ESPN recently posted a video on University of Georgia’s head football coach Mark Richt and his two adopted children. This is a tear jerker…
Archive for October, 2008
I have never heard of this nor seen a commentary on this film but this looks like an interesting documentary.
(HT: Lawn Gospel)
Bob Kauflin of Sovereign Grace Ministries and worship pastor at Covenant Life Church has given some brief thoughts on Christmas productions. This post is in response to a question a friend of his sent him seen below.
Question:
I just found out that our church is charging for tickets to our Christmas event…music, drama etc. They want members to buy tickets to hand out for the event. I notice that lots of churches are doing this now. There’s a church in Florida that spends over a million dollars on their Christmas presentation, and charges up to $35 for their big Broadway production. What’s your take on this?
I have a dilemma…continue to work on the music (a lot of it being secular Christmas songs) for the upcoming Christmas extravaganza and feel uncomfortable, or bail out and let the ministers of the church know why I don’t want to be a part of a ministry that charges for ministry outreach events.
Kauflin gives some great insight…
The New Testament gives no indication that the church is responsible to put on lavish productions for the purpose of evangelism or edification. That’s because the church isn’t a production company. Performances, plays, and productions, despite the evident fruit at times, were never meant to be the main instrument of evangelism for the church. The main instrument is a body of believers who have been redeemed through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, and who have now been called to proclaim the excellencies of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). How do they do that? Primarily by preaching the gospel, by doing good, and by keeping their “conduct honorable, so that others may see their good deeds and glorify God when Christ returns” (Heb. 13:16; 1 Pet. 2:12). In other words, it’s more a matter of faithful living than lavish productions.
So when I hear of a church that spends a gazillion dollars on a Christmas presentation, with much of it being secular songs, it raises some questions. In our effort to be fruitful, rather than faithful, are we becoming so much like the world that people can’t tell the difference? I don’t presume to know what’s in anyone’s heart, but I know that investing that much money in a musical extravaganza eats up huge amounts of time, energy, and resources. Is this the best or primary way to proclaim the gospel and build the church? No. Some churches might see these as pre-evangelism events, to get people in the door so they can be invited to something where the gospel is presented more clearly. That’s certainly plausible, but we always have to evaluate their effectiveness and unintended consequences.
Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Seminary has given seven reasons why judgement houses win so few people to Christ. I listed all 7 reasons below but be sure to check out his explanations on each one here.
- They’re not scary enough.
- They assume people’s problem is that they do not know about judgment.
- They abstract judgment from the love of God.
- They abstract judgment from the glory of God.
- It’s hard to cry at a judgment house.
- The Holy Spirit usually doesn’t like to work that way.
- They’re easier to pull off than talking to people.
Okay this is oddly the second transformers reformers theme song that I’ve posted in the last couple of days. Happy Reformation Day! We have much to be thankful for! Praise God for Martin Luther…
If you prefer the reformation polka you can check this out.
**Update** There is also the Reformation Rap to add to the list.
Gene Veith has noted some of his favorite lyrics:
I warned y’all that Rome best agree to the terms.
If not, then you can eat my Diet of Worms!
You think you done something spectacular?
I wrote the Bible in the vernacular!
A heretic! [What?] Someone throw me a bone.
You forgot salvation comes through faith alone.. . .“Oh snap, he’s messin’ with the holy communion.”
But I ain’t never dissed your precious hypostatic union!
“One place at one time.” Well, thank you Zwingli.
Yeah, way to disregard that whole “I’m God” thingy!
Getting’ all up in my rosary… you little punk.
Your momma shoulda told you not to mess with no monk.. . .I’ve come back from obscurity to teach y’all a lesson,
Cuz someone here still ain’t read their Augsburg Confession.
I said Catholicism brings a life of excess,
And we all remember what went down with Philip of Hesse!
But you forgot about me and my demonstration?
Like you can just create your own denomination?
“We don’t like this part, so we’ll just add a little twist.”
Now we Anglican, Amish, and even Calvinist.
I gave you the power, you gone and abused it.
I gave you God’s truth, you just confused it.
Allaboutworship.com has the scoop here.
(HT: blog.worship.com)
Below is the outline:
- Womanhood
- Race
- Abortion
- Prophetic perspective
- Sovereignty of God
- Gospel
31
Oct
08
Almost Transformers
So I was in my Systematic Theology class last week taking a mid-term and noticed after I finished that a gentlman a table over was using his new thick ESV Study Bible. Hmm…is this morally ethical considering that the professor said we could not use our lecture notes but only our Bibles? I’d like to hear your thoughts on using study bibles during exams. The answer should be obvious?
30
Oct
08
How many MPG does your body get?
“Assuming you consumed 1 gallon of liquid food mixed with water, this short survey will tell you approximately how far you could walk before you passed out ran out of gas”
Apparently from this survey I get 39 MPG = to a hybrid car. Interesting stuff!
CCLI has a new area of their website worship leaders will want to know about. It’s called CCLI TV, and it gives worship leaders a number of new options, including:
- Opportunity to upload video of fresh, new worship songs to share with others
- Online instructive lessons on guitar, keyboards, and other instruments
- Videos of worskshops
- New worship songs from established songwriters
Here’s a clip of Paul Baloche giving a lesson on playing “How Great is Our God.”
In a comment on my blog Luke Gilkerson made me aware that the software accountability program Covenant Eyes has a blog called Breaking Free. I recently checked it out and from what I can see it is a solid resource in the fight against pornography. Breaking Free is a Christ-centered blog centered on providing resources for those seeking to pursue biblical purity.
In a couple of recent posts Shelley Lubben has provided a couple of guest posts dealing with the porn industry. Shelley Lubben is an ex-porn actress and is the founder of The Pink Cross Foundation. I have posted an excerpt from one of her two posts on Breaking Free below. The stats that she presents are overwhelmingly alarming. I would commend this sight with wisdom to anyone struggling with the issue of sexual sin.
Check out her posts:
- Ex-Porn Star Tell the Truth About the Porn Industry (Part 1)
- Ex-Porn Star Tell the Truth About the Porn Industry (Part 2)
I have been working with adult industry workers since 2002, when I began volunteering as a teacher and counselor at local rescue missions and prisons in the State of California. I have worked at Madera Rescue Mission, Bakersfield Rescue Mission, Central California Women’s Facility Prison, and Valley State Prison for Women and have traveled throughout the United States as a speaker and counselor on the negative effects of pornography at various churches, recovery programs and secular organizations. My team and I currently work with hundreds of people struggling with pornography addiction in the Pink Cross Foundation Help Forums.
In my daily work of assisting women and men recovering from the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction and gathering research over a period of several years, I have learned significant facts to prove that indeed the California pornography industry is causing severe secondary negative effects on adult industry workers as well as the general public, which is involuntarily exposed to pornography, especially children, whose average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is eleven years old.
- It is estimated that there are 4.2 million porn Web sites—12% of the total amount of sites—allowing access to 72 million worldwide visitors monthly.
- One-quarter of the total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.
- According to comScore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult sites in August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the Internet audience.
- The United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films a year and earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually.
- An estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers. Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated based on distribution or sales.
- Lobbyist Bill Lyon told 60 Minutes that the porn industry employs 12,000 people in California and pays the state $36 million in taxes per year. When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn business.
Mark Driscoll and his wife have been flooded with questions about the topic of sex since his series on Song of Songs. In an effort to try to answer some of these questions they have decided to blog some of the answers to these questions for the next month. Please keep in mind that some of the answers will be quite frank and may not be suitable for all ages. They have intentionally reserved some of these questions to answer in the format of a blog rather than in the context of a regular Sunday service.
The first question has just been posted: How can Christians decide what they should and should not do sexually?
Mars Hill Church recently held a conference centered on biblical parenting this past September. The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Tedd Trip. The Resurgence has now posted the audio and video of the event. Jessica and I do not have any kids now but based on the feedback from the conference this will definitely be a resource that we will be going to in the future.
Media from the Conference
Session 1: The Call to Formative Instruction
Session 2: Giving Kids a Vision for God’s Glory
Session 3: Helping Kids Understand Authority
Session 4: Helping Kids Understand the Heart
Session 5: Overview of Corrective Discipline
30
Oct
08
Needle through a Camel?
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” -Mark 10:25
30
Oct
08
Oldest Hebrew Text?
Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean
foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and lies near the ruins of Goliath’s hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath.A teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters, in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.
Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David’s rule in Jerusalem.
Scholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter,
predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years. History’s best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later.The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning judge, slave and king.
The Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult – perhaps impossible – to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time. Garfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning to do, a word he said existed only in Hebrew…
(HT: ETC)
Abraham Piper has some great advice for new and prospective bloggers. I have posted just some of his points below.
Writing
1. Keep paragraphs 5 lines or shorter. (If this post were a list of one, this would be it.)
2. Don’t get hung up on whether posts should be long or short. Just make each sentence motivate your audience to read the next one.
3. Interesting titles are good, but it’s more important that they’re informative.
4. Break up longer posts with helpful headings.
5. Put either your main point or a story in the first paragraph of posts.
6. Correct other people’s typos when quoting them (without noting that you corrected them).
7. Connect links to meaningful words so people know what they’ll find at the other end (unlike linking “this” or “here”).
This research is not definitive but does reveal something shocking. Keep in mind that this is just a pilot study.
In one of our pilot studies we had two patients, both had similar backgrounds, education and professional careers. One was severely addicted to pornography. The addiction ruined his marriage and shattered his family. The other patient never had a problem with the vice.
In the MRI machine we had each of them perform various tasks: logic puzzles, identification questions, mathematics etc… Then we had each of them pray for a period of time. The control patient (the non-addict) showed activity in the cerebral cortex and other parts of the brain that deal with cognition. For the addict, it was blank, dead, black and disturbing. Both of these gentleman came from the same faith and had served in similar capacities within their church. But the addict, it seemed, was not really praying.
(HT: Daily Scroll)
30
Oct
08
Helpful Advice on Emails
Zach Nielsen has posted some practical and helpful advice when it comes to emails. Click here for his comments on each one.
1. Don’t confront people over email.
2. Use email to work on your grammar.
3. Work to have a balance between email and personal contact.
4. Be professional over email.
5. Use subject lines.
6. Don’t multi-task too much with email.
7. Don’t email your spouse a love letter, or better yet, anything to anybody that is emotionally meaningful.
8. Hesitate before you hit reply all.
9. Don’t forward cheesy emails with winged angels and dancing bears.
10. Learn people’s style.
11. Use blind copy (BCC:) when sending to a large group.
Stephen Altrogge has the five step plan here.
30
Oct
08
My 28th Burfday
Last Monday was my birthday and I’d have to say that this year was one of the most laid back birthday’s a guy could have. It was refreshing! Just me, my beautiful wife, and my crazy cat Bruce. The day basically went like this: slept in; read a little; went to work; came home to a nice dinner of oriental style ribs; then went to the mall to try and find a sweater for the winter of which I came out with nothing and Jessica came out with 3 bags of goodies for herself. Funny how that turns out…
So my wife got this funny looking dinosaur hat thing for our cat. You’d think that Bruce is trying to play/attack his little mouse toy but he’s actually trying to take the dinosaur hat off. Cats sure are funny. I can’t wait to get a dog!
My good friend Bradley Cochran and a colleague of his Aaron Skinner are in the process of developing an innovative website dedicated to the awareness and advancement of God’s kingdom. One role of interest to me that URBAN GLORY has is reporting and giving attention to first hand accounts of God’s work among the common people of God. In other words rather than giving special attention to some of the more high profile leaders among evangelicalism and the work that is being accomplished in their ministry Brad and Aaron hope and seek to highlight some of the work that God is doing among the average church member and ministry.
God is doing a magnificent work around the world and is effectively bringing about his kingdom. Within the scope of redemptive history there have been individuals and churches that have contributed to the expansion of God’s kingdom that we have never known about, which could be for a number of reason. URBAN GLORY hopes to capture and spotlight the faithfulness of some of these individuals and churches in hopes to encourage and spur others along for the cause of Christ. This is just one aspect of URBAN GLORY’s purpose.
Brad is a dear friend and close brother in Christ who thinks through things very carefully. He is one of the most articulate and lucid Christian thinkers that I know of when it comes to the things of God and I am very excited about this project.
I have recently asked Brad and Aaron to introduce URBAN GLORY in the format of an interview as seen below. The actually website is due to be up and running January 5, 2009. I will hopefully be posting more information about URBAN GLORY when it gets closer to January.
What is the vision for U R B A N G L O R Y?
Bradley: The vision is in the tagline: Illuminating the city of God in the cities of man.
What is the mission statement?
Bradley: The mission is very simple: To draw attention to the kingdom of God wherever it may be found.
Aaron: Daily, perhaps even by the minute, God is at work producing and directing a story He wrote before time began. Too often, we don’t do a great job telling that story…at least telling the whole story. In addition the world competes so aggressively for our attention that, while most Christians can recite the original Gospel story, we are often unaware of how that Gospel is transforming lives and culture on a daily basis sometimes right down the street from where we live. Henry Blackaby once said that our responsibility is to find out where God is working and join Him. Urban Glory wants to be a catalyst to that effect by magnifying the thousands upon thousands of subplots that comprise the great story of the kingdom of God. Our aim is to accomplish three goals:
1. To alert current believers and churches to the fact that God IS working mightily in churches besides their own and cities across the globe despite the statistics we often here that younger generations hate God and the American church is dying.
2. To inspire those who are not involved in expanding the kingdom to find a story that excites them and join it. This includes providing resources to church planters and believer who are about to move to a new community.
3. To reveal the activity of God to unbelievers that they might know the Church is more than religion, Christians are more than hypocrites, and ultimately that Christ is more than a role model.
Let me just say this to tie all of this into the name U R B A N G L O R Y – The glory of God is not simply the gospel, but the gospel at work in lives both individually and corporately. That Work throughout history emanates like radiant light from urban centers we call cities.
How will U R B A N G L O R Y carry out its mission?
Bradley: Drawing attention to the kingdom of God can be done in many ways, and as of right now we are hoping to do this mainly through capturing the stories of God’s people and crafting them for podcasts. The “what” is clear, but I suspect the “how” will expand over the years as technology continues to evolve and we expand our resources.
We don’t intend to simply broadcast the stories of high profile Christian leaders. Those stories tend to get press on their own. We want to capture how God is working every day among the common Kingdom people. Their stories are just as important, although they are often overlooked. Hopefully this will give the city of God more visibility in the cities of man.
Aaron: I’ll add that we also don’t plan to limit the stories we broadcast to the circles we currently run in (First Baptist Woodstock, Southern Seminary) or to traditional church functions (Worship Service, Youth Groups, Small Groups, Missions). God is working mightily among Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Non-Denom’s, and out side the church building in schools, government, business, non-profits, etc. We want as much as possible to tell the WHOLE story. This will destroy a paradigm that teaches people who aren’t “called” to professional Christian ministry, that they have less-significant roles in the story of God’s advancing Kingdom. To continue the theater metaphor, we all have “speaking parts” in the Kingdom Story. There are no extras.
Who have you interviewed so far?
Bradley: The most recent interviews were done while I was in Chicago. I interviewed Gerald Hiestand, president of the SAET society and author of Raising Purity, Matthew Elliot, president of Oasis International and author of Faithful Feelings and Feel, and Owen Strachan, the managing director for the Carl F. H. Henry Center. I hope to broadcast their stories creatively, as opposed to just making the entire interview available in one 50-minute podcast. I hope to break the material up into bite sized chunks in order to make it more manageable for the average Christian who doesn’t exactly have the free time to just sit down for an hour and listen to an interview.
Aaron: We are in the processes of negotiating interviews with several Atlanta area church planters, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the CEO of Surgance, Inc – a strategically secular non-profit out of Las Vegas that is engaging Christians to serve communities in venues where they aren’t often invited.
Bradley: Also, once UG is launched in January 09, T h e o • p h i l o g u e will be hosted through UG and will broadcast material more theological and philosophical in nature. Whereas UG will focus on sharing stories, T h e o • p h i l o g u e will go deeper by asking tough questions about the theologies and philosophies that are relevant to the Christian faith. God’s kingdom is definitely at work through books, audio, and preaching that embody and promote various theological convictions and philosophical thought. The kingdom of God is not advancing in a vacuum, but is empowered by and grounded in deep theological/philosophical convictions.
What do you hope this will accomplish?
Bradley: In addition to the material being interesting and informing, I hope that broadcasting God’s kingdom at work will inspire others, confirm others in their own kingdom work, edify and encourage them to press on with their calling in life to love God and love people.
Aaron: We believe God is absolutely unequivocally IMPRESSIVE. He’s amazing, all powerful, all creative, awe – inspiring. John Piper once said that there are two ways to magnify something. With a microscope you blow something small up out of all proportion to reality. But with a telescope you take something very large but distant from consciousness and bring it close enough for people to see its true beauty. In the telescope sort of way, we want to magnify Jesus.
Bradley Cochran lives in Louisville, Kentucky where he is scheduled to graduate with a masters degree in divinity at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also directs a local church-based outreach program for at-risk inner-city youth at Walnut Street Baptist Church. He also manages T h e o • p h i l o g u e , a blog dedicated to theological and philosophical dialogue. You can find out more about T h e o • p h i l o g u e @ theophilogue.wordpress.com.
Aaron Skinner live in Woodstock Georgia with his wife Jennifer Skinner. They are both graduates of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. After working for several years as 1st Baptist Woodstock’s Graphic Designer, Aaron developed his passion to see his marketing gift serve the cause of The Church. Working from his design studio in Woodstock, Aaron is now the president of Kairos Creative, a branding agency that services (mainly) churches and Christians with cutting edge, Madison Avenue quality branding development and graphic design at affordable prices. You can find out more about Kairos Creative @ kairoscreative.com.
25
Oct
08
I Am a Family Man
This is one of the most simplistic and creative videos I have seen from a CCM artist. Along with the awesome drawings and the lyrical genius of Andrew Peterson I found myself refreshed at the end of this video and I don’t even have any kids.
(HT: JT)
Pornography has become increasingly pervasive with the rise of new media. Back in the day you would have to go out of your way to travel to rent or buy a pornographic video. I used to have friends in high school who would go out and rent or buy a movie and actually devote one night during the week to watch a pornographic video. Thankfully by the grace of God I never participated and the invitations stopped. Today with the technological advancements of gadgets such as the iPhone you can have access just about anywhere you can get a wireless signal from.
As a newly-wed Jess and I actually had two different people leading our pre-marital counseling (2x/week) and both leaders gave us strong warnings of the power of pornography and the potential destruction it can cause. I have also heard and seen enough people struggling with this sin to know the grip pornography has on an individual and all the implications that come with the slavery especially in college as I have ministered to those people.
Below is an excerpt from the latest 9Marks E-Journal. Winston Smith addresses these very things in one of the sections of the new e-journal:
9M: How do you think the culture has changed over the last fifteen or twenty years? What do you think marriages are facing now that they may not have faced twenty years ago?
WS: There are probably many cultural pressures that make marriage different than it was even 15 or 20 years ago. I will just point out one because it’s one of the most insidious. I’ve seen time and time again just how powerful and destructive pornography is in marriages. Of course, pornography is more than 20 years old, but what has changed in the last 20 years is technology. In the past there was this shame barrier that you had to be willing to cross. To really throw yourself into pornography, you had to go to a different part of town. You had to get out of your car and walk into a store and be willing to be seen. Your name and your face would be associated with the material that you were handling. Now anonymity seems almost guaranteed. It’s not just available to you, it’s invading your life. It’s promoting itself. It will pop up in your e-mails. It will show up on the movie menu in the hotel room. Probably the classier the hotel, the easier it is to view pornography and the more shamelessly it’s displayed.
Pornography is on the offensive against you. It’s coming after you. So you have to have real reasons to say no to it, not just because you are going to get caught. That’s not a good enough reason because you’ll have opportunities to secretly indulge in it. The mode of pornography has changed, and the message has become amplified. Without being graphic, anybody who’s seen pornography will probably know what I’m talking about. Pornography is ultimately about anonymous, meaningless relationships where the center of focus is personal gratification.
Sex is wonderful, but sex is intended by God to communicate meaning and purpose. It is intended to communicate God’s commitment, covenantal and sacrificial love, tenderness and care. It is not intended to communicate a freedom to do what you can get away with, focus on yourself, and engage in anonymous, meaningless relationships. You take those anti-relationship messages of pornography and pair them with a physiological high and you’ve got something really nasty on your hands. It doesn’t just enslave a person’s time and thought life. It begins to invade the rest of their relationships. Those same messages of convenience, pleasure, and self-focus leak all over your life—they don’t just stay on your computer .
9M: Do you have any wisdom for pastors and churches for taking the offensive—ways they can be proactive in the battle against pornography?
WS: I think one of the ways churches should work against this threat, very simply, is to start talking about it. And don’t just talk about it as something that’s out there in the culture, but talk about it as something that’s coming after us as individuals and families in the church. Create forums/arenas where people who are battling with it can talk about it without being shamed or treated like second class citizens. Create an open conversation where this problem is treated with the same care, concern, and tenderness as any other sins and struggle.
This is a very simple but bold step. You need to say, “We’re going to talk about it like it’s a problem in our church, because it is.” It is a given. Of course, this conversation should occur as part of the larger culture of discipling and accountability that pastors should be cultivating in their churches.
Then be really practical in giving people tools to do something about it.
- If you have an Internet connection in your home, think of it as a portal to a XXX book store. You have a doorway in your house that leads to an adult book store if you have an internet connection, a cable TV, or satellite connection. So treat it like it’s a door that needs to be guarded and locked. It’s ok to be entertained with your computer, but you need to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You’re not just grazing on your computer.
- Limit private access to the computer. If you have a desktop computer, put it in a family area with the screen facing the middle of the room.
- There are all kinds of software available that are effective, but no software is foolproof. There are software options that are effective at erecting a barrier (stringing up some razor wire). If you break through, it’s because you wanted to break through – not because you were entrapped.
There are all kinds of basic things that we can do to protect ourselves, but we seem to walk around in churches with naiveté. People are assuming, “No one is talking about it so it must not be a problem.” I have seen countless examples of pastors and church administrators who’ve been ensnared by it. I have counseled people who work as cleaning staff who will log onto computers at night and look at pornography in the buildings they are cleaning. Hopefully, some of these suggestions will be helpful in battling this prevalent issue.
Winston T. Smith, M.Div., is the director of counseling at CCEF and has extensive experience as a marriage and family counselor. He is the author of many counseling articles, the booklet, Rest, and is currently writing a book on marriage.
The latest 9Marks e-Journal has just been released centering on counseling and the church. You can also download the pdf if you prefer. Below is the index:
COUNSELING IN THE CHURCH
Five Advantages of Church-Based Counseling
Here are five reasons why churches shouldn’t be so quick to “refer out” their counseling.
By Deepak Reju
Counseling and Discipleship
How are a church’s ministry of counseling and discipleship related?
By Deepak Reju
Why Every Pastor-in-Training Should Read Ed’s Book
Every Capitol Hill Baptist Church pastoral intern is required to read Ed Welch’s book When People Are Big and God is Small. 9Marks asks Michael Lawrence why.
Twenty Ways to Cultivate a Culture of Counseling in Your Church
By Jonathan Leeman and Deepak Reju
LEARN FROM THE COUNSELING PROS AT CCEF
Looking at the Past and Present of Counseling
Can biblical counseling draw from the Puritans? How are churches today doing at counseling? What is CCEF doing that’s unique?
An interview with David Powlison
Cultivating a Culture of Counseling and Discipleship
Tim Lane talks about counseling from the pulpit, the ideal church, recovery groups, promoting discipleship, and more.
An interview with Tim Lane
Sorting Out the Spiritual and the Physical in Counseling
Former medical doctor and now CCEF instructor Michael Emlet discusses his own background and what pastors should make of the mind-body connection in their counseling.
An interview with Michael Emlet
Premarital Counseling, Pornography, and Marriage
Today’s buzzword for marriages is “compatibility.” But counselors and couples need more wisdom than that, especially as pornography attacks marriage like never before.
An interview with Winston Smith
What Should Pastors Do with Fear, Medication & Addiction
Welch considers questions like, Should pastors give more thought to fear? Are psychiatric medications unbiblical? Should pastors keep their hands off the psychiatric issues?
An interview with Ed Welch
BOOK REVIEWS
Book Review: Churches that Make a Difference, by Ronald J. Sider, Philip N. Olson, and Heidi Rolland Unruh
Reviewed by Flynn Cratty
Book review: The Multiplying Church, by Bob Roberts Jr.
Reviewed by Lance Quinn
Book Review: Who Can Save the Incredible Shrinking Church? by Frank Page
Reviewed by Owen Strachan
Justin Taylor has pointed out a helpful resource from John Piper on what to ask yourself when you are considering a new job. Also check out Alex Chediak’s post on Vocation Plans.
- Can you earnestly do all the parts of this job “to the glory of God,” that is, in a way that highlights his superior value over all other things?”
- Is taking this job part of a strategy to grow in personal holiness?
- Will this job help or hinder your progress in esteeming the value of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord?
- Will this job result in inappropriate pressures on you to think or feel or act against your King, Jesus?
- Will this job help establish an overall life-pattern that will yield a significant involvement in fulfilling God’s great purpose of exalting Christ among all the unreached peoples of the world?
- Will this job be worthy of your best energies?
- Will the activities and environment of this job tend to shape you or will you be able to shape it for the Christ-magnifying purposes of God?
- Will this job provide an occasion for you to be radically Christian so as to let your light shine for your Father’s sake, or will your participation in the vision of the firm tend by definition to snuff your wick?
- Does the aim of this job cohere with a growing intensity in your life to be radically, publicly, fruitfully devoted to Christ at any cost?
- Will the job feel like a good investment of your life when these “two seconds” of preparation for eternity are over?
- Does this job fit with why you believe you were created and purchased by Christ?
- Does this fit together with the ultimate truth that all things exist for Christ?
24
Oct
08
Grandma strikes back…
This had me rolling… Impatience does have it’s results.
The blog at Crossway has just announced the release of their 2008 Summer//Fall book report. Below is a list of their interviews: Click here for the pdf.
- Young, Restless, Reformed (Collin Hansen)
- Spectacular Sins (David Mathis)
- Reforming or Conforming? (Ronald Gleason)
- Suffering and the Goodness of God (Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson)
- Stand (Randy Alcorn)
- Is Rome the True Church? (Joshua Betancourt)
- Experiencing the Truth (Anthony Carter)
- Jesus and the Feminists (Margaret Köstenberger)
23
Oct
08
John Piper on Ministry and Blogs
Does having a blog affect your ministry?
What would you say to a pastor who is considering blogging?
If you regularly check this blog or any other blogs then may I suggest you sign up for Google Reader. As you know much of what I post on this blog are usually resources linked to other blogs. It is one of the many conglomo-blogs out there in the blogosphere.
So how has Google reader benefited me? Well, it has essentially acted as my online newspaper. If you want to know what’s new out there in the blogosphere and don’t want to take the time to check every blog out individually you can subscribe to each blog on GR and it will upload the latest articles and posts for you with the time and date stamped all on one page. GR has cut my time in half when searching for new material to post, which is incredibly convenient. Even when I’m not posting it is a good way to find the most up to date news and articles. It is fast and easy to manage. You basically sign in as if you were checking your email (username and password) and it is all right there in front of you.
Abraham Piper has provided step-by-step instructions on how to set you up. It’ll only take you about 5 minutes. After signing up for Google Reader feel free to add me to your subscription. It’s a lot better than coming back to my site to find out that I haven’t posted anything new. 
Thanks to all of you who stop by this blog. I have been encouraged by all the feedback that I have been getting…
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