Gone and Back Again…

Load shedding is seriously encroaching on my blogging habits! Not only is the power out for a number of hours when I’d love to sit down with a cup of coffee and read and write posts but it also resets my wireless router every time and I don’t always have access to it to reset the configuration.

Anyway – I’ve also been away for a few days and so I wasn’t always here to enjoy the load shedding (what a shame). But since I’ve missed quite a few days of blogging I thought I’d start by pointing to a few interesting posts that I pulled from the glut in my feed reader.

Michael Foster talks about his church going the missional community route.

Abraham Piper points to all his posts regarding the recent Pastor’s Conference in Minneapolis. Check out the links to talks by D.A. Carson.

Tim Chester posts a paper written by Christopher de la Hoyde entitled “Atonement: Engaging with an emerging theology“. Looks interesting.

But the post of the week goes to Gordon Cheng who points out how the Sydney Anglican Bishops, who recently declined to attend Lambeth, might better spend their time.

Can you Defend Contextualization Exegetically? An Open Forum

Here’s a post by Gordon Cheng that suggests that Paul’s address to the Athenians in Acts 17 doesn’t really advocate contextualization (be sure to read the comments). What do you think?

As for me, you’ll know if you read this blog that I’m a bit more in the contextualization camp – but in terms of defending my position exegetically (defend from scripture – sorry for the jargon) I need to give it a bit more thought.

Alright peeps – your turn (and remember no essay length comments!)…

Cheng on Training

Gordon Cheng has a brief post talking about his own experiences with theological students who have done ministry apprenticeships before going for formal theological training. In Australia this is facilitated through the MTS programme. Here in South Africa, in Durban, we have a similar programme running (although its far less developed than MTS) called the Ministry Apprenticeship Programme (MAP). I spent two years at MAP before going for formal theological training and a number of my friends who are currently studying or have recently finished studying also went through the programme with me.

Now without being completely pragmatic I have to agree with Gordon’s general summary that the people who go through apprenticeship just seem so much more focused on ministry and suited for ministry. There is a rather alarming gap in terms of maturity in ministry between the theological students who have done apprenticeship and those who haven’t. The two groups think and question on two completely different levels and from what I can see that gap remains right through to graduation and entrance into the ministry full-time. Some graduates are ready to be planting churches and growing ministries – others seem like they’re ready to NOW begin an apprenticeship (and for those who know me personally I make these comments with both colleges that I am affiliated to in mind). Programmes like MTS and MAP need to be promoted and learned by more churches and church groups if we want to raise the standard of our paid gospel workers.