If it’s not on your calendar yet, you still have some time to put it there! DSC’s third annual Cause for Praise is tonight, Friday, October 19, from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.

Our musicians will introduce a number of newly written songs of psalms set to song, including this one from Psalm 100.

“Psalm 100”
Words and music by Drew Hodge

Make a joyful noise to the Lord.
Serve the Lord with great joy.
Come into His house and sing!
Know that the Lord is God alone!
Chosen to be His own,
we belong to Him and sing, we sing!

Enter in His gates
with thanksgiving!
Fill His courts with praise!
Enter in His gates,
with thanksgiving!
Come and bless His name!

For the Lord is Good;
His love will endure;
His faithfulness to all generations!

For more information about Cause for Praise, and for links to songs recorded at DSC, click here.

In case you weren’t aware, DSC has a relatively new Missions Blog that tracks closely with our efforts and partnerships locally and around the globe.

Ahead of our upcoming Missions Emphasis Week (October 21-24), Clint, our Missions Director, recently published a blog with an invitation to dinner with three of DSC’s missionaries.

Here are the details:

Missions Emphasis Sunday is October 21st this year.  And as part of the celebration, we will be hosting a dinner with three of our global missionaries.  The night will include a silent auction, a Mediterranean dinner, free childcare, and a time of Testimony and Q&A with the following folks:

• Dr. Jaime Jacobo Pineda – Dr. Jacobo is our dear friend and partner from Guatemala with whom we seek to serve the Rabinal Achi through Community Health Evangelism.
• Hugo W. – Hugo is the Director of Arab World Media (AWM). AWM exists to “To see mature, multiplying churches among all Muslim peoples of the Arab world.” Not only do we support AWM from our annual missions budget, our hopes are that as we raise up a few SNAP families to move to North Africa, they will be able to benefit directly from AWM’s ministry on the ground both now and in the future. Please pray toward this end even now.
• Chuck Harper – Chuck is DSC’s missionary in residence who recently accepted a new position at Western Indian Ministries as the General Director.

Yes, you read that right: Childcare is free and includes a meal and a program.

Seating is limited to the first 50 adults who RSVP and pay ($20 per person) for their seat. You can pay online here, or by using check or cash in a missions envelope by dropping it in an offering box or taking it to the church office. You can RSVP by emailing global@desertspringschurch.org.

Finally, the silent auction will include items from our three global core initiative regions of the world (North Africa, Guatemala, and Native America).

Check back at the DSC Missions Blog in the days ahead for introductions to our guest missionaries for Missions Emphasis Week. The first introduction, for Dr. Jaime Jacobo and Jannette Pineda, is available here. Subscribe to the Missions Blog here.

Clarus is now just five months away – March 8-10! You’ll hear more about this DSC conference in the weeks and months ahead, but to kick everything off, here’s an invitation from Ryan published to the new Clarus conference site:

Our speakers for Clarus ’13, Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane, have written and spoken much on the themes of relationships and communication in the church.

In their co-authored book, How People Change, they succinctly summarize the challenges of and need for relationships—and, thus, provide a snapshot of our conference theme:

At one level we want friendships. At another level we don’t want them! In creation, we were made to live in community, but because of the fall, we tend to run from the very friendships we need. Quite often, our longing for them is tainted by sin. We pursue them only as long as they satisfy our own desires and needs. We have a love–hate relationship with relationships! The Bible recognizes this profound tension, but still places our individual growth in grace in the context of the body of Christ. The Scriptures call us to be intimately connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our fellowship is an essential ingredient for lasting change. The work of redemption involves our individual relationship with Christ alongside our relationship with others.

God’s plan for our redemption is not merely to reconcile us to Himself, but to point us to those who share this reconciliation, the church. In Christ, Christians become part of a new family. Like bricks go together to make up a wall, Christians go together to make up a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:20-22). They are like parts of a body, inextricably connected, each part doing its part (1 Corinthians 12:12-20). This is how Christians grow—they grow together (Ephesians 4:16). As Tripp and Lane say, “change is a community project.”

It should be no surprise, then, that the majority of the New Testament’s commandments assume a corporate context. For example, roughly 50 times the New Testament tells Christians to do something one to another. We sometimes refer to these as the one-anothers—e.g., love one another, serve one another, pray for one another, stir up one another, encourage one another, sing to one another, etc. Such commands simply cannot be done alone. We need partners. We need a partnership—which is really what “fellowship” is.

These one-anothers are not mere friendships, kind acts, and kind words. Just as Christ must be the foundation, so the Scripture must be the “stuff” of these relationships. The Bible is the basis and content for encouraging one another, loving one another, teaching one another, etc.

It’s a bit of a made up word, but, in short, we’re to be “One-Anothering the Word” in the church.

To that end, we Christians meet regularly for worship and teaching; we read the Scriptures and pray, alone and in our families; we read good books and recommend them to others; we keep working at these relationships and our ministry to each other. And sometimes we steal away a few days to meet up with other churches for more intensive and focused teaching from some superbly gifted and experienced teachers. We call that a conference. There are many good ones these days. But maybe you live in Albuquerque; or maybe you’re just a day’s drive away; or maybe you’re just a flight away; or maybe this theme is simply of particular interest to you. We hope it is.

We hope you’ll join us Friday-Sunday, March 8-10, 2013, with Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane and hundreds of other Christians, for a weekend of singing, fellowship, and excellent teaching on this needed topic of “One-Anothering the Word.”

At new Clarus site, you’ll find an explanation of our intention through this conference, links to audio from past conferences, and registration for Clarus ’13. Put it on your calendar and plan to join us!

On Sunday we announced the appointment of six new deacons: Sandy Beauchamp, Greg Dart, Leonard Duran, Marvin Gibson, and Jason Mancini.

Here’s a nice description of the office of deacon on DSC’s Leadership page:

In the New Testament Scriptures, there are two offices in the local church: pastors (or elders) and deacons. The deacon is a “servant” office (this is what the Greek word “deacon” means, and what we see in Acts 6 with the first deacons). However, it is also a managerial office: deacons lead others in an area of service. In Acts 6:3 “the seven” (deacons) were put “in charge” of a task. The seven of Acts 6:3 may have helped to manage around three thousand in the church at that time.

In Acts 6 we see areas that require some form of leadership, such as problem-solving and peace-making, related to an area that starts in the material realm (in this case, taking care of the needs of widows). Again, deacons give attention to more practical needs of the body. This frees up elders for the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4). Though the needs that deacons respond to often start in the material realm, the ministry often mingles physical and spiritual needs. For example, “complaints” are handled (Acts 6:1), Stephen preaches (Acts 7), Philip preaches (Acts 8), and deacons “hold fast the mystery of the faith” (1 Timothy 3:9).

On our Leadership Page you will also find photos for each of DSC’s leaders, including these five new deacons.

This Sunday, Ryan preached a message from Psalm 104, “God’s Intimate and Intricate Care for Creation.” Psalm 104 encourages us to look to God’s creation with wonder, curiosity, and delight.

Ryan quoted from former Wheaton English professor, Clyde Kilby’s, “Resolutions for Mental Health“:

At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me. . . .

I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled with worthy potentialities. . . .

I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. . . .

I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be a “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

Psalm 104 is one of many psalms that focus on God’s glory in creation that we have heard preached in our series through the Psalms, Pour Out Your Heart to Him. Here are a few others:

• “How Majestic!“ – Psalm 8
• “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words” – Psalm 19:1-6
• “Lord of the Storm” – Psalm 29
• “Nothing to Fear, the Lord is With Us” – Psalm 46
• “The Growing Crescendo of God’s Praise” – Psalm 96
• “The Dark Side of Creation” – Psalm 97