Category Archive

Thabiti Anyabwile introduces his readers to the traditional African-American style of preaching known as whoopin’. This was really enjoyable to read and watch.

At the Miami Pastors’ Conference, one of the best things to experience is the genuine Christian fellowship and laughter. I laugh there and in Chicago at the New Life conference more than any place on earth. That’s ’cause the bruthas are silly.

This past conference, Ken Jones, Michael Leach, and Anthony Carter grilled a young man about why he feels compelled to whoop. Now whoopin’ is a staple of traditional African-American preaching. If you can’t ‘hoop, you can’t preach. And don’t let Leach fool ya; he’s a ‘hooper :-). Anyway, if you’ve never seen a preacher ‘hoop, it’s better to illustrate than describe. Here’s a video for the uninitiated.

Now what’s new to me in this video is the lady in the corner doing sign language for the hearing impaired. Ever seen a ‘hoop signed??? She’s smooth with it. Check her out as the preacher gets rolling!

This approach may not be directly transferable to our day and context, but I think more men would do well to have Whitefield’s chutzpah:

He [Whitefield] had complete confidence in the authority of his message, and was determined that it should receive the respect it deserved as God’s Word. Once in a New Jersey meeting-house he “noticed an old man settling down for his accustomed, sermon-time nap”, writes John Pollock, one of his biographers. Whitefield began his sermon quietly, without disturbing the gentleman’s slumbers. But then “in measured, deliberate words” he said:

“If I had come to speak to you in my own name, you might rest your elbows upon your knees and your heads on your hands, and go to sleep!…But I have come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, and (he clapped his hands and stamped his foot) I must and I will be heard.” The old man woke up startled.

(John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 32-33)

C.J. Mahaney offers a penetrating analysis of Mark Dever’s second-story home office.

But after that, he includes an excerpt of an interview he did with Mark back on June 6, 2007. The excerpt focuses mainly on the value of a pastor choosing a flock and growing old with it:

C.J. Mahaney: Do you plan on staying at Capitol Hill Baptist Church?

Mark Dever: Lord willing.

CJM: Lord willing what?

MD: The rest of my life.

CJM: As a member of the pulpit committee, Matt Schmucker remembers a particular statement you made in that regard. You said to Connie, “The next place we go, we’re buying…

MD: …cemetery plots.” Because we had been moving around and wherever we lived my heart got entangled with the people. I just hated moving and it was just horrendous for me. I had been studying the Puritans and realized that the basic model was to just stay someplace—like a marriage to a congregation. It is not exactly the same, it is not sin to leave it necessarily, but you don’t assume churches are a career ladder you are climbing. You are at one church for two years to work on some skills and when you run out of your bag of tricks you move to another church for three years, they hear all six of your sermons and then you move someplace else. No, I would like to know their children and their grandchildren. So I made clear when we were talking to the pulpit search committee that if I came I was intending, Lord willing, to stay. I had no further plans and actually planned to have no further plans.…

I remember, during a Wednesday night church potluck very early during my time here, I got my food and sat down. An older woman (probably in her mid-70s, late 70s at the time) who had been at the church for decades gets her meal and sits down right next to me. She looks at me and says, “I don’t like young preachers.”

CJM: And you are probably 33 years old?

MD: Thirty-two or 33. And I just looked at her. I said, “Really?” She said, “Yep. Of course I’ll make an exception in your case.”

CJM: Did you ask for an explanation why?

MD: I just started eating my food and then I said, “I guess you expect to outlast him at the church, don’t you?” She said, “Yep. Always have.”

And then I took some more food and then said, “Well, I think you may have met your match.”

CJM: Oh, outstanding.…Thank you for the compelling example you provide of a commitment to this church, and provoking other pastors to follow that similar attitude and approach. You introduced me to the description of Puritan pastors, that they were “looking for a place to settle.”

MD: A great example of that is when John Cotton, I think it was when John Cotton died, their church needed a pastor and began negotiating with the First Congregational Church up in Ipswich. Both churches entered a season of prayer for their pastor, John Norton, coming down to Boston. So it was not at all a kind of cloak-and-dagger secret committee goes and attends, tries to scout out the talent, and then steals them away. It’s two families, two congregations, praying about where would this brother be best used—which is a great way to approach it.

CJM: What are the unique joys of pastoring?

MD: Well, for me, that would include that specific decision to stay here. It was a great opportunity to destroy the “god of options,” which I think young men and women who are successful in our culture tend to be addicted to.

I watch young people in this church when they are 25 and they don’t want to do anything that closes any options. At 27, 31, 33, the same thing. At some point life begins forcing itself on you and you have a wife and kids and some options just close. But I think the young folks in our culture who are doing OK by the world’s standards are enslaved to worshiping at the altar of this god of options.

So by saying I wasn’t interested in going anyplace else, I meant to send out a wide signal to say, “Please don’t tempt me by asking me about other options, because this is going to be slow, hard work and it’s worthy of a life.”

Terry Virgo pays a tribute to Mark Driscoll today following his deliveries at the recent Together on a Mission conference in Brighton, UK. Here is an excerpt:

Well, he came and he’s gone – but we certainly know he was here!

Mark Driscoll packs a punch.

What did I especially appreciate about him?

His straightforwardness. Nothing hidden and no hiding, so, like the Apostle Paul, his forthrightness commended himself to our consciences. Because of his transparency it’s not difficult to feel that you know him personally, though you may have been lost in the vast crowd and never had the privilege of any one-to-one time.

He loves the truth and he loves Jesus and wants to make him known to 21st century people.

Pettiness and small-mindedness don’t stand a chance when he cuts loose with his burning desire to see Christ glorified in our generation. His radical priorities and decision-making are deeply rooted in a passion to confront our contemporaries with gospel truth.

Mike Anderson from the Resurgence blog highlights Matt Chandler today, providing links to conference video and interviews. According to Mike, “You need to know Matt Chandler.”

Chandler is the pastor of The Village Church in Dallas, TX.

Here’s some background info on Chandler from Mike’s post:

“Before becoming a pastor, Matt was running a non-profit. One of his big donors asked him to interview for a head pastor position at a dying Baptist church. Matt had zero desire to accept the job—but even when he preached election, elder-lead government, and God’s Sovereignty to an old school baptist congregation—they still hired him! God has used Matt in incredible ways. The small church has grown to over 3,000 people in a few short years, planted several churches, and sends out swarms of missionaries.”

So claims Russell Moore in an insightful article titled “Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Why We Must Preach Christ from Every Text.”

Here’s his explanation:

“…the Veggie Tales episodes we’ve all seen are bloodless. They take biblical stories, and biblical characters, but they mine the narrative for abstractions–timeless moral truths that can help children to be kinder, gentler, and more honest. There’s almost nothing in any episode that isn’t true. But what’s missing is Jesus.”

He then explains that, since all of the promises of God find their Yes in him (2 Cor. 1:20), we must understand and teach all of Scripture as being ultimately about Jesus. He writes:

“Why is this so important? Why can’t I simply say true things from the Scripture without showing how it fits together in Christ? It is because, apart from Christ, there are no promises of God. In the temptations, Satan quotes Scripture to Jesus, and doesn’t misquote the promises. God wants to children to eat bread, not to starve before stones. God will protect His anointed One with the angels of heaven. God will give His Messiah all the kingdoms of the earth. All this is true. What is satanic about all of this, though, is that Satan wanted our Lord to grasp these things apart from the Cross and the empty tomb. These promises could not be abstracted from the Gospel.”

If you have time, I’d encourage you to read the whole thing. It is very well-written and soul-strengthening.

During my lifetime, I’ve probably listened to over a thousand Sunday sermons. Out of those, I can recall a fraction in fuzzy detail. This makes me think that I’m either a horrendous steward of information (which I probably am) or there is something more important in hearing a sermon than being able to recite every bulleted point ten years down the pike.

I prefer the second option.

What is most important about a sermon is the immediate effect that it has on me while I am listening. Does it make me see Jesus? This is how I change: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whether or not I can recall its content at a later time is secondary.

Jonathan Edwards said this very thing: “The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered” (quoted in Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden, pg. 282).