The Truth Matters Bible Conference was held earlier this month at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church. The focus of the conference was the Gospel According to Paul. Grace to You has all 11 sermons available as free downloads! Includes John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Don Green and Col. Jeffrey N. Williams. I feel very Michael Spencer linking these resources.
These are perhaps the most blogged stories over the past few days in the Christian blogosphere. Each is somewhat divisive, and everyone has their own opinion. In no particular order:
Palestine is petitioning the U.N. to create a Palestinian state. President Obama and former president Clinton agree that doing so at this time is a bad idea. Clinton however railed on the Obama White House last week that all the current problems with Israeli relations are the fault of Obama policies. Benjamin Netanyahu describes the U.S. is a friend of Israel, but Obama is in a delicate political position right now. Palestine would need the support of the U.N. Security Council to move forward, and the U.S. has said it will veto the measure if it comes to that. Obama’s political career needs for it to not come to that.
Southern Baptist Convention might seek a new name. Back in the late 80’s an SBC name change was handily defeated. “North American Baptist” was the proposal back in the day, implying a broader base than the South. I once heard an IMB missionary to Canada comment on the irony of planting Southern Baptist churches there. Since slavery is no longer the dividing issue (SBC denounced all historic ties to racism back in 1991) it begs the question of why all American Baptists could not re-unite. The answer is that SBC would never give up their organization, but we MUST beg the question.
Rob Bell is leaving Mars Hill Church. Bell went to the unlikeliest of places and practically did the impossible with Mars Hill. His recent book Love Wins seems to imply universal salvation, and has not been received well (to say the least) by some Christians. He said something about broadening his horizons by leaving, whatever that means. Rick Warren suggests the danger here is that leaders no longer have a community to keep them accountable. Bell could easily support himself without Mars Hill; selling books and DVD’s might be far more profitable than pastoring.
As a matter of fact, I’ll give you three topics. I’m going to toss these out in no particular order and sort out the results later.
1. Palestine asked the UN to be recognized as a state. President Obama advised against it. The U.S. does not want to veto it in the Security Council, but says it will if necessary.
2. The Southern Baptist Convention is considering a name change. None of us had blogs back in the 80’s, so maybe this is entirely for our benefit.
3. Rob Bell has resigned from Mars Hill. Rick Warren had comments, what are yours?
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12 hours later and no takers. Comments to this post are closed.
Read Blog Fodder: Palestine, SBC and Rob Bell at The Master’s Table.
not really our gardener
There are certain things you get used to. When you grow up with electricity in every room, and with hot and cold running water, its easy to forget that most of the world’s population does not have those things. The same is true in ministry. On any given day, I will have students in my class from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Thailand and South Korea. I have had students from Japan, China and Russia, but none right this minute. Most days I don’t even think about it as this is “normal” where I live and work.
One of the blessings of the ministry I work in is the unique blend of individuals God has brought together to do the work. My wife and I came from Georgia, but we have friends from Colorado, New Jersey and Alaska. One couple came to serve with us after spending 16 years on the mission field in Nigeria. Every person that’s here left behind a church that misses them; all of our fellow missionaries were church deacons, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders and such like back home. I listened to a good sermon tonight about the three parables in Luke 15 delivered by our gardener. Yeah I know, right?
If one of my students had a question from scripture, he or she could easily ask our campus minister or Bible teacher. But would you take the same question to a bus driver? I happen to be an ordained minister and a school bus driver. Our gardener plants flowers and designs landscapes 6 days a week, and pastors a small Presbyterian church on the weekend. He is just as qualified to answer Bible questions as our basketball coach – who has also traveled to Rwanda to teach English and to other countries doing medical missions.
Stephen Tracksel said “I am not a great man of God, I am a man of great God.” The next time you turn on the tap or flip a light switch, try to remember where all blessings come from. And the next time I wave at the gardener, I will try and do the same. May we all be instruments of His will.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the Gospels in that they tell the story of the life of Jesus. Jesus preaches in Mark 1 “repent and believe in the gospel.” More than those four books, gospel means good news. Jesus died for our sins; he is the way, the truth and the life; he brings the New Covenant, and we are no longer under the Law; all things things are part of the gospel message. Paul says the Law is bad news; it cannot make us righteous, only more guilty. But there is more to the Old Testament than the Law, and it’s not all bad news.
The Bible has many stories and characters, but only one message. (Have you read this?) The Old Covenant was about keeping the Law and bearing the mark of circumcision. Paul has many analogies about the difference between the Law and the Gospel; the Gospel brings life, the Law only brings death. But my point is that there is plenty of good news in the Old Testament as well. It is part of God’s message. Continue reading
The nationwide See You at the Pole event is next Wednesday, Sept. 28th. Below is a short video. The theme this year is “Converge.”
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The See You at the Pole website (syatp.com) says the event began in 1990. I swear I remember doing this in middle school in the late 80’s. Must have been a local thing.
I teach at a private Christian school. We have daily chapel, and my wife and I sponsor BCM. Our students frequently worship together and hear the gospel message. We still observe See You at the Pole because on that day thousands of students nation wide – and now even worldwide – meet together to pray. At our school staff and students can meet and pray together, but in the public school setting the events are entirely student led. We wouldn’t miss the chance to agree with those kids in prayer for anything.
*BCM is Baptist Campus Ministry. The name changed in 2005 from BSU, Baptist Student Union.
The Master’s Table has been on Facebook for a while, but a “Like Box” now appears at the top of the right hand side bar. If you’re on Facebook, click the Like button to get updates on new posts.
Each blog post also has share buttons for Facebook and Twitter, and there are other options such as Print and Email in a pull down menu.
How Steve Jobs Accidentally Changed the Persecuted Church appeared at Don’t Eat the Fruit .com back in April. I read the article, copied the link, and then filed it away. Read the full article here.
In a nutshell, Jobs never set out to change the way the Gospel is spread. In Steve Jobs own words the iPod “changed everything.” The biggest change was storage space; we now measure mp3 capacity in gigabytes. How does that affect the church? Countries that stop Bibles at the border usually don’t care about mp3 players. People groups that do not even have a written language can listen to the Word, and recharge the device with solar power anywhere on earth.
Next the iPhone set the standard for video formatting. You can record video in mp4 and be pretty sure any device can render it. Now it’s the iPad. With the widespread acceptance of ePub (also used by Nook) instead of just a digital Bible a user can basically carry an entire seminary worth of information.
Steve Jobs never set out to enable the Christian church. I’m not saying Christians around the world use Apple technology to spread the Gospel. Jobs drove the state of the art forward, and created industry standards that the church can use to everyone’s advantage.
I didn’t interview Phil Vischer, even if the title implies otherwise. The Sept. 24th edition of World Magazine has a lengthy interview with Phil Vischer, creator of Big Idea and Veggie Tales. Read the full article here.
I have been aware of Veggie Tales for years, and have seen several episodes. I watched Jonah (after it came out on DVD). Now with a 2-year-old in the house I have seen a lot more Veggie Tales… over and over again. I recently made this observation: all the stories revolve around Old Testament characters. There is always a moral to the story and a Bible verse at the end, but for all intents and purposes the whole thing could be just as Jewish as it is Christian. My wife pointed out they have an Easter Carol, but that’s the exception to the rule. A pretty recent exception at that. I’ve listened to church pastors do basically the same thing as Veggie Tales cartoons, and that’s use Old Testament Bible stories to teach a moral lesson. That’s why this statement from Vischer in the interview really popped for me:
I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, “Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,” or “Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!” But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality.
Vischer’s new project is called Jellyfish Labs. It features puppet characters instead of cartoons. He describes it as “Muppets gone to seminary.” The interview is more about the failure of Big Idea than what Jellyfish is doing next, but I’m still looking forward to it. It apparently takes a long time to wear out a DVD.
UPDATE: Visit the Jellyfish Labs website and see what Phil’s been up to.
Shaun King resigned earlier this month from Courageous Church in Atlanta. Internet Monk has all the details here. In short, he realized after loosing a lot of members in his attempt to build disciples that what his congregation really wanted was the Sunday morning show. This got me thinking about what most Christians are looking for in a church.
King had followed all the advice given to him about building a congregation when starting a church. He now says that he sold his soul for attendance and never quite felt like he was able to get it back. He began preaching sermons and taking steps to get Courageous Church away from it’s Sunday morning focus and make the shift toward small groups, building disciples, and engaging the community. He lost 85% of his membership. Continue reading
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