NEW BLOG

Thanks for your patience. I just got it up and running, although it may take a bit of time before things are in full swing: www.godinthewasteland.com

UPDATE

Lord willing, my family and I move next month to Minneapolis, MN to serve as Lead Pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church. We leave Charlotte with deep thankfulness to God for His faithfulness during these past two years. We had high aspirations for Redeemer City Church, and still believe Charlotte needs a church with similar vision, theology and purpose. However, we clearly sensed God leading us to Mpls. (our hometown!), and we are excited about this new and exciting transition in our lives. 

For those readers wanting to follow up on our transition, I intend to start a pastor’s blog soon, which I’ll post here. However, Immanuel Baptist Church doesn’t currently have a website, so we hope to get something up and running by the new year.

God is faithful!

applied Christianity?!?

Westminster Theological Seminary’s (Philadelphia) fantastic online bookstore has a new and notable acquisition under the heading, “Applied Christianity.” Click here and scroll down ever so slightly and you’ll see it on the second row, far right side. Note also the curious recommendation. (I knew there was a reason my kids can’t keep their grubby hands off this literary masterpiece!)

two roads

If you’re an anti-religious tract individual, this one may change your mind. It’s got a robust biblical theology, a great layout, is for the non-reader and, unlike many tracts, doesn’t start with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!” or simply jump to Jesus from the get go. (Make sure you continue scrolling down to read it in its entirety.)

Marty, the USA representative from Matthias Media graciously mailed these out for the attendees of the Total Church Conference in San Diego last week.

the crowded house

Sorry, I’m not referring to that 80′s band from Down Under. Rather, The Crowded House is the name for a group of churches that (along with Acts 29 and Soma Communities) sponsored the Total Church Conference I attended in San Diego last week (I hope to post about some of the more notable talks soon).

New ESV

I was going to get the ESV Study Bible (indeed, I still might get the hardcover edition). But now that the ESV is coming out in this amazing edition, I’ll probably hold off till then.

Total Church Sessions

Monday, Aug. 11 I leave for San Diego to attend the Total Church Conference (based on the forthcoming U.S. release of the book of the same name [released last Fall in the UK], co-written by  Steve Timmis and Tim Chester of The Crowded House church planting movement in England. It looks to be a timely and hands-on conference. Here are the main sessions, and here are the breakout sessions.

i:God

Coming soon: i:God (short for Introducing God, an Alpha-like evangelistic tool based on Matthias Media’s Two Ways to Live). A separate website (www.iGod.com) will soon be up and running. In the meantime, check out the video:

preaching, sermons and church

I’ve found this string of posts of an e-mail dialogue between Tim Chester (author of Total Church and a leader of The Crowded House church planting movement in England) and an anonymous correspondent both interesting and challenging to my presuppositions regarding the sermon and preaching within a local church context. (For those who don’t know, I sat under John Piper’s preaching for nearly ten years and is my default predominant model of pastoral ministry, hence my presuppositions!).

(On the precipice of planting Redeemer City Church, perhaps “interesting” and “challenging” are inadequate words to properly describe my thoughts and emotions. Following Chester’s proposals, how about fear?)

remodeling

Apologies for the lack of new posts this past week. We’re remodeling our kitchen and our home is fairly disheveled.

More posts to come later this week.