Cookout Update: Postponed

Hey all, due to the weather forecast of rain between 7-9pm tonight, we are postponing the cookout until next Thursday.  No SI.  Stay dry!

Service Opportunities!

At SB and SI, we often talk about wanting to use the gifts that God has given us to serve others.  After all, Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love others, and using our gifts is one way to do this.  A few service opportunities have just popped up and I wanted to let you know about them.

#1: If you like to work outside (or just want to work on your tan), join us this Saturday as we head to the Moebius Nature Center in Aurora to help in their Spring clean-up.  We’ll be doing some basic outdoor stuff and could use your help!  We’ll meet at the church at 8:30am to carpool.  If you’re in, e-mail Caleb Polasky.

#2: If you are more into babies than branches, Parkside is looking for some help in our nursery during the month of August.  We don’t have Student Body that month, so it’d be a great chance for you and your small group to serve!  Interested?  Sign up with your friends online.

FaRT Pics!

Check out the pics from the rafting trip!  There are some from the rafting and others from the camping (thanks Alex & Carrie)!

Thoughts on Love by Tim Keller

So I was reading the book King’s Cross by Tim Keller this afternoon (the same one we gave the seniors) and came across this long quote on love.  Take a few minutes to read it.  Whether you are in a relationship, not in a relationship, or want to be in a relationship, I think it’ll be worth your while.

“Some years ago a theologian named William Vanstone wrote a book, now out of print, that included an interesting chapter called the ‘The Phenomenology of Love.’  All human beings, he says - even people who from childhood were deprived of love - know the difference between false and true love, fake and authentic love.

Here’s the difference, Vanstone says.  In false love your aim is to use the other person to fulfill your happiness.  Your love is conditional: you give it only as long as the person is affirming you and meeting your needs.  And it’s nonvulnerable: you hold back so that you can cut your losses if necessary.  But in true love, your aim is to spend yourself and use yourself for the happiness of the other, because your greatest joy is that person’s joy.  Therefore your affection is unconditional: you give it regardless of whether your loved one is meeting your needs.  And it’s radically vulnerable: you spend everything, hold nothing back, give it all away.  Then Vanstone says, surprisingly, that our real problem is that nobody is actually capable of giving true love.  We want it desperately, but we can’t give it  He doesn’t say we can’t give any kind of real love at all, but he’s saying that nobody is fully capable of true love.  All of our love is somewhat fake.  How so?  Because we need to be loved like we need air and water.  We can’t live without love.  That means there’s a certain mercenary quality to our relationships.  We look for people whose love would really affirm us.  We invest our love only where we know we’ll get a good return.  Of course when we do that, our love is conditional and nonvulnerable, because we’re not loving the person simply for himself or herself; we’re loving the person partly for the love we’re getting.

Obviously there are healthy people and unhealthy people; some are more able to love than others.  But at the core Vanstone is right: nobody can give anyone else the kind or amount of love they’re starved for.  In the end we’re all alike, groping for true love and incapable of fully giving it.  What we need is someone to love us who doesn’t need us at all.  Someone who loves us radically, unconditionally, vulnerably.  Someone who loves us just for our sake.  If we received that kind of love, that would so assure us of our value, it would so fill us up, that maybe we could start to love like that too.  Who can give love with no need?  Jesus.  Remember the dance of the Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have been knowing and loving one another perfectly for all eternity.  Within himself, God has forever had all the love, all the fulfillment, and all the joy that he could possibly ever want.  He has all the love within himself that the whole human race lacks.  And the only way we’re going to get any more is from him.”