Disfrutar de una relaci籀n 穩ntima con el Dios del universo es el prop籀sito principal del ser humano. En Dios encontramos respuesta y sentido a nuestras vidas. El salmo 15 describe al tipo de persona que puede relacionarse personalmente con el Creador. El salmista se pregunta qui矇n puede ser un hu矇sped de Dios. En esa cultura, un hu矇sped gozaba de acceso directo con el anfitri籀n. Este salmo de sabidur穩a se entonaba al entrar al templo. Los adoradores iniciaban con la pregunta y el sacerdote respond穩a con los requisitos y finalizaba con una promesa para aquellos que los cumpl穩an.
Michael Wilkins recommended these axioms to me. It has taken me several years to figure out and understand what they mean. They have worked like seeds for me. Im sure he would elaborate on them differently (and better) than Im doing here. But this is what I see in them ...
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the different ways to assess the health of a church.
I am regularly vexed by how shallow my prayers can become. When I pray for somethingand I know that all prayer is not for thingswhat should I pray for? Only for my family? For someone I know who is ill? For God to help me in the day ahead? For God to resolve whatever problem is currently worrying me? I often sense that there is some content that Im missing when Im praying. Do you sense the same thing? ...
This post is the substance of a chapel message I gave to the students of Kyiv Theological Seminary on October 14 of last year (2014). At the time Ukraine was (and still is) in the midst of brutal conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern regions of the country. All of the students present had been impacted by the conflict, some profoundly either by burying church members, relatives, and friends, or by answering conscription summons. No one in the country has been left untouched by the crisis. I offer these thoughts here because suffering and crisis and loss may come to those around us at anytime. We need the mind of our Lord to enter into such a house of sorrow or pain and be his instruments for healing ...
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the challenges and opportunities of bi-vocational ministry.
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss how their Talbot education impacts their ministry today in valuable ways.
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss why a seminary education is so valuable for ministry today.
Las noticias a nuestro alrededor pueden ser bastante desalentadoras. Por alguna raz籀n las noticias que se publican y tienen promoci籀n tienden a ser las negativas y las que reflejan alg繳n conflicto social. Para los medios de comunicaci籀n y para la sociedad en general las buenas noticias parecieran no ser atractivas y solamente las negativas pueden salir de la sombra de lo cotidiano para llamar nuestra atenci籀n. Desgraciadamente, el estar rodeados de malas noticias origina un ambiente negativo en el que la vida pareciera una mara簽a de conflictos que crece cada vez m獺s y a la que no se le encuentra soluci籀n por ning繳n lado. Si a esta situaci籀n le agregamos los actos de terrorismo de grupos radicales que se escudan en la religi籀n para cometer atentados deleznables contra inocentes y las posturas tan radicales de pol穩ticos y grupos sociales que impiden una sana conversaci籀n para resolver sus diferencias, es f獺cil caer en la desesperanza y la impotencia.
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss how local churches can better engage and love their communities.
Talbot faculty member, James Petitfils, and a panel of Talbot graduates who are now pastors in Southern California discuss the unique challenges of ministry in this region.
A few months ago I wrote about Jos矇 Bowens seminar and his book, Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2012). I shared that his main thrust was for teachers to use technology to deliver content outside of class sessions, and shift the use of class time to processing that information, promoting critical thinking and the application of knowledge to real life situations. There are three ideas from Bowens work that I think have the potential of deepening the impact of our teaching in the church. Over the next few months Ill be writing a brief blog on each of the three ideas, beginning with ways of using technology to get students into the content of the Bible lesson/study before you meet, preparing them for a more active and deeper learning experience together.
Several years ago Charles Arn and I surveyed pastors and asked them to identify the most frustrating part of their job. Can you guess the most frequent response? Getting laypeople to help with the work and ministry of the church ... One of the major reasons people are reluctant to serve in and through a church is the feeling that theyll be stuck in the position for ever, or at least a very long time ...
In this audio recording, David Horner, Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, shares about Epiphany and its significance in the life of the Christian.
I was raised in a church world in which culture war was a favorite metaphor of how the church relates to the nonchurch. We were Gods courageous moral infantry doing battle against those cunning cultists, those hateful homosexuals, those lying liberals, and those devilish Darwinists. If we listen with tuned ears to Christian radio, Christian literature, Christian blogs, and Christian conversations, it becomes clear: We Christians love the language of war. Over the last 30 years it has become our dominant metaphor for relating to culture; it saturates our vocabulary, shapes our politics, and soaks our worldview. But is culture war helpful? Is it biblical? Should we be jarheads for Jesus?
A few evenings ago, we hosted a delightful group of ten 51蹤獲 students at our house for dinner. During dessert, we launched into a lively discussion about how we should celebrate Christmas as Christians. We discussed various sub-topics under this broader question, but we spent the largest portion of our time talking about how Christians shouldand should nottalk to their children about Santa Claus.
Readers of this blog may be interested in the short article I have written over at Reformation 21. The gist of my claim is that the person of Jesus Christ shapes our primary ethical response to torture and our attitude to its perpetration by our authorities. Person, that is, over procedure, particularly over fear based consequentialist reasoning that might allow in extremis the ends of security to justify the means of torture. I very minimally offer that the health of our moral imaginations as Christian citizens is attested to in our habits of corporate prayer.
Students often ask, What does a Christian leader need in order to experience an effective life of ministry in the local church? A key part of the answer has to do with the kinds of people we gather around ourselves. As I look back over some thirty-five years of local church ministry, four kinds of relationships (besides God and my natural family) have proven indispensable to the health and vitality of my own pilgrimage as a pastor ...
Stability is a good thing knowing that your favorite chair wont collapse when you plop down in it after a hard day being able to count on the love of someone no matter what. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to be willing to adjust with the changes that come with such a commitment. The first disciples were so inclined, and because of it, we have the gospel, are born-again, and look forward to an eternity in the presence of our loving Father.
At the end of September I had the honor of speaking at the installation of my good friend, Mickey Klink, as head pastor of Hope Evangelical Free Church in Rosco, Illinois. The following is the text of my talk and I thought I would share it in this venue as it might possibly serve as encouragement for others who are about to embark on the journey of pastoral ministry. (Ive shared this with Mickeys permission) ...
Hace unos d穩as tuve el privilegio de participar en el IV Congreso sobre la Reforma Protestante Espa簽ola que tuvo lugar en la Facultad de Filosof穩a de la Universidad Complutense en Madrid, Espa簽a. Este importante congreso internacional tuvo como tema principal la Reforma en Hispano Am矇rica. Entre los participantes se encontraban profesores, historiadores y eruditos para dialogar acerca de la influencia del protestantismo en Am矇rica Latina y su relaci籀n con la reforma espa簽ola. Aunque el n繳mero de participantes no eran tan numeroso, el significado de esta reuni籀n y los temas tratados son de suma importancia y son relevantes para nuestros d穩as. Me gustar穩a compartir en este espacio algunas reflexiones sobre el pasado y el presente basadas principalmente en los temas tratados en este congreso.
As indicated in a previous post, Talbot School of Theology will be well represented this year at the Evangelical Theological Society's national meeting [need link here]. For those unable to attend (most of you, I assume!), here is a video clip that touches upon some key ideas that I will be sharing in my plenary address. The interviewer is Dr. Jason Cusick, a pastor at Journey of Faith Church in Manhattan Beach, CA. The clip was shown in a church service as part of a series on the church and the family.
It was twenty-five years before church growth researcher Win Arn, building on the initial discoveries of Donald McGavran, conducted one of the largest studies of how people come to faith in Christ and to the church in the United States and Canada. Arns Institute for American Church Growth surveyed over 17,000 persons in 1980 asking, What or who was responsible for your coming to Christ and to your church? Arn published his findings in The Masters Plan for Making Disciples, and church leaders were astounded ...
I often think about home in a specific way. For a long time, home has been a safe place to come back to at the end of the day. It has been a place to establish a comfortable niche in the world as a respite, a literal financial investment in emotional well being. Home has been about rest and nurture, as it can be a place of ministry to family and friends. It also has been a place to launch out into kingdom ministry more broadly.
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