[FEB27TH] The Heart of Love Café [7-10PM]


Penn for Jesus Presents…
The Heart of Love Café
February 27, 2010
7-10pm
Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall
3417 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104


**Admittance is FREE; we just ask that you bring a friend and/or warm winter items (i.e. blankets, gloves, scarves, jackets) to be donated to the homeless.

The Heart of Love Cafe is a community outreach event focusing on the homeless and needy in West Philadelphia. The night will feature various forms of worship (i.e. song, dance, mime, rap etc.) coupled with, testimonies of God’s love. The overall purpose of the event is to explore, with the campus and surrounding community, the idea of real love, through the lens of Christ. 

As we prepare our hearts to serve those in need, let's dwell on Ephesians 3:17-19

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Is the Church a Business? Who are we to please? [by: Rodney E. Zwoniter]


Is the Church a Business?
Who are we to please?
by Rodney E. Zwonitzer



I address you today from the following background which has shaped my life and I believe has given me an interesting perspective for this symposium. I was involved in a career in product marketing with such corporations as Westinghouse, Storage Technology Corporation and United Technologies for nearly fifteen years before entering the Seminary. I graduated from this Seminary in 1988 and served two congregations in British Columbia, Canada before accepting a call in December of 1991 to my present call in Dearborn, Michigan. 

Much of my experience in product marketing was in brainstorming sessions as to what could be adjusted to either bring in more sales or increase profits, or the usual demanded objective, increase both. Such frequent discussions generally entailed a microscopic look at all areas of our marketing effort. For those of you unfamiliar with marketing (who might define it incorrectly as “sales”), I offer the following definition from a classic university marketing textbook: “Marketing is the performance of business activities which direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user in order to satisfy customers and accomplish the company’s objectives.”[1] 

Useful for our purposes here today is a traditional marketing way of looking at business by breaking it down into the Four P’s of Marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Thus, the brainstorming sessions that go on in corporate America revolve basically around this discussion: which of these four variables or “marketing mix” can we adjust to gain a higher share of our market? For instance, if I lower my price on a given product ten percent, how will it affect sales? If I improve the product significantly or replace it with a new design, how much more of the market can I capture? Sound analogous to any discussions within the LCMS these days? 

This type of analysis goes on continually in business with constant research, planning, implementation, and follow up being done in looking at changes to the marketing mix – the four P’s – which will result in higher sales, higher profits.

[FEB22ND] The Discipline of Spiritual Tenacity [Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest]

February 22nd
THE DISCIPLINE OF SPIRITUAL TENACITY


"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted, that the things He stood for - love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men - will not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like will-o'-the-wisps. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.

If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience."

Remain spiritually tenacious.