A bit of M.L.J. wisdom

Brothers,

I'm reading through Murray's volume 1 biography of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 'The First Forty Years' - a few pages each morning. It's been instructive and enjoyable for me and always has some food for thought. Here's an excerpt about his preaching, being a new pastor with no theological training:

One thing that was clearly recognizable about this preaching was that it was based upon no contemporary models. Most of the preaching which Dr Lloyd-Jones had heard throughout his life had only convinced him what he must not do. He did not stand in the traditional Welsh succession which for some years had confused emotionalism and sentiment with the genuinely prophetic...In contrast to this, his sermons were closely reasoned, with the main theme carefully analysed. He was certain that true preaching makes its impact, in the first instance, upon the mind...Perhaps the most unusual feature about the form of his sermons was the importance which he gave to the introductions. He once observed:
'I am not and have never been a typical Welsh preacher. I felt that in preaching the first thing that you had to do was to demonstrate to the people that what you were going to do was very relevant and urgently important. The Welsh style of preaching started with a verse and the preacher then told you the connection and analysed the words, but the man of the world did not know what he was talking about and was not interested. I started with the man whom I wanted to listen, the patient. It was a medical approach, really - here is a patient, a person in trouble, an ignorant man who has been to the quacks, and so I deal with all that in the introduction. I wanted to get the listener and then come to my exposition. They started with their exposition and ended with a bit of application.'

More about Haiti

Nik,
We'll be praying for you as you're there. Most of all for the people of Haiti after this tragic earthquake today. I'm not sure what it will look like when you get down there, but of course your trip may be different than you expect. Hope God will use you to help in ways that you weren't planning.

-Mark

Big Move For Us

Brothers,
We have good news and answered prayer. It looks like God is now allowing Jennifer and me to do what we've been wanting to do. We will be moving to Turkey in mid-January to serve the workers there. A great opportunity has come up for us, so we're going to take it. We'll be visiting our families in December and January and then coming back to DC for a weekend before we head out. So we only have a couple more weekends at CHBC.
While we're in Turkey I'll have an administrative job. We'll also be able to take the time to learn Turkish and to use our lives to share the truth with those around us. We hope to be there for a long, long time. I'm happy to tell you more if you get in touch with me.
Thank you for rejoicing with us in our great God and in the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ.

-Mark S.

Another Preacher

And pray for me, too, brothers, as I preach this weekend at Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Falls Church. I'm preaching from John 4:43-54 about one of Jesus' healings. Jennifer won't need to translate for me like she has before because I'm just preaching to the English-speaking congregation that they have.

-Mark

Life at Starbucks

Hey Friends,
So wonderful to hear about the new baby Bishop! Thanks for updating us.

You can praise God with Jennifer and me that we have jobs now here in DC! It's so great to no longer be pre-employed or unemployed. I'm just finishing my first full-time week at Starbucks. I work at the super-busy one on Dupont Circle. Jennifer is teaching pre-school part-time, as well as working part-time at Ebenezer's Coffeeshop. So we're both baristas and that's a little weird. It's not really where I expected to be working, but that's ok.

We're thankful that it looks like we can now stay and live here in DC for a bit. Other parts of our life are going well enough as we try to get involved at CHBC.