Jesus Fame

Hey all I just wanted to pass along a few links to you and catch you up on some things I plan to write.

Mark Driscoll’s short book on porn – This is very well written and to the point. I encourage every man, especially young men, to read this.

Art Azurdia’s “How to Study Your Bible” class at our church – The audio from all four sessions and a pdf of his notes are available there.

Spurgeon Fellowship Journal - Helpful articles for pastors and preachers.

I plan to write the second part of the Women in Ministry post early this week.

I also hope to write some of my thoughts about some recent events within Calvary Chapel including a new CCOF website.

While we were at Andrea’s parents house the other night I picked up this book off the coffee table. My father in law informed me that it was very good and that it was given to him by my brother in law after his church’s  leadership went through it together.

It’s a very unique book both in style and content. I have read about half the book and I’m pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t expecting much based on the title, some of the quote sources (Dog the Bounty Hunter for example) and the odd format in which it’s written.

The theme of the book is integrity. The authors believe that good character and lasting integrity is the result of complete honesty with someone(s) you can trust. They postulate that when we keep struggles to ourselves we empower those sinful proclivities, enslaving ourselves even further. I couldn’t agree more with this theory and hope to implement some of their ideas into our leadership and church.

What I like about this book is that they concede the fact that accountability is only as good as the people involved. It doesn’t do any good if I’m just honest after the fact. Accountability is supposed to keep me from doing stupid stuff…the only way this is going to happen is if I’m honest with the little things that lead to the big life altering failures.

My only criticism so far is the lack of Scripture. While I believe the principles they are purporting are biblical I’m curious why they chose to quote Duane “Dog” Chapman and not God Himself.
Unfortunately this is becoming more and more prevalent amongst those who claim to be teachers of the Word.

(This picture may be a little old…kind of like Realtor’s pictures on their business cards)

Michael Newnham of the Phoenix Preacher recently interviewed Tom Stipe, a Calvary Chapel Pastor with whom I deeply respect. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Tom at the NWPC and what a privilege that was. Tom is intelligent, funny, and humble. Three things that pastors typically aren’t…wait I’m a pastor

Tom is a great man and a voice that I wish more men in our movement would tune in to.

You can read the interview on the PP here…or I’ve included it below as well.

Continue reading

Christianity is not very complicated.

Christians like to make it complicated but it’s really rather simple. For centuries those that claim to follow the Carpenter from Galilee have taken the simple truths of our faith and muddied them up. In light of this convolution the Church is now fractured into a myriad of groups that are divided by such minutiae as which version of the Bible to use.

I wonder what would happen if the Church in America was persecuted like the Church in the book of Acts. What if we had to gather in dark underground cellars crowded around one Bible. I don’t think Christians in Red China are too worried about what version of the Bible their underground Church uses. I’m pretty sure that Peter and the boys were not too concerned with Church politics while Nero was chasing them down and torturing them. Continue reading

I’m reading the book A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards.

Wow!

Can you say busted…this book is amazing and I recommend it to you all. The theme of the book is brokenness. It’s the story of Saul, David, and Absalom.

Here is an excerpt… Continue reading