Toviah & Michelle Rose's daughter, Sephina, was born at 2:45 AM, today, after 60 hours-awake and in labor.

Toviah & Michelle Rose's daughter, Sephina, was born at 2:45 AM, today, after 60 hours-awake and in labor. She was delivered in the old fashioned, natural way. Weighing in at 9.9 lbs, this heavywight woke up from her first official 4 hour nap to nurse and proceded to chug for 10 minutes. Then fell asleep again for five hours.

Mom is elated and amazingingly "with it" after 1-1/2 hours sleep, and an uncountable amount of minutes of sleep between interruptions by hospital staff. Dad rested comfortably in his own bed (no WAY a human could sleep on the one provided by the hospital), for 4.75 hours -- until one of their new church interns (who was there all night with mom and dad), called him on the cell phone to ask a silly question, promting dad to ask in response, "What in the world are YOU doing AWAKE!?!?"

Would love your prayers! :)

--T0V

Some Jews see trespass in Christian Seders

The following article was posted on MSNBC and posted to my MSN Blog, but I thought a posting here might be good. It is called, "Some Jews see trespass in Christian Seders Jesus spin on Passover holiday 'sets off great anxieties' ."

I felt the need to make a couple comments:
1.Wasn't the "last supper" that Jesus celebrated a Passover Dinner? Answer: Yes.
2. Didn't he take each of the Passover items and attribute his act of redemption to each of those items? Answer: Yes
3. Didn't the early Christians up until the Council of Nicea celebrate Passover as a dual meaning holiday--the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt AND their redemption accomplished through Jesus? Answer: Yes.

So, my point is this: The following is making a big deal about nothing. It is just Christians reclaiming a heritage they share with the Jewish people.

Here's the article:

Some Jews see trespass in Christian Seders
Jesus spin on Passover holiday 'sets off great anxieties'

The Seder meal was served before the Seder service started, instead of two-thirds of the way through.

There was dancing.

And Jesus was everywhere.

The stripes and the holes in the matzoh represented his whipped and pierced body. The wine (actually grape juice) represented his blood. The matzoh was wrapped in white cloth, symbolizing the way Jesus's body was wrapped for burial.

You don't traditionally find Jesus at a modern Seder celebrating Passover, which began last night. But this was no ordinary Seder. The 250 people at Immanuel's Church in Silver Spring on Tuesday night were holding a Christian Seder, a phenomenon that's gaining popularity across the country -- to the consternation of many in the Jewish community as well as some interfaith leaders.

Although for decades some churches have held Seders to better understand the Jewish faith, many churches, especially evangelical ones, are now giving them a markedly Christian spin.
"The Seder helps us appreciate our roots and even out the rough spots that developed through past Christian attitudes toward Jews that were not godly," said Charles Schmitt, senior pastor of Immanuel's, an evangelical church he started in his living room 24 years ago that now has 4,000 members.

Connecting to Christianity's heritageThe thinking is: Since three of the four Gospels say the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, what could be more natural than for Christians to learn more about the ritual meal Jesus shared with his apostles before he died?

"Holding a Seder is a way to connect with the heritage of our religion and to see how the practices of the ancient world are still relevant to us as Christians today," said Thom Campbell, who led a Seder for about 20 at Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax City last Saturday. It's also, he pointed out, a good family event.
But Christian Seders "set off great anxieties" in the Jewish community, says Christopher Leighton, executive director of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. "There's this fear that well-meaning Christians will end up confiscating Jewish liturgical property."

Even more, there's the fear that evangelicals are using the Christian Seder to proselytize among Jews. Objectors point to the involvement of Messianic Jews, those who believe in Jesus Christ, and Jews for Jesus, a missionary group that seeks to bring Jews into Christianity, in the growing popularity of the ritual among evangelicals.

Harris and her husband, Michael, who led most of Immanuel's Seder, are Messianic Jews. And they readily acknowledge that the Seders are "a major evangelistic tool," Meri said. "Lots of people bring their nonbelieving Jewish friends, to give them the idea that Christianity is really connected to the Jewish people."The Jewish Seder celebrates the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. It follows a strict order -- the word "seder," in fact, means "order" -- and its symbols -- the special foods of the Seder plate and the four cups of wine drunk in the course of the meal -- bear deep meaning for Jews. The roasted shank bone, for instance, recalls the sacrificial lamb offered to God at Passover; the matzoh recalls the unleavened bread the Israelites ate in their flight.
"People should understand that it's a commandment given to the Jewish people to observe the Passover and tell the story of the Exodus," says Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B'nai Tzedek in Potomac. "And that it is a Jewish ritual and not something they should try to make their own."

'Downright offensive'Leighton, a Presbyterian minister, said the gradual transfiguration of the Seder in its passage from the Jewish dining room to the evangelical church hall can be "downright offensive."

"It's an underlying assumption that Jews have a rich tradition, but they don't really understand the buried treasure within," he said. "So it's up to Christians to extract the gold. It's energized by a feeling of contempt that Judaism has no spiritual integrity of its own."

Schmitt sees it differently. "It's unfortunate that some Jews view this as a threat and an infringement," he said. "I wish it were not that way, because I deplore all the horrible things that were said and done against Jews in the past."

This, in fact, is the original rationale for the church-held Seder, which Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists and others have been doing as far back as the 1960s. A quest for interfaith dialogue led Christian churches to invite rabbis to perform demonstrations of Seders, as well as Jewish families to invite Christians to their Passover celebrations.

"It seems some people did them for a number of years with the Jewish community and then decided, 'Well, we can just do them ourselves,' " said David Sandmel, a rabbi and a professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Instructions for holding a Christian Seder are available online and in bookstores. "Let Us Break Bread Together: A Passover Haggadah for Christians," by Mike Smith, a Baptist pastor, and Rami Shapiro, a self-described "postdenominational" rabbi from Tennessee, was put out last year. (A Haggada is the text read during a Seder ceremony.) The book declares that it "does not pretend to be in any way Jewish."

Christian spinSome Catholic and mainline Protestant churches add a modicum of Christian spin at the end of the Seder "to make it relevant to the people who attend," said Fairfax Presbyterian's Campbell. But full-blown Christian Seders such as the one at Immanuel's Church play off the belief that the Jewish Seder is "full of symbolism pointing toward the Messiah," Schmitt said.

"Many things concerning Jesus were foreshadowed and prefigured in the Old Testament," he said. "Redemption in the Passover came through the blood of the lamb [sacrificed in the Temple]. Our redemption today comes through Jesus, who is our Passover lamb."
Shapiro believes the Christian Seder enriches both the Jewish and Christian faiths. "If the Jewish way is the only legitimate way of understanding a symbol, then it's a dead symbol," he said. "If it's living, then it's constantly being explored from a different angle.

"The history of religion is one of borrowing. . . . That's how we cross-pollinate, and I think that Christians have a legitimate claim to Passover, being that Jesus was Jewish."

At Immanuel's Seder, attendee Greg McDonald explained what the ceremony meant to him: "We cherish the history of the Jewish people that led to our salvation through Jesus Christ. This Seder is not a taking over of their ritual -- it's an appreciation of it."

Still, B'nai Tzedek's Weinblatt, for one, would probably be more comfortable with a little less Christian enthusiasm for all things Seder. "Ideally, I'd like for Christians to wish me a happy Passover and learn something about the holiday and its message," he says. "But it's not necessary for them to go all out and celebrate it."

Thoughts About Brian McLaren

I'm not very good about keeping up with my Blogs. I do the best I can, but the truth is there's so much going on in my life it just isn't easy to find the time to sit and write something -- even if you do type at 65+ words per minute.

That being said, I think it is time for me to speak about an issue that keeps coming up in my conversations with people when I tell them that the church we are starting is an Emergent Church. Maybe you don't know what Emergent is? I'm not going to take the time to talk about it now, but you can read a lot about Emergent by googling. You can also go here: http://www.ginkworld.net/ for some great information, articles and links related to Emergent and Emergent Culture.

Now, to the point: I don't know Brian McLaren. I have not read his books and most of what I have heard about Brian has been from his detractors and people how have been concerned about what he teaches.

Last year I was invited to participate on a nation-wide radio program to talk about the Emergent Church Movement, along with a pastor who has written a book "warning" people about the "new age" movement called "Emergent".

Most the per-screening conversation that I had with the show's host was asking me -- in one way or another -- whether or not I believed and taught the same things as Rev. Brian McLaren.

I chose not to be on the program.

The reason I chose against doing it is because the program's host made it pretty clear their position that they already believed Emergent was a "new age movement."

For the Record: I have no idea what Brian McLaren teaches. No idea what he writes about. No idea what he believes.

Now that I've said all of this, I need to say the following: I am always willing to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone. I am not one who is willing to be found guilty of judging another man's servant (Romans 14:4), and from all I can tell from browsing Mr. McLaren's website, he professes to be a follower of the same Messiah I follow.

I tell everyone who hears me, "Don't listen to this man speaking to you!"
When was the last time you heard a pastor say that?

The Bible is pretty clear about our personal responsibility when it comes to our Salvation. We are not supposed to whole-heartedly swallow what any teacher, (preacher, pastor, evangelist, etc.), says, without testing it with the Word of God and Prayer. That is why I tell everyone who listens to me teach, "Don't listen to this man speaking to you!"

The Apostle Paul made a firm statement of this fact in Phillipians, chapter 2: 12-16

"12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. 14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing"

For these Scriptural reasons I've chosen to be an encourager and NOT a critic. To be a peacemaker (Matthew 5:9), and to encourage people to Test for themselves the validity of what they hear (or read).

You know what I do when Critics start chasing my words?

Nothing at all.

I ignor them. I don't respond. I don't engage. It just isn't worth the trouble and the stress!

I am going to do what God has called me to do. I'm going to do everything He places before me with as much excellence and professionalism, grace and mercy, peace, love and compassion, as I can muster.

Maybe someday I'll have time to read one of Brian McLaren's books. Right now, God has given me so much to do I just don't have the time. I've got a Bible believing church to build, and the Emergent Church Model is the vehicle I'm using to reach people who would otherwise NEVER be reached for Jesus.

--T0V