Tim Keller

Tim Keller: Urban Plant Life

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080208_so0xkeller_vl-verticalThanks to emailer Colin Millar of Belfast, Northern Ireland, you have three new talks by Timothy Keller.  Keller spoke at a church planting conference called Urban Plant Life in late November. 

1. Contextual Mission
2. Church and Culture
3. Gospel Renewal

The original links to the conference talks are at the London City Mission site.  You can stream the messages there rather than downloading if you like, but that's like going to P.F. Chang's once without ever returning.  It's just stupid.  Enjoy!

By the way, the beginning of the first talk Keller talks about what "missional" is, what a "missional church" looks like. The whole talk is in that direction, but the start was particularly interesting.

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

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Comejesus

Crossway has put out a wonderful, small book for Advent called Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas . It contains 22 4-8 page readings from sermons and works of dead folks (like Martin Luther, J.C. Ryle, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and more) and living folks (like Tim Keller, J.I. Packer, R.C. Sproul, Joni Eareckson Tada, John Piper, and others). Pick it up.

Here's an excerpt from Tim Keller's chapter, "The Gift of Christmas"...

When September 11th happened and New Yorkers started to suffer, you heard two voices. You heard the conventional moralistic voices saying, "When I see you suffer, it tells me about a judging God. You must not be living right, and so God is judging you." When they see suffering they see a judgmental God.

The secular voice said, "When I see people suffering, I see God is missing." When they see suffering they see an absent, indifferent God.

But when we see Jesus Christ dying on the cross through an act of violence and injustice, what kind of God do we see then? A condemning God? No, we see a God of love paying for sin. Do we see a missing God? Absolutely not! We see a God who is not remote but involved.

We sometimes wonder why God doesn't just end suffering. But we know that whatever the reason, it isn't one of indifference or remoteness. God so hates suffering and evil that he was willing to come into it and become enmeshed in it.

Attracting the Irreligious

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Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

Tim Keller in The Prodigal God, 14-15.

Lots-o-Links 8.26.08

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Tim Keller in byFaith Magazine: The Case for Commissioning (Not Ordaining) Deaconesses (via)

Trevin Wax: Bedtime Prayers With Our Children

Here's why my SBC Greensboro photo with Joe is legit: The History and Nature of Man Friendships

Kent Shaffer: Top 10 pet peeves about worship leaders

9 year old can't play baseball because he's too good

Are you following Josh Harris as he puts up preaching notes of notable preachers?  Dever.  Mahaney.  Pretty cool.  Looks like some coming from Keller soon. 

Brad Lomenick from Catalyst: Turning Ideas into Reality

The Blazing Center: 7 Tough Questions to Ask Your Friends (via)

Molly has just started reading Practical Theology for Women by Wendy Alsup.  Interview with Wendy.

Lots-o-Links 7.9.08

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Joe Thorn and I have an announcement coming on Friday.  Stay tuned.

Justin Childers has some great questions from John Bunyan.  Do these characterize your life?

If you haven't found it yet, Re:Lit (Resurgence Literature) has a new site.

In sports news, I'm enjoying following the Tour de France, though it doesn't come close to the Lance years.  And good news for the Cubs comes in a trade for two pitchers.

I remember years ago hearing Mark Dever talk about the book The Gospel Blimp by Joseph Bayly, a book on how to do and not to do evangelism.  The author's sons have put up the comic book version for your enjoyment.  Well worth checking out.

Andy Davis talks "Dangers in Reforming a Church."  Thoughtful.

How can you encourage expressiveness in worship?  Some thoughts from Bob Kauflin.

Jonathan Dodson: Help on leading an organic church and Driscoll on movements.

Chuck Lawless on evangelistic goal setting.

Jeremy Pryor: 3 powerful tools for discipleship.

Craig Groeschel: 10 lessons on developing people.

Matt Chandler audio: Creating pathways for spiritual formation.

Quite coddling your kids.  Please!  And don't miss the excellent TED video in the article.

Tony Morgan: 9 do's and don'ts for ministry growth.

Prepare for Keller's book The Prodigal God by listening to his sermon The Prodigal Sons.

Keller, Hell and The Prodigal God

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080208_SO0Xkeller_vl-verticalSome who read The Reason for God found Keller a bit light on the issue of "hell."  Keller's article, "The Importance of Hell" may just alleviate those concerns. (via)

Alex Chediak interviews Keller on The Prodigal God, Keller's new book out in October.  Pre-order it here.  While I can't wait to read it (*cough*...someone send me a...*cough*...preview copy...*cough*), I hope summer doesn't push past us too quickly just for the sake of reading a book. 

Lots-o-Links 5.21.08

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Lots-o-Links 3.27.08

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Saw Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! with the fam today.  Enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Worth watching and discussing.  Jonathan Dodson weighs in.

Joe Thorn expands on "The Table, the Pulpit, and the Square."  Joe also summarizes Dever on evangelism.

Tom Schreiner, my NT prof from my SBTS days, has been interviewed.  Among other issues, he speaks about his new New Testament Theology.  It will have a prominent place on my shelf.

Monergism interviews Tim Keller.  Keller's next book is listed on Amazon: The Prodigal God.

Scott Hodge shares a bit he is learning from Made to Stick.

After reading an interview with Michael Perry in the April issue of The Writer, I'm intrigued. 

NT Wright says "Heaven is Not Our Home."

Exagorazo is talking about missional communities: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.