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Thursday, April 28, 2005 posted by R.C. 10:56 PM link |
Moving On On the one hand it is rather humdrum. On the other hand, it’s still really weird. Every now and again I get a phone call. The person on the other end of the line begins with hemming and moves on to hawing. “Our family homeschools” it usually starts. “But there aren’t many families in our church that share that conviction.” I know where they are going, but they don’t know that I know. “You’ll probably think this is really weird, but…” and finally I let them off the hook, “You’re thinking about moving here.” Relief floods the phone lines, and finally we can get to the questions that I can actually help with. People move here. It happens, on average, about 12 times a year. Sometimes it’s slower, sometimes it’s faster. We are entering a fast phase. Sometimes I am befuddled by this phenomenon. Sometimes it makes perfect sense to me. Sometimes I wish it would stop. Sometimes I am delighted by it. Whenever we get a new batch in I pull what’s left of my hair out and wonder, “Are these people crazy?” And then when I experience the blessings that come to me and my family as members of this body, it makes perfect sense. I’d think hard about moving here too, were I not already here. I wish it would stop in part because it makes me so nervous. What if horrible people come, or what if we fail to serve them well? But I delight in it when I get to know the new families. Sooner rather than later the latest “movers” become our brothers, our neighbors, vital parts of this local body. They stop being “movers” and become instead “members.” So what are we doing about it? We will not close our borders. We do not solicit, and never have, movers. But neither do we tell folks, “You may not enjoy the blessings that we are enjoying here.” What we are trying to do, however, is spread those blessings as far as we can. This is why we sent one of our earliest movers, the Dewey family, back to Michigan. We believe Christ the King church, which we support with our prayers and our bounty, offers many of the same blessings we enjoy here. Indeed some folks who were considering a move here moved there instead. For that we are delighted. I pray regularly to my Lord, “From my perspective, I can’t imagine a finer shepherd than Mark Dewey. Please send him Your sheep, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the sheep.” This is why we have begun to help prepare men for the ministry, as we are doing with Jay Barfield and Clint Blevins. We are working with these men to give them what we believe a seminary can’t, a vision for congregations that will live simple, separate and deliberate lives for the glory of God and the building of His kingdom. We want to plant lots of churches, all over the country. That is why we, two months ago, hosted ten pastors for our first annual Pastor’s Camp. We brought these ten men here, at our expense, from all over the country, for three days of conversations on the calling and nature of the church. We chose for this weekend men whom we believed to one degree or another share our vision. We are looking forward to doing this again. We are ready and willing to help any church that will ask. We know that whatever blessings we enjoy, they come not from us, but from Him who is Lord over every church, and so are available to every church. If you are thinking about moving here, I’d encourage you once again to read that section of our website called Moving Here. (We may soon be adding a list of other churches that we are aware of that share much of our vision here.) It will encourage you, we hope, to think through the issues deliberately, rather than in a fog of romantic notions of greener grass. If you are unhappy with us about people moving here, please check first to see if your own assumptions are accurate. And if you have suggestions for us, we’d love to hear them. [comments] |
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Wednesday, April 20, 2005 posted by R.C. 10:14 PM link |
What Are You Talking About? There is a kind of embarrassment that can send us into greater embarrassment. Blogging, for instance, because it is, for the moment, a rather widespread practice, causes some of us want to distance ourselves from it. To get too close is rather like getting caught with a Kinkade painting. But it is only worse if, having been caught, we make up lame excuses, explain that it isn’t really a Kinkade, but the work of an important artist that is making some sort of ironic statement about radioactive cottages in the woods. Wouldn’t it just be better to admit how déclassé you are, and move on? I received an email today, an encouraging one, hoping that I might “blog” more. I received one a few days ago asking for a definition of squiblog. In keeping with yesterday’s release of the New Oxford American Dictionary, let me do a little word chopping. It would be wise for us to remember that meanings aren’t always as discreet as we would like them to be. A blog, for instance, could mean at least two different things. First, it could be an online journal wherein the writer simply shares the news of his or her day. I’m read plenty of blogs like that, complete with lists of how many loads of laundry were completed, and just exactly how the family car broke down. Then there are blogs that have a different purpose. The writer has an agenda beyond recording their day. They want their readers to be changed, to learn, to be sanctified. There is, in short, an important teaching element. And of course, there are blogs that seek to teach through telling us about the laundry and the car. A squib has precious little overlap with the first definition, and rather much with the second. That is, it is not my habit to tell folks what I had for breakfast. I come to this task, as I mentioned at our conference this weekend, with a very definite goal in mind. My hope is always that those who read these words would grow in grace, that they would understand better what it means to live a more simple, separate, and deliberate life. The only way this even gets in the neighborhood of that kind of “diary” definition of a blog is this, a squib tends to be more informal, more off the cuff. I will not be able, for instance, to string my squibs together and get a dissertation out of it in the end. But I explain this confusion not for my own sake, not to avoid embarrassment, but to make a point I believe many in the blog world need to learn. People as backward and ancient as I tend to turn to Titus 2 with some regularity. There we see that older women are called to teach younger women. Many of my internet friends recognize this, and so direct their blogs at other women. Trouble is, Titus 2 not only tells us who is the faculty (older women) and who are the students (younger women) but it tells us the curriculum. Older women are told not just that they should be teaching younger women, but that they should be teaching them to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled. There are, I’m delighted to report, any number of blogs which teach just these things. (Bearing in mind of course the other weaknesses that come with the internet. Serving your sisters in cyberspace isn’t probably what Paul had in mind, especially if you aren’t ministering to those who are, in real life, your neighbors.) But I have seen others, written by women, that set out, or so it seems, to set the world straight about Auburn Avenue theology, the history of the New Testament church, that seek to change this government policy or that, that direct you to this teacher or some other. Now bear in mind that many of these ladies are pushing the very same things I would push. The trouble I’m getting at isn’t that they are pushing against what I think to be biblical wisdom, but that they are pushing at all. I have grumbled in the past that the internet, for all its strengths, for all its power in diffusing centralized communication, comes with this exact kind of danger. People are teaching who shouldn’t be teaching. And people are learning where they ought not to be learning. A husband who loses his wife to a hook-up with some internet Lothario is probably better off than one who returns from work to find his wife safely at home, but having been seduced into Rome by some charming blogger. Because we believe that education is conversation, we do not believe that conversation is always benign. Indeed, conversation changes the world. Nice graphics and a gentle word is just the kind of tool the devil would use to lead us astray. In short, we need to mind our ears, and mind our tongues. [comments] |
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Saturday, April 16, 2005 posted by R.C. 2:34 PM link |
Where Seldom Is Heard I don’t give an ounce of credence to that medieval version of the Briggs-Myers test, where one’s personality comes down to measuring which internal organ excretes the most organ excretion stuff. I think there are four, bilious, sanguine, melancholic and some other one. One reason I don’t buy it is the same reason I don’t by the personality tests. Their explanations are so vague as to be meaningless. I don’t understand me, and don’t need to understand me, but I do know that somehow I manage to think of myself, at the same time, as a happy fellow, and as a pessimist. I spent several hours with my friend Doug Phillips yesterday. The last time that happened I came home and wrote briefly on his endearing quirk of speaking so well of folks. He told me about Jennie Chancey’s address at Vision Forum’s latest Father-Daughter retreat. Rather, he raved about it. And we got to talk about what a fine young lady Jennie is, and what a man of God her husband Matt is. We got to talk about one of the young men who works with Doug, Wesley Strackbine, and we both got to rave about him. Enthusiasm, as always, is contagious, and so I told him about Dakota Tremayne, whom he will be meeting this morning, and what a man of God he is, and how that is most potently evidenced in the joy and character of his wife Samantha. Man, what a great way to spend an evening. Trouble is, I went to bed thinking about a single unhappy report I received, that one man that I had thought so highly of had fallen into gross sin. That’s why I think Puddleglum must be my patron saint. I don’t think, however, that we have to choose. I think that because people like King David fall into sin that is more and not less reason for us to remember, “Wow, that Nathan sure is a great man. He’s bold, he’s faithful, he’s a friend. He’s everything a man should be.” That is, we don’t measure obedience on the one hand, disobedience on the other, and then when disobedience wins, decide to be glum the rest of our lives. Instead, we come into the equation understanding the reality of our condition, and then begin to celebrate the grace of God in people’s lives. Jennie, Matt, Wesley, Dakota, Samantha, Doug and RC are all testaments not to man’s goodness, but to God’s grace. So to, by the way, is the exposure of this unnamed gentleman’s sin an act of God’s grace. Economic deprivation, in our context, more of ten than not means that we want more astonishing blessing than the astonishing blessing we have received. In like manner, pessimism about the future, about the church, about God’s people comes, more often than not, not from too grim a view of the future, but too bright a view of the past. We should be, given our sin, in a state of perpetual anarchy, and descending deeper and deeper into the vilest of sins. Instead, Jesus Christ is bringing all things into subjection. He isn’t done yet, but He is at work. The snow hasn’t yet all melted, but friends, Aslan is on the prowl. [comments] |
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Friday, April 08, 2005 posted by R.C. 9:35 PM link |
Conference Countdown Just as there are thorns and thistles that infest the ground, whatever calling you pursue, so there are perks in virtually every job. There are lots of things I look forward to that are part of my job. I like getting letters about Every Thought Captive, especially the ones that praise my dear wife. I love it when we get together to record Basement Tapes. I love that at the end of the service each Lord’s Day, the children of the congregation run down the aisle to hug the pastor. These delights, I pray will never lose their sweetness, simply because they are comparatively ordinary. That is, they happen all the time. What happens less often, that is another grand perk of my job, is our annual conference. One of the great blessings is that I get the opportunity to meet so many people that I only know through correspondence. I meet donors, and I meet internet friends. It is a joy to have faces to match up with the names. As an added bonus, I get to see many friends that only come around every so often. Valerie will be there, former students David and Kara Wicksell will be back for the conference. It’s like old home week for me. Another blessing is watching our local congregation band together to help get this event done. It tickles me to hear parishioners speaking to each other about “conference week,” as if this too has become ordinary. They know different things will happen, and they will be needed in different ways. It is particularly exciting that in God’s providence this year our conference falls on a third weekend. After the conference is over we will still have our covered dish picnic to look forward to. We will get to feed many of our guests. But we in turn will be fed. One of the blessings that comes with doing our own conference is that we get to decide what will be taught. For years I have planned conference content, and now it pays off by seeing not only my study center friends being fed, but the local body as well. Then there is this blessing that I alluded to after last year’s conference. I get to see, and to learn from, some of my favorite people. Jeff Hutchinson has been a friend since seminary, and we’re excited to have him with us. I haven’t had an opportunity to listen to Laurence break open the word since we started our second parish. And then there is my friend Doug Phillips. Every time we share a platform I come away not only with greater respect and admiration for him, but I come away delighted that our friendship has deepened. In short, I’m excited. I’m counting days, imagining conversations, daydreaming about lectures, and the Q and A time. The only trouble is, we’ll have to wait until next year to do it all again. [comments] |