I attended this conference earlier this year. It was the Resurgence: Our Fathers, Our Future conference in Orlando Fl. At this conference I was challenged by a lot fo things and was exposed to Tullian Tchividjian for the first time. I also had the privilege to hear R.C. Sproul preach, one of my heros of faith.

So I thought that I would attached two lectures by Mark Driscoll that I thought were very valuable. I don't agree with everything he states here, but I definitely think that there is a lot of value in much of what he says.

Part 1


Part 2

Rick Warren and John Piper Interview

So several years ago a very nice woman in our church gave me a copy of A Purpose Driven Life and encouraged me to read it. She had said that it was life changing. At the time I was really starting to be attracted to "the deeper things" of faith. I was also reading a lot of stuff from the theologians of the time that looked down on Rick Warren and the "mega church" movement. So I graciously accepted the book and then let it sit on my shelf never really cracking the cover. Perhaps it was arrogance that I was beyond anything that a mega church pastor could tell me in his book. Last week I came across a tweet that had a link to an interview between Rick Warren and John Piper. I was intrigued. I had heard of the controversy over Piper inviting Warren to speak at the Desiring God conference and I have HUGE respect for Piper, so I thought I would watch. I have to say that my opinion of Rick Warren was ill informed. In this interview he displays a deepness that I hadn't thought he had. Piper did a great job in the conversation and I think the 1 1/2 hours you would devote to watching (or listening) to this will be well worth it. I may now have to go back and take that book off my shelf and read it.

Watch the Video here, or listen to the audio here.

A Great Quote From Michael Horton on the Resurgence Site

The below was take from TheResurgence.com blog post. Its a great quote from Dr. Horton.

We asked Dr. Michael Horton to answer a few questions for the Resurgence. One question was,

"What does your Bible time look like?"

Here's his answer:

For me, it looks like a sinful but faithful servant of the Lord (my pastor) absolving me of my sins through proclaiming God’s Word and giving me a good meal (bread and wine), as a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb. In other words, my main Bible time is church every Lord’s Day, morning and evening. Then our family also has devotions: in the morning, my wife leads the kids through catechism and at dinner I’ve been walking them through the Bible, verse by verse, since they were 4. So now we’re in Proverbs! I’ve learned so much along with them just by doing this. My dad was never the leader of our home spiritually, so I’m working against my native instincts. The hardest part is carving out time for my own time with the Triune God. After all, my vocation gives me the privilege of being immersed in Scripture nearly every day! Yet that’s not the same as prayerful meditation—communicating with the Lord. And we all know how good we men are at “communicating.” Pray for me.

Letters From Ohio

I haven't blogged in a while and for those of you who continually bug me about it, I am sorry. I hit a point since moving to Ohio where I was pretty depressed and unmotivated. I think it was a lot of things...being homesick, the financial stress of paying a mortgage back in DE and my living costs here in Ohio. I spoke to a friend on the phone a few weeks ago and he told me that the 6 month mark is just about right on schedule for people who move to new areas deal with a little depression. Well, I guess I am typical.


Thanks to those of you who have been praying for me, it helped a lot. The last several weeks have been much better. I think I am starting to get into a rhythm out here. I also have some renters coming on for the condo back home. Good news, some of the financial strain is lifting. It’s funny, in many ways when I accepting this position I thought it would be a financial benefit, but then the market didn't help. God is obviously teaching me to trust Him and to make some hard decisions about financial matters.

Great news, I believe that I have found a church. If you’re interested you can check them out here. Now that I have made that decision, I need to get involved. It’s been far too long since I have had any real regular fellowship with the body. The quick visits home I made during the summer were great to get me thru this period, but it is no substitute for regular weekly involvement with God's people. I also made the decision this week to go ahead and join their choir. I need to be serving God in this way. It’s been too long. I am going thru music depravation. To quote Tomlin, "How can I keep from singing your praise".

So that’s the news from Ohio, I promise to do better with this blogging thing. I really want to.

Horton Interview on Christless Christianity

I know I haven't posted in a while. I'm working up to it. In the meantime, check out this interview with Dr. Michael Horton on his latest book Christless Christianity from CBN.

Snakes.......Why Did It Have To Be Snakes??

Last Sunday my quest to find a church home took me to another church in the greater Columbus area. As with the last visit, this church also had a "The Church at....." type of name, but it was sort of the nick name of a local campus of a larger Lutheran church. This church has three campuses and they all seem to be doing very well. The service I attended had two options in two different areas of the building. They had a traditional contemporary service (circa early 90's style) in the main sanctuary, and then they had a more contemporary service in their family life center. I was very impressed with the way they administratively pulled this off. So in short here is my assessment......its a candidate.

The worship band was good, but the service wasn't just about the music. Being Lutheran in denomination it was impressive how they combined the traditions of the lutheran liturgy with new musical styles. They used technology, but it wasn't flashy or in your face. It was a tool. Then the sermon was preached. I was very happy so far.

Now to explain the title of this post. My blog is syndicated to a few other places on the web, and on one of those sites a friend of mine made a joke about the title. He knows that I HATE snakes and he knows that I have a certain disdain for churches where things like snake handling happen. He made this joke on my last post the day before I visited this Lutheran church. How funny when the sermon I received on this visit was preached on Numbers 21:4-9. For those of you who don't have a bible handy....

The Bronze Snake
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, [a] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

I really didn't think back to my friends joke until the pastor threw a picture of Indiana Jones in the snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark up on the screen. I almost laughed out loud. It was awesome. The best part was that the pastor actually presented the gospel. I was so happy. So this church is on my list as a possible place to hang my hat, or at least to visit more frequently. This week I wasn't really feeling well and so I watched my old church online and got a little homesick.

This is the actual picture he used.

Some Churches Just Stink

So this past Sunday I visited another church in the area. It had one of those "The Church at ...." names. Very nice building with a coffee shop setup in the lobby. All the goodies were free, it was comfortable and they focused on making it feel very welcoming. The building is completely decorated to look like it is THE place to be. I entered the worship center (aka sanctuary) and took a seat in the back (see picture below for my view).

When worship started the band was awesome. They reminded me of the Reach band, but more trendy and good looking (sorry guys). For those of you who don't know, the Reach Band is the band that leads worship for our young people back in Delaware. I was in the band and we rocked.......but let me get back to the story.

The worship was great both in talent, participation and song selection. I was getting very excited that this may be the place for me even though I had reservations about what I had seen outside the service. Then the pastor come onto the stage and stunk the joint up. His sermon was awful. I suddenly realized why the pretty girl at the welcome counter hurried me into the sanctuary so I didn't miss the worship time. Her quote was, " worship is the best part of the service". Boy was she right.

The pastor didn't just stroll on the stage area. He came down and roamed around the crowd like a crazy homeless man wandering the streets and hassling people for money. It was like a bad motivational seminar about finances in these troubled times. At the end he made a "gospel" presentation. It consisted of the declaration that God loves us, and that he desires a relationship with us, and that if we want one with him that we just need to do it. That was it. Jesus name was not mentioned, nor the cross, nor our sinfulness, nor our need for a savior. The good news was...get right with God. So, this church was a dud. I will not return.

In other news, I have to say that my friends back home are great. On Monday I arrived home to discover that I had a package. This package contained a photo album that was put together of pictures of them with notes to me. I have to say it made me cry..... I was doing pretty good with homesickness until that point. Now I am really thinking I need to get back home for a visit. I don't know when/if I can make it happen, but I may be back in Delaware before my planned visit in May. Maybe this is their twisted plan to get me to move back home. Pretty clever.