This story begins in late 2007 when I made a decision to do a two-year pastoral internship at The Journey in Saint Louis, MO (http://www.journeyon.net). I entered into that two-year internship because I sensed a calling into ministry that I wanted to explore, and the opportunity was most certainly from God. I did fundraising for my salary both years and worked full-time. During my internship, I worked as a research/personal assistant to the lead pastor (Darrin Patrick) and also assisted with the church’s ministry to artists, The Luminary | Center for the Arts (http://theluminaryarts.com) under the supervision of my friends James & Brea McAnally. I was mentored and received wonderful training for ministry and life in general. Those two years of my internship were by far two of the best years of my life, but they ended with a surprise.

Near the end of my internship, I ran into some financial difficulties when the economic recession hit. In April of 2009, all my financial supporters unexpectedly backed out at once and suddenly I no longer had a salary. Most of my supporters could not be reached for an explanation, and despite my best efforts to recover financially I had to resign and seek out new work. I refused to take an unemployment check and instead began working at both a retail clothing store and coffee shop for minimum wage (both were part-time). I had applied at 20+ jobs and they were the only two jobs I could get. They were great opportunities to build relationships and talk to people from all different backgrounds, but I was barely making my bill payments each month. If tips didn’t go well at the coffee shop, I would sometimes have to give my beloved doggy the leftover muffins from the coffee shop in order to save money on dog food. In other words, in was tough. Throughout these difficult times, I sensed that God was calling me to move on to something else but didn’t know exactly what. I had a grand vision for my life but was living off of minimum wage, and I couldn’t get a better job (particularly, one in ministry) for the life of me. I began questioning everything about my life’s calling, and the turmoil of this situation sent me into a deep depression. I was starting drinking and smoking way too much, taking good things too far in an effort to escape from the reality of my life. I struggled with all sorts of temptation. I tried my best to remain composed publicly, but privately I was a mess. Without the honest accountability and help of my closest friends, I probably would have gone off the deep end. I was in terrible anguish about my life. I still felt called to ministry but just didn’t see that calling being actualized in my life. Despite my doubts of self, however, I never stopped trusting God and believed that had something planned for me.

I had to re-evaluate and re-think my entire life. Having to go through that process was the best possible thing that could have happened to me. I had to figure out who I was and what I was going to do with myself; I had to engineer a vision for my life. From the start, I wanted the vision for my life to be related to the organic, natural gifts of my personality. I did not want to force myself into pursuing something that didn’t relate to my sense of self. I got some very valuable advice from my mentors and pastors about how to understand God’s calling and cast vision for oneself. So, I began the process with self-assessment. I began journaling about my interests and how I liked to spend my time. I looked to scripture for guidance and used it to measure my life. Then, I sought out the assessment of others. I talked to my closest friends and family members and asked them what they thought I was naturally good at. Those conversations were a little weird at times, but ultimately helpful. Finally, I reflected on what was said, trusting the Holy Spirit to assess me and renew my understanding of everything, and then forced myself to reach a conclusion.

In the process of self-discovery, I realized that I enjoy communicating truth and explaining complicated things to people, meeting up with friends to talk about their lives and offer support, and in creating things to enrich the lives of others. These may not sounds like profound realizations, and they are most certainly not. They were simple realizations for me, and that’s how I knew they were true. Indeed, the thing about myself that I’d been working hardest to understand was the simplest to realize. In the end, through the enjoyment of these simple things, I recognized my spiritual gifts as teaching, shepherding, and creatively equipping the church. Feeling under-challenged in lay leadership, I also realized that I aspire for the highest form of leadership within the church, the role of a lead/teaching pastor. When these gifts were paired with my strong passion for the city and innovation, I realized a desire to pastor a church in an urban area. I also recognized a tentative desire to someday plant a new church. However, I also realized that I was not trained or qualified to use my gifts in their maximum capacity.

Considering those self-realizations, I believed that seminary was the right choice because it would allow me to grow and progress in the development of my spiritual, pastoral gifts while maturing as a Christian and growing older as a man. I also believed that received an advanced degree from seminary would open up many more career opportunities. After deciding that I would go, however, I had to select a school.

My journey of discernment regarding which seminary to attend was very challenging. I looked at several seminaries including Fuller Theological Seminary, Talbot School of Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Golden Gate Theological Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I visited or met with a representative from each seminary. An article that I found very helpful in discerning which school to attend was FTS President Richard Mouw’s “How to Choose a Seminary” (available at http://www.fuller.edu/prospective-students/how-to-choose-a-seminary.aspx). Although I chose not to attend Fuller because of theological differences, receiving that wonderful article from them changed everything. It was the final piece to the puzzle in figuring out the factors for how to make my decision.

I chose to attend Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary because it is gospel-centered, interdenominational, mostly reformed, in proximity to a major city, offers a unique M.Div with an urban ministry emphasis, and is widely considered the best and most academically reputable/difficult seminary in the country. Finances also played a major role in my decision. GCTS offered the best financial aid out of all the seminaries I looked at, and a certain (anonymous) donor made a large financial contribution for me to specifically attend GCTS. The ultimate reason why I attended was a good ‘feeling’ that I got upon visiting though.

Upon visiting the seminary in mid July, I sent out emails to all the local pastors and tried to make some connections. The only one who responded was Matthew Kruse, pastor of Seven Mile Road (http://www.sevenmileroad.org). We met up for breakfast one morning and he told me about what the church (in general) was doing in the greater Boston area. His words deeply burdened me. I became convicted that I had a responsibility to become part of the movement of Christianity in Boston. After our meeting, I spent several hours driving through the city and exploring different neighborhoods. At one point, I broke down and started crying. The question, “Where is God’s church?” kept ruminating through my mind, and I felt like God was responding to my question by telling me to “Be the church.” So, that was when I gave in. I made the decision to move all the way across the country to attend Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and be a part of God’s church in the greater Boston area.

Over the next two weeks, I completed the matriculation process and resigned from my part-time jobs. I informed everyone of my decision, threw a going-away party at a dive-bar, and said farewell to all my loved ones. Having to leave such a wonderful community was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. It was a huge sacrifice. I left Saint Louis at the end of July, took up residence with my parents for a couple weeks in Kansas City, and then began my journey across the country in early August. It all happened so fast! Since I need a better vehicle, I bought an SUV in an auction with help from a friend in the industry. I bought a Greek Grand Cherokee on the day that I was leaving. I purchased it, loaded it up, and immediately drove it across the county.

I made the drive from Missouri to Massachusetts in two and a half days. I’ve never drank so much Red Bull and coffee as I did on that journey. I also made some questionable food and hotel decisions on my road trip that I don’t ever want to talk about. I’m not proud of everything that happened on that trip, but it got me to where I needed to go.

Upon arriving in Massachusetts, I stayed in the men’s dorms at the seminary and began my search for an apartment. I had made some temporary arrangements with the seminary in order to save money and avoid staying in an overpriced hotel. I was given a seemingly insane deadline of two weeks to find an apartment before I had to move out of the dorm. Having already realized that the enjoyment of my seminary experience depended upon a good living situation, I determined my resources and needs and then began my search for a place I could call “home.”

I had several non-negotiable things I was looking for in an apartment.  First, it had to be within my price range. Second, I knew that I wanted to be in an interesting neighborhood with opportunities for me to have fun and connect with peers. I wanted to live somewhere I could be able actively contributing to the flourishing and wellness of the community. Third, I wanted my apartment to have easy access to public transportation. I knew that public transportation was the best way to get around in the city, and I also valued that it is both economically and environmentally friendly option (compared to driving an SUV around everywhere).

Having only been to Massachusetts once before (for three days), I had no idea where to begin looking. So I just prayed for insight from God and then began asking everyone I met for tips about finding an apartment.The thousands of apartments on Craigslist were practically impossible to navigate without having prior knowledge to neighborhood dynamics, and all the people I talked to were super creepy, so I instead turned to local church websites. In their “want ads,” I found many people with similar values as mine who were looking for roommates. Whenever I checked out an apartment and it seemed good, I would also spend the day in the local neighborhood (perusing coffee shops, bars, etc.) to determine whether or not it was a healthy fit. I made a list of pro’s and con’s for each apartment and, at the end of my two week deadline, made a decision to live in Central Square in Cambridge.

Central Square in Cambridge is an affluent community about 45 minutes Southwest from the seminary. It’s surrounded by such prominent universities as Harvard and MIT, and there are a lot of smart people everywhere. One pastor, who shall remain anonymous (he’s not mentioned in this article), referred to this area of the city as the “Portal to Hell” for whatever reason.  Anyhow, I made the decision to live here for several reasons. First, I love the city life and enjoy almost everything that it offers. It suits my interests well, and there are lots of things to do. I have plenty of opportunities to connect with peers and engage the community here by doing things which I like. Second, living in the city provides me with opportunities to be involved in the urban church movement during my time in school. This offers great perspective to my education and makes it more experiential. Also, the urban church movement is something which I believe I am called as a Christian leader to be a part of. In other words, I feel called by God to bring the gospel to the city. I want to see the church multiply here. So living in the city allows me to practically and purposefully apply my education and training in seminary. Most students from the seminary do not live in the city, which is far off from the seminary’s main campus, so there are plenty of opportunity to get uniquely involved in the local church and thereby mature as a leader while in the field of duty. Thirdly, the apartment was nice and the roommates were not crazy and a good fit (even though I am the “token white guy” of the apartment). Fourthly, a church that was highly recommended to me by another pastor (Matthew Kruse from Seven Mile Road) was literally a block from the apartment that I found. I attend Christ The King (http://www.ctkcambridge.org), which is a wonderful, gospel-centered church community that is leading the church-planting movement in the greater Boston area. That is a rare thing to find in a city that is widely considered “Post-Christian” and one of the least “churched” areas of the country. Fifthly, I find it strangely delightful to live as a Christian in the “Portal to Hell.”

All in all, the process of self-discovery, sacrifice, and starting a new life here in the Boston area has taught me a lot about God and his grace. God’s will is a precious work that is extremely costly but also mysteriously glorious. The story does not end here though. I’m eager to see what the next few years have in store for me, and I hope that all my family members, friends, and acquaintances will partner with me and support me in my life’s journey from this point onward. To follow my story closely, you can connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and this blog. Hopefully it will be enriching, enlivening, and entertaining to you.

1. First Things is now hosting a cool blog of evangelicals talking about public square issues in an accessible way.  It’s called evangel, and it features folks like Justin Taylor, Russ Moore, and more.

2. A NYT profile of Warren Buffett’s son Howard, who is presently finding ways to spend billions of dollars for philanthropic causes.

3. Kevin Vanhoozer recently dropped the following gem at the Renewing the Evangelical Mission conference at Gordon-Conwell (HT: JT):

Seminary faculties need the courage to be evangelically Protestant for the sake of forming theological interpreters of Scripture able to preach and minister the word. The preacher is a “man on a wire,” whose sermons must walk the tightrope between Scripture and the contemporary situation. I believe that we should preparing our best students for this gospel ministry. The pastor-theologian, I submit, should be evangelicalism’s default public intellectual, with preaching the preferred public mode of theological interpretation of Scripture. 

4. Speaking of the conference mentioned above, the Washington Post wrote it up.  Worth reading.

5. One journeyman NBA player’s travels.  Fun to read about.

–Have a great weekend, all.

We all desire to flourish in the world. How can we experience that flourishing though? In a lecture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Miroslav Volf addressed this issue by speaking on the topic of “God, Globalization, And Human Flourishing.” I really enjoyed his lecture – Volf has great insight on peace – and the following is a compilation of my notes and reflections from his lesson.

In addressing the search for human flourishing, Volf said, “The fundamental issue is how God relates with how we live in the world.” So having a basic understanding of “how we live in the world” in relation to “how God exists in the world” is essential to our state of being; it constructs our perception of what it means to live in flourishing existence (that is, if we define “true flourishing” as experiencing God’s joy). Deep down, in the heart, we all want to flourish.

It could be said that to flourish (on a general level) is to have one’s desires met, to experience satisfaction. However, we comprehend our own desires according to our value systems, and if our values are “off” from God’s values, then we are led away from true flourishing. Valuing the wrong, “off” things ultimately prevents true human flourishing. So then, what we value becomes central and fundamental to our existence. We must value the good things, and all that is truly good comes from God. To experience true flourishing, our hearts must possess God’s values and seek out satisfaction in him alone. We must work towards this, for the state of our hearts affects how God can relate with us, and vice versa.

Our religion (how we approach God) is reflective of our value systems. Our approach to God is an extension of our heart to him; in other words, we approach God by presenting our inner-selves to him in an outward fashion. In religion, we seek to establish a relationship between the self (as is) and God (as we want him to relate with us). The limitations of religion, in this sense, are what make it so entirely worthless. Religion limits us from experiencing true satisfaction in God, for it limits our perception of “who God is” (in religion, God is a bigger version of the human self, a means to an end). Religion is therefore not the answer; it is different from the Gospel (the true answer).

The reality of who God is, however, is much different from our perception of him. The reality of God is evidenced in the Gospel. Our man-made, constructed perception of God is flawed, broken, and distorted by our sin. God’s reality is different than our reality. God has an objective, true way for human beings to flourish in the world. Astray and so far off from God’s reality of what it means to flourish and be well, we must necessarily have an example to follow. We must have a relevant definition of what it means to flourish, and the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the perfect example of what it means to flourish in the world. In the incarnation, God entered into the world in human likeness and provided us with the vocabulary for knowing what it means to live like God, to experience his flourishing. Christ is the catalyst of all flourishing. In the Gospel we find the path to true satisfaction: submission to the cross of Christ.

Volf said, “Ours is a culture of managed pursuits of pleasure.” Yes, this is the reality in which we live: a pleasure-seeking culture. Our culture preaches to us that we must experience “this” or “that” in order to flourish, and it advertises all sorts of things that will deliver us to satisfaction. Culture tells us that certain things will give us pleasure, and we organize our lives around the pursuit of these things. Culture tells us that things other than God can provide pleasure, and thus we manage our lives around idols. These idols, these things other than God that provide hope for flourishing, truly offer nothing but a lie (false hope, temporal satisfaction).

In sin, we manage our relationship to God according to our culturally-defined understanding of “pleasure.” We want the provisional hand of God but not all of him, and after being fed we bite the hand that feeds. To us sinners, the provisional hand of God which we steal from is Jesus Christ. Our culture takes everything it can from Jesus. Thus there is a culturally-constructed “Jesus,” a weakened form of God than is easy to steal and profit from; in this, our culture has made God more manageable. According to the world, we can now be associated with this “cultural Jesus” without having to give up the experiential pleasures of sin. However, this is not the truth. To be human is to love. What we love, and how we love, defines us. Faith is a futuristic enactment of love, a surrendering of the heart to something. To love God is to be entirely submitted to him, and this is where culture fails in its definition of what it means to find pleasure in God. Love is the greatest thing we’re capable of, it is the truest function of humanity. Love demands the whole self. We are always lovers of something. What we choose to love affects our ability to flourish.

To truly flourish, we must love God, for God is love and love comes from him. Humanity flourishes in the love of God. Volf said, “If we live against the grain of reality, we cannot experience true satisfaction.” Reality is that God exists. To repress this is to live against the grain of reality. And we must not fit God into our reality; rather, we must fit ourselves into God’s reality. The truth is that we exist in God’s world. He is objectively central to everything. To flourish in the world – God’s world – we must be in love with the one whose love is transcendental, with the creator of reality. Our basic, most fundamental need is love. We need God’s love. His love is the fullness, the true reality, of love. To know his love is to know true existence – to flourish – and that’s something we’re all longing for. In relationship with God, in the midst of his love, we must also love others. We must be in the likeness of God.

Volf said, “God is fundamental to human flourishing.” In being like Jesus Christ and following his loving ways (by loving others rightly), we can experience true flourishing. We can experience the joy of God by worshipping him and following his ways. To know true joy, to live satisfied, we must orient our hearts to God and allow his love to be transcendent. We must allow God to work through our desires to reform our hearts to be more like his heart. Repentence and faith allow this to happen, and it’s a wonderful thing. As Volf said, “Orientation to God is a pulsating source of human flourishing…It is the heart out of which everything else grows.”

This post arises out of a unique journey of mine. Believe it or not, I am actually enrolled in 4 seminaries at the moment, pursuing my Masters of Divinity (M.Div) at all of them! Okay, before I qualify that statement, I am actually only taking courses at one of the four seminaries, but I still have student numbers at all of the other ones.

Let me briefly explain my  journey, and then I’ll do a brief and preliminary comparative analysis between three out of the four seminaries.

After my undergrad, and right after getting married, my wife and I planned to move back to Vancouver to enroll at Regent College to pursue my M.Div. As a result, that summer in 2006, I began taking classes via correspondence. However, through God’s providence, my wife and I actually ended up moving to Montreal to take a Youth Pastor position at River’s Edge Community Church. While living in Montreal and serving as a youth pastor, I kept on taking courses at Regent College. A year later in 2007, I decided to transfer over to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston because I figured I couldn’t complete my degree through correspondence with Regent. So upon enrolling at Gordon-Conwell, I began driving from Montreal to Boston weekly to take classes. I would leave on Tuesday morning, drive 6 hours, take 1 course, sleep on campus, wake up the next day and take another course, then drive another 6 hours back to Montreal for Wednesday evening. I did that for a semester, and became very tired! So I did correspondence courses the next semester while learning how to church plant at River’s Edge. Figuring I couldn’t do another semester of driving, I decided to enroll at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto because they had an M.Div program for individuals in ministry, which would only require me to travel to campus once a week. And since I had family in Toronto, it was going to be easier. So I enrolled and finished off my Greek through correspondence. Afterwards, in 2008, through much discernment, my wife and I decided to move out to Seoul, Korea to be pastors at Onnuri English Ministry; as a result, I decided to transfer to Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology here in Korea to finish up my M.Div (it’s an English graduate school in Korea).

Wow! That was long. Anyway, that’s my journey through 4 different seminaries. As much as you might laugh at my journey or think it’s amusing to consider how many hours I actually spent applying and getting accepted into each of these seminaries, there has actually been a great benefit to being at all 4 of them – I can offer first-hand advice and critiques as to the differences between the seminaries.

So I’m going to attempt to make a brief and preliminary (and by no means exhaustive) comparative analysis between the M.Div program in 3 out of the 4 seminaries: Regent (Canada), Gordon-Conwell (USA), and Torch (Korea).

Side notes: I do not know enough about Tyndale to comment. Also, I don’t like emphasizing the negatives, so I’ll write out the unique strengths of each institution!

Regent College (Vancouver, Canada)

• Community
• Professors
• Name-value
• Holistic and culturally engaging types of courses
• Able to take correspondence courses, and even campus courses with the likes of J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke etc.
• Balance between ministry and biblical studies/theology in the M.Div curriculum
• Summer program
• Conferences

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton (Boston), USA)

• Professors
• Name-value
• The variety and sheer amount of courses you can take (For your degree, you can take courses at Harvard, Boston University, etc.)
• Tradition and ecumenicism
• Conferences
• Mentored Ministry

Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology (Seoul, Korea)

• International student population (There are students from all over the world studying in Korea to be trained and released back to their native countries – i.e. Nigeria, Iraq, India, China, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Canada, USA, etc.)
• International Faculty (Professors from different backgrounds with different academic and ministry expertise)
• Personable professors
• Conferences
• Strong Missions Focus (especially with Korea being a massive missionary sending nation)
• Cheap tuition
• Asian-American Visiting Professors (Peter Cha, Paul Lim, Julius Kim, etc.)

Are you going to seminary? If so, what are the strengths of your school?

If you are considering seminary, what kind of questions do you have?

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston organises on 13-15 October 2009 the conference entitled Renewing the Evangelical Mission, in honour of Dr. David F. Wells, former Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology and current Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Among the main speakers at this conference will be Os Guinness, J.I. Packer, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Horton, Miroslav Volf and Cornelius Plantinga.

Participants will explore questions like:

• What is the evangelical mission at the beginning of the third millennium?
• How do global realities impact the historic mission of evangelical theology?
• What sense can be made of the unity of evangelical theology in light of its many diverse voices?
• How can/should evangelicals relate to the Great Tradition and also speak in the vernacular of global culture?
• What are the theological challenges and opportunities moving forward for American evangelicals?

More details about this important event, HERE.

Gordon Conwell is starting a new Doctorate of Ministry degree in Bible Translation. The track is being led by the eminently capable Dr. Roy Ciampa. His knowledge of original languages, grammar, syntax, and translation is remarkable. On top of all that, he’s just a nice guy, nice and demanding!

I had the privilege of learning Greek and Galatians under Ciampa. His dissertation on Galatians is incredibly insightful. Ciampa’s publications include:

• “The History of Redemption” in Central Themes in Biblical Theology: Mapping Unity in Diversity
• 1 Corinthians commentary in The Commentary of the New Testament Use of the Old  Testament.

He’s also working on the 1 Corinthians Pillar Commentary Series (a great series) right now, and will release an essay on Abraham and Empire for a Festschrift soon.

Read his recent devotional reflection on the concept of translation. An excerpt:

We tend to be such imperfect translations of Christ (or perhaps I should just speak for myself) that it is very easy for other people to get the wrong message, to get the wrong idea about who Christ is and what he is all about. By God’s grace and the power of his Spirit, may the world recognize Christ’s people to be (imperfect but) adequate translations through which they may come to know his truth, love, grace and righteousness, giving praise and recognition not to the translation itself, but to the One who has provided such a translation so that he might be known (cf. Matt 5:16).

Hello everyone,

I just got clearance to take an guided independent research course this semester with Dr. Niehaus.  We will be exploring the theories behind metaphor, imagery and symbolism, and then specifically connecting these theories to Proverbs 1-9.

Below are a list of sources that I have so far (I would really like more books on theory):

Yesterday I wrote about the new partnership between Gordon-Conwell and Christianbook.com.

I wanted to make it clear that a portion of proceeds from sales on the site will benefit GCTS. I apologize if that was unclear yesterday.

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (my school in case you’re wondering) recently launched a partnership with ChristianBook.com. A portion of the proceeds from all orders placed through the new website will be given to the school.

If you are a resident of Massachusetts, you can enjoy free shipping on orders of $25 or more until 18 September.

Here’s the site: http://gcts.christianbook.com/

This is a post from former Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary President and current Mecklenberg Community Church Pastor James Emery White. I found it to be a poignant article worth posting here.

Of Bitter Blogs

While this isn’t earth shattering news, I have been agonizing over this decision for a while now.  My class load will look as follows next semester:

Middle Egyptian with Dr. A. Botta @BU

Exegesis of the Prophetic Books with Dr. Donna Petter @GCTS

Exegesis of Genesis with Dr. Carol Kaminski@ GCTS

Akkadian with Professor Meredith M. Kline (I am sure both Jay and Calvin are glad about this move) @GCTS

Really the last class was the only one that I wasn’t sure about taking.  It doesn’t really fit my schedule, and the time of the class couldn’t be more inconvenient; however, I think getting a head start on Akkadian is the best move for my long term goals.  This will be a lot of work, and I will lose roughly 15hrs a wk in windshield time, but I do think that this will be a great semester in that regards.  I must be crazy!  Here’s hoping more dead languages don’t kill me!

I know there are many others like me—who want to learn about Revelation but are tired of arguing about a pre-, mid-, or post-tribulation rapture.  We’re not interested in eschatology arguments as much as trying to understand—to picture—what John was trying to pass on to future generations in his writings.  Artist Debby Topliff decided it would be a fun challenge to study Revelation and explain its various pictures in a visual medium.  Through her primitive folk art-style, Debby unearths a Revelation time line that helps viewers understand the historical-redemptive narrative in her teaching DVD Painting Revelation (Firefly Life).

Using a five foot by seven foot canvas as her guide, Debby masterfully depicts 29 scenes from the John’s revelation, written while he was an exile on the Greek island of Patmos.  While the art is rather abstract, Debby’s verbal descriptions are not.  She provides a clear and accurate depiction of the images of Revelation.  Of course, this is Debby’s interpretation of John’s interpretation of what he was seeing, yet it has been more understandable and meaningful to me than any other depiction of Revelation (and it puts those goofy Left Behind movies to shame).

Not only do I like Debby’s amazing painting; I like Debby herself.  She has a natural way of teaching in which her knowledge of Revelation is evident and her speech unencumbered with confusing theological jargon.  She begins her five teaching sessions by sharing a simple story in the woods surrounding her Michigan home and then moves into her studio to explain sections of Revelation via her painting.

The Painting Revelation DVD includes teaching resources to coincide with each of Debby’s sessions.  There is a 20 page leader’s guide, worksheets for each session, a discussion guide, and much more complete with Scripture references to add to one’s personal and/or group study of Revelation.  The resources that accompany this DVD and painting are thorough and well-crafted by Debby, who earned a bachelor’s from Gordon-Conwell and a master’s from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois.

I was 11 years old when I first heard a sermon on the book of Revelation.  I was terrified out of my sixth grade mind and had nightmares for a week.  Then the Left Behind books came along further solidifying my fear of the end times.  As I grew older, my fear faded but the final book of the Bible baffled my mind.  It has been much easier to study the Gospels or Ecclesiastes than Revelation.  Yet my desire to learn about Revelation—the only book in the Bible with a blessing and a promise for reading it—has been strong.  Fortunately, Painting Revelation has provided a perfect outlet for me to start engaging with Revelation and piqued my curiosity about end times theology.

I have just leanred that the former president of RTS in Orlando, Dr. Frank James, has resigned his postion and will be accepting a new position as Provost of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  I don’t know anything about James other than that he is into systematics and historical theology.  For more information on this change, see this post.  I don’t know much else, but I will add to this post as I recieve more information.

Asbury Seminary has named Dr. Timothy Tennent (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) as their eighth president. I remember Dr. Tennent from my time at GCTS and he is a great choice. He teaches World Missions at GCTS and his course is one of the most popular. He has done extensive teaching all around the world and especially in India. He has a great vision for the global church and is a fair, balanced, creative, enthusiastic scholar.

Blessings on you and your family, Dr. Tennent, in this transition time. Asbury will be lucky to have you.

Perhaps GCTS can try to recruit Ajith Fernando (who received an honorary doctorate from GCTS) to teach world missions…?

Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio will be speaking on: After Evangelism: Discipleship and the Cultural Life of Churches at Gordon-Conwell’s campus in South Hamilton, Massachusetts on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. Wish I could attend. Myers is as robust cultural critic and apologist. His thoughtful Mars Hill Audio program turns out volume after volume of diverse, well-researched, and engaging interviews and theological reflection.

Here is a Description of this Event: Since pastors are eager to reach many people with the message of the Gospel, they are often encouraged to adopt conventional cultural forms so as to reach people “where they are.” But the Gospel is not just a message to be accepted, but a way of life that is often out of sync with the way of life our culture extols. In this seminar, Ken Myers will offer a framework for assessing the common cultural practices and sensibilities, arguing that discipleship requires a more prophetic stance toward the culture around us than many churches seem willing to embrace.

Specific topics include…
(1) Wise Shepherds or Winsome Cruise Directors? Lessons from Titus on Cultural Ecology
(2) Consumer Goods: How Commodification Undermines Authority
(3) Idol Pursuits: How Celebrity Corrupts Identity
(4) A Way With Words: How Aliteracy Threatens Wisdom

Speaker Information: Ken Myers is the host and producer of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal, an audio magazine exploring the dynamics of contemporary culture. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, where he studied film theory and criticism, and of Westminster Theological Seminary. Formerly a producer for National Public Radio, he has worked on publishing projects with Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus. He is the author of All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christian and Popular Culture (Crossway, 1989), and is working on a book entitled After Evangelism: Discipleship and the Cultural Life of Churches.

I read with some interest this article at christianpost.com: “Church Network ‘Launches’ Sermon-Packed Bible“.  I’ll provide a couple of excerpts and give you my thoughts.  At the end of this post you’ll see more links to check this Bible and organization out for yourself.

The Second Billion Network has “launched” a Bible featuring sermons from some of the world’s best expository preachers alongside each of the Holy Book’s 1,189 chapters.

As announced last month during the North American Conference on Biblical Preaching, the overarching goal of the “Global Preaching Bible” is to give new pastors the means to a Bible-based preaching ministry, and to provide pastors everywhere the ability to preach through the entire Bible and apply rock-solid principles to their congregations.

comment: I appreciate the desire to train pastors in having a Bible-based preaching ministry (I find it hard to believe that there could be any other type of preaching ministry…but I digress).  I also appreciate the desire to see more expositional preaching with practical application – this is needed.  I was interested to see who would comprise the list of “the world’s best expository preachers”.

For the effort, the Second Billion Network invited some of the best expository preachers to invest ten of their best messages into a collection that will result in a biblically-sound, expository sermon for each of the 1,189 chapters of the Bible.

comment: Am I straining at a gnat?  I would like to know how one determines what their “best” messages are – what is the criteria?  Response to the message?  How it “felt” when it was delivered?

In addition, the Bible will reportedly feature tools to build biblically-sound messages on a weekly basis, weekly sermon updates to help with societal transformation, and search functions by contributor, topic and scripture reference.

comment: I would like more information on what tools are available in this Bible – surely they are limited due to size & space; but it seems like a helpful construct.

Since its inception, the Second Billion movement has centered around pastors and local churches. Though the network labels itself as inclusive – calling on “every church, regardless of size, and every Christian, whether known or unknown” – it has so far received most of its support from Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders.

The movement has received endorsements from Sunday Adelaja, charismatic founder and pastor of what is believed to be the largest church in Europe; retired televangelist Robert H. Schuller, founder of Crystal Cathedral in California; George O. Wood, head of the Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God; and controversial preacher and “faith healer” Reinhard Bonnke.

comment: And this is where my biggest reservation occurs.  Red flags occur as this is endorsed heavily by the Charimatic Movement.  I would have liked to seen a list of contributing preachers in this article – perhaps that would allay my “fears”.  With endorsements from such people as Robert H. Schuller, I am very cautious about this project.

Further consideration:

• Do we want to train men to preach / pastor so that they are able to study the text for themselves, or do we want them to simply parrot what others have said / preached?
• I don’t have a problem looking at what others have said about the text, even in their sermons, but I don’t want that sermon tied exclusively to the text: in other words, it places a greater authority on the sermon than should be, in my opinion.  Provide the sermons in another book, apart from the Bible.
• What were the qualifications for these sermons to be placed in this Bible? – this really concerns me.
• While the sermons might be provided, the means to how that preacher / pastor arrived at his conclusions on the text through diligent study are not provided – this is what fledgling preachers need.  How do I study the text to arrive at a correct conclusion about what it is saying?
• What other concerns / comments might you have?

Giving Blood.tv

Second Billion

A Link:
CPYU (the Center for Parent / Youth Understanding) has a Free book offer at their bookshelf. All you have to do is leave a comment stating what was the best book that you read in 2008.  You might as well enter, if you win you get to choose the book from a “long list” of books they have.

An Update:
I mentioned in this post about CJ Mahaney interviewing Wayne Grudem.  He now is interviewing Mark Dever on his blog. You might want to check it out!

I am looking to do a little research on proverbs that are not in the Wisdom Literature, but focusing on theories related to sitz im leben of its later (or earlier) colloquial usage.

I am currently looking into:

Parts of Westermann’s Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples

C.R. Fontaine’s Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament

Any advice would be welcomed.

Wow…I haven’t written much in a weeks time or so, which is a bit odd for me. But this has been a whirlwind week and a half. As many of you know, my wife and I got a puppy (which is extremely time consuming, while being very enjoyable). I started my fall semester, which includes taking classes at three campuses, GCTS, BC, and BU. I had to learn the T system (and T timing which is much more difficult, i.e. how long does it take to get from BC to BU), figure out parking, etc, etc. Not to mention the class work is going to be much more intense than I had previously thought, but hey, this is graduate school and its all apart of the game. I also had to endure an ordination council (which could be a blog entry in and of itself). At my ordination council, I was asked to inform the church & small panel about various theological (both practical and theoretical) conclusions that I have drawn. I am pleased to report that I passed my ordination council and will be ordained within the next month or so, through the Southern Baptist Convention.

I would also like to report that this semester, as far as classes are concerned, will fit my long term goals much more than any previous semester, which should mean I will have a far more satisfying experience!!!

Gordon Conwell has made the recent lectures by NT scholar, Ben Witherington III available free online. Witherington brings rich historical and archeological wisdom to bear on contemporary debates about the identity of the historical Jesus. Here are the lectures:

First Lecture, What Have They Done With Jesus?

Second Lecture, The Talpiot Tomb – The Family Tomb of Jesus?

Third Lecture, The Jesus History and the Pseudo-Christ of Gnosticism.

For more information about Dr. Witherington, please visit benwitherington.com

Robert E. Coleman, distinguished professor of Discipleship and Evangelism at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has endorsed a new book by Brad J. Waggoner entitled The Shape of Faith to Come: Spiritual Formation and the Future of Discipleship. He says:

“Brad Waggoner, backed up by extensive research, takes a hard look at contemporary American church life. What he sees raises alarm. In realistically facing the evidence of mediocrity in average Christian experience, he charts a course of action for the future. It is a serious call to biblical discipleship, a lifestyle of faith that overflows in obedient witness and service to a lost world. Sobering reading, to be sure, but take to heart the message of this book points the way to real revival.”

In 1Peter 5 Peter warns elders not to be greedy for money, but eager to do ministry. I wonder how this relates to us as preachers? Obviously each of our situations are different. Many who read this have other income and on preaching receive a gift that may or may not cover the expenses of the fuel used to get to the church (especially when churches are giving the same gift they gave five or ten years ago!) Others mainly preach in one church and receive a salary for their ministry, which is then not connected to a specific message.

For the salaried I suppose the temptation to be greedy for money might show itself when it is time to review the salary or the employment contract, or when the temptation to move to a better paying church or job arises in the mind. For the preacher of one-off messages, I suppose the temptation to be greedy shows more frequently over smaller amounts.

I’ll share two principles I have in my ministry, then perhaps you’ll share how you face this issue in yours:

I want to always choose ministry on merit. My schedule is open enough to allow me to minister in numerous venues (churches, Bible schools, conferences, missions teams, etc.) However my schedule is not so open that I can accept every invitation. I have made it a personal goal to always evaluate ministry based on its strategic value, rather than what I might receive (or what it will cost me). So I generally prioritze teaching in a foreign Bible school (at my expense) over visiting a local church that gives a handsome gift to visiting preachers. Thankfully the Lord has honored this practice and I have been able to make ministry decisions without cost or revenue being a factor.

I do not charge for ministry. I get asked what I would charge for such and such. I have appreciated something Dr Jeff Arthurs at Gordon-Conwell shared once. If I were asked to speak as a professional (i.e. as a consultant for a business or in a university, perhaps on public speaking), then I would charge a professional fee in line with my qualifications, training, etc. But if I agree to do ministry, then I trust the Lord to provide through gifts (and if there is no gift, I chose to do the ministry without possible income being a factor, right?) I know speakers much more famous than me have appearance fees for ministry. I’m still trying to decide what I think about that.

Money may not be a motivator in ministry for us right now, but the temptation is always there. How do you make sure you are eager to do ministry, rather than eager to line your pockets?

Fox News is carrying the story about nine police agencies gathering together to raise 100,000 for the Widman family. A remarkable display of common grace to take care of this widow and her family. The funeral will be on Wednesday.

Read more here.

Cititi anuntul AICI.