This Site has Moved

Click HERE to go to the new blog

After some thought and research, I've realized that Wordpress is the best place to continue forward with this blog. It has more features and a cleaner layout, and also makes it easier to actually write, which was the whole reason I started blogging in the first place. Everything from this blog has been imported onto that blog, and is pretty much the same with a better look and better features. Please keep on visiting!

Time for a Switch?

I'm thinking of changing over to wordpress. I really like the appearance of their sites as well as some of the other features that are offered.

Any bloggers out there have preferences of one vs. the other?

Considering Seminary?

For any of y'all out there considering seminary - you don't have to go to Southeastern, but be sure to go to a place with professors like this:

Who am I? That's a silly question to be asking! But I'm writing the preface to my book on discipleship so the topic has come up, at least in my own mind. Am I a conservative or a liberal, right-wing or left? Though my theology is conservative, I've learned much from my brothers and sisters on both ends of the evangelical spectrum. Some of my friends think only about Israel, others only about Palestine. Some complain about the 3,000 unborn who are killed every day in America, while others focus almost exclusively on the 30,000 children who die of starvation every day in the world. I see no need reason to establish boundaries of love. If we mourn the loss of 4,000 U.S. service personnel in Iraq (as we should), we must also mourn with the same outrage and passion the life of every innocent Iraqi civilian who was lost. Some evangelicals believe that right-wing politics hangs the moon; others support the liberal left. I pledge my allegiance to neither. Folks, I just want to be a Christian -- a simple, radical, marginal, downwardly-mobile follower of Jesus. There's nothing unique or spectacular about being a Jesus-follower. You just remember that God's love is borderless. You just declare the Good News to the poor, as He taught us to do. And it all happens through relationships, not programs or organizations. And here's something strange: I am learning to fall in love with people and not just ideas. And I love ideas! Crazy people like Jim Elliott are finally beginning to make sense to me. I'm learning how to reprioritize my values and resources. Just think -- the average American consumes as much as 520 Ethiopians do. Can we do anything about it? You bet! Because of our website Becky and I receive gifts for reading glasses and protein bars and pre-natal vitamins Bibles and meeting houses and evangelists' salaries and equipment to show the Jesus Film with and food to feed hungry prisoners and on and on the list goes. No fancy organization, no 501 c(3), no overhead, no bureaucracy, no HQ. Just Jesus-people connecting with Jesus-people.

Mark Driscoll on the nature of a church

A.M. Metzger sent me this definition of the church today from Mark Driscoll. Andy said he'll be blogging about it soon so I eagerly await his thoughts.

"The local church is a community of confessing believers in Jesus Christ who obey Scripture by organizing under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, and scatter to evangelize and care for people everywhere. They observe the Biblical sacraments of baptism and
communion, are unified by the Spirit for mission in the world, and discipled to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to the glory of God."

By the way, the Mars Hill podcast now has a great message about preaching from Mark Driscoll, and when I can find the link I will post it here.

What's Wrong with Preaching Today? (A.N. Martin)

Two quotes from A.N. Martin's What's Wrong with Preaching Today?:

"How could men ever teach some of the things they teach in the name of orthodoxy if they were on their knees poring over the Scriptures? No, they are not on their knees poring over the Scriptures, and hence they are simply parroting what their peers have said. How can we who say we believe the biblical doctrines speak of them in such a perfunctory way if we are receiving those truths from God in the context of living communion with Him? We shall speak of them with the glow and fire of heaven upon our souls if we are receiving them in the glow of His presence. Hence, the problem of preaching today lies in the man who preaches, first of all in the area of personal devotional life."

and

"One of the elements of powerful preaching is preaching as a man that has been liberated. Liberated from what? From the ensnaring effects of the fear of men. You are never free to be an instrument of blessing to your people unless you are free from the effects of their smiles and their frowns. People know when you can be bought by their smiles and beaten by their frowns. It will not take them long to discern whether or not you are a man who is not affected either by their smiles or by their frowns. Such a man is a free man in Christ. [...] if your eye is to men, you will be unable to give utterance to that which you know you ought to."

Is it football season yet?

If this doesn't give you goosebumps, then something is wrong with you.

A New Direction

Jonathan Parnell and I's blog, Did Not Our Hearts Burn, is adding a new emphasis as we'll be discussing church planting. In Jon's words:

This blog is heading into a revised direction. Our subject material is expanding from biblical theology to include church planting, and the necessary ingredient that unites the two– gospel proclamation. To be clear, the intention here concerns a limited audience. I realize that the review posts are long and probably unfit for the blog genre. What I hope to see happen is
conversation between men who are passionate about these subjects (even if its just Bryan and me). I want to learn more about them, see them working together… to gain deeper knowledge theologically, and proactive wisdom that puts feet to doctrine.

The conviction is drawn straight from the Scriptures. When I think about Luke-Acts, the two themes that come to mind are Jesus’ hermeneutics and the rise of the church. Biblical theology and church planting are so intimately connected in the Word that I don’t want to conceive of one without the other.