To listen to the program from the site please click the link provided below. To save this program to your portable listening device please right click the link below and select “save as”.

http://phillyflash.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bible-software-and-online-seminaries.mp3

Links to the various online Seminaries

Fuller Theological Seminary
Reformed Theological Seminary
Covenant Theological Seminary
The Gospel Coalition
Dallas Theological Seminary
www.biblicaltraining.org

You can access the various Bible Software packages at the link below;

http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestudyresources/tp/biblesoftware.htm

The Revd Ken Silva from Apprising Ministries carries the story (emphases mine):

It’s an incontrovertible fact that right from its hatching in hell corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), such as that taught by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard, was a core doctrine …

It’s also giving rise to a rebirth of Pietism; this isn’t surprising when you consider that CSM flowered in the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism. As the evangelical fad of CSM expands there’s a decided charismania also developing, which is producing a syncretism where Word Faith heretics like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes are essentially considered mainstream now. With all of this has come more and more people claiming to have direct experience with God …

Hosted by Louis Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, Passion featured an interesting lineup of speakers such Francis Chan, Beth Moore and New Calvinist mentor John Piper. Not surpisingly the conference had a distinctive charismatic and even contemplative flair; e.g. prayer walking. After one session the crowd was urged to break into “love groups” and go out to pray and “take back the city of Atlanta.”

One can certainly point a finger at the Roman Catholic Church, but, as I wrote in the comments on Anna’s site, what has occurred at Passion 2012 is more symptomatic of 17th century Lutheran/Moravian pietism in general and of the Holiness movement which dates back to 19th century Methodism and advanced in the following century through the many Holiness denominations. Ultimately, this led to our current charismatic services and Pentecostal churches.

John Wesley borrowed heavily from Moravian pietists whose acquaintance he made on the journey from England to America. After his return to Europe, he even studied at their HQ in Herrnhut, Germany.

Although pietism has its most ancient beginnings in the earliest days of the Church, it was later revived when Germans and Scandinavians became disillusioned with ‘staid’ state churches and wanted something more.

Today, however, I am sorry to read that Dr Piper — a confessional, or Particular, Baptist — has fallen for more pietistic holiness (Rick Warren being the foremost example), hallmarks of which include contemplative prayer, Quaker quietism (‘let go and let God’ — wait until you get a ‘sign’ of some sort), small groups, personal accountability, public confession, overt sentimentality, strong emotional worship, receiving ‘divine messages’ and personal testimony over doctrine (or the Bible).

Yet, these activities are everywhere. Even Church of England vicars encourage them — contemplative prayer, especially. A number of Anglican churches offer days or mornings of ‘silent prayer’, which is the same thing.

Pietism is known for its ecumenism, so it’s no surprise that Passion 2012 featured speakers from a variety of Christian denominations.  Unfortunately, those denominations which practice pietism — holiness churches, in particular — will be affected by these cross-currents.  The Church of the Nazarene has experienced an onslaught of Fuller Seminary and Roman Catholic influence: The Reformed Nazarene blog chronicles them in detail. I empathise with Nazarenes who wish to keep their denomination pure, but, ultimately, this is the outcome of pietism and the holiness movement.  The Nazarenes emerged from the Wesleyan holiness movement in the 19th century.

Pietism is experiential, emotional and introspective. It seeks to transform denominations, if not the Church as a whole, in order to bring about personal and moral change.

Bob DeWaay, who has been in discernment ministry most of his life, admits to having fallen prey to pietism:

My journey into the “deeper life” oftentimes involved embracing contradictory teachings. For example, two of my favorite teachers in the early 1970’s were Watchman Nee and Kenneth Hagin. One taught a deeper Christian life through suffering[1]) and the other taught a higher order Christianity that could cause one to be free from bodily ailments and poverty.[2]The hook was that both claimed to have the secret to becoming an extraordinary Christian. I found out that they didn’t.

My dissatisfaction with the Christianity taught in Bible College[3] led me to join a Christian commune some months after graduation. That group’s founder taught that all ordinary churches and Bible Colleges were caught up in “religious Babylon.” He taught that the kingdom of God was to be found by quitting one’s job, selling one’s possessions, giving the money to the commune, and moving in together to be devoted to the “kingdom” twenty four hours a day. So in my search to become an extraordinary Christian I did what he said and joined …

By God’s grace I went back to the Bible and determined to merely teach verse by verse from that point on. It took another five or six years to rid myself of the various errors I had embraced and then I taught Romans in 1986. Through that study I came to appreciate the doctrines of grace. That understanding opened my thinking and was the turning point for my ministry. I also came to realize that the wrong-thinking that attracted me to pietism was that I held to a theology based on human ability rather than grace alone. Once I grasped that, I never looked back …

Pietism can be practiced many ways including enforced solitude, asceticism of various forms, man made religious practices, legalism, submission to human authorities who claim special status, and many other practices and teachings …

These appear to most poorly taught Christians to be what the Lord wants. They reason, “Of course God is happier with a person who sells all and moves into a convent where he takes an oath of poverty than He is with someone who goes to work forty hours a week and uses some of the money to buy things.” Is He? When I was a pietist, if someone told me he prayed two hours a day, then I had to pray three hours to make sure I wasn’t missing out on something. I reasoned, “Of course God is happier with a Christian who prays three hours than one who prays two.” Is He? When I was a pietist I would work on cranking up my desire for holiness because I reasoned that holiness is found through something in the person rather than through God’s grace. Based on sermons I’d heard I reasoned, “Christians are not experiencing a higher degree of holiness because they do not desire it enough.” Is that true? No, none of these pietistic statements are true. Such teachings lead to elitism and comparing ourselves to others. The Bible tells us not to do that. Paul stated that these practices “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

I, along with confessional Lutherans, would disagree with DeWaay when he goes on to say that Spener was not a pietist but only reacting against a State Church. Spener’s theology was deeply pietist in that he promoted small groups (conventicles), agonised repentance and giving up worldly entertainments. He promoted justification by works through holiness and self-deprivation.

However, DeWaay rightly cites John Wesley as being a pietist:

Wesley’s Methodism and perfectionism were themselves pietistic. Wesley is an example of a much less extreme pietism. But the idea that some humanly discovered and implemented method can lead to the achievement of a better Christian life than through the ordinary means of grace is nevertheless pietism.

He is careful to draw a line between Wesley and Charles Finney, pre-eminent during the Second Great Awakening in the United States:

Wesley at least held to prevenient grace so as to avoid Pelagianism.[20] Finney was fully Pelagian in his approach to both salvation and sanctification.[21] And his innovations permanently changed much of American Evangelicalism. After Finney other perfectionist movements arose. The Holiness movement, for example, came not long after Finney. Both the Holiness movement and the subsequent Pentecostal movement held to second blessing doctrines that by nature are pietist because they create an elite category of Christians who have had a special experience that ordinary Christians lack.

DeWaay calls our attention to the Emergent Church and Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church as the most recent examples of pietism:

Today the largest new pietist movement is the Emergent Church. As I pointed out earlier, pietism often arises in response to the perception (sometimes warranted) that the church has become too worldly and it seems true once again today. Some now assume that since ordinary Christianity is compromised, they must discover an extraordinary way to become better Christians. One Emergent leader has even entitled one of his works, “A New Kind of Christian.”[22] But this movement really isn’t all that new. It draws on teachings and practices found in other pietist movements in church history. In fact, a recent Emergent book includes essays by those experimenting with communal living, something I tried in my pietist days![23]

Furthermore, the Purpose Driven movement is also a pietistic movement. Rick Warren claims there are world class Christians that are in a better category than ordinary Christians. He had his followers take a long oath at a baseball field to pledge themselves to serving his new reformation. I already mentioned the apostles and prophets movement that is pietistic. So ironically, three huge movements in American evangelicalism (Purpose Driven, Emergent, and C. Peter Wagner’s latter day apostles) are all based on pietism. The three movements seem radically diverse, but each one claims to be a new reformation and each offers a higher status than that of ordinary Christians.

He cautions us against movements preaching against ‘dead orthodoxy’ and notes that the Charismatics are also pietist in this regard.

He also notes that the problem is not with orthodoxy but with church members, who are often spiritually dead:

Pietism misdiagnoses the problem and creates a false solution. It sees a compromised church that is apparently caught in dead orthodoxy. The real problem is not dead orthodoxy but spiritually dead sinners who give mental assent to orthodox truth but show no signs of regeneration. If indeed such a church existed (if truth really is there God has His remnant there as well), that church would be characterized by worldliness and sin. This is the case because dead sinners do not bear spiritual fruit. There was a church in Revelation that Jesus called “dead.” Pietism that holds to the true gospel but goes beyond it imagining that the dead sinners who are church members are Christians. When some of them become regenerate through the efforts of the pietists, they assume they have now entered a higher class of Christianity. They posit two types of Christian: “carnal” Christians and “spiritual” Christians. But in reality there are only Christians and dead sinners. 

DeWaay writes that pietists end up ignoring the Gospel message in favour of works righteousness:

When I was a pietist I thought salvation was an interesting first step a person took, but mostly lost interest in the topic unless I ran across someone who needed to pray the sinners prayer, which I imagined was the first step. The gospel of Christ was only of marginal interest to me as I sought the “deeper things.” The more I tried to be a very special type of Christian, the further my mind wandered from the cross. I was guilty of the very thing for which Paul rebuked the Corinthians.

It seems that people fall for pietism in its various guises because it gives them a sense of reassurance — misguided though it is. Charismatics and Pentecostalists enjoy the heady experiences of being ‘born again’ — speaking in tongues, for instance — something they can do and feel.  Others believe that dressing differently sets them ‘apart’ from the world as does abstaining from alcohol, tobacco and certain foodstuffs. Hence, some desire to join faith communes, which is radical pietism. Then, there are the ‘mystics’ who follow Lectio Divina and believe they are channelling a ‘higher consciousness’, who are most likely Christian refugees from the New Age movement.  This leads to a Gnosticism of sorts — a supposed special, secret knowledge or spiritual attainment that other people lack.

Sadly, this desire to ‘experience’ Christianity can lead people down the paths of error: Pelagianism and Gnosticism are heresies.  The rest of us would do well to pray for these people and hope that God’s grace leads them to a true confessional denomination.

Our church was nondenominational, evangelical, and charismatic.  There were many such churches in St. Louis at the time and I kept close relations with many of the other pastors.  There were weekly prayer meetings as we all sought the hand of God on our ministries individually and our city collectively.  There were also periodic pastors’ conferences, near and far, to which several of us would go.  We related also to evangelical-minded denominational pastors in our region.  Our common interest was seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ magnified, and His church to grow as a result.

As pastors, we were always sharing ideas, experiences, and books with each other.  We were constantly looking for ways to bring more of the blessing of God on our congregations.  My association with Fuller Seminary was significant because it was the home of the Charles E. Fuller Institute for Evangelism and Church Growth – the epicenter of the church growth movement.  I studied under C. Peter Wagner, the protégé of Donald McGavran who was considered to have founded the Church Growth Movement.  My Doctor of Ministry dissertation was The Meaning and Mission of the Independent Charismatic Church.

I Loved the Church

My commitment to the church was as strong as it could be.  It never entered my mind that the church was not essential to living the Christian life.  All I cared about was doing church right.  I knew many pastors as well as parishioners who had been deeply hurt through church life.  I myself had been deeply hurt in a couple of earlier church experiences, but those pains never once gave me pause about pursuing church.  I just figured that such painful experiences were a result of doing church wrong – not a result of doing church.  I felt that anyone who left church because of a negative experience was simply being disobedient to God.  And even when my compassion for their pain made me understanding of their abandonment of church, I never thought they were right to leave it.

As far as what constituted “doing church right,” I looked to those pastors who had more experience than me, to books, and to my own increasing bank of experience.  By 1992, after ten years as a pastor, I was desperate for a solution to the revolving door I had seen church become.  My fellow pastors generally had the same experience.  That is, a church would begin small, would grow, and then experience turnover.  Such churches might stay the same size over a several year period but the composition of the congregation would have changed.  This was also true even for the few churches that continued to grow into what would come to be called “mega-churches.”  That is, a turnover of attendees afflicted all churches.  In fact, an adage among mega-church pastors  is that “The ones you start with aren’t the ones you finish with.”  To grow a church from 100 to 1,000 made no sense to me if you only retained 10 of the first hundred, and would only retain, say, 400 of the first thousand when you grew to two thousand.  Some pastors derisively called it “church hopping,” but most of us knew that there was more to it than that.

Growing church by growing its size was only half the answer I was seeking.  The other half, which was just as important if not more important, was knowing how you grow each person in the congregation to become more like Christ.  What good was an increasing quantity of believers if there wasn’t an increasing quality of believers?

My Search for True Church Becomes More Intense

The years of failed hopes made me more determined than ever.  I searched the Scriptures for answers like never before.  I prayed like never before.  I studied like never before.  This went on for months.  I was determined to bring all my experience and knowledge to bear and finally discover how to grow the Lord’s people and “do church right.”  It was then that I began to see something I had never seen before.

First, I came to the point where I acknowledged that in all my study and experience I had never found a church that operated like the ones in the New Testament.  Never.  All churches – denominational and nondenominational – operated in some way significantly different from those 1^st Century gatherings.  The government of the church was different, and the services were different.  For one thing, we didn’t have apostles to run things and that left the door open to bishops or elders or shepherds or overseers – and no one to oversee them.  Every church, it seemed, looked to some particular verse to justify their church government, but no church could claim to comply with all the verses.  Besides church government varying from what I saw in the New Testament, the services also varied.  Even the charismatic churches, of which mine was one, could not claim to operate exactly like what you read about in 1 Corinthians 12-14.  As with the government issue, we could say we were complying partially with the Scripture but we could not say we were wholly obedient.

After realizing that there was no church which could demonstrate that it fully matched the New Testament church in government or behavior, I came to my next realization: that there was not actually enough instruction in the New Testament to actually build and operate a church.  There was no blueprint.  This hit me very hard.  I knew that God had provided Noah a blueprint for the ark, Moses a blueprint for the tabernacle, and David a blueprint for the temple.  If there was not a blueprint for the church, I needed to acknowledge the importance of that fact…and its implications.

My World Turns Upside Down

While I could not find a blueprint for church structure in the New Testament I found a repeated exhortation to be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You could almost say that every time I went to the Bible to find out about how to build church, the Bible spoke to me to preach Christ.  I had always thought that my call was to do both:  preach Christ and build His church.  But then I remembered that Christ said, “I will build My church.”  If He was going to build it, what was there for me to do?

My fellow pastors and I had periodically rested in the Lord’s promise to build His church when we were trying to grow our own, but this was a newfound respect for those words of the Lord that I had.  I came to see that His church was the new wineskin, while our churches were the old wineskins that could not hold the new wine (Matthew 9:17).  The natural human response to this is, of course, to say, “But, Lord, how will we keep the people?”  That’s when I began to remember God’s call to Pharaoh, “Let My people go!”  I began to see how all these years I had been seeking to hold on to the Lord’s people when I should have been letting them go to Him.  I thought I was building His house, but I was really seeking to build my own.  Each of us as pastor was trying to build his own house instead of the Lord’s.  There were many more such scriptures the Lord began opening up to me.

Equally important, all the Lord’s teaching about the kingdom of God began coming back to my mind.  No wonder the kingdom of God was His central theme.  It described the way we were to live for Him!  The kingdom of God was everywhere at all times.  Therefore, a person could live for Jesus all the time through the kingdom of God, whereas church could at most be a part-time experience.

I changed our name from “Westport Church” to “Westport Ministry.”  I changed my title from “pastor” to “minister.”  I told the people I would continue preaching Christ and teaching the kingdom of God but I would no longer try to contain them in a structure – whether physical or sociological.  There were steps along the way and I did not come to all this understanding instantly, but by 1993 the metamorphosis had become complete.  In the end there were only three families that continued supporting us, and we eventually told them to stop.  I had left the church by letting it leave me.  I released the Lord’s people to Him.  Though it spelled the end of ministry as I had known it, I have never regretted it.  I was being obedient to the understanding that the Lord had been kind enough to give me.

Related posts:

To My Pastor and Minister Friends

About (my background)

Faith Sanctifies; Churchgoing Doesn’t

Instead, I am much more self-aware, I have desires for my future (although I am not quite sure what I must do to get there) and I want to write about it. Rebecca and I sat at a coffee shop about 5 months ago discussing me. (This may surprise you but we don’t talk about “me” all the time.) The topic of the day was, “Do I stay longer and get an M.Div or stick with the MA.T.?” This was a long conversation that had it’s reasons, we even made a Pros and Cons list. Ultimately, what I discovered through verbalizing my mind-thoughts and looking at them on paper was that I am not interested in having an M.Div and the jobs that is geared for.

Simply put, I do not want to be a pastor.

What I do want to do looks a lot like The Public Queue although it does not have to be that site. I love the time spent at Fuller. I do not regret spending two plus years and a lot of money to attend. The jury is still out, but it is fair to say, the early numbers project that it changed me and I won’t be the same. For that, I’m grateful.

1) Lynn Aldrich

The first job of the artist

is to stay interested and engage.

In the act that she’s creating

and have faith as her base.

Then build upon that foundation

build & change & form

In the great creation,

loving well & loving warm

Exalting over nature

confronting what we’ve done wrong

and listening to the rhythm of life

and hearing its significant song

we fail to fix the problem

on this island we call home

That we populate to excessiveness

to show we’re not alone.

2) John Chan

How to be unique

with many hands on deck and loud

about their voice now being heard

and wanting to be proud.

Of what they have and where they live

but the social brownfields lie

only to be walked across

and slowly watch grass die.

And so we bring a beacon

in a mobile enigma seen

So it can be noticed by

every living being.

Its our black box canopy

that lights and shades and shows

400-500 people what the artist

below it knows.

We take on a brownspace

fill it with art and life

What once was ugly vacant space

only good to fly a kite.

3) Ellen F. Davis

I reflected on these words,

Active love greater than One

And by the one and mean the self

whose stronger than the throne

The throne of grace that speaks out love

and love thats free and full

The throne of grace we’ve come to know

that never takes a toll.

-

Satisfaction with the goodness of God

He sets large mountains and small seeds

For hos glorious He shines

in the largest and smallest deeds.

4) Makoto Fujimura

I do often what I do not enjoy

talking about my own canvas

So today I’ll speak of the fields

outside of ground zero now grasslands

To find the stil point of the turning world

as T.S. Elliott spoke

To stay within the eye of the storm

to Live in this dream fore I woke.

to see exactly what my portion

was within this pie

to start to understand my part

and let the art ignite.

Not now in flames, but water

and then the Tsunami came

and in thanks I remembered,

I can walk on water when I just call His name.

- Adjoa Skinner

For more information go to:

http://www.makotofujimura.com

Intro:

Lack of humanity within our lives

our education and world view

And the canaries of the culture

are the artist in me and in you.

Poet before Pastor

our words are so often like art.

If when we read the Word of God

Yet cannot hear His heart

Beat in a pattern thats rhythmic and bright

Beat with a heavy, felt weight

To love on all creation

instead of not caring, so fate

shows how we have neglected the land

and how we have clouded the sky

the challenges grow greater

with every day gone by.

When we look at the lack of God’s word

spoken creatively and free

We begin to see the lack

thats apparent within you and me.

Prophecy is not there to shock

although it can bring awe

Prophecy is the cry that says

I looked to Him and saw,

Light beckoning me to beauty

finding pleasure in the ordinary things

to do the work we have to do

but in a way that gives us wings.

—–

LECTURE

The Art Of Prophecy, The Prophecy of Art

“He Shines In All That Is Fair” – Dr. Richard Mouw

—————————————–

Common grace and particular grace

contrast in their actions and flow

The rain, the restrain, the unbelievers

still move in grace that they know.

And our struggle is that the Holy Spirit

takes us toward the blessings we find

But yet in the same body lies the curse that we know

as we carry on with our lives

Yet in reality we wrestle,

with common grace and common curse

They take us to a place where we,

end up not better but worse.

Worse than those who don’t know better,

who don’t have the Spirit, yet live

in such a way where they love freely

with such compassion they can give.

While we the redeemed have a call to redemption

we have a call of grace

That carries us to perceive not the why,

but calls to the first trace.

Of where we felt uncomfortable

enough to move despite

the curses of our own comfort

to tread toward the city of light.

No we cannot eliminate

the pain of discomfort and fear

Or be taken from the situation at hand,

cause its messy in the place God is near.

Patience, commitment, dedication

in every task that we find.

Bringing out the answers

for the questions that dwell in the mind.

Seeking the highest level of excellence,

through the process of dancing between

The lack of our perfection

in the light of the perfection we’ve seen.

A power that passes through us,

intangible in its form

A vehicle of beauty,

an offering that can’t be scorned.

Artists participate in activity

that is moving to mend and to make

Sense of the situations,

that every person can’t shake.

Art is practice of articulate love,

That’s aware of the truth of the world.

It echoes the Son who follows the Prodigal

every man, woman, boy and girl.

- Adjoa Skinner

If you want some summaries of the lectures, see my Twitter feed or read, for example, Resurrection of the Son of God.

I will recount the more peculiar moments, namely breakfast and post evening lecture.

I was invited by Fuller to join the adjunct professors to have breakfast with NT Wright. When I arrived, I grabbed a cup of coffee, and Wright was right behind me. He was not sure of the two coffee pots which one was caffeinated, so I kindly told him it was the pot with the black top as opposed to the one with an orange top. Yes, everyone has me to thank for keeping Wright properly caffeinated for the day, but I digress. I said nothing else to him save for my name and my role at the campus having previously taught beginning Greek. After breakfast, we were each given Wright’s latest book, Simply Jesus, signed by Wright himself. I was thrilled. I had debated in the morning whether I would bring my copy of Resurrection of the Son of God to have him sign it, but it is a large book that I did not want to carry around, and I figured it would not be professional. This gift granted my wish in a much lighter book!

Fast forward to the night after he finished his lecture. My friend, Jonmichael, wanted to get his first book from Wright signed, and he convinced me to go with him. After waiting in line, he had his turn, and then I got mine. Forgetting that I was wearing a name tag, Wright greeted me, something like, “Ah, James!” I was thrilled again, for I thought he had remembered my name, and I requested him to personalize my copy of Simply Jesus, which he did. I had a small comment with him about the lecture and breakfast, and then left him to continue on with autographs with the remainder of the line. I was surprised that he would remember my name. When I got home, I told my wife this story only for her to tell me that I was wearing a name tag. Face to palm.

I enjoyed the experience. Interesting, though, that his lectures were seemingly brief synopses of Resurrection of the Son of God. If you didn’t have a chance to go to the lectures, do take on the task of reading that 700+ page book. Read the entire series if you are up to the task (Question of God and Christian Origins). I’m in the process, and it is worth while.

Wright’s fundamental point is really important and worthy of mentioning it even here at the end of this post: we need to read the NT in the lens of Second Temple Judaism, and we need to recognize the importance and meaning of Jesus’ resurrection but also his life, which seamlessly unites both the kingdom and the cross for those who follow him as Lord of the cosmos.

I will Tweet my way through the sessions, so click the bird at the top right of this page to follow my feed!

According to this report in The Christian Post, if the statistics compiled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is anything to go by, discrimination against practitioners of religion has doubled in the past 13 years in, of all places, the United States.

The statistics, unfortunately, only indicated incidents that were officially filed. There would be probably hundreds if not thousands more that occurred of which the victims did not file any official complaint.

Two factors are at play here. One would be the revival of religious fundamentalism across the country as revealed by the rapidly growing number of converts to Islam as well as the visible prosperity of evangelical churches across the country. Not only are liberal christian churches not doing well (in terms of attendees), their institutions of higher learning, such as Union Theological Seminary New York, Harvard Divinity School and Yale Divinity School are also lagging far behind evangelical giants like the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This perceived strength in numbers has resulted in perhaps more evangelicals expressing their faith more openly in the workplace and in the universities.

Another factor would be the increasing secularisation of the United States (it is ironic that the very constitution of the US presumes secularisation), exacerbated by the rising fervour of atheists and freethinkers all across the country who are becoming more and more strident and vocally violent towards religion in general.

One may not be sure if such zeal is due to the contemporary “new atheism” fad, but it seems that the secular liberals are becoming more fascist-like in their intolerance towards religious practice and religious faith.

If this is what atheism looks like in the future, SHAME on them. Where is the tolerance and the respect of human rights and the freedom of expression that most freethinkers espouse? Isn’t this same freedom be accorded to practitioners of religion as well?

Hmm.

*******

Naome was able to initially join us for our inaugural Saturday morning 9am Prayer Meeting on Oct 8th with our Bishop Silas Ng

Naome with our People’s Warden Candace Gillespie

Hilary King our Rector’s Warden with Naome. Translation services were provided by Naome to the Embrace Rwanda team that Hilary led this summer.

For more information about the remarkable Embrace Rwanda team, just click on this link .

Glen Houghton, a member of St. Simon’s NV, attended our inaugural St. Simon’s NV Prayer Meeting. He loves to pray and leads the Prayer Canada meeting at the District of North Vancouver  City Hall.

Fifteen people were present for our inaugural St. Simon’s NV Prayer Meeting at our Modular Building at Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School. You are welcome to join us every Saturday at 9am to 10am for our St. Simon’s Prayer Meeting.

Our hi-tech Bishop Silas Ng led us in a devotional from his Daily Discipler 123 Blog .  This blog can be accessed daily in written form, or as an English podcast or Cantonese podcast.

Our Bishop Silas Ng is passionate that people become disciples of Jesus Christ who disciple others in daily intimacy with Jesus Christ, and pass this on to others.  He has almost finished his Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary on this subject of Leadershp Development and Discipleship.

Why not dial in right now and join our Bishop Silas Ng? He is passionate that we bring a breakthrough in daily discipleship and intimacy with Jesus. Only 10% of Christians have a regular daily time of intimacy with Jesus.

Naome gave a wonderful testimony at St Simon’s NV about her recovery from the trauma of her pastor father’s death during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. Click to view this story.

Naome also shared a Rwandan song with us which you can watch by clicking.

The St. Simon’s NV family listening attentively to Naome sharing about Rwanda.

Janice Hird our St. Simon’s NV Music Director led our joint Choir in a Harvest Thanksgiving anthem.

Naome having lunch afterwards with other St. Simon’s NV leadership, including Jill Cardwell our Youth & Young Adult Pastor. Jill is leading our 30th Alpha Course for young adults. Click to learn more.

By clicking on the following link, you can watch the film ‘Mothers of Kigeme’

In Christ,

Ed Hird+

The AM–Canada/Anglican Province of Rwanda

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-award-winning author  of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

-In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

-You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

I had the opportunity to photograph one the cutest 2-month baby boys ever. His name, as you see above is Dzabe! Odoi & Melissa Odotei are the proud parents. I met Odoi and Melissa at Fuller Theological Seminary, and Odoi and I will be working this year as the Co-Presidents for the School of Intercultural Studies! Although Dazbe feel asleep a couple of times while photographing him, I still managed to get some photographs of Odoi and Melissa interacting with him. I hope you guys enjoy!

What if I told you it’s possible to get a free theological education online? It’s well known that one can get a degree online these days; more and more schools are making their courses available on “virtual campuses.” They include the same lectures you would hear in the classroom—just recorded and posted online. Applying for school online has become a viable option, especially for those whose current walk in life makes them unwilling or unable to move across country to be on campus.

But let’s say you don’t want to actually enroll in a program and dish out the money for a degree. (Maybe you already have another degree, or are in the workforce, or ministry). Can you still get a theological education for free? You sure can: many Christian colleges and seminaries have posted classes to download for free on iTunes U. So much so, you can build your own curriculum rivaling the amount of classroom time it would take to actually go to school. At the end of your studies you won’t get a piece of paper to hang on the wall and show your friends, but you will learn a lot that God will be able to use for your ministry.

If you’re feeling led to do this, I’d recommend downloading a flash card program like Anki http://ankisrs.net/ and building flash card decks full of only the information you hear in the lectures you want to stick in your brain. Don’t go crazy building a huge deck of cards you’ll feel overwhelmed with; just put stuff on there you actually want to be able to quote off the top of your head. Then incorporate a daily (or weekly) time of study into your life. Just listen to a lecture (taking notes or adding info to your Anki deck), and then go over your flashcards again for the day. Anki is really cool because it’s designed upon an algorithm that works with the way we learn—so you only have to designate a set amount of time you want to study each day and over time you will master large amounts of material.

The time is going to pass either way: a year from now either you will have absorbed the equivalent of a master’s degree of knowledge, or not. I’m just telling you that you can do it for free!

Check out the links below for schools that have courses online, and my own ideas for putting together a curriculum.

God bless you in your studies.

Christian Schools:

Fuller Theological Seminary:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/fuller-theological-seminary/id380159118

Reformed Theological Seminary:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/reformed-theological-seminary/id378878142

Biola University:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/biola-university/id389654288

Dallas Theological Seminary:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/dallas-theological-seminary/id386158137

Liberty University:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/liberty-university/id427898998

Westminster Theological Seminary:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/westminster-theological-seminary/id430331214

Concordia Seminary:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/concordia-seminary/id426790662

Christian History:

History of Christianity I (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-of-christianity-i/id378878676

History of Christianity II (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-of-christianity-ii/id378878708

History I (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=378878750

History II (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=378878755

History of the Christian Church I (Liberty University)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=427913072

History of the Christian Church II (Liberty University)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=431286200

Ancient and Medieval Church History (Covenant Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=418582066

Christian Philosophy and Apologetics:

Critical Reasoning for Beginners (Oxford University)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/critical-reasoning-for-beginners/id387875757

Ethics for Complete Beginners (Oxford University)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=438910219

History of Philosophy and Christian Thought (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-philosophy-christian/id378879176

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Notre Dame)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=382668779

Defenders Class by William Lane Craig (ReasonableFaith.org)

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/defenders-podcast/id252618196

Apologetics and Outreach (Covenant Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=418582076

Introduction to Apologetics (Liberty University)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=427913229

Christian Apologetics as Taught by Ronald Nash (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=409829793

Christian Apologetics as Taught by John Frame (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=378879273

History and Nature of Apologetics (Westminster Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=430339495

Hermeneutics and Exegesis:

Biblical Hermeneutics (Fuller Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ne505-biblical-hermeneutics/id380159148

Bible Study Methods (Dallas Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=386158693

Biblical Hermeneutics (Concordia Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=426809720

The Gospels as Histories taught by Richard Bauckham (Reformed Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=426936770

The Pentateuch (Fuller Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=380159249

The Prophets (Fuller Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=380159288

Textual Criticism:

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (Daniel Wallace)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/center-for-study-new-testament/id416966041

Biblical Languages:

Basics of Biblical Hebrew (Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/beginning-hebrew-ruth-class/id392738805

Elementary Hebrew (Concordia Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=426804337

Elementary Greek (Concordia Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=426804037

Elements of Greek I (Dallas Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=386159183

Elements of Greek II (Dallas Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=386159200

Preaching and Homiletics:

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety (UC Davis)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/overcoming-public-speaking/id414117823

Expository Preaching I (Dallas Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=386159618

Homiletics II (Concordia Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=426816801

Systematic Theology:

Systematic Theology as Taught by Wayne Grudem

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wayne-grudems-systematic-theology/id322844869

Intro to Theology (Dallas Theological Seminary)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=386159276

Some Notable Secular Institutions and Courses:

Oxford University:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/oxford-university/id381699182

Yale University:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/yale-university/id341649956

Harvard:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/harvard-university/id379060688

MIT:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/mit/id341593265

Stanford:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/stanford/id384228265

Philosophy of Mind as Taught by John Searle (UC Berkley)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=438307693

Science and Religion Lectures (Cambridge University)

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=418516646

*Note

I stuck with only links through iTunes U (except for William Lane Craig’s Defender’s class, and Dan Wallace’s material, because I couldn’t resist) but obviously you don’t have to limit yourself to this; there are also awesome podcasts that you could learn from that are not affiliated with a Christian university. Just go for it!