The Gospel Coalition: Bay Area. Christ, Sex, & The City Conference
I’m excited about what’s happening with The Gospel Coalition: Bay Area. My fellow TGC: Bay Area board members (Jeff Louie. Travis Marsh. Toby Kurth) and I have been working hard towards putting on our second regional conference. Below is all the information. I hope you can join us. Pastors/church leaders, I hope you can join us for the pre-conference. Get more information about this conference and about what we’re doing in the Bay Area at The Gospel Coalition Website.
Christ, Sex, and The City
Discussing the Vital Relationship Between Jesus Christ, Sex, and Our Cities
Join friends and make new friends from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at our second regional conference. This will be a memorable evening of exploring and discussing truth together. Pastors and church leaders are invited to a special pre-conference session and dinner with Peter Jones.
Keynote Speaker
Peter Jones: B.A., University of Wales; B.D., Gordon Divinity School; Th.M., Harvard Divinity School; Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary. Peter Jones is Scholar in Residence and Adjunct Professor at Westminster Seminary California. He is Director of Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, now truthXchange, a national and international teaching, preaching, and writing ministry for the church and the campus. Peter is author of many books, including The God of Sex: How Spirituality Defines your Sexuality. He and his wife, Rebecca, live in Escondido, CA.
Jeff Louie, a TGC Council member and founding member of our Bay Area chapter, will be attending. The conference will be hosted by Justin Buzzard.
Location
Central Peninsula Church
1005 Shell Blvd
Foster City, CA 94404
Get Directions
Pre-Registration Dinner
Pastors and church leaders are invited to join us for a pre-conference with Peter Jones, 4:30-6:00pm, dinner provided. Please RSVP for this event here.
Perspective on Haiti
The best biblical analysis I’ve read on Haiti comes from Al Mohler:
A faithful Christian cannot accept the claim that God is a bystander in world events. The Bible clearly claims the sovereign rule of God over all his creation, all of the time. We have no right to claim that God was surprised by the earthquake in Haiti, or to allow that God could not have prevented it from happening.
God’s rule over creation involves both direct and indirect acts, but his rule is constant. The universe, even after the consequences of the Fall, still demonstrates the character of God in all its dimensions, objects, and occurrences. And yet, we have no right to claim that we know why a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti happened at just that place and at just that moment.
The arrogance of human presumption is a real and present danger. We can trace the effects of a drunk driver to a car accident, but we cannot trace the effects of voodoo to an earthquake — at least not so directly. Will God judge Haiti for its spiritual darkness? Of course. Is the judgment of God something we can claim to understand in this sense — in the present? No, we are not given that knowledge. Jesus himself warned his disciples against this kind of presumption.
Why did no earthquake shake Nazi Germany? Why did no tsunami swallow up the killing fields of Cambodia? Why did Hurricane Katrina destroy far more evangelical churches than casinos? Why do so many murderous dictators live to old age while many missionaries die young?
…In the midst of this unspeakable tragedy, Christ would have us rush to aid the suffering people of Haiti, and rush to tell the Haitian people of his love, his cross, and salvation in his name alone.
If you have any doubts about this, take your Bible and turn to John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That is God’s message to Haiti.
CPC Men’s Retreat: Tullian
As always, I’m looking forward to our church Men’s Retreat. This year we have Tullian Tchividjian as our speaker. Good times will be had by all.
Choose to Give Thanks
Happy Thanksgiving to all Buzzard Blog readers! I’m thankful for how you read and interact with what I write here. It’s a great blessing and help to me.
This Thanksgiving I’m meditating on and putting into action Psalm 9:1-2
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
Note the four-fold resolve in this Psalm:
I will give thanks
I will recount
I will be glad
I will sing
Giving thanks isn’t automatic for many of us, especially if our circumstances are difficult. Here we see the Psalmist resolving, choosing, to give thanks. This Thanksgiving, follow the four “I wills” of this Psalm: give thanks to the Lord, recount his wonderful deeds, be glad in God, and sing praises to his name.
Give thanks.
Recount.
Be glad.
Sing.
Why? Because God is God and he’s treated you better than you deserve.
Even if you’re not feeling particularly thankful or glad today, follow the ancient Psalm and soon your feelings will also follow.
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The Manhattan Declaration
Last Friday The Manhattan Declaration was released, a new six-page statement from the pens of evangelical, orthodox, and Catholic Christians. The statement was written to “reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good,” namely: “the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty”
The declaration was drafted by Robert George, Timothy George, and Chuck Colson. Signers of the statement include J.I. Packer, Randy Alcorn, Tim Keller, Wayne Grudem, Joni Eareckson Tada, Peter Kreeft, Al Mohler, Ravi Zacharias, and many others.
The Manhattan Declaration has now received 88,384 signatures. That number will have gone up by the time you read this. This is a timely document for America and for the church. I think Christians should carefully read The Manhattan Declaration and consider signing it. Take 15 minutes to read the document, then go here if interested in signing it. I signed the document earlier this morning.
Below is the beautifully written Preamble to The Manhattan Declaration. Read the whole document here.
Preamble:
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
Curtis “Voice” Allen
My friend Curtis “Voice” Allen is visiting 20s tomorrow night to perform some of his latest rap and to preach to us. It will be a great night. Check out Curtis’ latest album, “a theist.”
How Tim Keller Found Manhattan
This month’s CT cover article: Tim Stafford, How Tim Keller Found Manhattan.
20s Retreat
I’m looking forward to our annual 20s Retreat next weekend. Best of all, I get to fly out my good friend Eric Simmons for the weekend as our guest speaker.
