Uganda/Kenya 2008
As many of you know, I have had the opportunity to serve the Lord in several recent summers by training local pastors in Uganda and Kenya for Church Planting International. Click “Missions” to read about those ventures (with pictures). Serving the Lord alongside my African brethren has been a great privilege.
This year I have been invited to teach a modular course in theology to 30 pastors working on their certificate with Christian Life Teachings International, July 14-25. CLTI is a local indigenous training ministry founded by a man who was my student on one of the early trips. The course will take place in Mbale, Uganda. My topic will be the theology of the Holy Spirit, a very crucial doctrine in an area ravaged by “Health and Wealth” teaching and other less than biblical emphases in this area. We will use my book The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit as our text. While I am with these men I will also preach in as many of their churches as I can, so they can hopefully see me using the very things I am teaching them.
These pastors are usually men with only a high school education, for whom the cost of formal training at a local Bible College is prohibitive. Their rural parishioners may “tithe” by bringing a sweet potato or a cassava root or an ear of maize, since they are subsistence farmers. The pastors aren’t going to starve, but they have no way of raising cash to pay for Bible College or seminary. I therefore try to take a little Bible College to them. They have good hearts and love the Lord, but are understandably weak in such critical areas as hermeneutics, methods of sermon preparation, and theology. What I am able to give them in our concentrated time together has made a huge difference, for they are eager to learn and to “put their training on the ground,” as they like to say.
In order to fulfill this assignment I will have to raise at least $3,000.00 to pay for updating my shots, plane fare, transportation within the country, etc. Many of you have generously helped with these missions in the past. If the Lord should lead you to participate this year, I can promise that you will be part of a team whose ministry will bear fruit in the churches of Eastern Uganda for years to come. Whether you can help with a gift or not, your prayers are critical to any success the ministry can hope to have.
To receive a receipt for tax purposes, please make out your checks to Church Planting International. You can send them to me at P. O. Box # 800807, Toccoa Falls, GA. 30598.
Current Sermons: The Gospel of Luke
The Appearance to the Marys
For the last several sermons we have been studying in detail the darkest, most shameful, and most sorrowful hour of human history. But it was also the hour when the victory was won, the backs of Satan, Sin, and Death were broken, and redemption was purchased. This was already true, though it was not yet evident. But God was about to change that with the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. This great event was first announced to the Women, who are therefore called by Augustine “the first preachers of the resurrection.” Let us listen to what they have to say, as they first report their experience of the resurrection and show its effects in their lives.
Click Luke 24:1-12 for full sermon.
All sermons on the Gospel of Luke.
The Man Who Came To Dinner
The account of the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus has always been one of my favorite Easter stories because of the fascinating questions it raises. Who was the second disciple? Why couldn’t they recognize Jesus at first? I do not know the answer to the first question, but I think I can venture a good guess: Mrs. Cleopas. And as for the second question, I think I can also shed some light on it later on. But I love this passage even more for the important lessons it teaches us about the meaning of Easter. The reality of the resurrection is conveyed to us by the reportage of the resurrection, which tell us the reason for the resurrection and the relevance of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is risen! Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is real. And Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by him.
Click Luke 24:13-35 for full sermon.
All sermons on the Gospel of Luke.
Reviews
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
It was disappointing that the movie version of C. S. Lewis's second chronicle of Narnia, Prince Caspian, did not stick as close to the story as that of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There may not have been more scenes made up out of whole cloth and gratuitously inserted, but the ones which were had a greater impact on plot and theme. A pointless fight involving Peter in the train station and a whole extra battle, the futile attack on Miraz's castle, were not just there for love of spectacle. They flow from subtle alterations to Peter's character that have not so subtle effects on the story's meaning.
Read the full review.
Comment
As I look at the current scene, I see a church in desperate need of three great movements of God:
Renaissance:
A recovery of the life of the mind. An increasingly illiterate generation is harder to reach with a faith founded on the message of a Book; an increasingly illiterate church is incapable of experiencing full-orbed Christianity based on the whole counsel of God;
Reformation:
A recovery of sound doctrine. Otherwise, we gorge ourselves on spiritual junk food while the great truths of the faith slip through our fingers;
Revival:
A recovery of vital spirituality. The great error of our generation is to believe that this recovery is possible apart from the first two. Biblically and historically it is not. Without Renaissance and Reformation, all our zeal for Revival is vanity and striving after wind.
On February 2, 2002, I delivered 5 Theses on Ministry at University Church in Athens, GA. This sermon is a revision of my "Final Tirade and Last Diatribe at Trinity Fellowship of Toccoa." It is available here as a Microsoft Word document: 5 Theses on Ministry.