Hey Mike,

Don't worry, man, I'll be in your session cheering you on.  Of course, I think I'm introducing you and your topic.  But it'll be an honor to be there and I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.  Really.

Dee, great questions bro.  This can be a source of great pressure and strife inside a church and between a pastor and his wife.  Churches would do well to be careful about their expectations for a pastor's wife.

First, "pastor's wife" is not a biblical office.  She is not given specific qualifications in 1 Tim. 3.  Titus does not include instructions for her duties, etc.  Despite the whole "first lady" and "co-pastor" phenomena in some church circles, there are no biblical responsibilities for her other than being a good Christian, wife, and mother, which fall to all the women with this calling.

Second, it's important for the pastor, wife, and church to realize that many women in this role have discipleship needs of their own and not a few insecurities because of all the horror stories.  So treating her like "just another member who happens to be married to the pastor" should go some ways in letting her grow spiritually and easing her fears.  The "fishbowl" is a terribly lonely and painful place to live.  Always being on display is simply paralyzing. 

Third, the pastor really must shepherd his wife through this.  Which means he needs to kindly but clearly put the leaders and church on notice that her main responsibility is to be his wife.  It's not a "2-for-1 deal."  And for him to serve faithfully and fruitfully, he needs her to be his wife, not another elder.  So, guys have to step up here and protect the wife from unbiblical expectations and from burdens she may place on herself. 

Finally, I'd say, if at all possible, take a new charge when your wife is about 4-5 months pregnant.  Of course, I'm only joking (half-joking).  We moved to Cayman when Kristie was about 4.5 months pregnant with Titus, in all her showing glory.  The older ladies loved her.  And because they loved her they put up with me.  Great planning, if I do say so myself.

Kidding aside, though, the Lord has brought us to what must be one of the most gracious and kind congregations on the planet when it comes to caring for the pastor's wife and family.  We've been nothing but loved and honored here.  And as far as I can tell, Kristie has been free to be herself and to settle into life and routine here with wide and deep support.  And that's allowed her to be very fruitful in a number of ways as the Lord has given opportunity. 

That's the counter-intuitive part of all this: It's when the pastor's wife is free to be herself without impositions and demands that she becomes fruitful.  But try to exert unbiblical or extra-biblical requirements and she very often must retreat from the life of the church for her own well-being.  Churches would be wise to support the pastor's wife in being the pastor's wife.  The Lord will give the increase.

Thabiti, Mike M., Mike G., Aaron, Jonathan and Greg,

What are reasonable expectations for a church to have for a pastor's wife?  Before we arrived at CHBC, we were told that aside from the pastor's wife caring for her husband and children and occasional doing hospitality, there were no particular expectations for the pastor's wife.  For us, these expectations have turned out to be a true representation of what we have experienced in DC. 

Unlike our own situation, I know a lot of friends in ministry who have wives who are under an immense amount of pressure to be Superwoman--play piano, lead a woman's bible study, be an amazing chef, disciple lots of women, have  exemplary children, respond to any and every crisis, etc.  Are churches unreasonable about the expectations they put on the pastor's wife?  Even worse, does a pastor's wife typically put a lot of pressure on herself to be superwoman?  Do pastors put too much pressure on their spouse to do much more than is reasonable for any human being? 

Gentlemen, what do you think?

Wow.  Sherwood's really given you the blow-by-blow.  I'm not going to try to top that, but I thought I'd just give a relatively quick recap of the conference with some of my thoughts about it.

All in all, "God Exposed" was a very good conference.  It wasn't huge like so many conferences, so I hope (and really do think) those who attended were able to spend some good time talking with the speakers.  Not only that, but the schedule, I thought, was just about perfect---enough sessions to feel full, but not so many that you just collapse at the end of the day.  That, too, I hope, contributed to a sense that the conference's speakers were accessible and available to talk.

Mark did two talks, one from Mark 4 and the other a lecture on the centrality and nature of expositional preaching.  Both were very good.  I am still benefiting, even tonight, from the sense I had after his first talk that my confidence in God and His great promises had been once again re-settled and re-founded.  That's an important thing for pastors, I think.  In the hustle and bustle of daily pastoral life, it's important sometimes to step away, look at the big picture, and remember that it is God who makes things grow.

Danny Akin's talk on preaching, from Ecclesiastes 12, was also very useful.  He made a ton of good points, but the most important, I think, was that the gospel ought always to be preached in a way that will make it most compelling.  As he put it, "Nothing is more important than what we say, but how we say it has never been more important."  I think that's true.  When we preach the gospel, we want to do so not just by saying what is true and what is the good news of Christianity, but by saying it in such a way that that good news is most exalted.  On the one hand, that means not short-selling the gospel by preaching it without preparation, or without it penetrating our own hearts or stirring our own passions.  On the other hand, though, it also means not allowing the gospel we are trying to preach to be overshadowed by excessive rhetoric or "tricks" of eloquence.  We do not preach in order to impress; we preach in order to communicate--and that as clearly and as pointedly as we can.

Mike McKinley did a nice talk from Luke 10, about Mary and Martha and the centrality of the Word of God in both our hearts and our churches.  He also made the very important point that what we want from our church members---and from ourselves, for that matter---is neither a service that is separated from faith, nor a faith that does not issue in service.  No, what we want is a faith that naturally and inevitably works itself out in loving, joyful service.  As Dr. Akin said a little earlier, what we must do is "Trust and obey---and the order there is absolutely crucial."

C.J. Mahaney's talk was, I thought, absolutely extraordinary.  He spoke to us from 1 Timothy and Paul's charge to Timothy to preach the word.  What was so extraordinary about it--and what I have found encouraging and challenging about C.J.'s preaching every time I have heard it--is his deep and profound understanding of his own heart, and therefore of others' hearts as well.  C.J.'s sermons are typically filled with observations about the way sin works, how it begets other sins, and what thoughts and glorious truths of the gospel can be used to cut the root of sin when you've found it.  His preaching makes me want to meditate more deeply.

Finally, Thabiti Anyabwile brought us a courageous exhortation (sermon?) not to let any specific cultural expectation overtake our charge to preach the Bible expositionally.  The sermon had particular reference to certain specific traditions of African-American preaching, but it was instructive also to see that the problem is not isolated to African Americans.  All of us are tempted at times to become dependent in an ungodly way on things like style or excitement or adrenaline---rather than on the solid truths of the gospel.  As I said in a panel discussion after the talk, I think people quite easily become addicted to the fast burn, when what we really should desire is a deep, hot burn.  And in order to get that deep, hot burn, you have to shove solid stuff into the furnace, not just pour kerosene on it.  It is the unchanging truths of the gospel---not a certain style of preaching or music---that will provide hot-burning fuel for the furnace of worship.  Anything else is just surface pyrotechnics.

Well, there it is--a bit of a stream-of-consciousness recap of what we heard this past weekend.  Thank you, brothers, for your work.  I look forward to next year.

This is my last entry from this conference so let me say thank you to all you who took the time to read any of these notes. As you can probably tell from the quality, I've never live blogged a conference before. It's harder than I thought. But thank you for being a diligent reader of the blog and making it through with me. 9Marks was honored to partner with SEBTS.  Thanks to all the speakers. But lastly, thank you pastors for your faithful years of honoring the Lord through your preaching in all the churches represented here. Keep the faith, brothers. We're here to serve you.

Mark Dever closed the God Exposed conference with a very powerful sermon on the centrality of expositional preaching in the life of the congregation.

Every Sunday you preach, you are acting a parable of God’s grace. You bring the Word, those listening bring nothing. The empty pulpit in many of our churches displays the spirituality in some of our churches.  He then read Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones, a picture of our helpless state and need for God's Word and Spirit brought to us.

Who should stand at the “Desk of God” (the pulpit)?  All Christians teach each other by our singing, relationships, but what about this specialized teaching being considered? Men called by God. This is consistent with the role God’s calls men to: elders, husbands. We must embrace gender as a gift from God. The abuse of something good does not show that thing is bad in itself. Submission to authority is a life-giving stance when it is given to proper authority. Satan does not want us to know that. Satan wants us to be tempted in this way. Do not shy away from teaching your churches on gender issues.

Is there a palpable sense of hunger right before you get to the pulpit?  The congregation should be oriented to the centrality of the sermon and should expect it as the main task of the pastor. Don't view the pews as recliners where you cater to the congregation's fancies.

Expositional preaching should be the normal diet of your congregation.  Definition of expositional preaching: When the point of the passage is the point of your message. People should walk out saying "How did I not see that in the text before?" It should leave them amazed at God's Word.  In Corinthians, Paul measures everything in the church by this "All of these must be done for the strengthening for the church." (14:26). What preaching will tend most to edify the church? Teaching which exposes God's Word to God's people. Not all forms of preaching tend to this. It was once quoted, "If that sermon had smallpox, then the text sure wouldn't catch it."

Mark brought up an interesting point: Why are there not Study Bibles that cross-reference NT passages in the OT.  So if you're reading along in the OT, you could see where these passages are expounded upon in the NT (Anyone know if there is such a thing?).

He spoke a bit about the argument that many make: "We live in a visual age" so why continue to be "people of the ear"? Mark rightly pointed out that historically, people have always been visual (sculpting, paintings) but for Christians, this is not the age of the eye! It will be soon, when we can run to the God we can see but not now. We listen to Him now, learn from him. Preach to your people and participate in this mercy.

Advice for Expositional Preaching:

1) Normally, preach consecutively through parts of the Bible.

2) Good expositional preaching is canonical (through the whole Bible). See Acts 20. He also took us to I Samuel (listen to this talk for this section alone) where Samuel and Eli speak about God's Word coming to Samuel. Perhaps the most powerful few minutes of the whole conference.

3) Good expositional is connected. Show how it fits with the whole message of the Bible.

4) It should be centered on the Gospel.

5) It is theological.

6) It is critical. It instructs about and criticizes idols. Don't always preach nice and happy. Think of Jesus' ministry.

7) It is evangelistic. Distinct from #4. As you preach, don't shy away from talking about sin and the need for Christ. Teach people to take their hopes off of themselves and put it on Christ. Speak to non-Christians in your sermons.

8) It is applied. Do not think that application is only the Holy Spirit's work. Our whole lives are to be transformed.

9) It is integrated (work it into your life). Read what is being preached on in your quiet time, prepare your heart for it. Teach your congregation to prepare for the sermon. It is the highlight of their week!

Thanks again friends. Hope you were encouraged.

Putting Thabiti next to Mark Dever is like putting Vin Diesel next to Pinky and the Brain. 

His talk was called "Will It Preach?" and dealt with expositional preaching in various cultural contexts.

He began by addressing oppositions to expositional preaching.  One you often hear is: "Expositional preaching is cultural." or “Expositional doesn’t work in our context. It’s too heady, it’s not our style, etc."

He then exposited part of Nehemiah and drew out these principles:

Instead of setting a specific style or culture before your people, set God before people, tell them what he is like. And sometimes we must tell them how to respond. (Nehemiah -- Don’t weep, celebrate!)  Every Lord’s Day, we get to praise God that our sin not in part but the whole was nailed to the cross and we bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord! There is not a reform you want to happen in your church that cannot be brought about by addressing it with God’s Word. If you are looking for growth to happen any other way (emotions, style, culture) then you will only get short-term fruit.

How does exposition address cross-cultural objections?
1)    It is very culturally appropriate. From the very beginning, exposition has been crossing cultural boundaries.  God has saved you and made you a new creation, a new spiritual ethnic group, a people who were no people are now made to be God’s people. At the center of the culture is Word-centered proclamation.
2)    It frees us stylistically.  Clarity is trans-cultural. Exposition eliminates cleverness and cuteness and puffed up empty words. Exposition and intellect go together. Your intellect as a pastor is for the benefit for your hearers, as you make the Word clear. And the intellect of your hearers is improved as you preach to them. And joy in Christ is the result.
3)    
When God is exposed, it is the sinner who cowers in shame, not us! We when tell our people “Behold your God”, God’s people rejoice. Make your people happy by showing them their God.

If you are working through the issue of your own cultural context, you should definitely listen to this talk. He rejoiced in God and made very wise, biblical comments about culture which is so often misunderstood and informed by worldly thinking.

CJ's talk was sobering but also encouraging and at times hilarious. He began by mentioning Mark Dever, who he addresses as "Oh Captain, my Captain"...because no one in CJ's life bosses him around the way Mark does.

He exposited 2 Timothy 4:1-5 regarding the faithfulness of the ministry. CJ called pastors to be faithful to the message and content, faithful to the ministry, and faithful to the Savior.

To break it down:

1. Faithful to the message:

Preach the Word: It is the most effective way to lead your church.  The challenge  for pastors is usually not the receipt of this message, it is the application of this charge. Would the priority of preaching be reflected in your weekly schedule? Do you consistently set aside blocks of time during your week to prepare your sermons? If you don’t plan, you will be overtaken by the urgent.

Preach the Gospel: Never assume that the people you serve have sufficient understanding of the gospel. Never exhort to obedience apart from the gospel. People who know you should know that you are most passionate about the gospel. Every traveler along your sermon should get a sighting of Calvary.

Patience for those you care for: CJ -- "There is no romanticism in sermon preparation. I’m 56 years old and it’s still hard. I always get to a point in preparation when I think, “This sermon stinks…and we are running out of time!” It’s easier to preach a sermon than to be patient with people as they grow. The root of all impatience is pride. I have forgotten how patient God is with me. JI Packer writes “Appreciate the patience of God. Think of how he has born with you and still bears with you when so much of your life is unworthy of Him and you have so richly deserved his rejection. Learn to marvel at his patience and seek grace to imitate it with others and try not to try his patience anymore.” Pre-conversion: He bore with you. Post-conversion: he still bears with you.  Sanctification is a process, not an event. Be patient with people.  You should be grateful they come back. You should be surprised they come back. Maybe you should be amazed they come back. Read Spurgeon sermons and be humbled by how it’s supposed to be done. One of CJ’s daughters got a hold of his early tapes and listened to them.  As he looked forward to a compliment as she combed over them, she came to CJ and told him “Dad, you sure said Hallelujah a lot!”

2. Faithfulness to the ministry. (He flew through the last two points)

Be sober-minded, not carried along by fads or innovative trends. See 2 Tim 4:5

3. Faithfulness to the Savior.

Do your ministry to please God, not man.  Don't lose site of the eternal perspective of your ministry. 

He closed with a most encouraged verse, 2 Timothy 4:8:

"Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

I'm sitting here, listening to a fantastic sermon by CJ Mahaney, taking detailed notes. 

And what do you know?  I look over and Matt Schmucker is drawing unicorns on the cover of a "Friends Forever" journal he's carrying around.  What's that about?

Mike is expositing Luke 10:38-42.  The talk is on the centrality of the Word in our ministry/preaching.

He commented that hundreds of mediocre Christians books about women have been spun out of this text but most are not what Jesus had in mind when he tells this story. Two sisters in this passage are serving in two ways: Mary sits at Jesus' feet and listens to him. Martha works hard, serving him through action. Who does Jesus commend?  Well, we know the story. Some people have wrongly assumed that Mary is sitting in sloth, relaxing at the feet of Jesus.  The reality is that Mary is taking the active posture of a disciple, learning, listening, and ingesting the Word of God.

McKinley asked 3 questions:

1) Why is it important to listen to Jesus?
2) What does it mean for us as pastors, seminary students, church leaders?
3) What does it mean for the churches we serve and love?

We must be careful not to equate task-oriented Christianity with faithful Christianity. The goal is that our people would feast on the Word of God and sit at the feet of Jesus.  In all we do, we must hold up the Word. If our ministry is grounded on anything else (even good things), then shepherds are misunderstanding their call.

Want people to serve in your churches, evangelize, work for the Lord?  Let them grasp the Gospel. Let them see grace. This will reorder their priorities in a way works-righteousness cannot. Let them see the self-giving love of God, through his Word, and they will begin to see everything they do as a response to Christ.  The millions of books out there, telling you to cast vision for your church, mobilize it, etc.--you only need one thing: come before God, hear Him speak through his Word, that we might know him, love him, and be like him.

Danny Akin just delivered a very informative, very quote-heavy talk on preaching (I say quote-heavy because there were a ton of great quotes that you'll want to get a hold of). He began with the sentence "What you say is more important than how you say it but how you say it has never been more important."  (The panel is currently discussing this line right now.  Thabiti is talking about how eloquence and style can become an end in themselves and often trump solid content)  Akin explained the importance of instruction, admonition, and exhortation in our preaching. Open up a text, tell people what it means and allow God's Word to confront and comfort the people.

Akin shared Lloyd-Jones' line that preaching is "Logic on fire".  The pastor must be mastered by the text and be on fire with that text before he delivers it to his congregation. This is why I especially like Piper--you can tell that guy has taken whatever text he's preaching into the blazing center of his heart, alone with God, and then acts as a mouthpiece to the people.

5 helpful questions asks as Akin is working through a text:

1)    What does this text teach me about God?

2)    What does this text teach us about fallen man?

3)    What do I want my people to know?

4)    What do I want my people to do?

5)    How does this text point to Jesus?

Akin said "It is a sin to preach a boring message."  Mark Dever is asking the panel about that right now. McKinley says "No, but foolish and unwise."  Thabiti says "Yes" and is explaining his thoughts. Dever is pushing back, asking about pastors who prepare all week, have a tough week, and then deliver a message that folks, if honest, say was boring.  Akin responds by saying that it's clearly not a sin if you've sought the anointing of God and God will use it in spite of yourself (and knows your heart and knows that it wasn't irresponsibility but the pressures of ministry.).  Interesting tidbit: Actors followed Whitefield around as he preached and were very taken by his preaching style, given his dynamic, effective communication.

Baptist21 Lunch.  The panel featured Danny Akin, Thabiti Anyabwile, Mark Dever, J.D. Greear, and Mark Liederbach.  Highlight of the time was the exchange about multi-site campuses (in love, but fiesty) between Mark Dever and JD Greear. 

(About his position against multi-site) "I feel pretty confident since I believe the same as Jesus, Church Fathers, and 2,000 years of church history."  -- Mark Dever

Awesome.  Hope the panel was recorded and you can get it on mp3.  There was a moving exhortation to young men by each of the panelists to be faithful, full of integrity, to be about the Gospel, to raise up younger men, to humbly learn from older men, and to share the Gospel with those who don't know Jesus.

Thanks for tuning into the live blogging of the God Exposed conference here at Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, NC.  9Marks is honored to partner with Southeastern to, Lord willing, present nine conferences over nine years on each of the nine marks.  Expositional preaching (mark #1) is the topic of this conference.

I'll set the stage a bit for you so you have a sense of what it's like to be here:  300+ folks (largely pastors, I think?) are gathering here at Binkley Chapel on the beautiful campus of Southeastern.  Mark Dever is up first and I'll hopefully be able to coherently piece back together his excellent talk.  It should be noticed that Mark has lost about 50 pounds. This guy looks like a student on campus here. His striped shirt clearly was purchased by someone else and given to him as a gift. McKinley is wearing new glasses that look like something my 17 year old sister has. Thabiti is actually from North Carolina so he's feeling right at home.  Danny isn't wearing a tie. I'm not comfortable with that. I haven't seen CJ yet but I'm sure he's running around here somewhere making huge hand motions and wearing something from Men's Express.

Now, on to substance (I've lost a lot of you already): Mark's talk. 

It was fantastic.  Very convicting, moving, and hopeful.  Mark preached from Mark 4:26-34, the parable of the mustard seed. Mark highlighted 3 things Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom is: Independent, Inevitable, and Incredible. I was struck by this parable's reminder that God brings fruit and is not dependent on man. The success of a pastor is measured in faithfully holding out the Word and faithfully trusting God to bring life, not in the immediacy of results or even how well it is received. The shocking distinction of something grand growing out of something small is not to be missed. When meeting Queen Victoria, Thomas Edison presented his newest invention.  After she cast it aside without much notice, she casually replied "What use is this?" Edison quickly replied "What good is a newborn infant?" When things begin (like this in-breaking of the Kingdom), we often fail to notice their significance. Let us look forward to the grand Kingdom and let that future hope interpret all we do in the present.

Mark closed with a fantastic quote from JL Reynolds. 

"When Christ uttered, in the judgment hall of Pilate, the remarkable words? "I am a king," he pronounced a sentiment fraught with unspeakable dignity and power. His enemies might deride his pretensions and express their mockery of his claim, by presenting him with a crown of thorns, a reed and a purple robe, and nailing him to the cross; but in the eyes of unfallen intelligences, he was a king. A higher power presided over that derisive ceremony, and converted it into a real coronation. That crown of thorns was indeed the diadem of empire; that purple robe was the badge of royalty; that fragile reed was the symbol of unbounded power; and that cross the throne of dominion which shall never end."

Praise God.

Our own Andrew Sherwood will be bringing his own Benny Hill-style take on the proceedings down here in North Carolina at the God Exposed Conference.

http://www.razoo.com/story/9-Marks-250-Matching-Grant

Matt, thanks for sharing the internet baptism.  Mike, thanks for starting us off with the correct tone: charity.  Brothers, thanks for the interesting thoughts about pastoral relationships and the mediate/immediate nature of communication.

For me, the weakness of the approach isn't really captured in whether or not this form of "gathering" leaves something out or not.  I'm sure it does leave many important things out, but if I were pushing back from the other side I think I'd argue that in-person communication doesn't guarantee any more authenticity than does impersonal forms.  Arguably, impersonal forms reduce social inhibitions that elicit more passionate and typically concealed reactions.  Witness internet confession sites, chat rooms, and many comment threads on blogs.  At the same time, personal social settings include a host of rules that suppress certain kinds of information.  We even have phrases to describe the ways we deceive in person--poker face, good front, posing, masquerading, and so on.  So, I can imagine proponents of this idea saying that the video feed between the two sites does much of what you all are wanting in the gathered setting, and that the gathered setting isn't a guarantee of getting "real" or "genuine" or "authentic" "stuff."  She's excited, he's excited, the people there were excited.  What's the difference?

Where I fell down with the video was the internet pastor's opening comment: "God has called us to be obedient and follow His example in baptism.  That's exactly what we're doing."

Really?  "Exactly" what's going on there is obedience and following the example of Christ?

I was left with a question: Does any method for doing something constitute obedience?  If I tell my daughter to make her bed and find that she in Tom Sawyer fashion tricked her siblings into making it, does that constitute obedience?  Suppose I'd previously given her many examples of how I make the bed and told her to do likewise, is her "obedience" exactly like that modeled when she uses her siblings? 

My response is simply I don't think this is what any NT writer had in mind or experienced when they set out to follow our Lord's command to make disciples and baptize them in His name. 

Then I'd have all the questions about what at internet campus really is, and what an internet pastor does.  And, in what sense is this young woman a "member" of a church, being discipled and taught all that Jesus commanded.  With only the bit in the video to judge from, imo, it's all too free radical to be NT church.

A few days ago Matt posted an internet baptism. Mike, Greg, and Jonathan followed up with some concerns not only about the implications this has for community (see Mike's comments here), but also about some of the dangers of technology (comments by Greg, and Jonathan).

Dee, you asked me last week about mistakes pastors make when practicing church discipline. brainstormed for a few minutes with Bobby J. Here's 23 that we came up with.

1. They fail to teach their congregation what church discipline is and why to practice it.

2. They fail to teach about and practice meaningful membership. This involves cultivating a culture of personal discipleship and involvement in one another’s lives in which people transparently confess sin to one another. This also involves failing to adequately teach what membership is, as well as having a clear list of who is a member of the church and who is not.

3. They fail to teach their congregation about biblical conversion, especially the need for repentance. A congregation that doesn’t understand the role of repentance in the Christian life will have difficulty understanding why they need to discipline someone who is not repenting of sin.

4. They fail to teach new members as they enter the church about the possibility and circumstances for church discipline.

5. They fail to teach new members as they enter the church that the church may not grant a pre-emptive resignation from a person trying to avoid discipline. That misses the point of Matthew 18:15-20. Also, the nature of a church covenant requires the church’s consent to both enter into and leave the membership of the church.

6. They fail to ensure the church’s public documents (by-laws, constitution, articles of incorporation, etc.) address the procedures of church discipline, thereby exposing the church to legal risk.

7. They fail to follow the steps of Matthew 18 or 1 Corinthians 5, depending the circumstance. In a Matthew 18 situation, for instance, they fail to begin the process by confronting sin privately.

8. They don’t give adequate time to the process of moving through the various steps of Matthew 18. For instance, they move so quickly from step to step, that they don’t give the sinner adequate time to be reasoned with and shepherded toward repentance.

9. They call for the congregation to act too quickly. For instance, they fail to insert any time in between “tell it to the church” and “if he does not listen to the church, treat him as a pagan or tax collector.” Except in situations of a public scandalous sin of a 1 Corinthians 5 variety which do call for immediate removal, leaders should give the congregation time to both digest the information and to pursue the unrepentant sinner themselves.

10.  They treat the processes of church discipline entirely as a legal process with little consideration for shepherding the unrepentant individual’s heart.

11.  They give little attention to the differences between kinds of sinners and how that might affect how long we should bear with a pattern of sin before proceeding to subsequent stages of discipline (see 1 Thessalonians 5:14).

12.  They forget that they too live by the gospel’s provision of mercy, and therefore prosecute the discipline from a posture of self-righteousness. Other mistakes follow from this wrong posture, such as an overly severe tone and stand-offishness.

13.  They fail to truly love the sinner…

14.  …and beg the Lord for his or her repentance.

15.  They demand too much from a smoldering wick or bruised reed. In other words, they stipulations for repentance and restoration are too high for this one who has been deeply enslaved in sin’s grip.

16.  They fail to properly instruct the congregation on how to interact with the unrepentant sinner, such as how to relate to them in social situations and how to pursue their repentance.

17.  They fail to invite the discipline individual to continue attending services of the church so that they might continue to hear God’s Word (except in situations where the unrepentant sin is a severe threat to the church). Also, they fail to inform the church that everyone should hope for the disciplined individual to continue attending.

18.  Putting the responsibility for leading discipline entirely on the shoulders of one man, the senior pastor. Doing so will tempt individuals in the church to accuse the senior pastor of personally vindictive. Such a charge is harder to make when a recommendation for discipline comes from an entire body of elders.

19.  They fail to have sufficient elder involvement in the congregation’s life, such they are unaware of the state of the sheep. This failure of formative discipline will inevitably weaken the church’s ability to do corrective discipline well.

20.  They fail to teach God’s Word on a weekly basis.

21.  They allow the congregation to approach the case of discipline with a wrongful spirit of retribution, rather than with the loving desire to warn the unrepentant sinner about God’s ultimate retribution to come.

22.  They pursue discipline on non-biblical grounds (playing cards, dancing, etc.).

23. They pursue discipline for any other reason than for the good of the individual, the good of the church, the good of the onlooking community, and the glory of Christ.

A while back, Justin Taylor posted links to two Ken Sande articles on leadership.

You can find them here. (Link fixed)

Greg, I assume you’re right—that there must be some sociological literature “out there” which describes what we lose when we allow technology to mediate our relationships at church, whether that’s baptism over the internet or preaching through video feed. I’d be curious to read it.

But let’s brainstorm for a bit:  what’s lost?

Here are some tentative thoughts:  whenever I interact with you through a technological medium (video, phone, email, text, etc.). I present you with a very narrow slice of information according to what I want to say. I CONTROL, to some extent, what information you receive. For instance, if I’m speaking to you on the phone, you’re entirely dependent on what I want to say in the thin moment of time which comprises that conversation. You are not able to hear my words through the rest of the day. You are not able to watch my life. You only hear what I want you to hear. Same with email. Same with video. And so on. In other words, my communication with you is staged. I’m presenting you with a front. By saying it’s staged, I don’t mean it’s not true, I simply mean that it’s utterly limited to what I give you for the five or ten minutes of our phone conversation.

When I interact with you face to face, and particularly when we build our lives together, I lose control of the information you receive. You can draw conclusions based on how I speak to other people, or on how I treat my wife. Whatever I might say to you from the pulpit, for instance, becomes integrated with what you know about me from the rest of my life.

Now, if I’m practicing what I’m preaching, that will serve you, because you will see how God’s word translates into action. If I don’t practice what I preach, that will serve me, because you can come to me and warn me.

In short, technology, though helpful in some respects, cuts our communication off from a whole life view and, to some extent, hollows out the communication. Plus, it gives us an unnatural and pastorally unhelpful measure of control or autonomy in what we communicate. From a Christian standpoint, therefore, relying upon technology to mediate church relationships puts both sheep and shepherds in an unconnected, unguarded, and spiritually precarious position.

Is that fair to say?

I agree entirely with Mike on this, I think.  It's wonderful that this woman has come to faith in Christ, and it's wonderful that she desired to follow Jesus' command to be baptized.  I'm truly happy for her, and I wish her well in her life as a Christian.

Ecclesiology speaking, I share all of the concerns Mike notes below.  I'd add, too, that I think we need to be careful not to be overly optimistic about just how good our technology is.  Yes, technology allows us to talk to one another and see one another over vast distances and in real-time.  And as far as it goes, that's really incredible.  But surely even the best technology can't capture and recreate everything that goes on between two people when they are face-to-face, or even in the same room.  Surely there is something special that takes place when humans interact im-mediately with each other, that is, without mediation, without anything between them.

I'm not sure how exactly how to articulate what that "something" is, but I know it when it's missing.  To talk to my wife over an internet connection would not be the same as talking with her face to face.  Watching a webcam of my son playing the piano is not the same as actually being there (which, incidentally, is why the NFL and MLB can still sell tickets).  There's something about being there that is incredibly important, even if I can't articulate it.

That's why I balk at something like an internet baptism, or even a steady diet of video-streamed preaching.  Something vital in human-to-human interaction is lost there.  Let me just give you a couple of examples from my own experience:

1) I have attended churches where the preaching takes place on a video screen.  I even went to one where the sermon had been recorded the night before.  I can tell you from many years of church-attending experience that that's a different experience from sitting under a real, live man preaching.  What's different? Well, again, I'm not sure how to explain it (surely somebody's done a sociology study about human interaction and what's lost when human interaction is digitized).  Anyway, I don't know---but there's a certain relaxation of the mind that takes place when there's no chance whatsoever that the preacher up there is ever going to catch your eye, when there's no chance that he'll react to an event, an atmosphere, a collective shuffling, an inquisitive tilt of the head, or anything else that takes place in that room.  Something of accountability, non-verbal communication, even collective emotion is lost when there can be no give-and-take whatsoever between the person preaching and the congregation listening.

2) On the idea of collective emotion and non-verbal communication, a few weeks ago we baptized a brother here at CHBC.  Before his baptism, he gave a testimony from the pulpit.  I don't remember him being particularly, visibly moved by what he was saying, but something stirred in the congregation around him, and there was a subtle, joyful, shuffling excitement that spread through the congregation as he spoke.  But here's the point: That subtle but powerful sense of joy wasn't just individual members reacting one by one to this man's testimony in a kind of insulated, one-on-one interaction with him.  It was the congregation as a whole reacting together, reacting to one another, sensing one another's joy and responding to it as a gathered body.  I don't know what you call that kind of thing, but I think it's important.  And I think it's lost when human-to-human interaction is mediated, rather than immediate. 

Whatever's going on there, zeroes and ones just can't convey it. 

Matt, in response to your post:

Friends,

Below is the "first known internet baptism" ever. Let's not merely dismiss it as funny or quirky. Would love to know from the 9Marks bloggers their real concerns about what you are about to see.

Many thanks!

Yesterday I posted some initial thoughts about the pastor's family budget.  Here are some of the reasoning that I laid out for myself and shared with our church's elders as I hashed out my family's 2010 budget.  Some of the specifics have been redacted (I'm all for transparency in the church, but not on the web!).  

Hey guys,

A recent article in Towers (from SBTS) talks about Brian Croft and the ministry behind his book, Visit the Sick.  

Brothers, thanks for the laughs from the children.  Classic!  Here's one:

Titus [riding in van, counting]: 1... 2... 3... 4...

Dad [proud]: That's great son.  How far can you count?

Titus [looking out the window and pointing]: Oh... about that far.

I got a recent one, too, Greg:

[Mom places plate of chicken in front of girls for lunch]

EMMA [crying]: I don't like my lunch.

MOMMY: Why don't we pray and ask God to give us grateful hearts for our lunch?

EMMA: I know, why don't we pray and ask God for mac 'n cheese!

GRANDPA:  Whatcha doing, Justin?

JUSTIN:  I'm fighting the bad guys.

GRANDPA:  Oh, really?

JUSTIN:  Yea, Jesus says we're supposed to love our enemies.  But sometimes they get out of hand and we have to shoot 'em.

MOMMY [reading]:  "Naaman was a very important man.  A very, very important man.  And he had a little slave girl who . . ."

JACK:  Mommy, what's a slave?

MOMMY:  It means the little girl had to work for Naaman.  She had to do whatever he said.

[Mommy continues reading; Jack ponders.]

JACK:  Mommy, am I your slave?

It's budget season around our church, and we're working on hashing out how much money it will take to address both the needs of the congregation and the dreams that the Lord has laid on our hearts for ministry and missions in 2010.

This Tuesday, September 8, 2009, we at Clifton Baptist Church (Louisville, KY) had the joy of hosting Connie Dever. Connie spoke to women about supporting their husbands in the ministry in a talk entitled, "Juxtaposition: Being Closely Connected for the Glory of God." While the talk was oriented to pastors' wives, the truths are applicable and edifying for all audiences. You can listen to the audio here. You can download the handout from the talk that provides a very useful, detailed outline here: Download Juxtaposition Outline Connie Dever Talk. And you can get the whole 9-Session study that Connie developed on this topic here from the 9Marks website. Listen, study, and be encouraged.

In my travels I occasionally get to attend other churches on a Sunday morning.  Often it is an enjoyable experience as I find a kindred spirit.  Sometimes it is a horrible experience as I find an anti-gospel message dressed up to look like the Christian church.  But I would say most times I find what I found in a recent trip:  the church is a truly Christian community but is employing every worldly gimmick in the book to attract people.  For instance?

Jonathan,

I'm very excited to read your forthcoming book on church discipline and membeship.  Can you tell me some of the most common mistakes that pastors make in regards to church discipline?

Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.

Blessings,

Deepak Reju

Someone sent an email to 9 Marks headquarters asking: "My fiance is looking at masters in counseling programs and we are beginning to do research on different ones. Would your ministry (unofficially) recommend some counseling programs that we should check out?" 

I’m not sure what perspective you are coming from in terms of counseling.  There are a wide variety of counseling models in the Evangelical world.  We (at 9 Marks) are very committed to Scripture, so as you might expect, we are very committed to biblical counseling (BC).  If you don’t really care for BC then this post is basically useless.  If you are interested in BC then here are four choices.

1.      CCEF (www.ccef.org) – The Christian counseling and Education Foundation is the place where the modern BC movement began.  Well known names include Ed Welch (author of When People are Big and God is Small) and David Powlison (best known as the editor for the Journal of BC).  

2.     Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (www.sebts.edu) - The Southern Baptist school that has the longest standing and most established BC program.

3.     Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (www.sbts.edu) – The newest BC program among Southern Baptist schools.  Some will recognize the name Stuart Scott, who wrote The Exemplary Husband and taught at Masters Seminary for many years. 

4.     Masters Seminary (www.tms.edu) – John MacArthur is been a strong proponent of BC for many years, and has built a church and seminary that are both very committed to BC. 

Today is a very special day for 9Marks. 

Mark Dever is wearing a fringe suede coat and line-dancing in his study to "Ace in the Hole". He's alone. Just in there dancing alone.

Matt Schmucker donned his "ice-skates" (He calls them that, they're really just an old pair of roller blades) and is triple lutzing his way through the streets of Washington, DC. When he left the block, he was singing songs from West Side Story.

Jonathan Leeman is wearing stone-washed jeans, a cotton white turleneck, and some sweet looking steal-toe snake-skin cowboy boots.

See, it's 9.9.09 and folks around here have been waiting for this day since September 9th, 1909.

[ht: openbox9 for the picture]

A brief explanation (albeit indirect) of why I happily identify with 9Marks

I've gotten into several conversations with friends lately about which church they should join, or how they should advise their friends to evaluate a church. 

I was recently reading The Top 100 Questions, by Richard Bewes (Rector, All Souls', Langham Place, London 1983-2004), and he had 4 good questions to ask yourself about the church you've been visiting:

1.  Does the Bible actually get opened here?

2.  Is this the kind of church you could take an uncommitted friend to?

3.  Is there a recognisably New Testament feel to the church?

    Here's what he meant in this question:  "Is it Trinitarian in its emphasis on Father, Son and Holy Spirit as equally God?  Is the saving death of Christ at its centre (I Cor. 2:2)?  Do the hymns reflect this?  Are baptism and the Lord's Supper . . . a proper part of the church . . . ?"

4.  On the whole, are the arrows pointing outwards from the church?

In fact, these are 4 good question not just to tell your friend, but for yourself as you pray for and evaluate your own church.

The Opportunity:

Are you a self-motivated and highly competent videographer who is on board with the mission of 9Marks, possesses outstanding character, and is currently a member of an evangelical church? Want to join our team?

9Marks is looking for the right person to head up a series of video projects. Applicants must possess a high degree of competency in shooting video, lighting, and editing. Applicant would report directly to and work with the Marketing Project Manager. We've always gone outside the organization for help but we've got a bunch of neat projects to work on and need someone who can come in-house and help us out.

Location: Washington, DC
Pay: Stipend Offered
Potential Start Dates: Flexible
Equipment Required: HD video camera, video editing computer/software
Preferred: Lighting kit, motion graphics experience
Targeted Projects: 3 minute promotional video (shown to large audiences), Series of 1-3 minute instructional website videos, various creative video/motion-graphics projects

Think you've got what it takes?  Prove it to us by:

1) Showing us your digital footprint.  We want to see finished projects you've worked on (Must be specific about your role in all projects).
2) Send us your resume/CV. List your specific skills, a few paragraphs about you as a person, and 2 pastoral references. Your application will remain confidential. Here's where we want you to prove to us why you are the right person to have this level of responsibility.
3) E-mail it to us at: 9MarksVideo@gmail.com

“My List of Virtues contain’d at first but twelve: but a Quaker Friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud…I added Humility to my list…I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it…I even forbid myself…the Use of every Word or Express in the Language that imported a fix’d Opinion; such as certainly, undoubtedly, &c. and I adopted instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present…In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself….For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my Humility. ” In Benjamin Franklin,  The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York: Viking Penguin Books, 1984 edition), 102-103.

True humility is not a product of one's epistemology; it's not a property firstly of the mind. True humility comes from the Spirit, and is a property firstly of the heart. Whenever a writer appeals to something like post-modernism as the of ground Christian humility, I apprehend, he or she is pointing us to a false humility.

Answering the fifth and final church planting question (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see here): How important is the assessment process and should the sending church be involved?

Have you ever wondered where from the Bible we get the little God-Man-Christ-Response summary of the Gospel?  Sometimes that summary gets poo-pooed a bit as a simplistic, manufactured reduction of the Gospel that really doesn't do justice to what the Bible actually says.  (Yes, I said "poo-pooed.")

But have you ever noticed that Paul, when he wants to give a simple, straightforward, step-by-step presentation of his Gospel, goes exactly through those four points, one after the other?  He does it in the first four chapters of Romans.  That's where we get it.

GOD

First, Paul tells his readers that it is God to whom they are accountable. He begins his presentation of the gospel by declaring that “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven” (Rom. 1:18). So with his very first words, Paul insists that humanity is not autonomous. We did not create ourselves, and we are neither self-reliant nor self-accountable. No, it is God who created the world and everything in it, including us. Because he created us, God has the right to demand that we worship him. Look what Paul says in verses 20-21:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Humanity's sin was failing to honor and thank God. It is our obligation, as people created and owned by God, to give him the honor and glory that is due to him, to live and speak and act and think in a way that recognizes and acknowledges his authority over us. We are made by him, owned by him, dependent on him, and therefore accountable to him. That’s the first point Paul labors to make as he explains the gospel.

MAN

Second, Paul tells his readers that their problem is that they rebelled against God. They—along with everyone else—did not honor God and give thanks to him as they should have. Their foolish hearts were darkened and they “exchanged God’s glory for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

For most of the next three chapters Paul presses this point, indicting all humanity as sinners against God. First he focuses on the Gentiles in chapter 1, and then he turns just as strongly toward the Jews in chapter 2. It’s as if Paul knows that the most self-righteous of the Jews would have been applauding his lashing of the Gentiles, so he pivots on a dime in 2:1 and points his accusing finger at them: “You, therefore, have no excuse!” Just like Gentiles, he says, Jews have broken God’s law and are under his judgment.

By the middle of chapter three, Paul has indicted every single person in the world with rebellion against God. “We have made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin” (3:9). And his conclusion is that when we stand before God the Judge, every mouth will be silenced. No one will mount a defense. Not one excuse will be offered. The whole world—Jew, Gentile, every last one of us—will be held fully accountable to God (3:19).

CHRIST

Third, Paul says that God’s solution to humanity’s sin is the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “But now,” he writes, in spite of our sin, “now a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known” (3:21). In other words, there is a way for human beings to be counted righteous before God instead of unrighteous, to be declared innocent instead of guilty, to be justified instead of condemned. And it has nothing do with acting better, or living a more righteous life. It comes “apart from the law.”

And how does it happen? Paul puts it plainly in Romans 3:24. Despite our rebellion against God, we can be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Through Christ’s sacrificial death (“propitiation,” Paul says) and resurrection, sinners may be saved from the condemnation our sins deserve.

RESPONSE

Finally, Paul tells his readers how they themselves can be included in this salvation. That’s what he writes about through the end of chapter three and on through chapter four. The salvation God has provided “comes through faith in Jesus Christ.” It comes “to all who believe” (3:22). So how does this salvation become good news for me and not just for someone else? How do I come to be included in it? By believing in Jesus Christ. By trusting him and no other to save me. “To the man who does not work but trusts God to save the wicked,” Paul explains, “his faith is credited as righteousness,” (4:5).

____________

So there you go.  God-Man-Christ-Response, as plain as day, right there in the first four chapters of Romans.  Of course Paul goes on to talk about other things:  the Christ-Adam parallel in 5, the grace-leads-to-sin/no-it-doesn’t-it-leads-to-freedom-and-holiness exchange in 6, the reason salvation cannot be by law in 7, the great explosion of gospel promise in 8, the excruciating question of Israel’s non-belief in 9-11, and the application of all this in 12-16.  But it all starts with the Gospel in 1-4---God-Man-Christ-Response.

Earlier this week, Kevin DeYoung offered some helpful exegetial thoughts on N.T. Wright, covenant righteousness, and imputation. Here are some further theologoical reflections on this idea of covenant righteousness, which I'm not sure is as incompatible with traditional Reformed conceptions of imputation as Wright implies. What follows is from a footnote for something I have written elsewhere (yes, I'm quoting myself here. Is that pretentious?):

Theologians and exegetes often discuss the Protestant idea of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness in the terms of the law court since the dikaios word group is a legal/judicial one. Yet the law-court metaphor is just that, a metaphor that can help with certain aspects of imputation but does not explain the theological concept entirely. N.T. Wright’s oft quoted critique of imputation falls short precisely because he treats the metaphor, as it were, univocally. He writes, “Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom”; In What Saint Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion Book, 1997), 98. Well, sure, that’s very clever-sounding, but he’s not really critiquing imputation here. Imputation is a judicial idea, yes, but also a covenantal one. Entering into certain kinds of covenants involve my identity and all that I am, such that all that’s mine becomes yours and all that’s yours becomes mine. When I married my wife, for instance, my student loan debt actually became hers, and her Honda Civic actually became mine. Neither the Honda nor the debt floated across the courtroom. Still, there really was this “sweet exchange,” at least from my perspective. So it is with the sweet exchange of Christ’s righteousness and my sin. By giving himself to his people in the new covenant, what he possess becomes “ours,” and what’s “ours” become “his.” In that sense, Wright is correct to point to the covenantal aspects of God’s righteousness in Christ. I even appreciate his point in the same chapter of this critique that the book of Romans, most fundamentally, presents us not with the realities of the law court but with a “theology of love” (110). Yet somehow he misses the fact that the shared identity of biblical covenants involve exchanging not just obligations, but debts and blessings. Somehow he misses the fact that the exchange of sin and righteousness between Christ and sinner—these legal or judicial realities—are also covenantal realities, and nuptial ones, at that.

 Am I misunderstanding Wright? I'm not contending that his brand of "God's covenantal righteousness" isn't a slightly different thing than more traditional reformed conceptions of God's righteousness. But I am arguing that his knock on imputation demonstrates a theological misunderstanding of what biblical covenants accomplish. Thoughts?

Know anyone who speaks Spanish?  Can you pass something along to them?

This year at Together for the Gospel, live translations in Spanish and French are being offered.  We are going to be translating a lot of the T4G website information into Spanish (done!) and French (almost done) so that folks can pass it along to anyone they know who speaks French/Spanish.  

Click the below under "Spanish Translations" and get all of the T4G information in Spanish. 

http://www.t4g.org/conference/t4g-2010/

We want this to fly around to as many Spanish speakers as possible so distribute freely!

The answer may seem obvious to you, but it has not always been obvious to everyone. This is one of the things I learned at a conference recently sponsored by the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. Michael Haykin brought together several established historians and a bunch of fledgling historians to share papers on the topic of Baptist spirituality. 

Answering the fourth church planting question (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see here): In your opinion, is it better for a planter to be fully funded or to work at least part-time?  Why?

Mark Dever, Philip Van Steenburg and I traveled in Australia during most of August.  Mark gave 29 talks/lectures/sermons in Brisbane and Sydney and I gave seven talks/sermons in Tamworth.  We had countless conversations with pastors and those in training as well as many small group interactions.  Best of all for 9Marks audio listeners we recorded five new interviews (due out in 2010) with: