Deus Misereatur

  (You can purchase the book here ) We’ve seen it more times than we care to count. Someone puts out their opinion (sometimes stating it as fact) on social media, then within minutes snarky replies show up in the comments. The snarky begins to devolve into snide, then spiteful, and finally an outright extreme verbal cage fight. The saddest part is that maybe some of the combatants claim to be Christians or are people we know. This scene has become so endemic that social media and verbal fisticuffs  have become synonymous. Therefore, Douglas S. Bursch, copastor of Evergreen Foursquare Church in Auburn, Washington, former newspaper columnist and talk radio host, has presented a timely work addressing this exact phenomenon. “Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It” is a 208-page paperback that delves into the way we are online, its consequences, and how to approach our internet presence with a whole new set of methods. The author’s premise is that “social me

  O Lord, Creator of the earth, you never grow faint nor get weary, your understanding is unsearchable. You give power to the weak, and to those who have no might you increase strength (Isaiah 40:28-30). It is to you that we come and offer up our prayers and petitions. We ask you to be with your Church here and throughout the world. Being simultaneously justified and sinful, we cry out to you to guide us by your Holy Spirit and Holy Scriptures, keep us from turning to the right hand or to the left, that we may be more intensely and intentionally yours as we continue to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. O Lord, hear our prayer.   Lord Jesus, head over all things to your Church, we implore your guiding care and wisdom for our General Assembly as we prepare to meet at the end of June. You well know the big issues we will be tackling. Preserve us as we seek to be faithful to you over cultural and societal expediencies, so that our voices and desire for fidelity will carry the

  Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Since Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, we pray for the church here and world over, for this congregation, as well as Redeemer PCA-Edmond; St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church; Santa Fe Presbyterian; Southminster; Trinity; and Westlake Presbyterian Church. We ask that by his blessing, by the reforming and revitalizing work of your Holy Spirit, by the faithful reading, preaching, and teaching of your Scriptures, and by the right administration of your sacraments, Jesus might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27). And we ask you to be with those in our families and in our congregation who need strength or heal