Monthly Archives: September 2008

Make Disciples not Programs

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This week The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary began their first ever Great Commission Lecture Series; there are several more lectures to come please check that link for updates over the next month.  Starting the series off was David Platt, lead pastor of the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama.  In his lecture he offered the following criticism of the lack of biblical vision in SBC churches and followed it up will a practical exhortation to recover the mission of God.

“When you ask a pastor to describe his vision and we say things like, ‘my vision is to have this many hundred or this many thousand people in church, or to have this many buildings,’ when we say things like that we show that somewhere along the way we have lost our pursuit of Christ in the pursuit of stuff and the church. Christ should be our vision. . . .  One of the greatest challenges that I, and the staff that I lead, face is trying to reorient our thinking: the purpose of the staff is not to plan events or to provide services. The purpose of the staff, of church leaders, is to equip people, to build people, to love Christ and proclaim the glory of Christ to the nations” (emphasis added).

An article by the Towers Online is available here and MP3s of the lectures are available below.

·         “The Presence of Christ in the Great Commission”

·         “The Command of Christ in the Great Commission”

·         “The Authority of Christ in the Great Commission”

Wendell Berry on Education

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Last night I had the opportunity to watch a television show about the author Wendell Berry.  The following quote, from Thoughts in the Presence of Fear, struck me as particularly insightful.

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education.  Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It’s proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible.  This cannot be done by gathering or “accessing” what we now call “information” – which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority.  A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.”

2008-09-08 The Brief

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News

·         The Death of Paper – Are printed magazines, newspapers, and books nearing their demise?  Check out this article and make the call.

Politics

·         The List: McCain’s 10 Worst Ideas – Foreign Policy is doing a two part series on the ten worst policy proposals for the two presidential hopefuls.

·         The List: Obama’s 10 Worst Ideas – Foreign Policy is doing a two part series on the ten worst policy proposals for the two presidential hopefuls.

·         On Faith – The panelists at The Washington Post and Newsweek’s forum, On Faith, have recently been asked: “Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?”  As you can imagine this question has generated a varied number of responses and heated debate in the forums.  You can read the responses from all the panelists here; however, I would recommend the following panelists’ responses, and not necessarily because I agree with them:

Albert Mohler Jr. – President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Brian D. McLaren – Leader in the Emergent Church movement and author of A Generous Orthodoxy

Richard Mouw – President, Fuller Theological Seminary

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite – Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary

Deepak Chopra – Founder and president of the Alliance for a New Humanity

Theology

·         Lost/Found in Translation? – Ed Stetzer has posted a helpful article concerning the language a church chooses to use and how this shapes missional thinking.

·         Insufficient Responses- A Thought on Nehemiah 1.4 – You need to read this post.

·         Is Divine Election Unfair? – John MacArthur gives a brief explanation of why this doctrine of grace is truly gracious.

·         Six Study Essentials – Mark Driscoll gives six simple yet very helpful essentials to Bible study.

The SBC

·         Pry the Baton Out of Their (C)old, Dead Hands- An Opinion on Age Trends in the SBC – Todd Burus has posted on age trends in the SBC there has  not been a lot of discussion on this post and I know Todd, as well as myself, would love to hear your thoughts.

·         Convocation marks start of “year of living dangerously,” Mohler tells students – Dr. Albert Mohler’s fall convocation address at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary challenges students to live dangerously (click here for MP3).  From the address:

“I want us to be an institution that scares people,” he said. “We are gathered here at this place, with so many of us — it appears — who are committed to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; this is a dangerous place. The forces of evil and darkness and the enemies of the Gospel have more than met their match. Not because of who we are, but because of who Christ is. Not because we have any tactical skill, but because we follow a Lord who is going to vindicate His Gospel.”