Wednesday in Iowa

Dr. Briscoe continued in Ephesians 4, now emphasizing the unity and diversity that is found in our God and which therefore must be found in his people. An obvious requirement is that we live in unity, if we are an evidence of God's ability to bring together all things. Make every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit. "Whereas any idiot can have an argument, it takes mature people to find points of agreement and put other things aside for later attention in order that we might be building each other up, unifying ourselves rather than disintegrating and deteriorating like the rest of the cosmos around us."

My seminar was with missionary Larry Correll and his wife Sue. They discussed typical issues in the field, one of which will be my opening sermon illustration on Sunday

One of the wonderful treats was Pastor Tim Sir and the praise band from his church (at least I think they were). Earlier in the morning, in addition to playing for hymns and praise songs, they had sung "I'll Fly Away." At the end of the blog for today is a link (I hope) to "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." Vocal harmonies were great. The young young man playing bass is the son of the banjo player to his left and is playing his first "gig."

In the evening, we again heard from David Olson. I remain unconvinced that, for all the information he has helpfully gathered, he has correctly identified what are the real causes and therefore how to address them. I add his central Powerpoint slides without comment. The argument is essentially that, if we don't act soon, there won't be any American church left, we'll continue the trend seen since, at least, the 1950's. To me it seems a little like saying, "The car won't run. It doesn't move forward. To remedy this, we need to give it a new paint job and better tires, because cars that run well usually have a good paint job and good tires." But maybe the problem is that it's out of gas. Gathering characteristics about the "stoppedness" of a car does not mean that you've understood WHY it has stopped. And if you don't understand that, any remedy will not do what the car really needs. Again this talk (which can hardly be called a sermon) was secondarily about Scripture (which is the perfect revelation--God telling us what is right with the church and what the church needs) and primarily about statistical compilation. And driven byh a dStill, Dr. Olson raises some good questions and, after all, the first disciples began their work of evangelizing the world not so much because they did what Jesus said, but because persecution kicked them out of Jerusalem and on their way. I look forward to reading and evaluating this book so at the center of the CCCC's direction in church redevelopment and planting.





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