Week

I trust everyome's week is going well?

I actually got a jump on the readings in spite of my worldly needs and desires. Praise God. I found reading L and M to be very interesting and helpful in tying down some theological issues in my mind.

Looking forward to another awesome Thursday, athough I am bringing my pillow this week! :-)

Mike V.

On Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Hello everyone -- Seeing as we are discussing the role of men and women in the church and in the home, I wanted to point you to these audio lectures by John Piper which I listened to a few years ago and was deeply moved by them. The written notes are also available if you only have time to glance it over:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Seminars/1726_Sexual_Complementarity_Part_1/#Notes

If nothing else, try to find in the transcript (about halfway down the page) the 9 nine reasons he gives for the call of leadership to men before the Fall.

Vickie abandoned us!!!

Chris

It looks like Vickie is shunning us. :-) Just kidding Vickie.

The reading is going well although slowly. Still have to finish D, and complete E and F. Also have to write this week's paper.

I definitely need to reduce some of my outside activities!

Mike

Kudoos for BILD

The boys down in Ames, Iowa, would get a kick out of this: Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Seminary (one of the top evangelical seminaries in the world), thinks that seminaries should go out of business, and that churches themselves should be training up the next generation of pastors. See the link below:

http://adrianwarnock.com/2008/05/john-piper-to-start-seminary-at.htm

Great Quote

Hello everyone -- I thought this was a quote worth passing along....I just read this on a blog called "NeverThirsty":

In a magazine article many years ago Mike Yaconelli wrote about the type of pastor churches want. His comments are true in many churches:

"We don't want ministers anymore; we want CEOs. We don't want prophets, we want politicians. We don't want godliness, we want experience. We don't want spirituality, we want efficiency. We don't want humility, we want charisma. We don't want godly authority, we want relational skills. As a result, we have thousands and thousands of churches in this country whose ministers are very qualified to do what the church has asked of them, but the one thing that hasn't been asked of them is to love Jesus."

I was thinking

When I was doing some critical thinking, in light of Kevin's and our discussion last night, does it seem logical for a church to establish, grow, and encourage a church plant - to have their church maximizing their efforts in assuring that their body is growing properly. If so I would think we would do an indepth assessment at Calvary to see where we are as a church body and developing whatever methods necessary to ensure our church is practicing whatever implementation we would be instilling in a new church plant?

What are your thoughts on this?

Hello brothers & Sister

I don't know about you'all but this next assignments really excites me. And at my age excitement is not a frequent event.

Kevin, don't forget to email us those awesome papers you shared last night.

Mike

Just a note

Hope everyone is doing well. Just figured out how to make a new posts instead of replying to previous ones. Hopefully, you saw my post from Sunday.

Issue 1 SDQ #2

Hello all, I am finally signed up and part of the group. Enjoying all the points and topics so far. I agree with most everything I am reading so far too. I believe some of what I'm hearing is :

1) Numbers make a church.
2) Gospel preached in church then and now is important.
3) Missions and conversions is a measure.

In this age of the mega-church as the gold standard, I believe there are some (although not likely the norm) see church multiplication and planting as maturity and growth. It seems to be the vision that the cup so runneth over that it spills out new churches. I think that is what the group from Seattle that we are hearing about at Calvary (Dr. Jan Hettinga's? churches) sees as the standard.

It seems that so few churches are devote to growing believers in their faith, through discipleship, accountability, and strength through a growing relationship with Christ. It becomes more about when is the next program or when is the Church holiday is coming. I do believe that churches need to focus on bringing new believers to faith and growing believers in their faith to be a healthy, mature and growing churches. When these are happening church planting is a nature step as it was in the first century church