Adrian Warnock interviews Mark Driscoll – videos here
Mark Driscoll reflects on his time in the UK here and here
My posts on Together on a Mission 2008
My posts on the Dwell London conference
Mark Driscoll’s pastors training track (audio) – Be Radical Plant Radical Churches
Together on a Mission 2008 (audio) – Main Sessions
Off to CYFA camp in Colwyn Bay (sunny North Wales tomorrow) – 10 days of fun, hard work and learning lots about Jesus from John’s Gospel.
Mark Driscoll concluded the Dwell London conference on the subject of Preaching Jesus, and then finished with a short Q&A session. He gave 6 points about preparing to preach:
On the 6th point Driscoll went on to talk a lot about how we can preach Christ from the Old Testament by using; prophecies, Christophonies, types (Adam, Priests, Prophets, Kings), services (tested in a garden, tested in wilderness etc.), events (Passover, Day of Atonement etc.), titles of God.
Mark simply concluded by saying:
“It’s all about Jesus”, “Love Jesus”, “Talk about Jesus lots”
He said, “If it’s about Jesus, it works… and it makes up for a lot!”
He then addressed a Q&A session mainly answering questions about the role of a wife and family life in church planting ministry. He also had time for a quick jab at us Brits, he said two of our biggest weaknesses were our “fake niceness” and our “cowardice” particularly in addressing big questions – like sex. All in all great conference, watch this space for more stuff from the Acts29 and Porterbrook Network partnership…
Here’s a little video produced by UCCF for the final night at NWA. If you want to understand the Bible from beginning to end and only have 3 minutes, this is a good place to go!
This morning I was roused from my bedroom at the unearthly hour of 10am. I was expected the gas man, so I just picked up the phone and buzzed him in. To my surprise I was greeted at the door by two averagely well dressed young men. They said they were from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and asked me if I’d like a leaflet about the Bible… you can guess where this is going.
I said I already knew a fair bit about the Bible and that I was a Christian. I think they might have left it there, but I couldn’t resist asking them why my translation of John 1:1 was so different to theirs… I kept trying to get an answer as to why their translation, the New World Translation, changes the phrase “and the Word was God”, to “and the Word was a god“. I tried to explain that all other translations I know of, those translated before and after the NWT all use “was God”, and only theirs renders it differently – and completely changes the meaning.
These guys weren’t able to answer the obvious translation issue. But they’re not stupid (well they are a bit) they had another argument up their sleeve… If Jesus is God then why did he pray to his Father in John 17? This brought back happy memories of Mike Reeves on the Trinity at Word Alive, I explained that Jesus is in nature God, but is a distinct person from the Father, and the Spirit… you know, Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit loving each other?? They said, “oh you believe in the Triune God?” as if it was some weird and wacky belief.
The other guy then took me to Colossians 1 – “Jesus is the firstborn”. I explained that firstborn is not the same as being born first, or being created first but is to do with Jesus’ pre-eminence and heir status over creation. I asked them why humanly speaking Jesus died, why it was that that the Jews brought blasphemy charges against Jesus??
The first guy sensed they weren’t really getting anywhere so made moves to go… I enquired once more about the accuracy of their bible, but no answers. But they said they might come back, part 2 pending, maybe…
What do you do when your world falls apart? What do you do when everything goes wrong? What do you do when as the Psalmist says, your flesh and heart fail (Psalm 73:26)? What do we do, how do we respond when we face suffering, and what seems like pointless random suffering?
I thought those were just theoretical questions before a few years ago, and they were challenged again after receiving the news of a mate from back home dying suddenly on Friday. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a mate; we played football together, we went to the pub together, we played Football Manager together… we grew up together. From perfect health, to illness and death within a few days, 23 years old – it is tragic and sobering.
(some of) The Riseley Boys: Campbell, Czaicki, Stu, Me, Bonce, Boom
How do we respond? Shock – sometimes when people die it’s a long process, people have time to prepare, this was sudden and shocking. Grief – I cried, I’m a long way from home right now, I’m not there with the guys to grieve, but am still in mourning. Shaken – it shakes me up to the reality, the brevity of life… will I make my life count?
How do I respond as a Christian? How do I respond to the fact that I believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God who has power over life and death and all things in this world, yet let this tragedy take place? First, I grieve (John 11:35), I cry out to God to bring the pains of this world to an end. But why would God let it happen, surely this suffering is pointless? Jesus is asked some tough questions like this in Luke 13… there’s some people at a place called Siloam who get crushed by a falling tower (18 people die)… Jesus doesn’t focus on those who die, but on those who are left, those asking the questions… he says that one day you’ll die too, and face God. The only way we can escape death is to trust the One who beat death, Jesus Christ.
Why do I keep going? Why do I keep trusting a God who lets this stuff happen? Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). Why then must I persevere – because there is hope! There is hope of life, true life, eternal life, for whoever puts their trust in Christ.
I’ve just come back from New Word Alive. On the final night Richard Cunningham spoke on our call to serve God, in his talk he spoke about David, his nephew. David was diagnosed with Leukaemia at the age of 11 (he died a few weeks ago) at his diagnosis he said to the doctor – “I’m not scared of death. I’ve got a friend called Jesus who will keep me safe”. That is simple, child-like faith, but that is all that is required to receive new life, a simple trust that Jesus is king, that he died in your place for your sins, and that he rose to new life that we might too.
If you’re not a Christian, can you give any answers to the problem of suffering, do you find hope or meaning in tragedy? Seek Jesus, only the One who has suffered to the point of death, and now lives can help, can give answers. If you are a Christian is your view of God big enough, is He sovereign enough to answer these questions? If you’re not currently experiencing suffering, do you have a theology of suffering which is rooted in the cross and the glory of God’s sovereignty – if not, how do you expect to stand when the storm comes? I can’t commend highly enough a book by Marc Maillefer called ‘God in the Storm‘, it will help you to focus on Christ in your suffering.
As these shouts and screams from the mob grow in volume, what’s it like for our Lord to look out upon these people? Even if you can’t recognize yourself among the angry face, or distinguish your own strident voice… He can. And in response to those sinful shouts and curses from you and me, Jesus yields to the sentence of death……
When we begin to grasp that we joined that mockery – that we are to blame for the Saviour’s death – we start to understand the seriousness of our sin.
But convicting you of sin is not my ultimate purpose here; rather, I want to convince you of grace. For when you’re deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God’s holiness, and of how impossible it is for Him to respond with anything other than furious wrath – you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is.Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace.
CJ Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life (page 88)
Check out this video, it’s an in-house production by Mars Hill to publicise their Good Friday services, it’s quite graphic, so if you’re a bit squeamish at the sight of blood (well it’s not real blood) then don’t watch it. At the production level it’s awesome, really powerful visually and says it better than words, I’m impressed that any church (even a ‘mega church’) can produce something so professional. Actually, the video is a little bit weird, but it’s well done nonetheless…
I saw on BBC IPlayer last night the first episode of BBC’s The Passion… I thought it was pretty good, both generally as a TV production and in being reasonably true to the gospel accounts. Part 2 tonight, BBC1, at 8.30pm.
What characteristics of God do we see at the cross?
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
What is justice? How is God just?
What does atonement mean? What does this tell us about God?
Who were we? Who are we? What are we offered? How do we receive?
How can we pray in light of the cross? (1Cor 1-2?)
Currently reading the book of the same title… which you can download for free along with many other Piper books, even some of his very recent ones from his resource library.
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