theology

A Dinosaur at Twenty-four

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A Class this Summer This summer I took a class at Seminary called “Cultural Dynamics in Ministry.” Essentially, it was a cross-cultural missions class. It was a one-week intensive, which means you go 5 days in a row from 8-5 and do all the lectures for the three-credit-hour course in one week. To top it off, we had a first-time visiting professor from Asbury Seminary. He is a fairly well-known Christian Anthropologist (emphasis on the anthropologist part) who has quite a bit of experience in foreign missions. However, he’s very much NOT a theologian, which created conflict in class. He … [Read more]

Your Church Doesn’t Need “A Mission Statement”

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Introduction If you belong to an evangelical church with over 100 members it probably has a “vision statement” or “mission declaration” or something similar. I pulled up the websites of the churches nearest me and quickly found quite a few mission statements. Here’s a small sampling: “Our vision is simple: Knowing Christ. Loving People. Changing Lives.” “[We are] an intergenerational, multicultural body of believers in Christ making disciples who are being transformed through Jesus Christ, making relationships in a life-giving community of sacrificial love, and making an impact on the world by sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with … [Read more]

Review of Let The Nations Be Glad

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The following is a paper I wrote for my World Missions class. The prompt was “Four pages will describe the content of the book, and 4-6 pages will provide an analysis of the book. This analysis should address your opinion of how well the author dealt with the subject. Did he support his points well? What was missing in his arguments? What were the most valuable points in the book?” Please enjoy.  Introduction Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper is, by any standard, a masterful work. Piper’s handling and inclusion of Biblical text and deep thought is commendable, … [Read more]

The Day the Music Died

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“As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”[1] A chilling quote from the letter sent from the Justice Department to all the school districts in the United States. It is the letter that represents a monumental day in my mind: the day the music died. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, “The Obama administration [has issued] a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender … [Read more]

Trinitarian Doctrinal Statement

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The following is a doctrinal statement I did for my ST 102 class: Trinitarianism. The prompt was as follows: “All students will write a doctrinal statement and ministry application paper. This assignment includes two parts. The first section is a descriptive definition of God, which should not exceed one page in length (single-spaced, normal font and margins) with biblical and theological references arranged as endnotes (no length specified here). The definition should state your beliefs about God. The explanation and defense of those beliefs should be in the endnotes, to avoid distracting from the flow of the definition. The second … [Read more]