Church

Reflections from Together for the Gospel

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

yumWhen I think about Together for the Gospel 2014, there is so much for which to give thanks! Before all the specifics of the week fade into the past, I want to share seven of them. May they be reasons to give thanks for your own time there or reasons to prompt you to come to Together for the Gospel 2016.

1. The Preaching. As expected, the brothers who preached at Together for the Gospel brought weighty, glorious, gracious truth for us. Beginning with Mark Dever’s hope-giving message from Isaiah 36-37, the preachers called us to place our confidence in God, his Gospel, and its power to save. Particularly helpful for me were David Platt’s and John Piper’s messages. Together, they challenged me to pray and plead that God would save and sanctify those to whom I preach. Likewise, Kevin DeYoung’s message was a needed encouragement to preach the Word. Since I missed a couple of the messages, I will be visiting the T4G website to listen and watch (for free until June 1). You should do the same.

2. The Singing. Like the preaching, the congregational singing deeply encouraged my soul. Continuing the pattern of “mere worship” (i.e., a style of music that emphasizes the human voice over amplified instrumentation), Bob Kauflin led us in song from “center-court.” The music richly described the gospel, but my favorite songs were those written or adapted by Matt Merker and that can be found at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Especially, in light of rising hostility towards Christianity, the song “He Will Hold Me Fast” comforted my soul.

3. Meeting and Making Friends. After the preaching and the singing, the reason I went to Together for the Gospel is to see friends—friends from college, from seminary, from ministry, and from a number of other places around the way. For instance, I had a chance to catch up with one of my oldest running mates in ministry. He and I met in college (ca. 2001), when we were both in Campus Crusade for Christ. Thirteen years later, it is a precious joy to see how God has worked in this brothers life. For me, chances to grab coffee or Qdoba with gospel-centered friends reminds me of God’s faithfulness in my life. It also spurs me on to keep walking with God and praying for others to do the same. One of the sweetest gifts in the Christian life are friends who point us to Christ; at T4G I have reunited with and made many.

4. The ERLC Dinner. On the same note, it was a blast to catch up with a ton of brothers from Southern Seminary at the ERLC Dinner. In an evening sponsored by Dr. Russell Moore, my former Sunday School teacher and School of Theology Dean, it was a joy to see so many serving the Lord all over the country. Even more, the evening concluded with a Q & A about ethics and country music (go figure ;-) and the way that the ERLC serves Southern Baptists and beyond. It was encouraging to fellowship with young pastors, theologians, and ethicists who stand on God’s promises and lean into the public square.

5. The CBMW Conference. From one acronymed-ministry to another, the CBMW pre-conference, national conference was a hit. Occurring in the same room as the first T4G, more than 1300 men and women listened to John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Russell Moore, Danny Akin, Eric Mason, Albert Mohler, Ligon Duncan, Owen Strachan, and a panel of wise, godly women discuss topics related to biblical manhood and womanhood. The night before, the impossible was done, as a small army of kind-hearted servants helped pack bags and put out books for all the conference attendees. On the whole, this conference started the conference well and showed great promise for CBMW’s continuing voice among young evangelicals.

6. My Father-in-Law. With all the joys mentioned so far, the greatest joy of the conference was introducing my father-in-law to all the speakers, the singing, and the ministries represented at T4G. Upon the conclusion of the week, he wrote to me and said

I don’t know how to tell you how thankful I am that you invited me to the conference.  I would not have gone without your encouragement.  Truly the Holy Spirit spoke, challenging me on many fronts. The spiritual challenge, the fellowship and the wealth of resources combined to bless and overwhelm me, like getting a  drink from a fire hydrant!! 

My wife’s father is one of the most diligent servants of the Lord that I know. He is an associate pastor at Ashburn Baptist Church in Orland Park, Illinois. At that church, whose pastor happens to be his father, he leads in music, organizes (just about) everything, and makes endless visits—to name only a few of the things he does. He loves the Lord and the gospel, yet to date, he’s never been to T4G (or heard of Kevin DeYoung or Matt Chandler, if you can imagine). Consequently, he had a blast, was deeply encouraged, and edified to go back to Chicago and continue reaching the lost with ongoing zeal.

7. Prayer, Pleading, and Passion. Finally, and most importantly, I left T4G 2014 with a great burden to pray for the lost. John Piper’s final message in some sense completed for me a course in Christian Hedonism (i.e., Piper’s theology). For more than 12 years, his sermons and books have shaped my thinking about God, the gospel, and ministry. Yet, in all that time, I’ve never connected in Romans 9-10 the relationship between predestination and prayer. That connection was massive for me, and showed me how much farther I have to go in my theology and my prayer life. As I left T4G, I desired and still desire to be more zealous to pray for others and to tell them “Jesus wants you.”

All in all, the week was memorable, motivating, and Messiah-centered (forgive the forced alliteration). For me it truly refreshed my soul, and I pray it did the same for you, or that it will do the same for you in 2016 (April 12-14, to be exact).

In summing up this week, let me encapsulate seven things to make the most of Together for the Gospel, or any conference like T4G.

  1. Go for the content of the messages. Conferences are in vain, if the Gospel of God is not preached. And conferences are also in vain, if we are not letting the message speak to us. Plan to make time for the Word.
  2. Go to worship freely. For those who plan worship services, T4G is a glorious rest. To be able to enter the Yum Center without any care for service planning is tremendously refreshing. Still better than just the freedom from preparation though, the content of the songs, the testimonies, etc. is rich with fuel for worship.
  3. Make plenty of time to meet with friends. This is a doubled-edge sword. It was great to meet new friends and to “network.” But honestly (and I may be wrong in this) it was so much more enjoyable to go and reunite with old friends instead of just trying to met the latest author or blogger. I’ve done that before and it’s tiring. I love meeting new friends, but this week was so good because it was filled with old friends for whom I can be myself.
  4. Make time to pray, journal, reflect, dream, repent and recommit. As much fun as it is to see friends, make sure that during or after the conference, you take time to apply the truth that God shares with you. Life change happens when we look in the mirror, see the mess, and by God’s grace do something about it.
  5. Get to know ministries that matter. To say it differently, support those ministries which are solidly committed to the gospel and find out how you can encourage them and be apart of their work. T4G had a host of ministries worthy of your support. Make sure to engage with those brothers who are doing good work; they can serve your church and they need your support.
  6. Take someone with you. If possible, bring someone new. Or better, help someone else go. On my desk, I have the receipt of a pastor who paid for the hotel room of another pastor (and no, I’m not speaking about myself like Paul did of himself in 2 Corinthians 12). This brother-pastor has been a great encouragement to me, and it spurs me on to know (if only by accident) that he (with his church) footed the bill for someone else to go. May more of us do that, as we can.
  7. Finally, remember that the real work is not conference work; it’s local church work. As Albert Mohler closed the last session with the reminder that the important work is not what happened last week in Louisville, the important work is what happens every single week in chruches in Des Moines, Iowa, Auburn, Alabama, and Anchorage, Alaska—not to mention those brothers in other countries. It’s the work that goes on the churches that proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ that is truly important.

For that reason, I give thanks for all that happened last week, and I look forward to Together for the Gospel 2016, but only through the maze and the haze of two more years of ministry that I pray will be twice as fruitful, by God’s grace, in part because of what I heard, read, discussed, and saw at Together for the Gospel 2014.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

[photo credit: Ivan Mesa’s girlfriend]

The Gospel on the Ground

/ davidsschrock

Toby-and-Sonia-300x225Tomorrow, my good friend Toby Jenkins will be coming to preach at our church. I first met Toby when I served at Southern Seminary in the office of financial aid. After pastoring in Mississippi for a number of years, the Lord brought him to Louisville to attend Boyce College. Shortly after his arrival, in 2009, he was called to the First Baptist Church of Henryville, Indiana.

In the first few years of his ministry, he had been praying for God to do something that no man could get credit for. Apparently—and why should this surprise us (me)—God answered his prayer.

On March 2, 2012, an EF-4 tornado plowed through the town on Henryville. It was on the ground for fifty miles and left a line of devastation in Henryville and surrounding towns that can still be seen today. In the aftermath of that storm, God used FBC Henryville as point of contact of for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Aided by churches from all over the nation, Southern Seminary, and the Disaster Relief of the Southern Baptist Convention, FBC Henryville ministered to the physical needs of Henryville. Still, in the aftermath of the tornado, it was the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ that had the greatest long term effect.

Under the invisible hand of the Lord, Toby had preached about the wrath of God in Romans 1:18-20 the week before the tornado. And in the weeks that followed the storm, as Henryville sought to rebuild, and many came to FBC Henryville, God brought many to himself by the verse-by-verse exposition of Romans.

Two years later, the church is still growing and Toby is still preaching from Romans—Romans 9, to be exact. God has honored the faithful preaching of his Word and he has answered (and continues to answer) Toby’s earnest prayer—that God would do something that no man would get credit for.

Tomorrow, Toby will share about “The Gospel on the Ground,” and how the gospel has brought life to many devastated by the Fall and its effects including the 2012 tornado.

I love this brother. I love how God has saved he and Sonia (see her testimony below). I love their passion for God’s glory, for God’s church, and for God’s gospel. Toby’s life and ministry has spurred me on to pray bigger prayers and trust more simply in the power of the preached Word. And so I am both excited and hopeful about our service of worship tomorrow.

Please pray for Toby as he brings God’s Word tomorrow. If you are anywhere near Seymour, Indiana, please join us.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Five Lessons from an Unlikely Missionary

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

The first missionary I heard of was not Lottie Moon or Jim Elliot. It was Dr. Dolittle, the man with the curious ability to speak to animals. When I was a boy my parents read to me about his astonishing adventures and the way he traveled over oceans to care for a host of animals.

I admit, most of my memories of that book have faded, but one memory remains: the pushmi-pullyu (pronounced ‘push-me—pull-you’). In Hugh Lofting’s book the bizarre animal was a ‘gazelle-unicorn cross’ with two heads at opposite ends of its body. In the book, Dr. Dolittle first meets a pushmi-pullyu while in Africa, and is eventually awarded one after vaccinating a kingdom of monkeys. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?!

The gift of this animal sets Dolittle on a tour around England, the proceeds from which enabled him to retire to his home in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. In all honesty, Lofting’s book is slightly absurd but it succeeded in charming readers young and old with this animal-loving ‘missionary.’ Continue reading →

That’s the Prosperity Gospel

/ davidsschrock

One of the reasons I’ve been preaching on “blessing” and considering the prosperity gospel this month has to do with the fact that I see its falsehoods in the Christians I meet, and I see its deceptions in my own heart. SEBTS ethics professor, David Jones hits this point  in his short article, “The Prosperity Gospel in My Own Heart.” He writes,

Imagine you’re driving to church on a cold, rainy Sunday morning, and to your dismay you get a flat tire. What is your immediate thought? “God, really? I’m going to church. Isn’t there some drug dealer or abusive husband you could have afflicted with a flat tire?” That’s the prosperity gospel.

Or maybe you don’t get that promotion at work, your child gets sick, or you’re unfairly criticized at church. The result? You get mad at God because you were overlooked, troubled, or disparaged. That’s the prosperity gospel.

The very thought that God owes us a relatively trouble-free life, and the anger we feel when God doesn’t act the way we believe he is supposed to act, betray a heart that expects God to prosper us because of our good works. That’s the prosperity gospel.

I don’t know an American Christian who hasn’t struggled with this sort of thinking—questioning God’s providential goodness when, in our attempts to serve him, he has permitted (or better: ordained) our trial. It is part and parcel of the evangelical experience in America that the message of salvation is accompanied by a promise of God’s good plan: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” which includes eternal life and the absence of flat tires, right?

Not really. This is an American gospel of our own making. Therefore, we need to consider afresh just how much upward mobility we have imported into our own Christian faith. In my own case, I see far more than I would like to admit, and as I think on the prosperity gospel, I am beckoned to repent and return to the true gospel. Maybe God would have you do the same? And maybe, he would use David Jones’ article to help you see the tentacles of prosperity latching to your own heart.

For more reflections on the prosperity gospel, see this month’s 9Marks Journal on that subject.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Prosperity Gospel: The New 9Marks Journal

/ davidsschrock

prosperityThe new 9Marks Journal released today covering the subject of the “Prosperity Gospel.” In its thorough coverage of the subject, it helps readers discover, analyze, and respond to the many forms of this false gospel, which floods America and pours forth into the world. In it you can find articles from David W. Jones (whose written a book on the subject: Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Jesus Christ?), John Piper, D. A. Horton, and many others. They even included my article, “A Softer Prosperity Gospel: More Common Than You Think.”

Let me encourage you to take some time to read the articles, beginning with Jonathan Leeman’s editorial. Leeman rightly assesses the stock market value of the prosperity gospel and warns us not to buy its goods. Let’s pray that God would open our eyes to see the prosperity gospel pervading our land and enticing our heart, so that we can turn from its idolatrous offerings and find true blessing in Jesus Christ alone.

If you need further reason to read this journal, consider Leeman’s insightful editorial: Continue reading →

Evangelism Then and Now: The Same Seed, A Different Soil

/ davidsschrock

[This is the most recent “Feeding on the Word” article from our church newsletter]

Over the last few decades Americans have witnessed an unprecedented move away from traditional marriage toward a choose-your-own-adventure approach to sexuality. Influenced by academics, funded by political action groups, and promoted by entertainment personalities, our culture has bought into the notion that sex without limitations is the apex of American freedom.

It should not surprise us that the neighbors we are called to reach have enormous relational baggage. Their sordid stories break our hearts, confound our wisdom, and shut our mouths. Even if we believe—as we ought—that God can save the worst sinner, we see broken people and wonder what to do. Continue reading →

Postmodernity and Evangelical Thought (1): An Introduction

/ davidsschrock / 6 Comments

Postmodernism (PM) can be defined as a mood that questions authority, denies absolute truth, and locates meaning in the language of local communities.  While PM is the product of twentieth century thought, its precursors go back much further in history.  For instance, Friedrich Schleiermacher espoused a view of doctrine that was impermanent and always changing relative to the community in which it was experienced.  While situated more than a century before the likes of Derrida, Lyotard, and other philosophers of language, Schleiermacher’s liberal theology anticipates the postmodern turn.

Still, the question of authority, truth, and community predates Schleiermacher, too.  In John 18:38 Pilate, in a discussion about kingdoms, authority, and truth, asks Jesus, “What is truth?”  The relativism in his question comes not from a philosophical system of Western thought; it comes from the human condition that stands outside of the Garden.

Ever since Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, their offspring has sought to assert their own authority, to make up their own laws, and to live in their own cities of men.  Over time, as Western Civilization once again threw off the constraints of God’s Word and church tradition, the question of the hour is that of Pilate: What is truth?

This series of blog posts aims to give an answer to the postmodern mood that undergirds our ambient culture.  To answer the question about postmodernism we must first consider modernism, as post-modernism stands in direct relationship to his period of time and thought.  Second, I will survey postmodernism and its major contributing voices.  And third, this series will consider the effect postmodernism has had on evangelical theology, and what evangelicals must do to wisely and selectively appropriate the tenets of postmodernity.

As we go along, let me know what you think.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Albert Mohler and Southern Seminary: A Word of Thanksgiving

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

I know Thanksgiving is a month away, but I cannot help but give thanks today for the impact Southern Seminary and Albert Mohler have had on me. This week marks President Mohler’s twentieth anniversary at Southern Seminary, and the folks there have put together an excellent twenty-five minute video chronicling the journey of this great school.

I cannot begin to express how much Southern Seminary and its president, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, have had on me. For the last nine years, Southern has invested pearls of wisdom and truckloads of biblical gold into my heart and life. So great is Southern’s impact on me, there’s not a day that goes by which I do not think of Southern, its faculty, my peers, and the truths I learned there.  Continue reading →