with Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ!  Feel free to drop me an email if you would like to receive more information when it's available.

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Check out A Special Family for some new family pictures. ... A big thank-you to Marci who worked with our family at Wolgemuth Park (Mount Joy Township, PA), navigating a variety of interests and attention spans.

As time permits over the course of the next week, I'll update our blog pictures and explore the best manner in which to share the new material with our ministry partners.  Note:  If you have good suggestions, please drop us an email.

On Facebook I received a reminder about the Harvey Fellows program which I thought I'd pass along to my graduate student friends in 'da Burgh. So here you go:

A great resource for funding your graduate education is the Harvey Fellows, which provides a $16,000 annual stipend for up to three years for Christians at top programs. The deadline for this year's application is November 1. There are some more details and links to the Harvey Fellows' website over at the ESN blog.

Not only is Eden navigating around much better by foot, but it appears that her sight has also 'possibly' slightly improved to between 20/50 and 20/60 in her 'bad' eye.  The eye doctor instructed us to move up from 2-3 hours a day to 5 hours a day with the eye patch to continue the positive direction. 

Pray for Eden's patience in wearing the eye patch.  Pray for persistance and creativity on our part, particularly on the days when she is tired and not agreeable to its presence.  We'll start in the morning while she watches Mr. Rogers DVDs ... anyone have used/spare copies of episodes, we'd love borrow and/or own some more.

Good morning!  Who needs coffee when one has Coca-Cola? 

In a recent on-line political conversation, a friend shared the below commercial and I was wondering is this the original I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing?  If not and you know the proper link, please pass it along.  Thank-you.  Note:  At present, this is just curiosity. 

The below quote came through the daily asterisk and underscores the countercultural nature of living in Christ in our homes (and dare I say Christian community) in our time. 

The other day, I had a conversation in which I underscored two significant factors in our return to Lancaster County, PA, even the living with and building in the midst of family:

1.  the commitment to raise our children with the support of our extended families as we face lingering concerns regarding both my health and Eden's 

2.  a desire to press forward with the Gospel ministry which we understood God to have entrusted to us (i.e., the devolopment of young/maturing scholars through ESN, the exploration of Graduate & Faculty Ministry conferencing projects which will equip/train followers of Christ in Higher Education to be witnesses in word and deed, and the establishing of witnessing communities of faculty which will creatively challenge and renew/reshape higher education). 

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In no other subject is error more dangerous, inquiry more difficult, or the discovery of truth more rewarding.  -- St. Augustine, De Trinitate 

Jim gave an excellent presentation on The Trinity during week 1 of 2 on The Character, Person, and Story of God as a Proper Lens for Christmas.  Despite being pressed for time, as no doubt we could spend an entire term (& infinitely more) reflecting upon and exploring the reality of The Trinity, he maintained his composure and clearly presented the below material in an interactive format.  To God be the glory!

   

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Earlier this week I came across Facebook Search for Franklin & Marshall Leads to ... Italy?  in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The vintage clothing company's website says it all. Check it out or at least check out the video:  Back to our Roots ... I love NY ... I love F&M ... Welcome to the Ranch[?]  BTW, I have insider friends which tell me that F&M, the campus, has been on the front end of East Coast fashion/modeling for quite some time.  What an interesting relationship between campus and culture. ... And I'll go past the campus today en route to Central Market for a Community Day with lots of crafts, activities, and music. 

You may remember hope as being a significant theme in my presenation at Penn last week, see Praise God for His work at Penn on Friday night!  So, it's probably not suprising that I recommend you join me in prayerfully reflecting upon the below selection from Scot McKnight's post Where is our hope? (and then link over to Where is our hope? to read the rest of his excellent piece on the relationship of hope to Election Day):

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