Godward Toil

John Piper: A model for pouring into the next generation

Every time I see another event in which John Piper shares the platform with young leaders I rejoice and take note.   The Advance '09 conference (trailer below) is the latest example.   I love seeing this beloved, wise, mature pastor in the same funky/trendy videoclip with these young godly men in Jesus T-shirts.  That's God's church.  May Piper's influence on them be great.  And may they all be influential for God.

Does your computer shout and sing for joy?

The second half of Psalm 65 is about God's majesty in provision.  He enriches the soil, provides grain, and gives a bountiful harvest.    Verse 12-13 say this:

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy. (ESV)

This Psalm was written in an agrarian context, where  provision of grain meant food on the table.  Whether or not you were a farmer, you had a direct connection to that provision as the source of life for your family.   If you work at a computer for some or most of your day and shop at a grocery store for food, you might have lost that direct connection.  These verses become pretty and tame--like a cheesy nature photograph.   So we might need to refresh our view of provision.  If God provides for your family by your work on a computer, as is the case for an increasing number of people, then we need to think about what we are harvesting from our work with the same wonder at God's provision.  If you solve problems, enter data, write grants, develop software, place inventory orders, or design machines for a living, then your computer is the pastures, meadows, and valleys that Psalm 65 is talking about.   Each line of code, text, or numbers that flows out of your fingers is like grain coming up from the ground.  I need to remember that and be in constant awe of God's majesty in provision.   As I do, my computer shouts and sings for joy at his glory!

Doodle scheduler: Tool for kingdom productivity

A tool I've been using for a long time is starting to catch on at my church.  Doodle is the simplest imaginable tool for polling a group of people for their availability.   You just create a poll, offer dates and times, then send invitees to a website where they fill in their names and check little yes/no availability boxes.  It provides an instant, easy to interpret visual representation of which are the best days and times for the greatest number of people (without a single "reply all" email clogging your inbox).

I used Doodle to schedule meetings for the children's ministry, and almost instantly other groups at the church started asking me about it.   Even people who are slow to warm to new technologies see the beauty of this tool right away.  My brothers and sisters are starting to use it for Men's Ministry and for scheduling visitation and prayer for the sick.  Praise the Lord!  May he use it for many more good works.  So, since I had gotten so many questions, spontaneously, I thought I'd share it here too.

Doodle is free.  There is an option to register so you can manage multiple polls more easily, but a logon registration is not required.