It's that time again

We just wrapped up the design phase of the next issue of Revive magazine. The files were handed off to the printer yesterday and we approved the initial proofs this morning. If all goes well, the magazines will go in the mail on October 13th and begin arriving in homes on October 15th. We are printing 32,600 copies of this issue and mailing 28,337 copies to families, pastors, and churches across the US.

As a little treat for our friends and family, here is a preview of the cover of this issue.


Please be praying for this issue; that it will speak into the lives of those that receive it in a timely manner. Pray that God will use it to bring renewal to individuals, small groups, and churches throughout the nation.

Revival Week

Life Action wrapped up our annual Revival Week on Friday. Every year we set aside an entire week where the whole ministry, including all of the outreaches, gathers together to seek the Lord as a community for revival; in our nations, in our ministry, and in our personal lives.

We had a good week of meetings with two great speakers, Tom Elliff and Randy Rebold. At the opening service, Tom played a video clip for us that has been making ripples throughout our staff ever since. I thought I'd post it here to share with all of you.

Insights from Sled Dogs

Our small group is currently working through the Galatians Small Group Curriculum put out by Tim Keller's church, Redeemer Presbyterian. We've been talking about the Gospel and how Believers can add requirements beyond relying on Christ as conditions for salvation both for unbelievers to receive salvation and for believers to retain salvation and how this deforms the Gospel and causes it to not be the Gospel at all.

This week, we were looking at the parable most commonly known as "The Prodigal Son" and our leader, Jeff, was noting that the story isn't really about the son at all, Jesus actually tells us "There was a man who had two sons." The story is about the Father, not the son. In fact the two sons actually represent two ways that people run from God. The first is the obvious younger son who doesn't want the Father but rather the Father's money and so demands his inheritance and then squanders it in sinful decadent living. The second isn't so obvious but still leads to seperation from the Father. The second is the older son who, even though he stays at home and obeys the Father, it isn't out of love for the Father or wanting a relationship with the Father, it is also out of a desire for the Father's possessions i.e a young goat to share with his friends.

This represents how we desire God's blessings; be they temporal (possessions, health, financial security) or eternal (entrance to heaven, eternal life, avoiding hell) and completely shun God himself. We try to earn those blessings through religious obedience and moral living. Both believers and unbelievers fall prey to this deception but we fail to realize that our "righteousness" has been completely tainted by our sinfulness even to the point that our motives for obeying are distorted causing even our "goodness" to be sinful.

This was fresh on my mind this weekend as I took Yuki out for a run. We'd just had ten inches fall overnight so we had a nice blanket of pristine snow. Even though Yuki is one the the whitest dogs I've ever seen and I had just given her a bath the night before, compared to the purity of the fresh snow she looked rather dingy. We may be "pretty good" people and compared to the behaviour of others we may even look like saints but, in light of God's Holiness, our righteousness is as filthy rags. Only by relying on Jesus and His righteousness can we have any confidence to stand before God and expect acceptance.

Construction Continues

I know not much has changed over on the new blog but I wanted to reassure y'all that work continues and progress is being made. I'm just about finished with the wire frame of the home page, meaning I've blocked it out in boxes of different shades of grey.

I need to go back through all my reference sites to make sure I haven't forgotten anything that I wanted to include and then I'll start building the skin in CSS.