Studio Apt Sought

Erik Lystad is looking for a studio apartment in the Jefferson area for a "reasonable price." He will be a first year med student at Jefferson. He can be reached at 509-768-1639.

House for Sale

Linda Curry has a house for sale at 2535 S. 18th Street. This is in the historic Girard Estate area in South Philly. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 powder rooms, 2 fireplaces, a marble jacuzzi, central air.

Call her realtor, Linda Allizzo, at 215.271.3000 or 215.253.9444.

Proverbs

I am now in to chapter 24 of Proverbs. Check out the devotional at "A Proverb a Day."

CCC Ministry

Here is Luke Herche's second part on the ministry to college students by CCC (City College and Career).

Good questions have been raised about mixing college students with other older young adults? Will college students necessarily shy away from or turn up their noses at the opportunity to fellowship with “older” young adults? For starters, I can speak from personal experience. When I first came to TCU ten years ago the group was then varied in age—I would venture to say no less varied than it is today. Even as a freshman in college, I saw this as a good thing. It gave me a sense that I was a part of something bigger. It gave me older men in the faith that I could look up to and learn from. And in general I was thankful and honored by the fact that someone a number of years older than I would be willing to hang out with me on a Friday night.

We are thinking, too, of the students we are reaching in our community. Many Center City art students resent pandering. They don’t want to go to “college” functions. They don’t like being labeled (whether that label is accurate or not). They live as fully integrated members of the city and city life (as much as anyone else is fully integrated). They feel as if they live and breathe city life, not college life. To try to aim at them solely as college students misses the mark. They are young adults living and breathing the city, and appreciate having a welcoming place where they can meet other city dwellers committed to Christ.

Esperanza positions available

Esperanza Health Center, a Christian community health center that provides compassionate, quality health care to over 5,500 patients from the Latino and underserved communities of North Philadelphia, is seeking volunteers to help fill several critical staffing needs in the following areas:

Front Desk Receptionist – Individual must be bilingual in Spanish and English. Greet and check patients in and out using the computer, and answer incoming phone calls. Help is needed 4-5 days per week, 4 hours/day minimum.

Medical Records Assistant – Help is needed to pull and file patient records (alphabetical system). Individual must be reliable and accurate. Spanish-speaking ability is not necessary. Help needed approximately 4 hours/day.

Billing Assistant – Short-term help is needed to assist in proper coding of billing records to be submitted to insurance companies. Individual must be detail-oriented and accurate; prior experience with insurance billing coding is helpful but not necessary. Help needed for 1-2 weeks of full-time work.

1-2-3

Ginger and I joined Vince and Signe Spragins for some dancing last night. They belong to a dance club that holds lessons and dances every Wednesday night out in Broomall. Vince is not too bad with the cha-cha-cha, by the way. It is a lot of fun and only costs $7 per person for one hour lesson and two hours of dancing. Last night we learned the mambo - 1-2-3, 1-2-3.

11 Days Hath September?

Discerning members may have noticed that our most recent Global Outreach monthly prayer calendar was, in fact, not monthly. The calendar runs from August 1 through September 11. "Why?" you may wonder.

Well, think about it for a while. If you're still puzzled, check out the explanation on the Global Outreach blog, http://multiplyingministry.blogspot.com.

Ministering to College Students

("I have asked Robert Polen and Luke Herche to present the ministry of City College and Career. Here is the first of Luke's two postings. I am including, as well, a "generational imperative" that addressed the subject of college ministry when we developed our church mission statement:

College Ministry. Tenth will establish a spiritual presence at colleges and universities in Center City, prioritizing campuses in close proximity to the church while at the same time providing a welcoming spiritual home for students from across the city.)

How will we minister to college students?

The first step is to go—to go to the campuses. The job description for my internship is to be a campus minister to the art schools in Center City. There are five art schools in Center City that I (alongside others) will be focusing on: Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), University of the Arts (UArts), Moore, Art Institute (AI), & Curtis. There is currently a Bible study for Curtis Students (meeting at Paul Jones’ house), a Bible study on the UArts campus, a Bible study on Moore’s campus, and a prayer group that we hope to continue and be a part of on PAFA’s campus. Please pray for each of these groups! There is currently, to my knowledge, no active Christian group at AI, but that is in part because AI has even less of a campus than any of the other Center City schools. Please pray that we alongside students at each of these schools would see opportunities to reach unbelievers on these campuses. Please pray that we would think of creative ways of reaching out and loving others as Christ has loved us—in their context, speaking their language.

Of course, ultimately, for those who have no home church, we will want to bring them to Tenth. City College & Career is a gateway into Tenth. It provides opportunities to get to know people who are in a similar context, people who can introduce them to the larger body, help get them involved in a variety of ministries in the body, as well as mentor them in the faith. A church planter from our church once said, “You want people to embrace Christ and the community [of the church] at the same time. If they embrace Christ outside of the context of the church, it’s all the harder to get them to come into the church.” This is why City College & Career is so important. It provides a context where college students can grow in their relationship to Christ and his body in at least some of its diversity. Only in this way will they begin to be challenged to truly see Christ as he is: building a church—in all of its variety—for his glory.

New Book

Rick Phillips has a new book out - Jesus the Evangelist. You can view it here.

Welcome Back, David!

David Apple is back. He's back from vacation and back from his stint at Director of MercyNet. You may recall that beginning last August, we had loaned him to MercyNet for a year to help get that ministry established. Now he is back with us full-time feeling rejuvenated and excited about what is happening at Tenth. He and I were just reflecting on what is taking place that affects the ministries of ACTS and his work.

The Diaconate wants to begin intentional training for their roles and David will be providing much of that. The new City Outreach Commission includes ACTS as an important partner in ministering to Center City and Philadelphia. The influx of young adults into Center City and south of South Street is creating a body of "on-the-ground" Tenth members interested in the same ministries as ACTS. We will have this year our first ACTS intern since Aaron Messner served in that capacity. His name is Nick Batzig and will be moving with his family here in a couple of weeks in the same area of south of South Street. And then there are the faithful veterans of ACTS who stepped to the plate and kept all of the ministries going this past year. They are all the more equipped to carry on their work.

Pray with us for the new year of ACTS ministries and pray for David as he settles back in.

Welcome, Olivia!

Congratulations to Jonathan and Laura Jones on the birth of Olivia Daphne, July 24.

Robert Grasberger

Robert Grasberger, a former member and elder of Tenth, died this morning. The service will be this Saturday (August 4) at 11am at Media Presbyterian Church, 30 E. Baltimore Avenue, Media, PA.

Sunday Sermons

For Sunday morning I will be preaching on Ephesians 5:25-33. Some very helpful reading has been D. Martin Loyd-Jones book, Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home, and Work. Published by Banner of Truth, it is an exposition of Ephesians 5:18-6:9. He spends time doing what many other commentators fail to do, which is to discuss thoroughly what it is for Christ to love the church. We tend to quickly move to the application for husbands, without considering the profound theological teaching for the church. I hope to give due attention to both church and husbands, and would appreciate your prayers for preparation.

In the evening I will preach on the original biblical teaching about tithing, given in Deuteronomy 14:22-29. You may wish to do your own word study of tithing in preparation.

Come on over...

...to Tenth's Global Outreach blog and read more about Rafiki's recent dedication celebration. Or read a memory from a summer short-term trip. Or discover how you can use your gifts to multiply gospel ministry around the world.

Housing wanted

David Barker, minister of New Covenant PCA north of Baltimore, requested housing for a month or so for Steve Stone, young man from his church. Steve is enrolled at Drexel in the fall to study engineering. He has been on his own for a few years and is having to close up his apt and quit his job before moving up and the timing has left him with a month or so where he will be in need of a place to stay until the dorm opens up. Contact Steve at 410-299-2364. Rev. Barker considers him a great guy and highly recommends him.

CCC Ministry

(I have asked Robert Polen and Luke Herche to tell us more about the the CCC ministry. Here is Robert's first posting.)

Upon hearing about TCU’s name change, many no doubt asked themselves what the name change meant. Are we shifting our focus away from college students? Are we no longer interested in providing a transformative Christian community for college students? I think I can answer for the leadership of City College and Career with a resounding “NO!” The name change does not reflect a change in what we think this community ought to become, but rather it reflects what this community already is and has been, namely a fellowship of predominantly young adults, both student and professional, who live and/or work in or near the city.

We are actually becoming more intentional about reaching college students in our immediate vicinity. As was posted earlier last week there are about 7,460 students in the colleges around Tenth, which Tenth’s new mission statement indicates should be the focus of our college ministry. Luke Herche, a UArts and Westminster graduate, is uniquely gifted and positioned to be a visible presence on these campuses. Luke and Joseph Sinagra, the art teacher at CCA, will be co-leading a Bible study at UArts. Luke and I will be co-leading a Bible study for Curtis students which has met for years at Dr. Jones’ house. We also have a study for the students at Moore College of Art and Design. We will continue to be a welcoming spiritual home for college students from campuses outside of Tenth’s immediate vicinity. We also think it is important to support the work of City Church and liberti which are more strategically positioned to minister to students at Penn and Drexel, and Temple campuses respectively. For those young adults who are not students at the Center City colleges, numerous studies will also meet in the region west of Broad and between Washington and South, where many of the young adults in our community live.

Sunday lunch will continue to be a place where young adults can enjoy fellowship and expand their relationships. Relationships built during this time not only expose young adults to the broader life of the church but also provide the context for involvement in the broader ministry of Tenth. Both Luke and I would appreciate and covet your prayers for this community. We would also invite you to join us for lunch on any Sunday. You, your kids, your parents, and your grandparents are all welcome. We would love to get to know you better, even if you are not “college and career.”

TCA Article

I have posted my Tenth Press article on Tenth Communicty Assistants (TCAs) at Tenth Messages. You will also find that link on the right hand column.