tohuvabohu

We found out yesterday via ultrasound that Maggie and Calvin are having a little sister in October. Of course we’re excited about having another girl in the house, though I can’t claim to share Mo’s enthusiasm regarding its effect on cloth diaper coloring.

The Everett Herald featured a great article today about Grant Weinberg as a walking miracle. (The write-up ran on the front page of the printed version). We started following this story the day it happened and praise God again for His goodness.

While pounding out seven miles on my treadmill yesterday I listened to C.J. Mahaney’s message from the recent T4G conference, Sustaining a Pastor’s Soul. It was the least dramatic message I’ve listened to by Mahaney (albeit out of only a dozen or so from Resolved, Shepherds’ Conference, and various mp3 downloads) but it had/is having appreciable effect on me. The central point of his message was that God is best served by glad pastors.

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I’m tweaking some three year old Ecclesiastes sermons. What follows is an illustration that needs cut from it’s current position, but seems worthy of a home somewhere. So where to put it? The void is perfect. Searching for satisfaction under the sun is like being thirsty and: picking up an empty glass and trying to drink from it. picking up a glass full of water and then realizing it was only a dream.

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In case my last post left you feeling a little down, let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Now is perhaps the best time ever to be a Christian college student, especially if you’re in Lynchburg, VA because Chuck Norris is your graduation speaker.

I love Dr. John MacArthur. Much of my spiritual and pastoral growth can be attributed directly to him as the human instrument. When I packed my Ford Probe and moved to Los Angeles in 1997 for seminary it was because I wanted to be a student fully trained with him as the teacher. There is no one else I would rather listen to preach. And thanks to Phil Johnson and other editors his body of published material is without modern day equal.

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Series | Making Disciples The Practical Discipleship Plan of Attack aims to take in a disciple and produce a discipler. The following chart gives an overview of the whole process. To recap: the discipler instructs his disciple in doctrine, illustrates truth in daily practice, involves the disciple in the work of the ministry, helps the disciple improve his effectiveness, and inspires the disciple when he’s discouraged. These five stages of development span the Biblical Discipleship Bulls-eye from evangelism to edification to equipping.

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Series | Making Disciples This is the final stage in the practical discipleship plan of attack. In Stage Five the disciple exits the process as a discipler. The disciple has been taught. He’s watched how it’s done. He’s rolled up his sleeves in the work of the ministry alongside his discipler. He’s received constructive criticism to help him get better. By now the bulk of his training is complete and he’s ready to be on his own.

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Series | Making Disciples There are always more ways for a disciple to grow no matter how well instructed they are or how many examples they’ve observed or even if they’re heavily involved the process. That’s what Stage Four is for. By this point in the process the disciple should be busy reaching out to others. He’s been pushed out of the comfort of the nest and is learning to fly on his own.

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Series | Making Disciples The practical plan of discipleship starts with instruction and includes living illustration. In Stage Three the disciple develops even further toward becoming a discipler. Teaching biblical doctrine and demonstrating how to follow Christ is fundamental to making disciples. But that’s not all we can do. Since we also want our disciple to make disciples of his or her own we must bring them in to the process.

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Series | Making Disciples Making disciples requires instruction, but verbal communication isn’t the end of the process. Now we come to Stage Two. Teaching others the truth is crucial. So is practicing it in front of them. Therefore our second TASK is to illustrate; to put instruction on display. The PURPOSE is exposure to the difficulties and delights of being a disciple. Our Lord left us an example in order for us to follow in His steps.

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Series | Making Disciples Each stage in our practical plan of attack includes the Task, the Purpose, the Role, the Motto, and the Principle (as the table below shows). In Stage One we insert a disciple into the very beginning of the process. To make disciples we start by proclaiming good news, specifically the gospel of Christ as revealed in Scripture. Our first TASK is to instruct and our PURPOSE to educate.

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Two years ago today my dad died. We had less and less in common after I answered the call to pastoral ministry but I still miss talking to him. There were so many things over the last year I wanted to share with him. I think that’s because for all I learned from him and everything I prayed for him, most of all I really liked him. More than a few things have kept him on my mind recently, most of which relate to Calvin.

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I finished reading Lectures to My Students yesterday. The journey took almost two years and included some breathtaking sights. The Void previously published highlights related to the preacher and praying, preaching with clarity, and holding on to the truth. While creating my index inside the back cover I retread precious, providential, faith-focusing ground concerning how God makes His ministers through difficulties. Afflictions make sensitive shepherds. It is of need that we are sometimes in heaviness.

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Series | Making Disciples Making disciples is job #1 for every Christian. So far we’ve identified the three target levels of discipleship: we evangelize unbelievers, we edify all believers, and then we aim to equip believers to make disciples themselves. Those are the goals of discipleship, or where we’re going, but how do we get there? How do we make a disciple? What is the process? Many Christians simply don’t know.

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Here’s a great start to a new series on a gospel vision for the rising generation of young people. From someone who’s in the thick of parenting and pastoring youth: living for the glory of Christ is not on hold until you are eighteen or twenty-one. There is a way for six-year-olds to make much of Christ and a way for ten-year-olds to make much of Christ and a way for sixteen-year-olds to make much of Christ.

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This afternoon at Starbucks the barista compared my outfit to the sun in a bright blue sky. I responded that no one would ever make that comparison with my personality, so I’d take what I could get.

My post on Monday hinted at some travel; boy was there traveling. Sunday afternoon I left Marysville around 2:00 pm, picked up Tim Lugg in in Woodburn, OR, and drove through the night to Santa Clarita. Our mission was to attend Monday morning chapel at The Master’s College where Micah was on tap to kick-off Spurgeon Fest. We conquered the Grapevine in time for a breakfast of champions at Noah’s Bagel’s (cracked potato peppercorn, toasted with spread) and Starbucks (quadruple shot grande Americano with light cream) and slipped into a back row in chapel right after it started.

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Here’s a BRIEFING on one-to-one ministry that compliments much of the Biblical Shepherding Bulls-eye and prepares the way for a Practical Plan of Discipleship. For a taste: Effective one-to-one Christian ministry is not limited to counseling, nor is it essentially about solving personal or emotional problems. What is it then? It is forming a relationship with another individual for the purpose of mutual growth in Christian understanding, obedience and service of others.

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Follow updates of Micah Lugg preaching in chapel at The Master’s College here.

Chuck Weinberg started a new blog to give updates on Grant’s condition and to thank God for His goodness. With his son in the Critical Care Unit hooked to a breathing machine, sitting in the waiting room unsure of what’s next, his first thought for a blog name was How good is God? This wasn’t a question for him of whether or not God is good, but a question of recognizing how good God really is.

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Series | Making Disciples The Great Commission sets our sights high; we are to make disciples of all the nations. The apostle Paul also emphasized the broad scope of his ministry, teaching every man and warning every man in order to present every man complete in Christ. Everyone falls in one of the three circles on our disciple-making bullseye. Either they are spiritually dead and need the gospel, they have been made spiritually alive and need to grow in the gospel, or they have demonstrated faithfulness and are ready to do the work of the gospel.

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Series | Making Disciples Disciple-making ends (and begins again) here. This center circle on the target represents the third step to present every man complete in Christ. Helping others follow Christ advances from Evangelizing to Edifying to Equipping. Spiritual birth and spiritual growth toward Christlikeness mark every disciple. One of the clearest signs of increased spiritual maturity is that the disciple is capable of reproducing, that is, making a disciple of their own.

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Since some reading in The Institutes yesterday afternoon I’ve been mulling over the lessons of misery under the sun, namely, misery teaches us to regard God and put our stock in another world. Even as Christians we tend to skip this required class (for some reason it’s always early in the morning) so it’s no wonder when we flub assignments like seeking things above and hating the world. Calvin points out,

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The fool loves to talk, loves to hear himself speak, loves to share his opinion. Solomon said as much in Ecclesiastes 10:14 (part of a larger paragraph on what comes out of the fool’s mouth which I preached about yesterday). A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him? I hate to love this verse. It’s so accurate, so common, and so upsetting.

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