Curate’s Chronicles

Well, I missed the Dwell Conference in  London (as mentioned here) and as soon as I disover if any audio or video is available, I’ll mention it here.  “As soon” being a very loose term for “sometime, maybe, perhaps” in keeping with the general laxity of this blog!

Oh, here’s one: a video of a Q and A session at Adrian Warnock’s site.

Another conference I can’t go to is the Total Church conference in San Diego starting 12th August.  To see what sessions and seminars will be taking place, Drew Goodmanson has them here.  Looks brilliant, and I’m hoping this too will have media available for us who can’t attend.

Drew Goodmanson (church planter in San Diego) mentioned a course called “Sonship” and “Gospel Transformation” published by World Harvest Mission.  Go take a look at the material, or check out the comment by my friend Glen.  These courses look great because they realise that the gospel isn’t simply what we believe when we become Christians, it is what we go on believing to grow as Christians.  To anyone out there running courses, here’s one called “Gospel Centered Life” which is currently available as a free pdf download.  Actually, even if you’re not running courses go grab it.  I promise its contents wills be extremely helpful.

Contents:

Week 1 – The Gospel Grid
Leader’s Guide
Article: “The Gospel Grid”
Supplement: Six Ways of Minimizing Sin

Week 2 – Performance
Leader’s Guide
Article: “Shrinking the Cross Through Performance”
Exercise Handout: Orphans vs. Sons

Week 3 – Dishonesty
Leader’s Guide
Article: “Shrinking the Cross Through Dishonesty”
Exercise Handout: Right and Wrong

Week 4 – The Law Drives You to Christ
Leader’s Guide
Article: “The Law and the Gospel”
Exercise Handout: Tim Keller’s Gospel Grid

Week 5 - Lifestyle Repentance
Leader’s Guide
Article: “True Repentance vs. False Repentance”

Week 6 – Transformational Faith
Leader’s Guide
Article: “Heart Idolatry”

Week 7 - Mission
Leader’s Guide
Article: “The Gospel Propels Us Outward”
Exercise Handout: Getting to the Heart of Mission

Week 8 - Forgiveness
Leader’s Guide
Article: “The Gospel Empowers Us To Forgive”
Exercise Handout: Getting to the Heart of Forgiveness

Week 9 - Conflict
Leader’s Guide
Article: “The Gospel Helps Us Fight Fairly”
Exercise Handout: Gospel-Centered Conflict Resolution

If I haven’t said it before on this blog, I’m a bit of a fan of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network.  I’m also a bit fan of what Steve Timmis and Tim Chester are up to in Sheffield, and loved their book Total Church.  In fact, I’ve been meaning to blog my way through it, but that never quite happened…

Anyway, I discovered minutes ago that Mark Driscoll and Steve Timmis were doing a day conference (12th July) in this country!  Fantastic, I thought.  I had really wanted to go to New York in April for the joint conference between Acts 29 and Tim Keller’s Church Planting Centre, but finances prevented me.

Then I checked my diary.  I’m already booked, for a training day on “Priesthood and Presidency” in preparation for my ordination to the “priesthood” in October.  Gutted!!  I may repent of this statement after the day itself, but is this going to end up as a day on “how to limit church growth by limiting those who can preside at the Lord’s Supper to those who are episcopally ordained” vs. “how to grow your church with the gospel of grace”??

Anyway, anyone in or around London - you really really must go.  Here are the details. And a pdf is available here.  Don’t forget Mark Driscoll live at St James Clerkenwell on the night before.

The caricature of Calvin has him sitting alone, writing dry academic theology. The reality is far different, as anyone who’s actually read Calvin’s Institutes knows very well!

But there’s more. An article here (at www.rts.edu/quarterly/fall01/james.html) describes Calvin’s love of mission and supporting missionaries / church planters around the world.

You can hear the original talk (1 hr 45min) at this site if you use iTunes. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to get iTunes working with Linux so if anyone downloads it will you e-mail it to me!!  (Update - thank you TS for doing this, and for not commenting on the [alleged] superiority of Mac to Linux…)

[HT: Between Two Worlds]