Deus Misereatur

  I really want 2026 to be a bright year for our congregation. And I feel very confident it will be. But I also want 2026 to be a clear change and turn for God’s church in North America. And that I am sort of confident it will be. But deeply confident it can be.   Toward that end, I want 2026 to be a year where we pray for the revival and reformation of God’s church in these United States of America, and we persuade other believers to do the same. The church in this land needs some serious reviving, repenting, and reforming. If you zoom out and take in the bigger ecclesiastical landscape, you will see whole denominations making very poor decisions, even immoral ones, from both sides of the isle as they say. In the words of Herman Melville in Moby Dick , “Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow” (Chapter 8). And if we tweak that sentence a bit, it gets to my point. The world is a ship on its passage, and the church i...

  Talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and I break out in a cold sweat with images of 2001: A Space Odyssey flashing before my mind’s eye, mixed with dismal scenes from the 1982 version of Blade Runner ! It’s totus tenebrae (total gloom) for me, baby! Honestly, to be a Boomer has its issues. But Stephen Driscoll, author, partner with Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, husband and father has gently addressed my concerns, and more, in his 192-page paperback “ Made in Our Image: God, ArtificialIntelligence and You .” In a nutshell, this useful and readable manuscript presents a biblical way for Christians to think about AI. And he does it without falling into the traps of either technological frenzy or forlornness. Rather, he walks a realistic line that clearly sees pros and cons.   Driscoll’s main aim in the book is to “zoom out to 40,000 feet to help us see how God’s big picture of reality – seen specifically through the lenses of creation, sin, the cross a...

  We thank you for your constant care for us personally, in our families, and as a congregation, loving Father. We thank you for how you have been pleased to bring many people into this congregation’s life, and enriched our catechism and Sunday School classes, and more. And we thank you for bringing us to a new year. Look upon your Church throughout the world, and Oklahoma, this congregation, First Christian Church, Shepherd Street, The Well, and Britton Christian Church. Bestow your preserving care on your people. Guide us in the paths of righteousness for your name’s sake. Build up our resolve in tenacious faithfulness to you and the Gospel of Christ no matter the cost. We are concerned for our nation, Lord God. We are concerned that the citizens of our country are losing their way and becoming trapped in the snares of pleasure, ease, covetousness, envy, personal peace and affluence. We are concerned that the people in this land have gotten too easily caught up in the moral relat...