Improving Seminary Education: What Churches Can Do

In my two previous posts I dealt with how seminaries can improve seminary education and how students can do the same.  This is my last post in this little series: how churches can improve seminary education.  If you’re a pastor with seminary students you may want to read the other two posts as some of the points will apply. 

On to my thoughts…

Consider Saying ‘No’ (or at least ‘Not Yet’)

One of the lamentable facts of seminary education is that students often go to seminary without a home church behind them that truly knows them well.  Most seminaries require, if you’re applying for an MDiv, a recommendation from a church.  But I wonder how many churches really screen candidates for seminary.  From my experience, not many do. 

When a young man or woman (or maybe even not-so-young) comes looking for a little help getting into seminary, consider that this person may not be truly ready.  Are they capable of ingesting a tremendous amount of information, information that empowers them for ministry, without having their pride grow along with their knowledge?  Are they seeking positions of power or of service?

Perhaps even before asking these questions, we ought to ask more basic ones.  Has this person been faithful in smaller areas of responsibility?  In the ministry experience they’ve already had, how did they do?  Have they sought to learn from them?  Have they sought out the pastors and elders?  Are they being discipled or mentored?  Does their mentor think they are ready for seminary?  Have you considered suggesting they take another year before seminary and be mentored by a pastor or elder?

There should be no rush to send people to seminary.  The church will not collapse if they don’t hurry up and take a church history class.  Let them simmer a little longer before you turn the heat up.

Meet Regularly with Your Seminary Student

I stated in a previous post the importance of students sharing what they’re learning with other students.  The danger, however, can be the lack of perspective.  After all, how much can a bunch of students in a classroom really know about how to apply what they’re learning?  Perspective comes from getting an outsider’s (preferably a wiser person’s) thoughts.

I’d strongly recommend that pastors meet regularly with their seminarians.  Hear about what they’re learning (there is a good chance you’ll learn something from them).  Find out what’s exciting them.  Ask them questions, challenge them to think more deeply.  Ask them how they would apply what they’re learning.  Challenge them to think of ways to pass along all they’re taking in to people in their church.

What seminary students often miss is the connection between the classroom and ministry.  Because they’re so wrapped up in their coursework, they often fail to apply it to church life, or even their personal life.  Pastors are, in my opinion, the key to bridging this gap. 

Enforce Anonymity

I’m picking this up from my previous post on how students can improve their seminary education, so I won’t rehash it here.  Basically, I offer two suggestions to seminarians:

1. Find a church that is unimpressed with you.
2. Serve in a non-visible role for a while.

It may, of course, be hard for the eager seminarian.  But churches will learn more about the character of their seminarian by how they act when no one knows who they are or what they’re doing.  So stick them in a corner where no one sees them.  A little obscurity never hurt anyone.

Never Abdicate Your Responsibility to Train Pastors

The local church should be the primary training ground for pastors.  I can find no biblical (or even logical) warrant for sending your future pastors somewhere else to learn how to lead a church.  It simply makes no sense.

Notice, I’m not saying seminary has no role to play.  I loved my time in seminary; I’m thankful for Gordon-Conwell.  But seminary is not supposed to be the primary training ground for ministers.  Seminary is where you learn certain skills that will prove invaluable for ministry.  The work of seminary can’t be replaced by most churches (unless, I suppose, you have a church staff equipped and available to teach all the same things- if so, God bless you). 

I (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) commented about the logic of seminary in my first post:

• Christian Leader #1: How can we best train people to pastor churches?
• Christian Leader #2: I know!  Let’s take them out of the church and stick them in a classroom for 3 years!

There are some things in life that you simply cannot learn by listening to a lecture or reading a book.  (For the record, I don’t even think this is the best way to learn the Bible.  I’ve learned more about the Bible from teaching the Bible, especially in preparation time, than I ever did in a class.  Of course, class time in seminary helped me develop those skills, so it fulfilled its role.)  I can read all the marriage books I want, but nothing actually teaches me about marriage better than being married.  My wife and I did some premarital counseling, which helped us tremendously.  We sought advice from a lot of couples.  We’ve attended seminars and got some books.  But in the end, there’s a lot of learning “on the job.” 

Ministry is, in many ways, similar.  You will learn better about how to minister by actually being involved in ministry, under the tutelage of a more experienced pastor. 

Pastors- do not give up your rightful place as the primary mentors of future pastors.  If you hold on to your responsibility and do not forfeit it, if you allow a seminary education to complement your role as discipler rather than the other way around, your seminarian will be more prepared for a lifetime of ministry than they otherwise would be.

Some Concluding Thoughts

I’ve spent three posts on this subject because I think it’s important.  Even though I’m only 30, I’ve spent a long time observing churches and seeing how they train leaders.  In fact, a large part of my job now is helping train future leaders for our churches (a job I’m probably unqualified for). 

My point in spending three posts on this is that I think the responsibility to improve seminary education falls on the shoulders of more than just the seminary, though I clearly think they have areas of needed improvement.  The primary responsibility to make sure seminary is fulfilling its function lies with the student.  The seminarian needs to make sure they’re learning, not just being taught.  And I think the local church is primarily responsible for training a person to pastor well.  If the student and the local church do their job well, seminaries will be far more effective and the future of our churches will be much brighter.

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Improving Seminary Education: What Students Can Do

I wasn’t intending to turn this into a series of posts, but as I was writing my previous post on how seminaries can improve seminary education I realized that the most guilty party of whatever is wrong with seminary education is getting off the hook.  That is, the student is the person most responsible for ensuring they receive a quality seminary experience.

I made some mistakes in my seminary days, and I did some things well.  But there were two separate conversations with two different people in my first week that made me realize I had to take the initiative if seminary were going to be a success.  In one case, Student A proceeded to tell me that seminary killed his spiritual life.  In the other case, Student B strongly encouraged me to put myself ahead of the other students in order to be noticed by my professors.  These conversations impacted me, though probably for different reasons than either person intended.

With that said, here are my thoughts on how seminary students can improve their seminary education.

Remember: Seminary ≠  Cemetary

The aforementioned Student A clearly felt that his spiritual life was in decline and seminary was to blame.  Is that true?  Please.  Student A hardly ever went to church.  As time went on, I realized that Student A rarely spent time with the Lord or in the Bible, outside what was necessary to get by in school.  Can he honestly blame seminary?

It’s true, seminary can be a difficult place.  It is, if you’re not just trying to slide by, a place where studying will take up the majority of your time.  Like any other schooling or work that requires much time and energy, there is a temptation to skimp on the spiritual life. 

The real issue here is this: who are we trying to please?  Will stand before my theology professor some day and have to explain to him why I let my knowledge of Calvin’s Institute’s slip?  Or will I stand before my Creator, the Judge and Savior of my soul, and have to explain why I stopped reading my Bible or worshipping him outside of the required church attendance?  I’m glad I didn’t listen to my fellow student.  My faith grew enormously during my seminary years.  I’m not saying it was easy, in fact, those were some of the hardest years of my life.  But I was stronger for having slogged through it all.

If seminary kills your faith, it’s because you were already a wounded duck.

Join a Local Church

Two things to look for in picking a local church (I’m assuming, of course, you are leaving your local church in order to attend seminary, which doesn’t apply to everyone):

1. Find a church that is unimpressed with you.
2. Serve in a non-visible role for a while.

Some churches are excited to have a seminary trained person, even if that person has only taken a few classes.  They’ll assume you know your Bible better than they, and your ideas are fresh and innovative.  If the people in your church are that excited to have a seminarian in their church, red flags and sirens should go off in your head.  Do not let you ego be stroked. 

Regarding the second point, my primary “job” at my church for quite a while was to set up the chairs on Sunday morning.  Every now and then I’d lead discussion in small group.  This confused a lot of my classmates, who couldn’t understand why I was in a church that didn’t have me preaching, didn’t pay me (and they still don’t) or take advantage of the “enormous privilege” of having a seminarian on board.

I’m thankful that my pastors were unimpressed with me.  They were not swayed by what I knew.  They cared just as much (if not more) about how I lived.  I set up chairs (and still do) because there was a need.  But “waiting in the wings” taught me a valuable lesson- I am called to a church, not a job.  If the church needs me to set up chairs, then that’s what I’ll do.  If they need me to teach a Bible class, then I’ll gladly do that.  But I’m there to serve the church, not the other way around.

Fellow Students are Fellow Learners, Not Combatants

Student B mentioned above had a penchant for debate.  That’s fine, many of us like a good debate sometimes.  But his advice to push myself ahead of the pack forgot one simple premise: my fellow students are brothers and sisters in Christ.  My job is to encourage and build them up.  My job is to place their needs ahead of my own.  Philippians 2:1-4 (and a host of other Scriptures) do not cease to apply because I’m in school.

My advice is to avoid the temptation to make yourself known.  One lesson I learned from my father is this: if you keep your mouth shut and work hard, the right people will notice.  What if they don’t?  Well, I’ll refer you to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Then your father, whos ees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Beyond that, I’ll say this: I learned just as much from the back-and-forth with other students during meal times as I did listening to lectures.  Outwardly processing (not competing) with classmates is probably the aspect of seminary I miss the most. 

Don’t Just Be Taught- Learn

Seminary professors should be excellent teachers.  They should prepare and teach in a way that challenges the students to think through the  Bible, theology, culture, etc.  Your classroom experience ought to impact your thinking in powerful ways.

But learning well is more than listening to a lecture.  It’s about engaging the material.  It’s about researching.  I learned a lot in seminary.  But I learned just as much on my own outside of the classroom as I did listening to the professor.  That isn’t a knock on the professors.  In fact, I often would hear a little nugget in a lecture that piqued my interest and would spend time outside of class looking into it more.  My professors inspired me to learn on my own.  That’s a huge compliment to them.

If your desire is to learn from great minds, you will have to do more than be taught by them.  You’ll have to follow their example and learn to learn.  You will not remember everything you hear in class, that just isn’t possible.  But you will remember what you research.  In order for your seminary experience to be a success, and for seminary education as a whole to improve, the student will have to take the primary responsibility off the professor and put it squarely on himself.  The seminary student is the person most responsible for learning well.

There is so much more I could say, but I’ll stop there.  I do have one more post in mind, how churches can improve seminary education.  I’ll repeat what I said at the beginning of this post:  the student is the person most responsible for ensuring they receive a quality seminary experience.  A seminary education is an enormous privilege- not a right, a privilege.  For it to accomplish all that it was intended, the student will have to make it happen.

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Improving Seminary Education: What Seminaries Can Do

Since The Gospel Coalition first posted some thoughts from evangelical leaders on how to improve seminary education many bloggers and commentors have offered their own thoughts on the matter.  Some think the seminary education is completely broken and needs to be torn up, others see little need for change.  I’m probably somewhere in the middle.  I remain indebted to Gordon-Conwell for the education I received, the godliness modeled by its leaders and the relationships formed within the student body (including my co-blogger, Brian).  I will argue till I’m blue in the face that Gordon-Conwell is the finest evangelical seminary in America… in my unbiased opinion.

There are, however, things I’d like to see changed regarding seminaries in general.  None of these are peculiar to Gordon-Conwell; I’ve had enough friends in other schools and researched enough seminaries to know these are problems that are fairly widespread.  I could probably list more, but the few here will give you an idea of what I think.

Let me also state that I’m being somewhat idealistic.  Some of these will never be done.  But this is my blog and my blog post, and I can be idealistic if I want.  (Note: I just finished writing this and reread it.  Each point really should have its own post- but I don’t have a lifetime to do it.  Sorry.)

Better Integration

This was a common theme in the original TGC post linked to above (can I end a sentence with 2 prepositions?).  The concept of training pastors in a seminary is a little bit odd, if you ask me- or at least the way it plays out in reality.  Let me hyperbolize for a moment:

• Christian Leader #1: How can we best train people to pastor churches?
• Christian Leader #2: I know!  Let’s take them out of the church and stick them in a classroom for 3 years!

See the problem?  Now, most seminaries have means of solving this problem.  Gordon-Conwell has the Mentored Ministry program, where a student fulfills a certain number of hours a week to a church or ministry in order to complete their MDiv.  In reality, many students simply found a church or ministry that needed a warm body to fill some holes in their church.  I’m not saying all did it that way (I didn’t), nor am I saying the majority do.  But I knew enough people who fit that description to tell me that something wasn’t quite right.  Also, I do know that a number of students had trouble juggling the ministry and academic responsibilities, and the academic always won out because, well, you get a grade.  I’ll have more to say about that in a minute.

I would like to see a closer relationship between local churches and seminaries.  Could the seminary faculty help pastors learn to train leaders within the context of the local church?  Even within the seminary curriculum itself- could you require students in exegesis classes to develop a curriculum for use in the local church?  Could you do this for church history?  There’s a vast number of possibilities here.

Encourage Students to Study Part-time

There are only so many hours in a week.  Many students have to make difficult decisions regarding use of their time.  Do they spend the evening on their Systematic Theology paper?  Or do they spend it working on their Sunday School lesson?  And that doesn’t even take into account that many students are married with kids!  Or if they have a job, too, in order to help pay for school (more on that).

I know for most students, and sad to say myself included, school took precedence over ministry.  After all, no one is grading your Sunday School class.  Besides, will the class even notice the difference between 1 hour in preparation and 3 hours?

How sad it is when we give the body of Christ second best in exchange for an attempt at making some PhD (who may not even know your name) happy.  If I could redo my seminary education all over again, I would have gone to Gordon-Conwell part-time and spent more time in the church.  The lessons I’ve learned in church will last far longer than the ones in a classroom.

Make Seminary Cheaper

Okay, this is where I get really idealistic.  I’ll simply say this: you can come out of 3 years of full-time seminary with $40,000+ in debt.  To become a pastor.  I don’t know if you know this, but pastors, especially those right out of school, don’t make a ton of money. 

Even worse, what about those who leave seminary with dreams of hitting the mission field?  How will they pay loans off?  I’m thankful that Gordon-Conwell has a pretty substantial scholarship and grant program, otherwise I’d be paying loans back until my kids are old enough to go on the mission field in my place.

How do we make seminary cheaper?  No idea- someone else can answer that.  =)

Require an Age Limit

I started seminary at 22, having only taken 1 year off after my undergrad.  I had a number of classmates the same age or so as me.  I’ll tell you something, I was not ready at 25 to pastor a church.   In fact, most 25 year olds are not ready.

Beyond that, I would argue that most 22 year olds are incapable of knowing how to integrate their classroom learning with their ministry.  They simply do not have the life experience necessary.  They may have the IQ.  They may have the grades.  But they are generally ignorant about how the world works.  There is no substitute for life experience.  My suggestion: spend a few years working, serve your local church and wait until you’re (at least) 25 before you start.  Then go to school part-time.  It will take longer, but you will be a better minister to the Body for it.

I had a friend in seminary named John.  John was an associate pastor at a church in Scotland, going there after he finished a master’s in history at Cambridge.  After a few years of being an associate pastor, John realized he really needed a stronger theological and biblical foundation if he were going to continue pastoring.  Because of this previous experience, John was a more focused, and better, student than most of us.

Demand Greater Biblical Knowledge

I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret- seminary students know surprisingly little about the Bible.  Seminary students, like many students (especially young ones) aren’t really trying to learn.  They’re trying to get a good grade.  Thus, they learn the necessary Greek terms, the orthodox theological points and the proper sermon writing method to make the teacher think they are learning.  In reality, if you press them, many (again, not all) don’t really know what they’re talking about.  Harsh?  Perhaps.  I would actually like to see a stricter grading process. 

This differs from professor to professor, of course.  I had some profs who gave out A’s like they were Halloween candy.  In other classes your paper practically had to be publishable to get an A.  I learned more from the latter.

Actually Train Ministers to Encounter the Realities of the Present World

I remember Tim Tennent, my former missions professor and now President at Asbury Seminary, lamenting that seminary students know more about dead liberal German theologians than they do Muslims.  He’s right.  If I didn’t go out of my way to learn about the various religions of the world, I probably would have a rudimentary knowledge at best.  After all, when I learned about Paul’s epistles, I learned about F C Bauer and the Tubingen Hypothesis (a name of a former fake band of mine).  When I took a class on the Pentateuch, I learned more than I ever wanted about The Documentary Hypothesis.  Spend time on how Paul’s principles of self-sacrifice and contextualization can help me minister cross-culturally?  Huh?

Yet, guys like Bauer and Wellhausen are dead.  As I’m ministering in Boston, I’ll probably never encounter someone who has read them or who even cares about their theories.  But I’ll meet a Muslim.  I’ll meet Hindus and Buddhists.  And if all I know about Muslims is going to come from blogs and the evening news, I’ll be an ineffective minister to them.  I’ll never know anything about their worldview or how to share the gospel with them.  I’ll never know how to use the Bible to speak to their hearts.  Why?  Because evangelicals love to fight battles with dead people and ignore the changing world around them.  The lack of foresight is astonishing and disheartening.

Our world- our country- is changing.  I’d hate to see seminary trained pastors fall behind because seminaries themselves have flaws.  Then again, I would argue that students have as much, if not more, responsibility for their own education than the seminary administration.  But that’s another post, soon to come.

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Give Piper a Fist Bump (Or, Thoughts on Ecclesiastical Inbreeding)

John Piper has made some pretty big news for 2 completely different reasons in the last week.  The first was the announcement of his 8-month leave of absence, which you can read about here.  The second, and the impetus for this post, was the announcement that he has invited Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God National Conference this year (go here for the list of speakers).  I’m including 2 videos below, the first gives the initial rationale for inviting Warren, the second is a follow up after some of the controversy.  If you’re wondering why this choice is controversial at all, these videos will help.

 

To get an idea of what people are saying, you can check out the post at Justin Taylor’s blog.  The comments number over 100 at this point, many of which say something along the lines of “I can’t believe Piper is inviting this heretic” or “Warren preaches a different gospel!”  (Side note: as I was typing this, Taylor added another post, which I’m sure will draw it’s share of comments.)  For some thoughts on why no one should consider Warren a heretic, I encourage you to check out Cousin Jeremy’s post from a few years back, one I still think is relevant and accurate. 

The truth is that I haven’t seen anyone bring forth any actual evidence that Warren holds to heretical beliefs, unless one defines “heretical” as “something I don’t agree with” (which, unfortunately, it seems many do).  I agree that much of what he says is fluffy, though that’s partially because he is attempting not to use “churchy” language in his ministry.  I agree completely that his pragmatism is often problematic.  Pragmatism (which begs for further definition) may be wrong, or even harmful, but it isn’t heresy.  I’m not  a huge fan of the seeker-sensitive movement, although that’s become so hard to define that a sweeping generalization does little to help. 

But the reason I titled this post “Give Piper a Fist Bump” (or a high-five, or a chest bump, or a head nod- whatever you choose) is simply because I like the fact he is going outside of his own circle in inviting Warren to speak at his popular conference.  This is actually the third consecutive year he’s done this (maybe more, I only started paying attention in 2008).  In 2008 he invited Mark Driscoll, which caused some stirring then because Driscoll was still known (fairly or not) as “The Cussing Pastor” to many at that time (he’s since become even closer to Piper, which puts him squarely in the same circle these days).  Last year he invited Doug Wilson.  I think the controversy was a little lighter with Wilson, mainly because he isn’t as well known in broader church circles.  Inviting Wilson was actually more of a risk than either Driscoll or Warren, in my opinion, because you never really know what he will say or how he will say it (read his blog- he is a big believer in satire). 

It is my observation that there is a lot of ecclesiastical inbreeding going on these days.  In one of the videos above, Piper references the “Young, Restless and Reformed” movement (which is basically the same thing as the famed “New Calvinism”).  This movement is not official, but neither is it entirely amorphous.  You can find this crowd in any of these conferences: Desiring God, Acts 29, Together for the Gospel, The Gospel Coalition, and probably some more that I’m forgetting.  Many of these conferences feature the same speakers talking about the same things with people who mostly believe the same things.  Sure, there’s some variety.  Together for the Gospel (T4G) has a Presbyterian, 2 Baptists and a Charismatic heading it up.  It would seem to be crossing “party lines” to bring these people together, though I’d note that it may better be titled “T4G+C+C” (Together for the Gospel and Calvinism and Complementarianism).  That is, if you don’t hold to those 2 “C”‘s, there’s a chance you won’t be invited to speak.

Ecclesiastical inbreeding is not a danger only in the Young, Restless and Reformed movement.  I see this same tendency in my own circles.  In the charismatic world, you tend only to encounter charismatic speakers and authors.  There was a time when you were guaranteed that a big charismatic conference would include Mike Bickle, Jack Deere, Rick Joyner, Jack Taylor, Paul Cain, or at least a few of those names.  Maybe once in a while, you’ll encounter a charismatic Calvinist, like Sam Storms or R T Kendall.  When one of them wrote a book, you were sure to find the others endorsing it.  None of this is necessarily awful, it’s just simply the way it is.

I probably see this kind of inbreeding more in the areas of books we read.  I suspect that many of Warren’s blog critics haven’t really read or studied his writings or sermons.  He’s conveniently placed under the label of “Mega-Church Seeker Sensitive,” which conveniently means we don’t have to listen to him.  We just know he doesn’t sound like our favorite writers, so we don’t like him.  In our church training school, we read J I Packer’s Knowing God.  I remember a couple years back commenting (somehow it came up), that I wasn’t sure where Packer stood regarding spiritual gifts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were a cessationist.  Someone responded: then why are we reading this book?  Ugh.

I’m blessed to have lived on the campus at Gordon-Conwell, because it gave me the opportunity to rub shoulders with people of different Christian traditions.  When I attended, this was the denominational breakdown in the student population:

• Non-denominational/undecided
• Presbyterian (PCA, PCUSA, etc)
• Assemblies of God
• Baptist (mostly American Baptist)

We also had a mixture of Congregationalists, Methodists, EV Free, and even some Episcopalians thrown in.  That’s actually a pretty impressive mix of people (though I should note that Reformed theology still dominated).  I appreciate how much I learned from my fellow students.  I’m glad that I read widely.  I’m glad I still read widely.  I’m saddened by how people put all their eggs in one basket: Reformed Baptists in the John Piper basket, charismatics in the Bill Johnson basket, and so on. 

All this to say, I’m glad that Piper is stepping outside of his circles.  I’m not saying Warren is necessarily a good choice; he could have chosen any number of people not in his camp to come and speak.  But it shows me that Piper is not going to cater to the Piper Fanboys.  D A Carson once warned, “beware of your conservative constituency.”  I’m glad Piper has heeded this warning, and I can only hope others do the same.

My encouragement is to sit down and read a book by someone outside of your camp.  Listen to sermons from a pastor that is entirely different from the ones you’re used to.  My guess is that you’ll find yourself blessed.

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Can I pick my promises?

Superblogger Tim Challies linked this morning to the Personal Promises Bible.  Basically, you can insert your name into promises in the Bible.  I tried it out, to see how it goes:

Even when danny was dead in trespasses, God made danny alive together with Christ (by grace danny has been saved), and raised danny up with Him and made danny to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  (Eph. 2:5-6)

Not so bad, huh?  I suppose there is some good in this.  There are promises for those who are in Christ (“no condemnation”, for example) and it’s good to be reminded of this.

But this betrays a flaw, in my opinion, within evangelicalism today.  Though well-intentioned, we rarely are completely honest when it comes to playing this game.  That is, we insert our name into those promises that we’d like to claim for ourselves and leave out the ones that make us feel uncomfortable.  After all, if the Personal Promise Bible turned this up, I might not buy it:

If danny lets himself be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to danny at all. (Gal. 5:3)

Or how about this one:

But if danny does not wake up, I will come like a thief, and danny will not know at what time I will come to him. (Rev. 3:3)

This is what gets me every time I hear someone quote Jeremiah 29:11 (“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”) without any qualification (like, this wasn’t given to every individual believer ever to live).  Why not quote Jeremiah 25:29: “You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword on all who live on the earth”?  Is claiming the promises of God simply as arbitrarily picking which ones apply to me and which ones don’t.

That’s okay, I’ve decided to run in another direction with this one.  I’ve decided to claim promises for other people, specifically those who make me mad.  No evil sports franchise will escape my wrath (and of course, the wrath of God):

Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds will shake.  Bring them down on the heads of all the Yankees; the Yankees that are left I will kill with the sword.  Not one Yankee will get away, no Yankee will escape. (Amos 9:1)

Cut me off in traffic?  You might receive the Personal Promise Bible, courtesy of Danny, in your stocking this year:

Shatter the loins of the Audi driver, and of the late merger, so that they will not drive again. (Deut 33:11)

You get the idea.  So maybe some of evangelicalism’s foibles aren’t so bad.  If I can arbitrarily claim promises for myself, why not arbitrarily claim curses for others?

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Matt Chandler & his ironic call to evangelicalism

I just finished listening to Matt Chandler’s sermon from the 2009 Desiring God Conference (you can download the sermon here).  I found his story of how he ended up pastoring The Village Church in Dallas funny and fascinating, particularly his transformation from anger towards evangelicals to pastoring a church in the middle of the evangelical Bible belt.  I found this quote to be particularly powerful:

In December of 2002, despite my anger towards evangelicals, I became the pastor of a church of evangelicals in what Christianity Today called ‘the center of the evangelical world’.  And despite the fact that my heart had always burned for the prodigal, God sent me to the older brother.  … And I’ll tell you when all of it hit heavy on my heart is sitting in those testimony videos, sitting in those baptism services, and who I had seen to be my enemy and be an enemy of the gospel, had actually been a casualty of religion.

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