Jefferson Bible: A Perfect Bible for Moralistic Religion

Here's an interesting article in LA Times about Thomas Jefferson's Bible:

Nation's third president compiled the four Gospels into a single text without miracles that ends with Jesus' burial rather than the resurrection.


By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 5, 2008

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

He called the book "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.

For the rest of the story, click here.

Here are some of my thoughts:

• This is a perfect example of one's existing paradigm trumping God's revelation.
• If you have a Bible like Jefferson's, the Word of God will never change you.
• It's a perfect example of the view of Christianity as nothing more than moralitic teachings of Jesus.
• Take the Gospel out and you have "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" by Thomas Jefferson.
• People do it now all the time mentally.

Our Prayer Letter Sent on July 4

Wow! Time flies when you're having fun! It's been so long since I last wrote to you. I hope you are doing well. Here's what's going on at New City Church:

Where We Are Now: Two-Stage Launch Strategy

We are a church in the process of being planted. We are using a two-stage launch strategy. We "soft" launched last Easter, meaning that we started to have worship services, but we have not "hard" launched yet. The major goals since the "soft" launch have been to develop and train a core/launch team to about 40-50 and develop ministries and systems to facilitate discipleship and outreach. We have been faithfully doing that and our core/launch team is now about 40. So, we are now preparing for our "hard" launch, our Grand Opening, on September 14.

A Potential New Venue for New City: Club 740

In order to accommodate the anticipated number of people at our Grand Opening and afterwards, we have been looking for a new venue that can handle at least 150-200 people. Our current venue, e3rd restaurant, can only accommodate about 80 people max. It has been extremely difficult to find a venue in downtown. I have looked at every possible place--hotels, theaters, nightclubs, restaurants, empty spaces, schools, centers, etc. They are either too expensive or not workable for us. We have recently found a new potential venue that may work for us. It is a nightclub called Club 740. It is a converted old Globe Theater (a Shakespearean theater built in the 1920s). It is in the middle of downtown at Broadway and 8th. There is a large parking lot right in front of the club. The generous owner offered the Club to us at an unbeatable price (just his added cost).

Grand Opening on September 14, 2008

Our goal is to invite every resident of downtown LA and create a buzz about New City. We will do a direct mail campaign to approximately 20,000 households four times over the four weeks leading to the Grand Opening. We will put up signs all over downtown and plaster our flyers and invitations everywhere. We plan to hand out water bottles and invitations at downtown concerts in Pershing Square. We are going to table in front of Ralphs in Downtown. We are going to train our core/launch team members to invite all of their unchurched friends and family. We have a team of people planning all kinds of creative outreaches.

We've Moved: New Home Address

New City is a downtown LA church, so we wanted to live close to downtown. We finally moved from Santa Clarita to La Crescenta (not exactly downtown, but we couldn't afford downtown) a couple of weeks ago. Here's our new home address:

Kevin and Grace Haah
2760 Franklin St.
La Crescenta, CA 91214
(818) 306-8385

Prayer Requests

-Downtown residents opening their hearts to the gospel
-Continued development of our core/launch team to 50-60 by September
-Prayer re possible new venue at Club 740
-God would bring many unchurched people to the Grand Opening
-Our Community Group (small groups) launch in 2 weeks
-Building a worship team
-Training people and creating a system that facilites development of fully devoted disciples

Financial Needs

New City is still in need of financial partners. We are looking for people who will partner with us financially for the next 3 years, after which we expect to be financially independent. Would you be willing to invest in the extension of the Kingdom of God $50-$500 per month for the next 3 years?

We love ya!

Warmest Blessings,
Kevin and Grace Haah

A Great Presentation of the Gospel

Here is a link to a great presentation of the gospel called Two Ways to Live. I just linked this to New City's website. Check it out! I am always looking for great gospel presentations. If you know of any good ones, let me know.

A thought on prayer at church by a newspaper editor visiting a church

Here's an excerpt from an article about a church an alternative newspaper editor visited. I found it to be humorous:

A word about the praying: When I was dragged off to church by my parents, we folded our hands together to pray and assumed a posture of humility. In today’s emerging churches, you lift both hands up toward heaven, arms out, in what looks like a sort of double-armed fascist salute. It’s a posture that screams, “Look at me, God! I’m praying! To you!” The more enthusiastic worshippers looked like toddlers reaching up for Daddy, anxious to be picked up and hugged past their comfort levels.

Planting Fast Growing Churches

I just read a book by Stephen Gray called Planting Fast Growing Churches. It is a finding of a study of over a hundred church plants to determine what made certain churches fast growing as opposed to struggling.

Interesting results. There are many findings that are suprising.

As for me and where I am in ministry, I found the following three factors most interesting:

1. Core group at the time of the launch was 40-50. It is important to develop a decent size core team before the launch. Those that had smaller core teams often struggled after the launch.

2. Multi-staff at launch. Fast growing churches had 2-3 staff members at the launch.

3. Large launch service (150-200). Fast growing churches started big and invested in massive outreaches and marketing.

Potential New Venue for New City

New City Church will be officially launching on September 14, 2008. That's our Grand Opening! We are going to invite the entire Downtown community to our opening. We have been praying for a new venue where we can fit at least 150-200 people for our Grand Opening and afterwards.

Today, I met with Ralph Verdugo, the owner of 740 (http://www.740la.com/), a night club in downtown LA (at the corner of Broadway and 8th). He is a great guy and offerred to allow us to have our Sunday gatherings at the club at a very low price(pretty much at his added cost).

Here are some pictures of the venue:

Let me know what you think about having church at a nightclub.

We are Finally Moving Closer to Downtown!

Finally, we are moving closer to downtown. When we decided to plant New City Church, we wanted to move closer to downtown, but we wanted to wait until Kaetlyn got out of school. Well, Kaetlyn is officially on summer vacation as of today (6/13) and we are moving to La Crescenta tomorrow (6/14). We found a great house to rent and we found a great family to rent our home. It all worked out great. Praise God for that! Now, we will only be about 15 minute drive from downtown. We hope to use our home as a place where love and hospitality is shown to the people of New City.