It has been a while since my last post but I still wanted to post a few of my favorites from Maximum Impact. It was a great event and I am glad I was able to be in Atlanta for the live simulcast location. One of my favorite photo shoots of the afternoon ended up being several different shots I got of Kevin Carroll. He was great to put up with two different photographers hounding him and it made for some great images. Some others posted below are Liz Murry from Homeless to Harvard and Mark Sanborn with his new book the Fred Factor.
If you get a chance to see any of these folks in person it is well worth your time, they were great inspirational speakers and have amazing stories to tell.
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I began a new journey in my walk this summer, 2009, one I have felt a long time calling to pursue but just never could figure out how and when. That is probably because the how and when should have been left up to God, not me trying to figure it out but non-the-less, after many years, I have decided to start my academic pursuit of work in ministry, whatever that comes to mean in the future, in seminary.
For some reason, I decided to start off my 2009 class year at Liberty with Apologetics, probably because I knew so little about the subject. As an introduction we were given seventeen claims we as Christians are called to defend and fifteen we are called to refute, all of which I have listed below.
It was interesting that I should start my seminary work with this class. These point below are probably an overview of what is in the years ahead of me. I see many things I know I believe are true, but many I can not begin to explain in logical terms. Makes me look forward to the times ahead of me.
All of us as Christians are called to share and defend our faith. We don’t have to be experts in all these areas below, but we should know, the rest of the world expects us to be, or at least expects us to be able to explain to them, in common terms, the points below.
Seventeen claims we are called upon to defend as Christians in our Time:
The following are in no particular order, but all are important and all are challenged by the modern secularist mindset.
- God exists
- The Lordship of Jesus Christ—He was fully God and fully man.
- Christ died for our sins
- Christ rose from the dead
- God is all knowing and all powerful
- God is all goodness, in spite of the fact of evil in the world
- The Bible is the inerrant Word of God
- Events recorded in the Bible really happened and tell us something significant about God, about life, and about morals
- God will judge the world on the basis of the moral behavior of mankind
- Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, to peace with God
- Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for one to be right with God
- The churches have the freedom and right to preach and teach God’s truth in God’s way.
- The teachings of God’s word exemplify a moral “high ground”
- A life lived so as to please God is better than a secular lifestyle
- The historic truths of the Christian faith are objectively true, in the same sense that scientific truths or other secular truths are true.
- We are responsible to God for our moral behavior.
- Mankind is a special creation of God, not the product of evolution or of impersonal forces in the universe
Fifteen worldly claims we are called upon to refute as Christians:
Some of these may appear to overlap, but each is a separate issue, and each has adherents in the world. You will discover that there are people even in our churches who believe at least some of these, according to research done by George Barna.
- All Religions lead to the same god
- It doesn’t matter what your religion is as long as you are sincere—God understands
- Jesus is merely a great teacher or prophet
- God is too loving to ever send anyone to Hell
- A god who would send any of his “Children” to Hell is not a god worthy of our worship
- Morality is relative. You have to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.
- We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.
- Man is the measure of all things. What is good is what benefits the human race.
- The individual is all that matters—what’s good is what is good for you!
- Religion and Science are different realms—religious truths are different from scientific truths.
- “I know what’s best for me! I don’t need anyone else running my life!”
- Don’t worry about doctrine! Religion is about what you feel! If I have peace in my heart, then that’s all I need.
- The Bible is a human book, a product of the religious experiences of one people.
- The Bible is an old book—it was fine for back then but it has nothing to say to our time, to people today.
- Muslims worship one god too! So it must all be the same God.
This post was originally created on May 11 2009 and updated in June 2010.
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I missed my Friday Feet post last week but today I am in the glorious city of Atlanta to do the photo shoot for the Maximum Impact Simulcast. It has been a fast few weeks and in another two weeks Deb and I will make a trek out to Dallas for an annual Czech heritage festival. I spent most of the day doing a walk through for the shoot at the Georgia World Congress Center and then made it over to the CNN Center to catch up on some reading. I feel like I was just here (see posts from the Georgia Aquarium photos here and video here) but for totally different reasons.
I thought about doing a nice serious group of photos down at Centennial Park but opted for the shots below from the top of my hotel in downtown Atlanta. Some day I will get back over here and take my camera to the park and get some of the fountains and all the many different people that are always walking around down here. Have a nice weekend everyone.
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What do we strive for that lasts? Nothing that moths and rust can destroy of course. So, taking the “treasures” out of the topic for the moment, I would personally hold knowledge and love about as high as they can go but Paul (among others) tells us of the two, love is the greater. Through several different experiences this week I have been reminded that Paul teaches us to hold love over knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3). With knowledge can come what C.S. Lewis refers to in Christian Behavior as the “the greatest sin”, pride.
the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others… and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility
To me, Pride & Humility (which seem to be interchangeable), and Love are matters of the heart, but are things to keep in the proper order of importance. How? Have no idea, but at least if I keep reminding myself, I might be able to keep them in the proper order.
The photo above was a shot I took at sunset on the beach in California a few weeks ago while I was in Orange County. At the time, nothing was more important than this.
Love caught, and frozen in time.
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I wanted to post an update of the books that have made it to my read (or reading) list. I was planning on reviewing each one but just ran out of time. Over several months prior to my official start of Seminary (a topic I haven’t posted about yet, but will at some point) I tried to get back into the habit of reading, a lot. In my first two seminary classes I had a combined 8 books for eight weeks of class, so getting into the habit of reading, all the time, has been very helpful.
One of the books I am almost finished with is Craig Groeschel’s book called Confessions of a Pastor. Published back in 2006, Confessions has a great combination of self deprecating humor of his own sin with real teaching and application of God’s principles for life in general. What got me interested in reading Craig’s book wasn’t really the topic but meeting Craig and listening to him speak in Atlanta and most recently at Catalyst West Coast in Orange County California.
Here are some images of Craig speaking at Catalyst West Coast I took a week or two ago.
I haven’t made it to the end of Craig’s book yet but one of the last sections in the book, “I’m Afraid of Failure” had one of the best examples of how we condition ourselves for failure before we even begin (read the section called Failure by Numbers).
To avoid potential failure and pain, people abort their dreams. They stop trying.
Confessions of a Pastor is a great church leadership type book, glad it made it on to my “read” list.
