www.biblicalspirituality.org newsletter #18

Issue Number Eighteen

Don's Schedule

Please pray for these ministry opportunities in June and July.

The Glory of Christ Conference
The Master's Community Church
Kansas City, KS
Faith Community Church
Kansas City, MO
Countryside Bible Church
Southlake, TX
Grace Church of DuPage
Warrenville, IL
Mississippi Baptist Convention Music Leadership Conference
Gulfshore Baptist Assembly
Pass Christian (near Gulfport), MS
Berean Baptist Church
Ely, MN

Bulletin Inserts
To Download

The article in this newsletter is available for download as bulletin insert in .doc format for MS Word or in .pdf format for Adobe Reader, a free browser plug-in. Click the "Bulletin Inserts" button on the homepage. We will notify you as more chapters become available in this format.

Sample Chapters from
Books by Don Whitney

Do You Thirst for God?
from Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Silence and Solitude
from Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

Why Join a Church?
from Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church

A Spiritual Mind

Set
from How Can I Be Sure I'm A Christian?

Why I Am A Baptist
from Why I Am A Baptist

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What's New on the Web Site?

6/02/04 - Added the article/bulletin insert Simplify Family Worship.
6/01/04 - Added several sermons in .mp3 format to the audio section.

Ministry News

THE NAME OF DON'S WEBSITE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO "THE Center for Biblical Spirituality."
Don Whitney teaches full-time at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO as associate professor of spiritual formation. But since coming to the seminary in 1995, Don has had an additional ministry of writing and of preaching and teaching in churches and conferences around the country. Recently, Don incorporated this work into a tax-exempt ministry called "The Center for Biblical Spirituality."

In conjunction with this, Don is changing the name of the website and its address. The URL for this website is now www.BiblicalSpirituality.org. While you may want to bookmark the new website address, we expect that for years to come both the old (www.SpiritualDisciplines.org) and new addresses will take you to the website for The Center for Biblical Spirituality.

Note that the content of the website will not change. The only changes you will see will be the replacement of all places where www.SpiritualDisciplines.org is used with the new website name and address.

HEAR DON ON THE RADIO
WMBI radio in Chicago asked Don to prepare five readings of about four minutes each from his book, Simplify Your Spiritual Life. They're scheduled to air Monday through Friday, June 21-25 at 5:42 a.m. and again at 8:42 a.m. central time. Those who aren't in the Chicagoland area can listen at those times online at www.wmbi.org.

The same five programs will be aired nationwide the following week on the stations on the Moody Broadcasting Network. But the times are set by each individual station. To see if there's an MBN station in your area, check the website at www.mbn.org.

The same five readings, plus one extra will be available on the Audio Sermons button of Don's website starting June 21. You may hear them in either .mp3 or Real Audio format. Incidentally, several new audio sermons have been added to this button, in both .mp3 and Real Audio.

FATHER'S DAY BULLETIN INSERT AVAILABLE
Just a reminder that Don recently made a new bulletin insert available for Father's Day called "Simplify Family Worship." This encouraging piece shows husbands and fathers how simple family worship can be. You can download this free insert on the Bulletin Inserts button of the website, near the bottom of the page.

Below is one of the ninety chapters
from Don's book

Simplify Your Spiritual Life.
with Discussion Guide included.

Take a Nap

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to take a nap. The average amount of sleep for Americans declined from more than nine hours per night in 1850 to seven hours in 1990.¹ Other studies verify what most of us know by experience, that many are operating with a serious "sleep debt." While it's true that both Jesus (see Luke 6:12) and the apostle Paul (see 2 Corinthians 6:5) occasionally were up all night for the sake of the kingdom of God, the Bible also tells us this about our Heavenly Father: "He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2).

God made us a unity of body and soul, and one influences the other. When your soul is either happy or discouraged, it can affect how your body looks and feels. And when your body is exhausted, it tends to dampen the zeal of your soul. In fact, fatigue often weakens our resolve against temptation, and provides excuses for anger, lust, and other sins.

God made us to need sleep. Pastor and author John Piper once sat wearily on the side of his bed trying to develop a theology of sleep. After all, he reasoned, we could do so much more for God's kingdom if we didn't have to sleep nearly a third of our lives away.

Click HERE to finish reading this article.

How the Spiritual Disciplines Lighten Your Load

But how can we keep up the pace? For one thing, God's voice regarding priorities can best be heard while practicing the Spiritual Disciplines. The older you grow, the more you tend to accumulate responsibilities like barnacles. The addition and growth of children requires an increase in attention to their lives in school, sports, and transportation. Job advancement brings with it more commitments as well as opportunities. The accumulation of goods an property over the years tends to escalate the time you must devote to their maintenance. All this means that periodically your life will call for an evaluation of priorities. Perhaps through the Discipline of Bible intake, or prayer, or worship, or silence and solitude, or journaling, God might guide you to realize which activities are 'barnacles' that must be cut away. Instead of seeing the Spiritual Disciplines as additional weight, they are actually one of the ways God uses to help lighten your load and give you smoother sailing.

[Taken from pages 236-237 of Don's book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Find out more about this book here.]

Or order by phone: 800-405-3788

Family News and Notes

Please pray for the upcoming radio programs on WMBI and the Moody Broadcasting Network. And speaking of WMBI and Chicago, I hope to see some of my Chicagoland friends during my two trips there in July. Check the "Speaking Schedule" button on the website for more details.

Please pray for my research and writing this summer. Please ask the Lord to protect my time and to enable me to write with unprecedented productivity. This is my main prayer request for the summer.

Please pray for me to discern clearly the Lord's unfolding vision for the ministry of the Center for Biblical Spirituality. In terms of ministry matters, this request would be second only to that for the Lord's extraordinary help with my writing.

Caffy finished the trompe l'eoil ceiling she's been painting for the past month in an almost-completed new home nearby. The owners are delighted and all who see it are astonished. (I can brag on her work because I have nothing to do with making it as good as it is.) The last week of this art project was the performance week of "Annie" in Christian Youth Theater. Because of Laurelen's involvement, Caffy became the chief makeup artist. Some of the eight-to-ten-hour stints (involving multiple performances, etc.) were exhausting, but she found herself really enjoying the kids and her role with them. Now she's turning her attention more fully to summer projects around the house and yard, and art work drawing some children's book covers.

Laurelen has been immersed in "Annie." Christian Youth Theater is— I have learned in the past few months—a nationwide organization. There are two branches here in Kansas City, and three or four times each year they coordinate elementary to high school age kids in surprisingly complex dramatic productions. This was Laurelen's first time to participate, and she had a blast. The rehearsal schedule was sometimes too much, but Laurelen grew through the experience. She was part of a ninety-two member cast, and her role was as a "Hooverville girl" in one scene and part of the "NYC crowd" in another. Each scene revolved around a song and accompanying choreography. I've had one of those parental attitudes where I've been glad she had the experience and glad it is over.

Now Laurelen's only regular organized activity outside home and church is a little more Daddy-friendly— softball. Some of you may recall that last season—her first in girl-pitch (as opposed to coach-pitch the previous year) —she was hit in the nose on the first pitch of the season. She never recovered her confidence at the plate after that. But she seems to have forgotten that incident and has had pretty good start with the bat in the first third of the season. Her team—the Mustangs—is still looking for its first win. Unless I'm mistaken, they've lost every game by just one run. The most recent lost was a real heartbreaker—15 to 14. The Mustangs lost in the last inning. I'm not going to say there are a lot of bad pitches when nine and ten-year-old girls pitch, but that game was only four innings long and went two hours!

The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.
2 Timothy 4:22

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