In the News

Oh No

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HaggardUh oh.

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals resigned Thursday after denying an accusation by a male prostitute that the pastor paid him for sex over three years.

The Rev. Ted Haggard said he is also temporarily stepping aside from the pulpit of his church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, pending an internal investigation by the church.

Reformissionary Roundup

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Time for a roundup of random stuff.

1. I've started a Bible study series at our church based on Kris Lundgaard's book, The Enemy Within (@ Monergism).  Lundgaard's book is based on two of John Owen's works on sin.  I read it a few years ago and rereading it for this series.  Very helpful book.  Justin Taylor points to some of Lundgaard's audio messages on The Enemy Within.

2. Watched the movie Click with my wife yesterday.  It was moderately funny.  Best part of the movie is what Adam Sandler does to David Hasselhoff (there's a bad word here, so don't watch if you can't handle it).

3. Speaking of video, the Smiling Addiction video is great.  It's an original piece (including original music) by Crossroads Community Church in GA.  I think Joe Thorn first pointed me to this.

4. It looks like Paradox, a music venue at Mars Hill Seattle but not run by Mars Hill, is no more.  This article doesn't really give Mars Hill's perspective in a good light, but the news was worth mentioning.

5. Have you taken a trip on Line Rider yet?  Throw on a scarf and go!

6. Alan Hirsch is blogging.

7. Tim Keller wants to help you know how to "Work."  Great sermon.  Keller provides Dorothy Sayers' definition of the biblical doctrine of work: "Work is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others."  Other TK Resources.

Jesus Loves Porn Stars

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Jesus_loves_porn_starsIf you haven't seen the ABC news piece on the XXXChurch.com's Jesus Loves Porn Stars Bible, you should.  I find this issue fascinating and important.  Craig Gross and others in this ministry go to porn expo's and give away Bibles that have some Christians displeased, including Al Mohler (as the video shows).  More from Mohler at his website.

Please watch the segment and let me know what you think.

SBC Greensboro Outcomes

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(I also posted this at Missional Baptist Blog.)

I was emailed recently by the Florida Baptist Witness for a comment on this question: "What do you hope will be the single, greatest outcome of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Greensboro?"

You can read the responses of Bobby Welch, Frank Page, Ronnie Floyd, Wade Burleson, Jerry Rankin, Al Mohler and other big names at the FBW website.

Here's my response at the end of the article.  Obviously they were saving the best for last. ;)

Steve McCoy, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ill., and owner of Missional Baptist Weblog: "My greatest hope for Greensboro is that I will continue to build a personal network of missional pastors and thinkers, and encourage others to do the same. My second greatest hope is that the shofar won't work."

See You At The Pole

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Great story about a former stripper turned married mom who has a ministry to strippers and pays for lap dances in order to tell the strippers about Christ.

"I understand the culture of these girls. They respect that," saidVeitch, whose work has received national and international media coverage.

In a posting on the ministry's Web site, Veitch said she was a successful Las Vegas stripper but inwardly feared that her lifestyle was a ticket to hell.

She began attending church, became a Christian, went to beauty school and got married. A year ago, she began reaching out to sex industry workers.

She has an ally in Matt Brown, her pastor at Sandals Church of Riverside. The 1,700-member Southern Baptist congregation is contributing $50,000 to her ministry this year.

IMB Trustees Back Off Burleson

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A bit of breaking news.  TheFlorida Baptist Witness is reporting that the executive committee of the IMB's trustee board, "will recommend at the board's March 20-21 meeting in Tampa that trustees reverse a Jan. 11 motion asking the Southern Baptist Convention to remove Wade Burleson of Enid, Okla., as a trustee."

Here's more...

IMB trustee chairman Thomas Hatley of Rogers, Ark., told the Southern Baptist TEXAN the committee determined the matter of disciplining a trustee could be handled internally. Burleson has vocally--and allegedly improperly, according to the trustees--opposed the board's action to establish new missionary candidate criteria.

[...]

Misinformation disseminated through informal weblogs caused confusion in the minds of some Southern Baptists, Hatley said. He said he hopes a detailed accounting of the timeline and rationale for those standards will help separate those issues from the matter of Burleson's personal conduct as a trustee and answer questions that have arisen.

[...]

Since November, Burleson’s blog and several others have maintained frequent discussion of the issues. Many of the blogs include feedback from online readers rallying to the embattled trustee’s defense and calling for a large turnout at the annual meeting of the convention in Greensboro June 13-14 to vote against his proposed removal.

With the initial wave of e-mails and letters opposing the action against Burleson subsiding, Hatley told the TEXAN that he was beginning to receive many letters expressing appreciation for the stand taken by trustees.

The policy on private prayer language regards the habit to be outside the norm of Southern Baptist practice and states that candidates holding to the conviction or practice eliminate themselves from consideration. The guideline--not a policy--related to baptism expects candidates to have been baptized in a church that practices believer’s baptism by immersion alone, does not view it as sacramental or regenerative and embraces the doctrine of the security of the believer. In contrast to the misinformation circulated by critics, both the policy and the guideline feature an exception clause that allows for review by appeal.

Here's the BP article.  (HT: Tom Ascol)

John Piper Has Cancer

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Please pray for John Piper as he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Here's his letter to Bethlehem, his church.  All pastor's should strive to live in a way that result in letters like this in times of walking through the valley of the shadow of death.  (HT: JT)

Tuesday,

January 3, 2006

Dear Bethlehem Family,

I hope this letter will encourage your prayer, strengthen your hope, and minister peace. I am writing with the blessing of the other elders to help you receive the news about my prostate cancer.

At my annual urological exam on Wednesday, December 21, the doctor felt an abnormality in the prostate and suggested a biopsy. He called the next day with the following facts: 1) cancer cells were found in two of the ten samples and the estimate is that perhaps 5% of the gland is affected; 2) my PSA count was 1.6, which is good (below 4 is normal); 3) the Gleason score is 6 (signaling that the cancer is not aggressive). These three facts incline the doctor to think that it is unlikely that the cancer has spread beyond the prostate, and that it is possible with successful treatment to be cancer-free.

Before going with Noël to consult in person with the doctor on December 29 about treatment options, I shared this news with the Bethlehem staff on Tuesday morning, December 27, and with the elders that evening. Both groups prayed over me for healing and for wisdom in the treatment choices that lie before us. These were sweet times before the throne of grace with much-loved colleagues.

All things considered, Noël and I believe that I should pursue the treatment called radical prostatectomy, which means the surgical removal of the prostate. We would ask you to pray that the surgery be completely successful in the removal of all cancer and freedom from possible side effects.

With the approval of the executive staff and elder leadership, we are planning surgery in early February. The recovery time is about three weeks before returning to a slow work pace, and six weeks to be back to all normal activities.

This news has, of course, been good for me. The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness. The news of cancer has a wonderfully blasting effect on both. I thank God for that. The times with Christ in these days have been unusually sweet.

For example, is there anything greater to hear and believe in the bottom of your heart than this: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)?

God has designed this trial for my good and for your good. You can see this in 2  Corinthians 1:9, “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” And in 2  Corinthians 1:4-6, “He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God . . . If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation.”

So I am praying: “Lord, for your great glory, 1) don’t let me miss any of the sanctifying blessings that you have for me in this experience; 2) don’t let the church miss any of the sanctifying blessings that you have for us in this; 3) grant that the surgery be successful in removing cancer and sparing important nerves; 4) grant that this light and momentary trial would work to spread a passion for your supremacy for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ; 5) may Noël and all close to me be given great peace—and all of this through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.” I hope God will lead you to pray in a similar way.

With deep confidence that

 “Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our

Lord Jesus Christ."

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

Pastor John 

With Sam Crabtree, Lead Pastor for Life Training

Kenny Stokes, Lead Pastor for Spreading

Tim Johnson, Chairman of the Council of Elders

Ross Anderson, MD, Bethlehem Elder