Blogging the EFCA National Conference, Installment 4
June 28, 2007
This afternoon’s session for me was on Larry Osborne’s “A Contrarian’s Guide to Disciplemaking”. Interesting: he takes a controversial position on developing new followers of Christ in the faith, one which makes a lot of room for differing approaches to growth in grace. It registered with me in some ways, because it’s certainly true that different folks learn and grow in different ways. It was an interesting “counterbalance” in some ways to my previous session by the Center for Church-Based Training. I now have some interesting things to chew on.
Blogging the EFCA National Conference, Installment 3
June 28, 2007
Just got out of a great morning seminar, presented by the president of the Center for Church-Based Training. In a nutshell, at Red Oak, two of our 7 pillars (core values) are “Intentional Disciplemaking” and “Relationship-Based”. Well, the CCBT does disciplemaking in an intentional, relationship-based way. In other words, for me to continue to develop something for Red Oak in my own way would be to reinvent the wheel, one that looks like it rolls pretty darn well. Gene Getz kicked this thing off many years ago, and he’s pretty much a guru-type for spiritual formation, and so for me to brazenly assume that I can do a better job than these folks would be hubris to the max. So I am pretty sure that I’m going to lead Red Oak to find a way to use what these guys have already developed in order to accomplish what we’ve already agreed upon as a church is vital to our development as a church.
Blogging the EFCA National Conference, Installment 2
June 28, 2007
Last night, I meant to post, but got caught up in conversation with various and sundry fellow Free folk (“FFFs”), and by the time we got back to the Super8, I wasn’t feeling so super about blogging. At any rate…
Bill Hamel led off conference with a message that set the tone for the whole thing, to wit, “We must go through Samaria”. He identified modern-day “Samaritans” that we typically avoid—religious Samaritans (Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, etc.), immigrant Samaritans (he managed not to get too deeply into the current debate regarding illegal immigration, which is probably a good thing), native American Samaritans, poor and homeless Samaritans (gulp), emerging generation Samaritans (I’m finding at Red Oak that we’re attracting some of these folk, which is exciting; bring on the tattoos and piercings, kids!), and homosexual Samaritans. On that last point, he said words to the effect of, “I’d like the EFCA to be known as a denomination that takes a strong Biblical stand on the subject of sexuality, but I’d also like us to be known as the denomination that extends grace and compassion and open arms to those who are struggling to overcome a homosexual lifestyle by the power of God.”
Amen to that!
Blogging the 2007 EFCA National Conference, Installment 1
June 27, 2007
I’m sitting in a chair in the lobby of Grace Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Eden Prairie motto: “Flatter than Where You Live, or Your Money Back”), having just gotten out of the annual conference on Expository Preaching. This year’s speaker was Philip Graham Ryken, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia (motto: “All our Pastors Must Use All Three of their Names”). He gave a couple of different messages from the book of Jeremiah, and boldly exhorted us to preach the Word, using Jeremiah 36 to focus on Jeremiah’s use of God’s Word. Good stuff. There are always some great speakers at that forum; last year, it was Haddon Robinson; others in past years have included Warren Weirsbe, D.A. Carson, Crawford Loritts, Erwin Lutzer, John Piper, and other great faithful Bible preachers of note. It’s always a highlight of conference. I am truly blessed to be part of a movement that is committed to the right handling of God’s Word, particularly in this age of unfaithfulness and, sometimes, silliness when it comes to preaching. These guys are great mentors for us.
Conference theme this year is “BtheTree”, with the EFCA “tree” logo being the inspiration for this ebonically-correct formulation (another used phrase is “WetheTree”, giving rise to the ultimate one, which would be “We Be the Tree (Dog)”). The sub-theme is “We must go through Samaria”, focusing on reaching out in ways that will continue the push toward being a more diverse movement. This is a good thing.
Just spoke with Jim Culbertson, who was a colleague in PA, and who is now the full-time Church Planting Director for the Allegheny District. He told me that there are a bunch of new plants happening there; that’s exciting news. Church planting is where it’s at!
More later…
If a Picture Paints a Thousand Words…
June 26, 2007
then I have no clue what you’d read into this one:
I’m the good looking one, while the two on the left are the two leading posters to this blog. Really, just one look at those guys and you can understand why they’d devote hours on end trying to one-up each other to be on the top of the stack. Is there one life between them???
The Immigration Bill: It Comes Down to This
June 25, 2007
The Senate is taking up the Immigration Bill again. I previously, on this blog, declared my unwillingness to join the conservative bandwagon against the bill in some knee-jerk fashion. I’ve listened to some of the arguments that have been made, and here is my conclusion:
Secure the stinking borders. Period.
Then, let’s talk about how to deal with the 12 million-plus.
It’s obvious to anyone who’s listening that the American public—this part of it included—doesn’t trust a word our politicians are saying, or any promises they’re making, about securing the borders. The unwillingness of the powers-that-be to enforce laws already on the books is what has precipitated the current crisis. Ergo, don’t talk to us about what you plan to do down the road to fix the problem; we’ll deal with that later. Right now, fix the border. Stop the bleeding. Close things up.
Do this first, and in unmistakable fashion, and then get back to us. We’ll talk.
McCain/Feingold Takes a Hit (Thankfully)
June 25, 2007
More good news on the “thankfully at least GWB has put two people on the Supreme Court who actually believe that the Constitution is the law of the land” front:
Court Eases Rules on Political Advertising
Free speech: what a concept (a concept that threatens John McCain, Russ Feingold, and interestingly enough, Fred Thompson, quasi-conservative darling of the “conservatives” these days, who supported McCain/Feingold).
And another reason why, irrespective of GWB’s obvious mediocrity in most respects, it’s still a great, great thing that we didn’t elect John F. Kerry…
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
