Does Chicago ever just stop and relax, I wonder?
If it does, I certainly have not been involved in helping it happen. My idea of “relaxing” would be talking to friends, gazing out the window while traveling on the EL, doing homework, reading the Old Testament, or eating in the SDR (Student Dining Room). As far as breaks go, there are very few. SInce most Moody students are very busy working and taking classes, when we do have a break, the most likely decision we make is to take a 45-minute nap. Then, our break is over, and we must jump up and continue on our way. If I ever do have an extended break, I feel terribly distracted and not able to enjoy it, because my body is so used to buzzing around from place to place. :(
Good news, though! I have finally found a church I love. It is called Covenant Presbyterian, and it was where my Pastor Tony went fifteen years ago when he was a student at Moody. :)
Not only do I agree with their doctrine, but there are many children and music opportunities. It is everything I really wanted, and I didn’t expect there to be a church with doctrine, children, and music all combined. I have visited many good churches, but they were all extremely different. I’m not sure I could spend every Sunday going to any of them. One pastor had many tattoos all over his body and the congregation was mostly young couples. Another was a baptist church with an altar call, and many elderly men and women. Another was a Spanish church that was focused mainly on helping those in gangs around the surrounding neighborhood by giving them hope and sharing the Gospel to those in desperate need. It was a blessing to have have visited all of these, because it gives me a much broader perspective on Christ’s church. Now, though, I am ready to become a part of a great church! My roommate also enjoyed it, and might join me.
The passage the sermon went through today was Phil. 2:1-11:
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
I bolded the main points the pastor talked about. To briefly cover it, while we grasp, clutch, and grab onto selfishness and authority (it all started with the Garden of Eden); God Himself willingly made Himself nothing and a nobody to draw us to Himself and to glorify Him. How humbling! How strange and yet so, so glorious.
Soli Deo Gloria,
~April
