A New Direction

John Piper has said:

"Read Religious Affections, at all costs read Religious Affections! And anything else you can get your hands on by this great saint."

So I'd like to pass along a few things.

The first is a Christianity Today article entitled Young, Restless, Reformed.

The second is a link to the Jonathan Edwards Is My Homeboy T-shirt on the cover of CT and seen here.

The third is to a free online library of all of Edwards' works.

Enjoy,
Lane

PS Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?

I know some of you have asked the question, "Why hasn't Lane gone off to seminary yet?  He's talked about it for so long..."  I'd like to address that issue, which is actually a bigger issue than me making a decision about the future.  Here's an overview given by Reformed Theological Seminary professor John M. Frame that resonates strongly with my mind and heart.

I. The Situation

In the early days of American Protestantism, the training of ministerial candidates was carried on by pastors of churches. A young man feeling a call of God to the ministry would associate himself with a church pastor, receive training from him, participate in the work of the parish, perhaps even live in the pastor's home. I'm not sure why, but eventually this system was felt to be inadequate. Perhaps there developed a shortage of ministers able and willing to take in theological students; perhaps as the literacy rate increased congregations demanded clergy with more formal education--a "learned ministry," as they used to say. At any rate, for some reason or other, theological training was institutionalized, and at the same time academicized. The use of the academic model was almost inevitable. In Germany, theological education was carried on through the universities, and in fact the university-approach was the only generally recognized model available for institutionalized training in any field...

III.  The Proposal

I propose first that we dump the academic model once and for all - degrees, accreditation, tenure, the works. This is not to say that classroom-type instruction is of no value in ministerial training; on the contrary, it is probably indispensable in some areas, e.g. biblical languages. Nor would I allege that the system of grades, hours and degrees measures nothing of importance to theological education. Obviously, other things being equal, a man with good grades in church history will be a better minister than one who failed the course.  The trouble is, however, that "other things" are never equal, and those "other things" are the crucial things to be measured in a man's preparation for the teaching office. The academic machinery is simply incapable of measuring the things that really matter - a man's obedience to God's Word, his perseverance in prayer, his self control, his ability to rule without pride, the spiritual power of his preaching in the conversion of men and the edification of the church.  When a seminary puts its major effort into such things as recruiting Ph.D.'s for its faculty, maintaining "respectable" degree programs (presumably in comparison with Harvard or Yale), determining the number of "semester hours" to be required of students, it is diverting its attention from its proper purpose.  More important, such seminaries convey a false impression (to the churches, and to their students and to themselves!) as to how the "knowledge of God" is attained. A man does not become qualified for the ministry simply by writing a number of good papers and memorizing enough material to pass all his exams.  To give the impression that he does, as the theological "academies" do, is to encourage a false pride in learning a knowledge that "puffs up," (I Cor. 8: 1), a gnosticism that in the past has led the church far from the truth of God's Word...

My hope in sharing this is that some of you might also see the points made and their critical importance.  Who will be shepherding you?  What I would also like to share is that this "Proposal for a New Seminary" by John M. Frame was written in 1972 and was denied publication six times before it found its place in the winter edition of the Journal of Pastoral Practice in 1978.  It's been almost three and a half decades since the recognition of these major deficiencies of seminary training for ministry.  While seminaries have tried to offset these utter deficiencies, the importance of knowledge, degrees, and accredidation has only soared in our culture, and sadly the Church.

My ministry training will greatly impact all that I do and therefore, it is of utmost importance that I get the best that I can.  It is certainly a big decision and I'm still wrestling through it.  Please pray for me as I choose how the Sovereign LORD will use others to teach me His ways.

He is the Potter,
Lane

I know what you're thinking... Lane has somehow fallen trap to that ABC drama Lost.  Maybe you know it because you have too.  Or maybe you've talked to me in the past few months... or spent hours upon end this summer with me drowning in the DVD's.  Either way, it's true.  I'm addicted to Lost.  But I'll be getting better as Losties Anonymous starts up for Season 3.   Yeah right.

But this weekend it got bad, real bad.  I pretty much spent most of my time watching all the available video clips and pouring over the endless floods of information on this wonder called the Internet.  I love mystery, but I need to figure out what in the world is the driving force behind this show.  So I'm almost at the end of this part of my quest as the weekend comes to a close... but then it hit me.  Not like a ton of bricks, but enough to get my attention and share on this blog.  I'm addicted to this show because as much as the people on the island are lost, so am I.  I can't make much sense of the world I'm living in.  I used to think I had such a grasp on life, what God was doing, who He was, what He would and wouldn't do, etc.  So I'm using all my time and energy and focus to figure out what in the world is going on in this show because I can't make sense of my own world.  I figure I might as well try to figure out someone elses'...  I've given up on mine.  But I guess that's where I need to start - giving up on making sense of it all and following the One who calls me to walk by faith.  Surely it's not blind faith we're called to.  It's the God "who works all things after the counsel of His will".

In all things,
Lane

A 2 inch bushing.  That's all I found on the road after the loud crunch I heard while taking a turn in the Camaro.  I only had a little further to go so after I arrived at my destination I took a better look.  In the dark garage I couldn't see anything wrong and I was on a tight schedule.  After a long weekend away, I gave it a quick test drive and the handling was a little funky, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Fast forward a couple of weeks and the tire opposite the crunch side made a rubbing noise like something was against it.  I pulled it in the garage to change the oil and checked out the rubbing noise.  After taking the tire off I noticed a bushing connected to the stabilizer... hmmm.  So I took off the other tire and to my surprise it was just gone... there was nothing connecting the stabilizer bar to the A-arm.  Scary.  And this was after doing some "cruising" home late one night down I80/I94.  This could have been an easy crash and burn to say the least... one heck of a wreck if you will.  All that to say God is very gracious to us, even when things are broken. 

We are too,
Lane

Yes, it's been a while since I've put anything up, and I wish it were different.  I can't say much now, but I hope to get back to posting when work slows down some. 

Until then,
Lane