ChuckLawless.com is a blog about Missions, Evangelism and Biblical Church Growth

Here’s some important stuff to know:

MODULAR PHD PROGRAM

I am pleased that the Billy Graham School at Southern Seminary offers a PhD that still requires students to complete their coursework at Southern but that does not require a physical relocation to Louisville. We still encourage students to move to our campus, but qualified students now serving in ministry away from Louisville may attend PhD classes for four weeks a year (typically two weeks in Nov-Dec, and two in May-June) while majoring in Evangelism and Church Growth, Christian Missions, World Religions, or Applied Apologetics. In addition to the intensive on-campus class time, students have significant Internet interaction and discussion with the professor and other classmates throughout the year. All students—whether living on-campus or off—complete the same courses.  If you are interested in getting more information about this program, contact Dr. Tim Beougher, BGS Director of Research Doctoral Studies, at tbeougher@sbts.edu.

CONSULTANT’S CORNER

Beginning next week and continuing every two weeks thereafter, this blog will include “Consultant’s Corner”–an opportunity for you to give suggestions and input in response to local church-based ministry situations.  I will post the scenario and the questions, and everyone is invited to give your thoughts.  Later each week, I will add my thoughts as a church consultant.  All of these scenarios come from my consulting with local churches, so I am praying that this addition to the blog will be a help to local church leaders.

“CRY OF THE NATIONS” PODCAST COMING

Within the next few weeks, we will be adding the “Cry of the Nations” podcast to this website.  Our goal with this podcast is to introduce listeners to significant leaders who are addressing Great Commission issues around the world.  Already interviewed are leaders such as J.D. Greear, Grant Lovejoy, David Platt, Patrick Payton, and Al Jackson. 

PLATT’S SECRET CHURCH

If you are near Louisville, KY, Southern Seminary and the Billy Graham School will be working with Lifeway Christian Resources to simulcast David Platt’s “Secret Church” event on Friday, April 22nd, beginning at 7pm EST.  This event is a powerful, life-changing focus on Bible study and the persecuted church.  Details are at http://events.sbts.edu/secretchurch/.

George Barna has released “megathemes” of the American religious environment as discovered through his company’s research in 2010 (http://bit.ly/eBKWvG), summarized below in bold print. Any honest church leader in America would not be surprised by Barna’s findings. 

Alongside those themes, I have included some of Michael Green’s conclusions in his classic work, Evangelism in the Early Church.  A comparison of these viewpoints is enlightening. 

1. The Christian church is becoming less theologically literate. Basic Christian truths are increasingly foreign, even to believers.

Green: “Primitive evangelism . . . included able intellectual argument, skillful study of the Scriptures, careful, closely reasoned teaching and patient argument.  It was no doubt because of the careful teaching instruction they were giving that the authorities were worried about this new movement: ‘You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.’”

2. Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented. Believers are increasingly likely to be isolated from non-believers.

Green: “The little man . . . was the primary agent in mission. . . . This must often have been not formal preaching, but the informal chattering to friends and chance acquaintances, in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls. They went everywhere gossiping the gospel.”

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When I was a college student in Oxford, Ohio, I knew “Lottie Moon” only as the name of a local popular bar named after a Confederate spy during the Civil War – not the missionary whose name our annual missions offering bears. During my first pastorate, I regret that “Lottie” still meant little to me, as our church gave scant attention to what was then known as the Lottie Moon Offering for Foreign Missions.

During my second pastorate, though, Lottie Moon took on more significance. Confronted by a Woman’s Missionary Union director who challenged me to love missions “if you’re going to be my pastor,” I began to learn about God’s work around the world.  It was also during that ministry that I married my wife, Pam, who had been raised as a GA and an Acteen, and who greatly loved the story of missionary Lottie Moon.  Knowing Lottie and promoting the offering named after her were no longer optional. 

Now many years later, Lottie Moon is increasingly important to me – not because of stories I have read, but because of people I have met.  I think often of a van driver in an Asian country where Pam and I traveled in my role as consultant for the International Mission Board.  Were a man judged eternally on his willingness to assist others, this man would be first into heaven.  But, this kind man did not yet know Jesus – and apart from Christ, he had no hope.  Who will continue to reach out to him?

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