bryanlopez.com | something to chew on.
musings on theology, philosophy, adoption, music, and technology.
Together for Adoption Audio.
The @t4acon conference audio is up. Go check it out and share it with your friends and church!
Main Sessions:
The Gospel, the Church, and Social Justice (Darrin Patrick)
Adoption and the Giving God (Dan Cruver)
The Church as the Theater of Transracial Adoption (Bryan Loritts)
Gospel-Motivation for Missional Living (Jeff Vanderstelt)
Relaxing in Trinitarian Love (Tim Chester)
More audio from the breakout sessions can be found here.
Sydney’s Grace – A Must Read.
If you’re going to read any post of mine this week or in the next few weeks you should read this one. Some of our friends still birthed their daughter 4 years ago. In their post they share about their suffering, God’s grace, the Gospel and how all this lead up to them now pursing adoption.
Ian is our drummer at church and used to be in this band called Soular, no doubt he’s the best drummer you will have a chance to listen to… I sincerely mean that. Anyways, he has been working on “Sydney’s song” for quite some time and it’s finally ready. The cool thing about it is that they are giving all the proceeds to help families adopt from our church. You can listen to the song here:
Here are some of the thoughts shared on their post, but you can read the whole thing HERE.
For some time after Sydney died, Ian and I each chose to grieve differently. One out loud and publicly and the other keeping it inside. And then Ian heard music. In his head, it would not leave. He began losing sleep and driving himself crazy with this heaven sent tune. He could not get it out of his head. That melody. Unending. And in the beginning, we weren’t ready or able to say Hallelujah and truly mean it…Hallelujah for death? Of a sweet little baby? How could that be?
Two years later, Ian began putting this “head music” together in the form of a song. Collecting sweet talented friends of ours. asking me to write the lyrics. Adding this year long melody with his amazing talents on the drums and in a large group effort with many we love, he began crafting Sydney’s Song. A song that Ian felt was about her. Her life and death and it’s impact on us. A song that would help him heal and move forward in restoration and reconciling his little girl’s death to a good God. Over that 3rd year, Ian began to see how Sydney’s Song was not supposed to be about her as much as it was to be about the One who ordained all of her days and how it was He that would bring the healing, not just songwriting, to him. Ian shared with me these thoughts and we both agreed that we needed to rework the song. I rewrote the lyrics, kept some of the original but we both agreed this song would be a praise song, not just a lament one. A worshipFULL song, not just a mourning one. And most importantly, this song was God’s. Not Ian’s. Not ours, not even hers. But God’s song. For Him and about Him and what He does with grief battered torn up hearts because of death.
Because of the death of a little girl. Because of the death of a Savior and ultimately the death of our own sin at the Cross…
…………………………………………………………………………..
God takes disgusting ugly death and transforms it into beauty, into restoration and reconciles it.. through the Cross, because of a Savior, eternal life, the end of sin in heaven? Yes!!! But also here. On earth and in hearts that walk in the now not yet season…He can take the bad, the painful and the sad and renew it and transform it into a thing of Grace that solely brings glory to Himself. All the while, drawing others to Him.
…………………………………………………………………………..
We are joyfully glad and proud to announce that we have answered the call to adoption. Our journey to this point has been a long one, a painful one, a life changing one, and a God focused one. This is not plan B for us simply because we can’t have anymore kids. This is God’s plan A for our family. It always was. We are certain, that our family is called to care, serve, love and bring a home to one of His fatherless children. To make things right? No. To replace her? No. Never. Because we cannot have anymore children biologically? No. Simply because that is gospel is why.
“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”
James 1:27To love and care for his orphans is the most beautiful image of gospel love, of redeeming love and restoring love. And life changing love and heart transforming love. We want to be a part of that and help others that are passionate about it’s message as well! We might not have walked this path had we not lost our Sydney. Or maybe we would have, only God knows..Death did teach us about God’s restorative love though. And adoption is restorative love at it’s finest..Just as God adopted us into His heavenly family, we chose adoption here on earth…I do know we can say that our sweet baby girl’s life and death has influenced and shaped our hearts, as we in our loss, reach out in love to bring a fourth child into our family, a precious child that has experienced it’s own loss as well. We long to reconcile that hurt and loss of theirs and have God redeem it by uniting us all as a family.
“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.”
Psalms 68:5-6
Free e-Book from Piper.
My friends at Logos asked that I share a little gift they are giving out this Christmas season.
For Christmas we at Logos Bible Software are offering customers A Holy Ambiton by John Piper for free, exclusively on Vyrso (Logos new Christian ebookstore).
Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
It is ok to kill a baby in the womb when…?
This is a guest post by my wife, Sherry Lopez you can check out her blog here.
It is ok to kill a baby in the womb when…?
That’s was the question asked to everyone in this video I watched called, “180.” If you haven’t seen this movie, stop what you are doing and take 1/2 an hour out of your day to watch this. The interviewer skillfully questions people’s world-views in a way that makes them reconsider their thoughts on abortion and the holocaust.
Some individuals answered that question with the following statement(s).
1. “If it comes from something that should not have happened.”
2. “If you can’t support it when it comes out.”
3. “If she feels she can’t take care of it.”
4. “Medical problems, all sorts of birth defects or whatever… so you know that their quality of life is going to be restrained to a 9×9 hospital room.”
5. “No possible way that child would have a good quality of life.”Our boys were born out of wedlock, to a teenage mother who was unable to care for them. They were born at 25 weeks gestation and therefore have faced many challenges. Please know that everyone of these answers describes one or all of our boys. Look at these answers, then look at our boys and tell me that if you still think these statements are valid.
The last year has been rough. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions, hospital trips and joy. Through it all we’ve seen that God is faithful and he has a plan for our boys. Thank you for your prayers and partnership in the gospel. I look forward to sharing more of our journey in the up and coming days, weeks and years.
Here’s a snapshot of our last year:
Darth Vader Typography.
May the force (of good design) be with you.
From Grief to Glory – Death, Joy and the Gospel.
Loosing a child is something that, to the world, seems unbearable to overcome. The truth is that outside of Christ I would agree with that statement but there is hope in the gospel, there is hope in Christ. Sherry and I had miscarriages in the past, they were hard to get through but God was gracious. While working though a miscarriage is tough, working though the death of a child you gave birth to or spent time with is different, and to the world it does seem unjust and unbearable. If you feel that way you need to read this post by Dan Cruver, even if you don’t you still should read this post by Dan. He does a great job of explaining how grief lead to glory in the death of his son Daniel. I’m thankful for friends who get the gospel like this, it broadens my perspective of the abounding love our sovereign God gives.
Here’s what Dan says:
As I write this post it is Saturday, November 19th in Melbourne, Australia, the 12th anniversary of my son Daniel’s death. Although this happens to be one of the most difficult days of the year for me and my family, it also happens to be one of my most treasured. If you are wondering how November 19th can simultaneously be both a difficult and treasured day for me, the two pictures above do more than just hint at an answer. They tell the story, and the story that those two pictures tell (namely, that the Gospel is for real life) is also the reason Together for Adoption does what it does. It is also the reason why I am preaching in Australia today on the good news of our adoption in Christ.
If you are interested, you may read the tribute I wrote to my son who died and to my Father who is eternal.
_________________________Note: The picture on the left was taken 5 days before my son’s death as a way of giving testimony to the sufficiency of the Gospel in our darkest days.
If you don’t know this hope of the gospel, email me, FB me get in touch with me. I want you to know you can have that hope.
–
Friends of bryanlopez.com:
Pastors & Leaders Listen Up.
Good reminder from Piper.
Jimmy Kimmel pranks Ron Artest
Pure Awesomeness.
The Finder – Something we need for our house.
I think we all know how frustrating it is when we lose something such as our keys or cellphone. Especially when we just had it. Thanks to designers Chu Wang, Qiujin Kou, Qian Yin and Yonghua Zhang we may never have to deal with this problem again!
Their concept is a new and improved object finder. Appropriately called Finder, it works by having the user put a small sticker on each item, then naming it in the device. Using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology, the home device can then easily find your lost object. The use of small stickers is refreshing to see as opposed to the chunkier key finders on the market today.
via [Yanko]
Some Math to Encourage You in Your Reading by John Piper
Since wisdom is found in the Word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the Word and do it. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study, but also regular reading of great books on theology and biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years.
Now, I know what you are thinking: I don’t have the time or the ability to get anywhere in books like that. So I want to show you something really encouraging. When this was shown to me about four years ago by my pastor, it changed my life. Most of us don’t aspire very high in our reading because we don’t feel like there is any hope.
But listen to this: Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and that you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day to serious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth. In one year (365 days) you would read for 5,475 minutes. Multiply that times 250 words per minute and you get 1,368,750 words per year. Now most books have between 300 and 400 words per page. So if we take 350 words per page and divide that into 1,368,750 words per year, we get 3,910 pages per year. This means that at 250 words a minute, 15 minutes a day, you could read about 20 average sized books a year!
via: Z
Is God a Delusion? William Lane Craig.
Richard Dawkins was invited by the Oxford student Christian Union to defend his book The God Delusion in public debate with William Lane Craig. The invitation remained open until the last minute. However, Dawkins refused the challenge and his chair remained empty. Craig then gave a lecture to a capacity audience on the weaknesses of the central arguments of the book and responded to a panel of academics. – via Apologetics315
Hosanna.
One of the things that I do with our worship team is record service each week, not for the sake of building some massive CD or library but for the sake of improvement. What we do is record the set during service, upload it to our online collaboration site on “The City” and then the worship team gives critical feedback on areas to work on. It’s one of the best ways to grow your worship team, and yourself. Typically you will be your worst critic and you will hear things that you did, or didn’t do, that others didn’t. If you’re trying to grow your worship team I would encourage you to try this, believe me it helps. Anyway, here is a recording of “hosanna” from our preview service on the 6th. I thought it came out ok considering there has been no editing or mastering. Feel free to check it out.
BTW great news: Los signed the lease for our space today. It’s official Redemption now has a place to call our own. As we start getting things set up I’ll get some pics up.
Happy Monday.
The Gospel and Trans-Ethnical Adoptions.
@DanCruver posted a brief recap of Vermon’s sermon at @t4acon. Unfortunately, we we unable to attend T4A this year, because our kids came down with strep the day before we were supposed to leave, but everyone on our adoption team attended and said this was one of the best sermons of the conference. Here is the snapshot that Dan shared (I can’t wait for this audio to come out):
Here’s the summary of Vermon’s breakout session:
Some of the problems that happen when white parents adopt cross-ethnicity is the family emphasizing race too much or too little.
Families who talk too much about race
Saying we want our kids to be “black” doesn’t work. Black culture isn’t monolithic. There are subcultures within the black culture so we need to make sure that we do not expose our kids to our one idea of black culture.
Sometimes the family views their white culture as negative for their children and so they over compensate based on, often, stereotypical views of what it means to “be black.”
Families who talk too little about race
There is a problem with divorcing your child completely from their culture. Your kids ARE your children, but they were not always your child. They have a story and they came from somewhere.
The idea that your kids don’t notice that the way they look is different from everyone around them is ignorant. Especially with the black/white reality…the history of racial separation was not that long ago.
When your child from Korea gets adopted by your Idaho farming white family, she doesn’t just become an Idaho white girl, but your family also becomes Korean. This is what Christ did with us…he became human so we could become righteousness.
If you adopt a child of a different race then your child WILL have tension. The tension is not a bad thing. It is nieve and ignorant to ignore that tension and it missed out on an opportunity to point your child to the gospel.
When we become believers we are placed IN Christ. We are not lost in Christ….but we are placed INto Christ. We do not become born into a people that makes my ethnicity insignificant. In Christ, our identities are redeemed and redeemed in a way that unites us to other people.
Here are his 4 take away points:
Know the theology of adoption. Knowing that God has adopted us to a family changes the way we see race. Revelation 7 paints a picture of every nation crying out to God from every tribe. When John lcoks at the multitudes of people he doesn’t see one shade. He sees all sorts of different ethnicities. Ethnic designations remain in eternity, but all submitted under Christ.
We can help our children’s identity issues by having a robust theology of salvation and how that relates to adoption.
Don’t be afraid to talk to your children about race.
Your identity as a diverse family will be helped the more you are in diverse community.
Point out good historical role models from their racial/ethnic background AND their adoptive family background.
Give your kids a gospel love for other cultures. Give your children Multi-cultural competency. They are citizens of heaven and that heavenly race is diverse.
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