We had a splendid time in Keswick, three hours west of Cambridge, surrounded by gorgeous trees and an elegantly frozen lake. Our cars arrived at different times Friday night, but soon we were gathered next to the fire putting forward our concerns for prayer, and then it was to bed, although the boys’ cabin stayed up a little later to chat. The next day we prayed, worshipped, read Scripture, and, of course, played an excessive amount of Monopoly. Despite the rain, the intrepid Aussie, Andrew, led us out to amble about on the ice and grass patches, and Jeff continued the trek to the Keswick camp grounds; with soaking shoes we returned for dinner. There was a group of high schoolers at the retreat centre, and with them we watched the film Amazing Grace. On Sunday we shared and prayed, and one car left early while the other played Set until lunch.

It was peaceful and prayerful, and we were all able to rest and return in good health.

Thank God!

Our Winter Retreat is going to happen in less than two weeks! Next weekend (March 7-9) we will leave for gorgeous Toah Nipi* in New Hampshire Friday night and return Sunday afternoon. We will have quiet time and worship, bible study and fellowship, and, of course, lots of fun in the snow. This is an amazing way to spend time with friends, to pray, and make new friends.

And, it’s very affordable. Only $50 (including transportation), and if that’s difficult, let us know. We received a generous grant, so money should not be a reason not to come.

Sign up now! The deadline is Sunday night, but why wait? Tell us you are coming by sending your name to , and be sure to mention any dietary restrictions or other things we need to know.

*New venue. We had a scout check it out last week. It’s wonderful: http://www.intervarsity.org/toahnipi/.

We’re praying for you. It’s a rough patch, but soon you’ll be on a real break with nary a concern. God bless you in your studies, and be sure to let us know if you need anything (you can call Matt at 617-230-8228).

Dear CF,

This Saturday, December 8, the Christian Fellowship is having a dinner discussion on “Study and Stewardship.” Not sure if you should come spend time with your friends or spend time in your room studying?  Well, that’s (sort of) what we’ll be talking about!  The last part of this email describes the topic and poses some questions for us to think about.

Please RSVP to Clint at if you plan on coming, along with any food restrictions, so he knows how much to cook.  However, if you decide you want to come and haven’t RSVP’ed, please do come—we have plenty of food and plenty of space.

How does a dinner discussion work?  Well, a few hardworking members of the fellowship make a home-cooked meal, and the rest of us come and enjoy it.  We split up into small groups and discuss the topic.  Attached to this email are some questions and quotes to get the discussion started, but generally each table’s conversation takes on a life of its own.
Who’s invited?  Simply put, anyone who’s interested in the topic.  If you have friends who might be interested in discussing the topic and in eating with us, bring them along whether or not they consider themselves Christian or part of the fellowship.
Great!  Where is it? and when? We’re meeting at Kurt Keilhacker’s house; it’s about a ten minute walk from the Hark.  (Kurt is a friend of the CF, and graciously opens his home to us).  We’ll send out directions later this week. Dinner will be served at 6:30, and you can stay as long as you like thereafter.

Again, please RSVP to Clint at .  We hope to see you Saturday!

~Renee

Study & Stewardship
As law students (or as students of other disciplines), we have many demands on our time: friends, jobs, classes, extracurricular organizations, and (for many of us) family.  We know the Bible talks about stewardship of money, but are there similar concepts that should be applied to our time? Are some of those demands on our time more justified or more godly than others?  That is, can we say that it’s more important to build relationships with our classmates that to study, or to get good grades than to run for president of a student organization? Or should we just say “Balancing Test!” and be done with it?  Does it depend on the person?

As for the specific issue of studying (and later, our jobs), should we always strive to do the best we can because of a sense of stewardship?  What counts as “best”?  Should we use the measure of success of our secular peers, or something else?

By virtue of being at Harvard, we have amazing opportunities and access to power (and, not incidentally, money).  Should we accept these opportunities as gifts from God, or should we lay them down? Is it acceptable to say, “I will build up my power now, so I can lay it down later,” or is this a justification for doing what the secular world urges us to do?

There are many applicable biblical and other texts; here are just a few:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that” - James 4:13-15.

The Parable of the Talents - Matthew 25:15-30

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. – Luke 16:13

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. – Ephesians 5:15-16

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. – Philippians 3:8-9

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:26

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.
If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.  Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
– Martin Luther King, Jr. (available at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/special/mlk/king/words/blueprint.html)

For more general ideas of the stewardship of time, see Darrell Pursiful, The First Baptist Church of Christ and The Stewardship of Time, available at http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/ localchurch/fbcmacontime.doc.  For example, Mr. Pursiful states, “Peter F. Drucker rightly noted that ‘Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.’ Christian stewardship of time, however, is more than mere ‘time management.’” Id. at 5.

Dear CF,

This Saturday, November 10, the Christian Fellowship is having a
dinner discussion on “Christianity, Morality, and Public Policy.”
Please RSVP to Clint at if you plan on coming,
along with any dietary restrictions, so he knows how much to cook.
However, if you decide you want to come and haven’t RSVP’ed, please do
come—we have plenty of food and plenty of space.

How does a dinner discussion work?  Well, a few hardworking members of
the fellowship make a home-cooked meal, and the rest of us come and
enjoy it.  We split up into small groups and discuss the topic.
Attached to this email are some questions and quotes to get the
discussion started, but generally each table’s conversation takes on a
life of its own.

Who’s invited?  Simply put, anyone who’s interested in the topic.  If
you have friends who might be interested in discussing the topic and
in eating with us, bring them along whether or not they consider
themselves Christian or part of the fellowship.

Great!  Where is it? and when? We’re meeting at Kurt Keilhacker’s
house; it’s about a ten minute walk from the Hark.  (Kurt is a friend
of the CF, and graciously opens his home to us).  We’ll send out
directions later this week, and a group will walk over together from
the Hark if you don’t feel like navigating on your own. Dinner will be
served at 6:30, and you can stay as long as you like thereafter.

And what’s the topic again?  We’re going to be discussing
Christianity, Morality, and Public Policy.  The rest of this email
describes the topic and poses some questions for us to think about.

Again, please RSVP to Clint at .  We hope to see
you Saturday!

~Renee

Christianity, Morality and Public Policy.

Certain political issues often have religious arguments for or against
them (abortion, environmentalism, gay marriage, and sex-ed in schools
come to mind). But even if there is a “right” answer to certain
political issues from a Christian perspective, is government
intervention the right way to deal with the issues? Should Christians
be focusing on the legislatures or on individual lives? Should they be
wielding their convictions in the form of political power?

How much should Christians seek to legislate morality? Should the
Church (and churches) get involved in politics and policy
recommendations?

In our capacity as Christians we are called to “make disciples of all
nations.” Matthew 28:19.  And it seems we are to focus more on
changing individuals than changing policies; in his letter to
Philemon, Paul does not speak of the general wrongs of slavery, but
asks a slaveholder to change his attitude with respect to one slave.
Philemon 8–17.
However, we are called to respect the State, and the authorities of
the State are referred to as “God’s servants”, Romans 13:4, 6.
Perhaps the State is supposed to be an “agent of” God and His
mandates.
Vice laws in the U.S. have not always worked well – just look at the
Prohibition Era and our current “war on drugs.” Legislating morality
doesn’t seem to work well.  Does that mean we shouldn’t do it, or just
that we don’t do it well?
“The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to
the consuming power of the state. The cozier it gets with the state,
the more watered-down it becomes and the less able to challenge the
surrounding culture.” Philip Yancey, A State of Ungrace, Christianity
Today, February 3, 1997, at 35.

What role should moral and religious convictions play in deciding
political matters, either in creating policy or voting?  Is it our
religious duty as well as our civic duty to vote?
In this country, several religious organizations have considerable
political power, and politicians believe elections are won or lost on
the “religious vote.” See, e.g., Guiliani Woos Christian Vote,
Financial Times, Oct. 22, 2007, available at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21412492/.
There is the common admonishment for Christians to “be in the world,
but not of it.” Cf. 2 Corinithians 10:3 ("For though we live in the
world, we do not wage war as the world does."). We’re also supposed to
care about our government. See 1 Timothy 2:1–2 (pray for our leaders).
Perhaps we are supposed to be involved in picking our government if
we live in a society that lets us.
But God’s people aren’t always good at picking leaders.  See 1 Samuel
8:6–9 (Israel rejecting God by asking Samuel for a king (Saul)); 1
Samuel 16:6–7 (Samuel thought that Eliab was the Lord’s anointed, but
“[t]he Lord does not look at the things man looks at.")
Nor are we good at figuring out God’s will: “There is a way that seems
right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 16:25. See
also Acts 5:38–39 (Israelites rejecting the apostles, and Judas the
Galilean advising that “if [the apostles’ purpose] is from God, you
will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves
fighting against God.")

Should Christians (and other religious persons) in the U.S. oppose the
separation of church and state when that separation prevents their
worship or religious practices, or are there times and places where it
is OK to be shed of our outward religious behaviors?
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there
is no authority except that which God has established.  The
authorities that exist have been established by God. Romans 13:1 (NIV)
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” U.S. Const. amend. I
Take prayer as an example of an outwardly religious behavior. In Marsh
v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), the Supreme Court held that a state
legislature’s practice of opening each legislative day with a prayer
delivered by a chaplain paid by the state does not violate the
establishment clause of the First Amendment, saying that “the practice
of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the
fabric of our society. To invoke Divine guidance on a public body
entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an
‘establishment’ of religion or a step toward establishment; it is
simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the
people of this country.” Id. at 792.
However, in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), the Court
invalidated a state statute authorizing public school teachers to hold
a one-minute period of silence for “meditation or voluntary prayer,”
saying it was a law respecting an establishment of religion within the
prohibition of the First Amendment. The Court’s invalidation was based
on the fact that the law was not “secular,” but instead had an express
purpose of returning voluntary prayer to the schools.
Another example of the State trying to create an expressly
non-religious forum is then banning of women’s Muslim headscarves in
European schools.  See, e.g., France Awaits Headscarves Report, BBC
News, 11 Dec 2003, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3307995.stm.

The HBS Fellowship is bringing an incredible speaker to Harvard. Steve Reinemund, the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo will be at HBS this Thursday from 5:30-6:30pm.

His talk will explore the intersection of work and faith and will be followed by a Q&A session.

It will be in Aldrich Hall Room 109. Here’s a map: http://www.hbs.edu/about/visit.html.

The fall retreat (Oct. 5-7) to Toah Nipi in New Hampshire will be terrific—just ask anyone who went last year. The early sign-up deadline is rapidly approaching, but you’ll still get a discount if you sign up on or before Friday.

Sign up here: http://www.intervarsityretreat.org

Do you want to camp? Be sure to talk to Matt (mboulos@law) to get the logistics sorted.

+ CF

Hey folks,

As usual, there’s a lot to do this week. Be sure to get yourself on the mailing list to stay up-to-date.

We have the All-Harvard GSCF meeting tonight at Memorial Church at 7pm and the Student Activities Fair at Ropes-Gray from 5:30-7:30pm; on Friday we have our regular Fellowship meeting in Hauser 105 at 6pm.

We hope to see you at these events!

+ CF

Yesterday’s meeting was enjoyable and enriching.

Was there someone you knew who was not at the meeting? Why not call her and invite her to join you for the next meeting? Let us continue to encourage one another.

Remember: Every Thursday we have a prayer meeting and every Friday we have a fellowship meeting. Try to come out as much as you can.

The Fall retreat to New Hampshire will be on the weekend of October 5-7. Last year it was a ton of fun. Trips like these give us a chance to escape to the wonderful beauty of nature and to grow closer as a community.

Registration is at http://www.intervarsityretreat.org and the cost of the trip is $85 if you sign up on or before September 21st and $95 afterward. If you choose to brave it in a tent then the cost will be $45. Cost should not be a reason not to come; let us know if it is an issue and we’ll see to it that you attend.

If you are thinking of doing the tent thing (highly recommended) let Matt Boulos () know and you can plan things with him.

We’ll have to work out transportation, so if you have a car and are willing to drive, please let us know.

Yesterday’s BBQ was a wonderful success. So many of you came, stayed, and chatted. What a blessing it will be if we can keep these numbers going throughout the year. We have a lot planned: an autumn retreat, dinner discussions, and our Friday meetings.

Our first regular meeting is this Friday. Be sure to come and bring your classmates. It will be an opportunity to see the friends you made yesterday once again and to meet other members of the Fellowship. Together we can grow and minister to one another, and our regular meeting is central to that mission.

Details:
6pm
Hauser 105
Food and good people