Saw that. Good, although the false account of what happened with prevail among most in academia. Love,
Having been a resident of both China and Netherlands, the author answers the question, “Which is better?”
Read and feed your mind and life Degrees of wealth - Jaap Grolleman
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Evangel’s stated clerk, Pastor Alex McNeilly, reminds us of our Evangel/New Geneva Academy conference which is fast approaching: “let your people know that the conference and presbytery meeting are happening… Especially think about young men and potential officers whom you want to see grow into faithful churchmen.”
If you’re able, come. Hope to see you there!
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I haven’t been to the Netherlands since 2000, but I have relatives that have visited America since then, and the biggest surprises for them (other than the country’s size) are many of the things in this article.
Especially the ubiquitous advanced technology and prevalence of eating out
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“When the righteous become great, the people rejoice,
But when a wicked man rules, people groan” (Proverbs 29:2).
So we the people rejoice at this news:
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Why we’re already dead in the water… Ordinary WiFi can now identify people with near perfect accuracy | ScienceDaily
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I’m somewhat ambivalent about privacy nuts since God sees all. If there’s no place to hide from Him—if He sees us always and everywhere—maybe it’s good for us to realize there’s no place to hide from one another. Thing is, though, God is perfection in justice and totalitarians and libertarians alike are equally fallen. From Adam on.
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“If you do not use enough force soon enough, you will have to use too much force later on.” This maxim holds not just for law enforcement officers but for any man who wields authority and bears responsibility for others: pastors, church officers, husbands, and fathers, to name a few. We are all averse to conflict and feel as if we’ve entered a tunnel of chaos when it arises. Preparing for conflict will allow you to show up for it without letting a festering problem require “lethal force.” Postponing engagement at the initial signs of conflict or engaging a serious situation weakly at the outset will likely make the situation worse, leading to physical and spiritual fatalities.
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The episode ends with The Song of Simeon, written by Pastor Phillip Moyer and recorded by the Good Shepherd Band. For more music from the Good Shepherd Band and My Soul Among Lions (all stocked with faithful musicians from Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, IN) visit the following websites…
No one wants to enroll in a seminary that can’t place their graduates in a church, but search committees want to hire safe and innocuous men.
What are seminaries to do?
The prevailing solution seminaries have adopted is to train their students to avoid conflict. Seminaries’ true curriculum isn’t Old Testament, theology, or preaching. Those are the titles they give their classes, but underlying those names is this fundamental curriculum: “If there’s ever conflict in your church, you’ve failed."
When seminaries view search committees and elders boards as their customers and train their students to be safe men, God has been left behind. Neither seminary profs nor the admins who hire them are seeking His approval, and thus the souls under the care of the pastors they’ve trained are harrassed and helpless. Sheep without shepherds.
Safe men preach grace and faith, but not sin and repentance. They’re great at weddings and funerals, at teaching and pulpiteering, but they have a mortal dread of pastoral care. So they offload their needy sheep to counselors.
There are many possible morals to this story, but one is clear: never send the sons of your church to a parachurch institution run by PhDs for training to be a shepherd. The local church and her officers must reclaim the training of pastors.
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