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Thanking God for the Life of Roger Nicole
I am grateful for Pastor Tchividjian’s blog entry letting me know that Roger Nicole died last night. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Dr. Nicole’s article on polemic theology is the non-CCEF article to which I have referred the most people. What a great man he was. A true churchman. In celebration of his life and his Lord, here is Dr. Nicole’s inimitable article yet again. Rejoicing with that he is resting in true peace now, but praying for his family in their loss: Polemic Theology: How to Deal with Those Who Differ From Us
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Church Conflict Makes Us “Stupid”
I’m not a big fan of the use of the word “stupid,” so I assume this paragraph will be substantially edited between now and June 1. But it does kind of make me smile a little. The rawness of it is a great example of the conference calls Cap’n Dave and I have been having this year on “Redeeming Church Conflicts”: “Even wise and seasoned Christians often jettison their theology when conflicts come because church conflict has a propensity to freeze us all, just like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Even solid theology flies right out the window during church conflicts. Christians get locked in personal offenses, lose their…
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When the Harvest of Our Lives Contradicts the Faith That is Supposed to Be Its Source …
Man o man! I’m supposed to be cutting words from our 90,000 first draft to get it closer to the 75,000 word requirement in our contract with Baker … but as of 9:13PM today, I’ve somehow moved us up to 112,869 words (!). Must be all of this great research I keep reading in my files and thinking, “Well we HAVE TO include THAT, don’t we?!” (Oh, Tara. You are in TROUBLE.) (BTW—Aren’t you glad you’re not me tonight? I’m happy that the night is still young and I’m feeling a close kinship with my college freshman niece and grad school buddy Kelly V. It sure feels like exam week…
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Starting Point
Dave Edling just sent me an encouraging email as I prepare to head into my last “getaway” writing stretch this coming weekend. (I tuck into a hotel here in town and work uninterruptedly.) My favorite line was a Dennis Johnson quote from his book, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption: “In Scripture the starting point of instruction on right behavior is not a list of our duties, but a declaration of God’s saving achievement, bringing us into a relationship of favor with him.” Oh, how I pray that every line of “Redeeming Church Conflicts” will proclaim that truth.
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Servanthood as Worship
I was psyched when I read a Challies.com note that a book reviewer he trusts gave this book a “must read” evaluation because I just ordered it myself: Servanthood as Worship: The Privilege of Life in a Local Church I am eager to read what this author wrote and I’m thinking about this topic a lot these days as Dave and I reach the end of our Draft 1 of “Redeeming Church Conflict.” (Lots of thoughts about service jostling around in my head these days.) I just can’t tell you how much it has helped my heart (and influenced how I talk about such things with Sophia) when people I…
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Free Video & Audio of D.A. Carson’s “The God Who is There”
Just saw on a number of blogs that D.A. Carson’s fourteen-part series at Bethlehem Baptist Church is now available for free online: The God Who is There I definitely want to work through it one of these days …
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Our Road
BTW—I’ve heard from more than one friend just how hard it is to believe that the largest city in Montana REALLY doesn’t plow snow off of 90% the roads … but it’s true. To their credit, they did plow the main streets around day three of impassable snow and that’s been great. But here is what our street has looked like for ten days now (this is right at the end of our driveway): Obviously, our Honda Civic hasn’t left our garage since all of this snow began …
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Every Day of the Rest of Your Life Will Not Feel Like This
Today I have been praying in a particularly focused way for specific people in my life who are suffering. I won’t say more about their various situations because their stories are not mine to tell. But I said something to one of my most beloved friends today that SHE had actually said to me (repeatedly) when I was going through my dark, soul-wrenching, felt hopeless season of suffering many years ago: “Every day of the rest of your life will not feel like this. It won’t. I know you can’t feel that right now. That’s OK. But I know it’s true, so I’m going to keep telling you it until…
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Michael Hyatt’s Blog
Whenever someone asks me how to be a published author, I always send them to Michael Hyatt’s “Advice to First Time Authors” and encourage them to read his ebook, Writing a Winning Book Proposal, if they are serious about trying to “break in” with an agent or publisher. (For my most recent proposal, which was immediately picked up by Baker Books, I followed his suggestions line-by-line.) But in addition to writing and publishing, his blog has a wealth of information on leadership, productivity, technology, marketing (and more). Plus, it is the most professional, engaging, easy-to-navigate website I’ve ever visited. So I encourage you to get to know his blog, even…
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One of the biggest mistakes people make in church conflict …
‘Churches usually don’t do well solving their conflicts because they don’t have a high view of Scripture. When you don’t view Scripture as a fixed standard that is both paradigmatic and normative, then you don’t trust the Word of God. One of the biggest mistakes people make in church conflict is failing to trust Scripture.’ Dave Edling (as quoted in our two-hour call today working on our book, ‘Redeeming Church Conflicts’)
